And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 25: Charlie Puth

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Fresh off his latest #1 single, "Attention," this artist, songwriter, and producer is gearing up for what should be another stellar year. He co-wrote and was featured on the 9x Multi-Platinum single "See You Again," by Wiz Khalifa, which was featured on the "Furious 7: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack". The song is one of the biggest pop songs of the last decade and is a strong contender to earn a Diamond Certification (which means it will likely sell over 10 million units). His platinum debut album "Nine Track Mind" featured the hit singles, "Marvin Gaye (feat. Meghan Trainor)," "One Call Away," and "We Don't Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez)". And his forthcoming sophomore album "Voice Notes" features his new single "How Long". Oh - and maybe it comes as no surprise, but the man also has perfect pitch. And The Writer Is...Charlie Puth! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, this is, and the writer is, and I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing and mega house music management.

If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special events, or buy some of our merchandise, go to our website www. www. and the writer is.com. Oh, and if you enjoy this podcast,

please rate us on iTunes or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is. We really appreciate that effort. It kind of sounds like, don't be cruel by Bobby Round. That's dope. Today's guest is coming off of a number one smash. The song is Attention. He didn't just write it.

He didn't just produce it. He's also the artist. His name is Charlie Puth. The guy has perfect pitch. And this episode will show how that actually works. And it's fascinating. And it's awesome. The guy was featured on one of the biggest songs

in the last 20 years, the song is called See You Again. It was Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth. It was 10 weeks at number one and is about to go diamond. Not only that, the guy's recently true to Sean Mendez, his first album won platinum as a whole, and now he's about to finish and release album number two. So without further ado, here is Anne the Writer is featuring Charlie Pooh. Welcome to End the Writer is. I am your host Ross Golan. This week's writer, artist, producer, has taken his pitch-perfect talent and piano proficiency to the top of the music industry. At 25 years old, this guy has already crafted multiple number one songs and has produced both icons of hip-hop and pop. One of those songs, by the way, stayed at the top 10 of the Billboard Top 100 for 12 weeks. And this week, he's got our attention with the number one song at top 40 for the third week.

From Rumson, New Jersey, this guy keeps his head on straight by surrounding himself with family. And the writer is, the artist who imitates me the best, Charlie Puth. Hi, Ross. Hi, Charlie. That's not me being derogatory towards your voice. I love your voice because nobody has your voice. No, here's the thing. It's like, I didn't know that there was any weirdness to my voice at all until I started hearing people imitate it, and I'd recognize the imitation as being like, wow, that kind of sounds like me.

I'm Ross. I've written a couple of hits for Ariana and, you know, Selena and I love my dog and, you know, I love my wife. And, you know, I'm just trying to, you know, trying to win out here, you know, Ross. It's fucking spot on. I think I do that voice to you every time that I see you. Yeah. Let me know if you get sick of it. No, I'll get sick of it when it starts to suck and be, when it starts to be bad.

Okay, so you were born once? I was born once in 1991. During the days of TLC. Yeah. Ain't too proud to beg and like the best 10 years of like R&B. But I wasn't aware of it until like 1994. for. Wait, so you were three when you started being aware of...

Of like R&B. What was the first song that you would sing around the house? Well, this is not R&B, but it was Neil Siddaka, breaking up is hard to do. And what's interesting is that I sang it in B major when I was a little kid because I saw it. My mom used to tape everything and used to

just make a bunch of home videos. And I saw one. last year and it was me when I was like three or four years old and I was singing in B major like not deviating from the key at all so I thought that was an interesting little tidbit so you knew that you were is it how old are you when someone said hey your kid is perfect pitch um 11 or 12 I went to um I grew up playing in church and you know playing hymns like this is going to sound weird on a roads, but holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power, God of might. The, um, is that all these, like, plagued all these, like, paligal cadences.

Amen. I, I heard that every week, and I went to Catholic school, so it was just, like, hammered into my head. They would literally take me out of class to, uh, play at, like, funerals and mid-daytime masses. It was so illegal, actually. Um, but, yeah, for sure they weren't paying you. They're just like, hey, kid. No, it's for the good of Jesus.

Yeah, right. But I attribute that the constant hammering of Catholic and apostolic music to my perfect pitch. So when I was 12, it was Ash Wednesday, which is a thing where they put ashes on your head. I don't really know what it's about. But the organist didn't show up. I think he was drinking too much or something. And they were like, we'll just play a tape for the whole mass. I'm like, no, this is, it's springtime.

This is supposed to be. be like a fun thing. So I'm going to go up there and play the entire mess from memory. And I thought it was just like, you know, memorizing vocabulary words because I had just taken a vocabulary test and I memorized all the vocabulary words. I got a 100. So I thought if I memorize all the songs, I'll be able to play them just like memorizing words. So I went to the organ and played the entire mass. And I remember the priest and everybody like in the church was like, like, like with the look on their face and I was like what's wrong and then my mom was like

come with me and then we got like my ears tested or something and I just found out that like I had like a super rare there's perfect pitch and then there's like another level of perfect pitch where you can just like see people most people like Farrell said told me that he sees colors I don't see colors. Yeah, anesthesia. It's just I hear a note and I just it's just in my mind I just know it. It's

But one of the things that was interesting was even, you know, five minutes ago when we were playing piano in the other room. Right. By we, not we, you were playing piano. You were like, oh, and this song that we did in Thanksgiving when I was in junior high. Yeah. We are grateful. Lower than junior high, like fourth grade. For our blessings.

For a blessings, great and small. And this was the chorus. It went to a B major. Why isn't there a pop song? goes to that. Like, it's so, it's so incredible. Um, when did you learn how to play piano? Because there's something, you know, you can have perfect pitch, but you actually have to develop skill still. Like, even if you hear it, there's something different between hearing music well and being able to play it well. I mean, I just, my, my mom taught me piano when I was four years old,

and I never liked to read the music. Was she a professional musician? She, she was just a piano teacher. and she always would play Beatles and classical music and I always thought it was interesting that she would practice her classical music and then play like pop records like Phil Collins records right after it and I think at an early age I noticed the similarities between her playing you know

and then hearing her I can't remember the name of that Groovy Kind of Love by Phil Collins Sure. You're allowed to take that melody completely. And that's the first time when I heard that correlation, I was like, wow, you can make pop music from classical music. There was that era where Billy Joel did the same thing with, you know, the Beethoven.

Yeah. When he did, what's the Rose one? I don't remember that one, but Billy Joel music is also. He mimics classical motifs in a way, like in Lulloa. the G in there makes it like dissonant. You can hear an orchestra playing that easily. So your mom teaches you piano and you obviously probably picked it up pretty quick

if by fourth grade you're playing some stuff. Right. I wasn't a good reader though. I always love to hear the records and just pretend that I was reading. And then the teachers would be like, you're not reading the music. Are you dyslexic?

I think I might be. I mean, I am and I think that I ended up helping out, like, same thing, I had a music degree and when all the classes that we took where I had to read music was like, man, if you play it for me, I'll be able to write it out

and I can tell you where we're at, but by reading it, not that I can't, I could read and slowly, but like in the same way I don't read English very well either. Right. How did you do in soulfetch class?

I did great in that. I mean, my are all skills classes were like... Ah, I did very poorly in Solfetch class. How is it possible? How can you be perfect pitch with... This is the dorkiest conversation. Everyone here is probably like trying to figure out like... No, okay, so Solfetch, like, do re me for solitado.

Dore me for solitado. You apply those, you know, words to these notes. So people who don't have perfect pitch, which is a totally normal and fine thing, to sing what's written on the page without a reference note, you apply it to that terminology. And in Nashville, they do it by numbers. And Nashville, I'll never understand that.

Nashville is shocking because you'll go to a writing session or a demo recording session, and these guys have never heard it before. And they'll listen to it and just off of one listen, you know. It's so mathematical there. They speak in numbers. but yeah it's soulfedge is is

but I would fail every test um in soulfetch class and I would go up to the teacher and be like I can literally sing you everything that's written on this page right now in laws la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la and I can transpose it in my head now I'm not trying to flex on you but I can transpose it in my head and just sing it in a different key for you right now

while I'm reading it why do I have to apply do remi fa soul and she was like you just have to do it so I ended up going down a level in uh soulfage It was the most frustrating thing ever. It's the first time that perfect pitch kind of failed me. Interesting. Does it bother you when you hear things that are recorded out of tune? Like something like, you know, Roxanne is notoriously sped up

and isn't really hitting a note. When you hear a note that's not in a normal scale, do you naturally listen to those recordings and does it screw with your head? As long as it's all relative, if Roxanne, we're in 441 in true perfect pitch So to explain like so

when we tune something to a guitar or piano Like You know You That's in G minor And he sings it Roxanne

That's gonna be sharp Right Roxanne But he's singing it down I think they I want to say They sped it up And

Either that made it up Like a half step or a whole step but he doesn't actually seem... They were listening to it at the end probably and, you know, don't quote me on it, but they were probably like, they could use a couple BPMs up,

so they took the tape and they just sped it up. There's modern examples of that. Which meant that the pitch actually went up too because... Yeah, but there's something about that that makes it warmer. And one of... And those guys, Julian Veneta and John Ryan, like, is one of my favorite things they did on...

Wait, Joe, were you involved on that, steal my girl? Did you do that record? Okay, well, you're still great anyway. Steal my girl When I first heard that It was B flat major And they pitched it down

You can hear it here's it again B Bhabo Bhabo B B Bhop B Bhop B

It's amazing Like a subtle change like that And they did it intentionally Not because they needed A tempo change But It just made it warmer And I thought that was really

Ingenious of them When Because it was hard for you to do The Sulfage scale Was it hard for you to write lyrics? I'm really not. I'm good for like lyric phrases, just like one sentence,

which is why I go to J-Cash to fill in the rest of the story. Like, I wrote like all of these choruses, like we don't talk anymore, attention, and see you again, and that weird little Marvin Gay. And I, but I get so caught up in like the chords and how the production should sound that by the time I'm pretty uninspired, I guess.

It's that messed up to say, I need someone else to help me get it across the bridge. When did you first start writing songs? When I was 13, I've always written songs based on hearing other songs. When I was 13, and I remember what I wrote too. I listened to this 98 degrees record. What was the... It's the hardest thing I'll ever have to do. Oh, do do.

Oh, no, no. And by hearing that, my 13-year-old brain mixed it up and jumbled it and I wrote, this is just a, I love how I'm saying this is a scratch lyric. I wrote this when I was 13. You want that about it. You did it again. That was the first thing I ever wrote that right there. And I loved the, I didn't know what that chord was called at the time, but I know I wanted something like that.

so I put that chord in instead. My initial intro was trying to describe what being, having perfect pitches. And it's like, in theory, the idea is like, you know, when people look at something that's blue, they have a word to describe that. So they look at that light wave and they're like, that's blue. And we, for the most part, there are people who are colorblind, but for the most part, we all look at blue and we all have this consensus that this is blue.

A lot of people have some form of perfect pitch but don't know how to use it. And that's a whole other thing. The idea that you can hear a chord and then go to a piano and play it. Or you can actually say, oh, that's C sharp, half diminished, whatever. You can actually, you can look. That's C sharp half diminished. Play it right now. Yeah, okay.

And I think this is fully diminished. I could be wrong. I've never been good with the names of chords, but I can just hear it. But you're right. When you see blue, people think blue. I just think the same thing with notes. And I think that's interesting. It's like it's strange how people hear music well,

but they don't necessarily have the vocabulary or the training to actually say this song is blue in that way. Like they don't. And so that's where it's like it's really unusual. for people to hear songs and be able to actually replicate that. Well, I mean, on the same token, that's how geniuses like Farrell

and Mike Karen, who in their own right might not be able to tell you what chord needs to be in there exactly, but they can, with like body movements and examples of other songs, and they can convey the message. And it's guys like me with the intense vocabulary that can work with them and, you know, kind of execute.

When did you start collaborating? Because finding someone like the lyricists you've worked with are really talented people. And I think that's another part of music that's, I don't want to say, underrated in the pop community, but it is. You know, there aren't a lot of people who can take a concept and make it seem conversational. And that's what makes J.Cast, a particular. So brilliant is that he's able to take. what seems like a really intense concept and make it seem you know like anyone would say it yeah and and the greatest thing is when you can play a song for somebody and they hear um i feel

really douchy citing my own songs but when they hear like a song like we don't talk anymore it's like i i hopefully they would say i've said that to my friend or before or i broke it i broke out with my my boyfriend or girlfriend and I've said that to a crony of mine and now they hear melody to it and they're like I feel like I've heard this song before like that's the I want people to say I feel like I've heard this song before because then they're just in it. Why did you go to music school? I went to music school because I wanted to be the best jazz piano player ever and I am not. I wanted to be like Why? I just

Because I'm not I'm not good with like Like All those fast phrases I'm like more I was more into like Bill Evans And

Like Like really nice chord changes And Chill vibes More so than Like I could I just I didn't like the bebop

era. But I felt like I had to get good at that in order to be a success story. And I never thought I would be like a pop singer. I always thought that I was just going to be a jazz piano player. So that's really why I went to music school. Did you record demos? I mean, I know some of the story and we'll get to that, but were you recording demos in high school or at Berkeley with you singing? Yeah. They're on. Is MySpace still around? I used to upload songs to, I think in my, this must have been 2008, in my junior year of high school, I was going to Manhattan School of Music, and, you know, Justin Bieber was getting really popular, and I started to get jealous. I was like, oh my gosh, he has so many fans. I want fans like that,

but I can't get those fans by playing jazz, so I have to do pop music, but I don't like pop music. I mean, I do like pop music, but it needs to be meteor. It can't just be, you know, It needs to be like, I'm like meteor, you know what I mean? So maybe there's a, I told myself, maybe there's a way to combine jazz and pop music. And it was really, it's a weird sentence, but Justin Bieber really is like the reason why I wanted to become popular on YouTube

and, like, known by a lot of people. Were you envious because of what your personal life was? Like, what was your personal life during all this? Are you sitting at home playing piano only? Or you, like, did you, you know, hang out with people? I didn't hang out. I didn't really have a lot of friends. I had five friends.

I didn't go out. I had, you know, no girls in my life. I had no game. I, you know, I had to, like, drive 10 miles away from my house just to call this girl and ask her to prom, and she told me that she was going with someone already. I called her, like, five times. It was so embarrassing.

I had no game. And I was like, you know what? Did you keep in touch with her at all? No. But, and I'm thinking of my, I'm looking at Bieber, and I'm like, wow, like, he has such a good voice. I could work on my voice and be just as a good of singer, just as good of a singer as him.

And maybe I can get girls one day, but I have to write pop music. So in my junior year of high school, I started writing pop music, like focusing only on pop music. And I started to kind of get away from practicing jazz every day. I still will jump up with, you know, go to the Big Potato on Ventura and, you know, jump up with any jazz, you know, quintet, quartet, trio, and play with them. But I started to kind of, 2008 was the year, like the dawn of YouTube.

It was when I started kind of getting out of Jazzland. Yeah. You went to Berkeley, which obviously has a lot of great talent. Yeah, Berkeley changed my life. Why? Berkeley changed my life because it taught me that I had to do things on my own. I could take classes. I had already been to Manhattan School of Music, Eastman, New England Music,

camp. I had taken some small studies at Juilliard. I didn't need any more school, but I knew I had to go to Berkeley to get my pop sense. And I wanted to be better than everybody. I wanted to do the academia. I wanted to go to class, but I also wanted to take the Amtrak to New York City and wait five hours outside of the record label that I'm currently signed to right now. Wait what? Yeah, I've never told anybody that I waited outside of blah blah blah's office for five hours and it's just ironic that I'm a sign-

What happened? Tell me, you gotta tell me that story. I had um, I my whole goal was to so I started, okay so I was signed to Ellen and I was like, okay now I'm going to be famous pop singer and that didn't work out and I got all depressed

so I went back to school and Okay. You're gonna have to tell that story. Okay, sorry, I'm like Really jumpy. Yeah, no, it's good. Organize my thoughts, Ross. Right, okay, I will. So you're at Berkeley, you start a YouTube channel then?

Is that right? Or right before? I had a YouTube channel before, but it got, you know, like the verified check on Twitter? It got partnered. At the time, it was a huge deal to have your channel partnered. And the guy, George Stromplis, who was running the YouTube partner program at the time, it was his last day, and I had been begging him, please, please give me a partnered account so I can make money and just have a job in college.

And it was his last day. And he was like, you know what? F it. Here you go. Let's do it. So he partnered my account. I started making ridiculous comedy videos because I saw Andy Samburg

on S&L and I just made... They're very cringy. You can watch them if you want to. They're somewhere online. It's cringy. I don't tell a lot of people about that because I don't like that. You just did.

I'm just kidding. It was just an interesting time. I was just, you know, being a teenager, being a kid run around in Boston Mass and throwing wigs on my head. And I always had characters in my mind. I always, I love comedy and I always loved making comedy music. So that's what I was making for a while. And then my mom told me that I wasn't going to be taken seriously

if I didn't start crunching down and writing actual pop music. So I started writing music. I did a serious cover of a song by Adele, who I was just working out with. I told you that. That's so weird. crazy um did you do she know that you're a story did she know that you i don't think so i just let her do her

thing i don't like to talk to people when they're working out because it's not the most like i'm not the most attractive when i'm working out and i you know she had to shake hands i don't yeah yeah but um so you do a cover i do a cover and it was the first video that wasn't a funny video on my channel and it went up on this site called perezhilton dot com and ryan seacrestrestreeposted it

and it ended up getting 100,000 hits in a night, which was the most amount of hits I've ever accumulated on a video. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually happening. I'm getting more popular on YouTube from serious music, not just stupid comedy videos. So Ellen flew me out to L.A. I performed on the show. I'll never forget this.

Larry Jackson, who is now working at Apple, was Jimmy Ivings right-hand man. They brought me into Ellen's dressing room with Porsche and they were like we want to give you a record deal we want to sign you to our this new record deal we're doing with Interscope and I'm like fuck yeah this dope I'm gonna go back to Berkeley with a record deal are you kidding me and I get to I don't get I should I don't need to make comedy videos anymore I'm gonna I'm taken seriously as a real musician the plan's working out and then I'll you know sneak some jazz into pop music um that didn't end up working out

I made some music in Malibu was not was not very good why didn't it work out I don't you know without getting into too much detail Ellen's still like a really good friend of mine but it just it wasn't the right time her show was you know on fire taking off bigger than ever Larry was going to he knew that he was going to Apple Jimmy was knew that he was going to Apple Jimmy showed me the first

Dr. Dre Boombox in his house in Holmvey Hills he said you see this this is going to change the music industry and I'm like yeah right it's just a boombox I was fucking wrong Wow He's a genius All respect to Jimmy And Larry

And So you were assigned there for a while While you're in school And that's a strange thing To have a record deal While in a way Your peers don't And then also to be

You know You build your Look if somebody says to you Here's a record deal And that tends to be the goal You're spending most of the nights Like kind of daydreaming Before you go to sleep

Being like I'm going to be huge someday but yet your songs aren't coming out. Yeah, dude, I became a cocky son of a bitch. What was it? 2011. I was a cocky motherfucker. And then the songs don't work.

The songs don't work and it's incredibly humbling because I'm all arrogant at Berkeley. Look at me. I'm why I could afford to get a burberry scarf. I thought that was super cool. I wrapped it around my neck and I was just walking around. Berkeley like, look at me and it was incredible. And it was

incredibly humbling when it all didn't work out and I had to go back to school and I was like you know what I'm putting my ego aside and I am going back to Berkeley I go for free I'm on a full scholarship like I why why I was going to drop out can you believe that that would have been the dumbest thing ever my mom and dad told me not to drop out so I listened to them went back to Berkeley did a refresh on my life I'm like, okay, I got to not just do covers on YouTube, I got to not do funny videos, I need to start writing music. I need to, maybe I'm not the best singer in the world at that time. I've gotten a little bit better, but I'm still not great.

I was really not good at that time. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to write music for other artists. And Cody Simpson at the time, who was signed to Atlantic, I was like, I'm going to write a song for Cody Simpson. And my dad is always a firm believer that you have to meet people and shake their hand rather than just send them an email. So I would send these demos, which were like pretty good songs, actually.

I would send them to A&Rs, and I would follow up by just taking the train unannounced, pretending I was my own manager, like, Charlie Puth is in the building and needs to see you right away, blah, blah, blah. And they would let me in. And I'd be like, please just listen to my demos. Please let Cody cut this. And they would be like, no, and I had to take the train back.

But I would always reward myself with like a shitty dejorno pizza on the Amtrak and go back to Boston. you know meet up with a girl or something like that and kind of re-motivate myself and drive around with my buddy Mike Balls around Boston and just like get just get inspired and go back to New York

fail go back to Boston go back to New York go back to Boston and one day you know Jeff Levin he set up my first session ever he heard your demo one of your demos and it's like yeah I'll set you up he heard one of my demos and he was like

you know what this was the this was January 2014 um so all the people who thought that charlie pooth was an overnight success think again so January 2014 I go to L.A and Jeff is like you know what I want to put you with this guy named Michael Keenan and uh I'm thinking about signing him and I'm like okay and he's he ended up producing uh me myself and I by bb rexa and G. Easy and does all these like all the skizzy Mars and a whole bunch of other stuff. He's a really super talented guy. He was my first session ever

and it was my first time experience like working with someone else. I had never collaborated with anybody and it was actually, I was really opposed to it and Karadio Gwardi came up to me and was like, you are not good right now. You're writing songs that sound like Nick

Lechay and you're writing all these ballads. You need to write hard pop music. And I'm like, but I don't want to. I want beautiful chords and pop music. Why do I have to change my style of writing? She was like, you're never going to, and it was really harsh, and hearing it from her, but she was right.

And I was really pissed at her, and I was like, fuck you, you're so mean. And she was like... She's really good at that advice that you don't want to hear. She's like, she's great. She's fantastic. I did not want to hear it at the time. I'm so mad at her. Kara, if you're listening to this,

I love you very much now. that advice really changed my life. It made me open to collaboration. And I collaborated with Mikey. And it was the first time me seeing someone else produce in Pro Tools. And I learned some tricks from him. I would be at my house in Rumson, New Jersey. He'd take the Bowden. And we would just, like, produce records until like 6 o'clock in the morning. It was the most fun I've ever had in my life. And then I worked with a guy named a smarter child, Rick. and he only worked in Ableton, I think, and I had never heard of another DAW other than Pro Souls and I just started learning all these tricks and things from other producers

and I started just catching on, you know what I mean? How soon from when Jeff met you to like you're starting to co-write with, you know, his writers? Yeah, his writers. And I mean, if it weren't for Jeff setting that up, I don't think any of the other. I wouldn't be here talking to my friends right now about how great my life is. Yeah, exactly. So I'm writing, I finished college a year early

and I moved back home and I'm kind of right back to where I was when I was dropped from Ellen. And I start to freak out. I'm like, what am I going to do? Everyone says they like these songs but no one's cutting them. And I go to the hype machine.

Someone told me, Rick told me about the hype machine and I listen to all these like wavy bedroom records and I'm like oh wow I could make songs that people want to have sex to and they're using all my chords like I would hear snake hips and they're using all these jazzy chords

and it was the first time me hearing like jazz in pop music and I'm like I could do this and make it less bloggy sounding not that being a blog song is a bad thing that music actually pushes pop music in a new direction but it was eye-opening for me and I spent six months just making wavy

R&B records and I realized that was it hit me that was those were the records that I started listening to in 1994 like that was the music I grew up with and here I am making it and I got the attention

from Ben Madahi and Miles Beard and Mike Karen this is an email that Miles sent me Oh that's awesome I was like read it Hey Charlie, nice to meet you. I love Instagram models, a song that I made at the time. That actually turned into a little Wayne song with myself on it.

He writes, so dope. Are you published right now? I wrote back, no, I'm not. And he was like, do you want to, this was now June 2014. He was like, do you want to come out and write for artists like Seelow and B-O-B and like Wiz Khalifa? I'm like, yes, absolutely. And I go out and the first day I'm with this really talented,

writer named Julie Frost and you know Julie don't she she's amazing she talks like this I loved her voice from the moment I met her she's like we need to write something soulful and I'm like yes we need to write something soulful that's what I've been spending six months doing at my parents house we need to do something fucking soulful let's do it and I couldn't come up with anything I was so scared because I was still really I had just started collaborating with people in January of 2014 and she was like you know it honey let's let's go get a shake and we go to shake on this life organics

place on a Coanga Boulevard and I get the shake and I just hear just in my head I start light and she thinks I'm like a crazy person I'm like I got it we need to do something like this and we go back to the formerly death row records on Coanga now my Karen's

APG and I'm like I'm like I don't know that's you And she was like, let's, let's something gag, yeah, and I'm like, let's marvin gay and get it on. Because I was trying to make a funny song. Like I was just like trying to loosen the mood up a little bit. And again, like I said before, I grew up on YouTube making stupid funny songs. So I thought, let's Marvin Gay and get it on.

Like that's stupid. We're never going to use that. And she was like, that's actually really good. And I'm like, oh my God, it is. And we just wrote the entire chorus then and there. And Mike came in and was like, this is really great. Finish it.

No, no, no, you can't say that. Mike Karen comes in and says, Oh, this would be perfect for Cilow. Sorry, Mike. I know he's listening to it right now. That's Mike's signature voice. He's the greatest of all time. And he goes in and he immediately says this would be perfect for Ciloh.

And I'm like, this would be perfect for Ciloh. So Mike trusts me enough to put me in a session with Cilo and record this song. And I had never worked with an artist before. So I was super nervous and, you know, Lowe. So he's such a cool guy. He was so used to like, you know, just recording stuff. And I was all nervous. I had written out all the lyrics for him.

And I ended up singing that record, interestingly enough. And okay, so we'll go back to that in a second. So the second day, everyone's buzzing about me in the building. They're like this cool kid named Charlie, wrote this funny song, but it's actually kind of good. Diane Warren heard it and was like, that's a smash. The second day, I go into Ben Madahi comes up to me and says, I want you to meet Frankie, Justin Franks, DJ Frankie.

I'm like, oh my God, DJ Frankie. He produces Austin Mahone. He produces flowrider. He's made records for Kanye West. He's like this huge guy. I can't believe they must really like me. And I noticed that he's in kind of like a mood. Like something's on his mind.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to make him really happy right now. He was working on track with Andrew Cedar. And it went like, it was like trumpeted it out and synthed out, like layering. And we just, he had all these vintage scents. And I just kept layering synth after synth. and we couldn't come up with like a melody or lyrics or anything. It was just supposed to be a meeting, but he was just like kind of checked out.

And again, he had something on his mind. And I delete the entire session in front of him. And I'm like, you know what? We need to, because, you know, going back to keeping things simple, like I did with Marvin Gay, I'm just like, you know, let's just loosen the mood. I delete the entire session. He gets so mad at me. He's like, what are you doing?

Why did you just do that? And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Just trust me And then Immediately I go And na na Na na A long day

And na na na Na na And then It's just he and I in the room right now And he looks at me And later I find out That the reason why he's so Just like

In that kind of mood Is because he was thinking about his friend Who he had recently just lost And he heard in my mumbles And then my friend And he was like without you my friend. And then after that, after he said that,

I was like, then I tell you all about it when I see you again. And then we look at each other and we like start crying. It was two dudes who had never met each other before start crying in front of each other. And he goes up to me, he's like, hug me, brother. And we just, I'm getting like chills thinking about it right now. Two people who were with each other for two hours

were crying and hugging each other just because of one line. And we wrote the entire song and we spent, We started making the production we worked on until like 2 a.m. And that's my voice. And I did that because I knew he produced tonight. I'm effing you by Enrique. And I'm like, I'm going to really impress him right now because I'm going to do harry.

Yeah. And I was like, bro, we need. And so the next day, and I'll never forget, Mike came in. and we took him out of a meeting with like Simon Cowell and he was like, he was pissed, he was like, what is so important? And we play him that. And he like starts like tearing up too.

And he just, and I just met Mike too. And he was like, give me the pound. You just nailed it. And that's the song that, and I'll never forget, a hundred people came in and out of the studio that day. And they notified the movie company. They were like, we have your song.

And like, I wrote it with Frankie and Andrew in like 10 minutes. Did you have... Did you even have the deal done yet? No, I was unpublished. And Mike, I remember my lawyer said me... There was a deal like in five minutes. Oh, they wouldn't let me leave.

They wouldn't let me leave. And Mike was like, I don't care what it takes. Let's just get it done today. And we got it done. It was just... It was a perfect combination. you both Marvin Gay and see you again you come in as a writer

not as the artist really and Seelow's about to cut Marvin Gay and they started reaching out to other people to do the feature on See You Again So how do they end up being your songs And how do you end up saying like hey Mike I really want to be the artist here You don't have a record deal with them

This is just a publishing deal Yeah like you weren't the artists anymore I start I wasn't but I started to, just like I realized that I had to stop making funny videos and kind of get out of jazz land and start writing serious pop records, I started to realize, wow, maybe I'm the artist after all. And I said to Mike, like, I really think that I should sing Marvin Gay. And they had a lot of great singers sing Sue again, like huge names. I won't name them, but like huge, just picture the biggest names. And they all did an amazing job. But the most, but the most,

movie company was like, we like the demo. Who sang the demo? Like, it felt the realist when, it felt the most honest. Not that they didn't do a good job cutting it, but it just felt the most honest when the kids singing the demo sang it. And the movie company was like, there's one issue, though. We don't know who he is and we see all these funny

YouTube videos. This is a very serious scene. At the end of Fast and Furious, it's going to be kind of an iconic scene for our brother, Paul Walker. and to honor him and they're like, who's this kid? He's not, we gotta find somebody else but nobody could nail it so they ended up ultimately. Wait, did C-U-Gain come out before or after?

Before Marbinge. So C-U-Gen comes out. It's your first song. You've already gone through a record deal that didn't really work out. You know this is coming out and being part of a movie but it's also part of, you know, it's Fast and Furious number seven or six or something. It's not like it's like every Fast and Furious movie has a hit, although a lot of them did.

Yeah. You know, what were your expectations? I, in all arrogance aside, in the most humble way possible that I could possibly say this, I knew that it was going to be a monster. I just knew it. I just, you just know, when you just know, when you just know, where the very rare times that you just know, I just knew it was going to be insane. because everyone

I played it for the most macho people like all my jersey friends you know working out in the gym and like you know tough guys and they would all cry after they heard it not in like and I wouldn't play it for them at Sunday 2 o'clock in the morning

in a very melancholic time I would play it for them in the middle of Starbucks and they would just cry and I knew that if every person was doing that it had to be a monster I just in the most humble way possible I'm not saying everything I do is a monster and I really don't get a lot of things right but I knew at that time that I got it right

so that becomes big and you have to fill up an album real quick right yeah we started we were scrambling it was the most stressful it was it was it was the biggest rap record since lose yourself yeah and we had no follow-up and Marvin gay worked but it was so different that people weren't people were not connecting it at all it was polar opposites it did well it like peaked at like number 20 on the Billboard chart, which was incredible for like, you know, a first artist first song. Right. But no one was connecting.

And it was, and then I was kind of back to where I was after, you know, I got shot from Ellen. I was in the same mindset again because I was stressed out. And like, I don't know. I just decided yesterday that I wanted to be an artist. I still don't feel like I'm an artist. What kind of music am I going to make? And that's where my debut album, nine track mine came about.

because every song on there, it doesn't really sound like an album. It sounds like a collection of different songs. There's no real consistency. We Don't Talk Anymore. It doesn't sound like One Call Away. One Call Away truly does not sound like Marvin Gay. But it was just me trying to figure out who I was musically. It took two years.

When you heard One Call Away, did you feel like that was a smash? Yes. And that was the first time that I had to kind of swallow my process. and realized that I wasn't going to write anything and I needed to rely on some brilliant minds to help me get that through like Mazzela, Breon, Shy Carter, and Frankie. I had to rely on my friends to get that done.

And it was Frankie, he told me, you know, the label had, you know, paid for this trip in Montecito for us to write all these, all these, you know, potential hits. And we wrote nothing. And it was really scary. me because they dropped a lot of money and I didn't write anything and I had to go to Shanghai the next day I was sick as a dog and Frankie told me that he went to Shai and was like

you know I have this idea for a song it goes I'm only one call away and that's it and then um shy started playing on his ukulele like first of all there are two comments on the things you've been saying one is that APG is really good at introducing unknown writers to each other. That's been their foretay. I was writing with Ammo and Sean Douglas last week. And we all met because of Cody Simpson also. It was like when they need songs for an artist,

I met Ricky Reed because of Seleau, who is now producing my thing. It's like there's been the amount of people that met because they don't really care what is. on your resume. If they like you, they'll just start opening doors. I met J-Cash because of it. I've met so many people in the APG world. It's

out of control. So they're good about that. And sometimes they don't get it right and sometimes they really get it right. That's part of the genius of Mike Karen. That guy runs a company like he's never had a hit before. He's had so much success these

past couple years. And here I am with him at his dining room table at, you know, one at 1 a.m. I mentioned like 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. like a. Like a.m. like, we're like, we're trying to like figure out this melody like we've never had success before. And that's why I love Mike. It's also unusual for an artist. The other thing I was going to say is unusual for an artist at almost any point. But not every artist is good at embracing the songwriting community.

And therefore not, the songwriting community doesn't embrace every artist. a lot of artists where it's like the songwriting community doesn't really want to be involved in their career because there's like this adversarial relationship between the people writing the songs and the people recording the songs and sometimes

you know when you start to embrace the co-writing stuff you see what can happen you know. People nowadays who are listening to radio have never been more interested in what's happening behind the scenes in the song like when Ed Sheeran wrote Love

yourself for Justin Bieber and it kind of had Ed's flare on it a little bit. It got people so interested in like, oh wow, Ed Sheeran's a songwriter too. Justin worked with Ed. I think it's important for me now primarily as an artist. I'm all always, I produced all these records. I'm always going to be like a songwriter producer, but right now I'm the artist. I realize that I'm not always going to be like right now I'm doing well, but I realize that I'm not always going to be the one who's coming up with the latest and greatest shit. So I have to surround myself with brilliant minds and songwriters who will inspire me to

use some unused portion of my mind. That's why Max Martin is such a genius because he surrounds himself with the latest and greatest and he applies what he knows. Sure. And what you even said, your first song is a song by Neil Sadaka

and Neil Sadaka and Carol King the whole Brill building would collaborate with each other. you know it was like that was the thing none of the Brill Building writers are really solo people

Neil Sadaka actually was one that had some 100% songs but most those people were really they were writing teams it was Goffin and King it was you know it was Libra and Stola Stoller it was

you know a lot of these people were you know were part of teams I like to think me and J Cash are like yeah you guys are doing it he describes us as Elton John and the other guy.

Yeah, Bernie Toppin. Yeah. I love that. We're like the fucked up version of that. I know we don't talk anymore came from you guys driving in a car. Yeah, me and Miles. Miles had

been going through some tough stuff with his girlfriend and I said, do you talk to her anymore? And he's fine with me telling this. He said, do you talk to her anymore? And he said, no, we don't

talk anymore. and when he's in again me trying to cheer him up and loosen the mood I was like we don't talk anymore like something the village people would sing we don't talk anymore like our Abba

we don't talk anymore we don't talk anymore that's how I heard it in my head and he was like you know what you should like stop doing that but you should actually write down that lyric it's really sick and we were just driving around

Santa Monica and I have the original voice out on my phone. I have to dig through it. I'll find in a second, but it just went, We don't talk anymore. And so a week later, I went to the Philippines,

and I was surrounded by, I have a huge fan base in the Philippines, and I guess I was just so excited by, I felt like Justin Bieber, I felt like a superstar. I went to my hotel suite, and I opened up, We Don't Talk anymore, and,

I just started chopping up this guitar. I recorded on an iPhone that kind of sounded like Ed Sheeran. It was like, do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. And I just heard, we don't talk anymore. And I heard a crowd singing along. The moment I recorded it,

I was also smoking a lot of weed that night. I don't smoke anymore. I heard a crowd singing along to the song. And when I heard that, I just, like, my high brain, like, knew that it was going to be something. Dude, it was. when you did you know obviously

voice notes is the name of the upcoming album and for obvious reasons you know here you are going back and looking at your voice notes and and if people you know I don't know if non-musicians do this because I know we're all walking around LA in grocery stores like mumbling ideas

in our phones and they literally become the songs that end up on our albums It's all about your surroundings. I remember I was walking with Bonnie McKee and Thomas Trollson. And on Hollywood, we went to Urban Outfitters and got some new clothes, all of us. And we were really excited about our new clothes, especially Bonnie, because she, like, rocks everything. And Thomas just whipped out his phone and was like, I got time.

I got my... And that's a song called Up All Night on my debut record. And it's just amazing, just from a little smash of inspiration. I mean, we did that recently. It was a bit of a different story where we were at Max's and we were writing something. It was good, but we weren't getting like, oh my God, this is it.

We had some pokey. This is so real. Yeah, this is very real. Get ready. We all had some pokey and how should I say this lightly? We all got kind of blocked. If you eat enough pokey. And protein.

No one is sitting in that room for longer than a half hour. And it's this thing where you start kind of sweating and you're at like the greatest mecca of songwriting right now and you're like I gotta go to find a bathroom like now. We all went to the bathroom. We all did our business. Different bathrooms. At the same time

and then I, from this, and you tell me if I'm wrong, I remember I went on to that piano in Johan's room. You'll hear the song later. But I started playing those chords and we just started writing you came up with the whole lyric and the chorus and Johann started writing the verse chords and the song literally came together

so fast. It was so fast because we were all taken down a notch. We were all relaxed. We loosened the mood. It wasn't all about like, is this a smash? And then we were like, I just like this song. It moved from like this other song was maybe I don't even remember it. I remember it. It's good. It was just not amazing. It's not amazing. just not amazing.

You can do something that's, in a way, if you follow the formula and the math of it, you know a song's not going to be bad, but it doesn't mean it's going to be special. And on some level, like, the special part comes from, like, the wrong parts, you know, and that comes from not being focused enough. On caring that it's going to be played on the radio, we just were like, you know, it's four o'clock, we only have three hours, let's just hail marry it. Yeah. And that's what we did.

And I think it's, we're teasing the show. shit out of people right now. When you hear it in January, you'll know what we're talking about. It's one of the most special songs on the album, so thanks for writing it with me. You're welcome. Explain the story of when you told Farrell about the album

side of the album. Yeah, so I'm working at 6 o'clock in the morning with Farrell. I'm so tight. But not because you're up all night, because he starts really early. He starts really early. He just had triplets, so he has to work

in the very wee hours of the morning to be home by the afternoon to take care of his triplets. And we're at Conway, and I remember there was just like smoke from the engineer just for ambience. None of us really smoke, but I got like a really bad contact high and I had to walk outside. And Farrell calmed me down. He was like, you're okay. It's all good. It was just in the air. It's going away now, and he took me down, and I was relaxed, and I was like, you know what?

I should ask him what he thinks of this album title, and my friend just happened to be recording an idea, and I told Farrell, and he started freaking out. He was like, that's the best album title I've heard all year. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have to call it voice notes now. Yeah, exactly. I think of Farrell, you get the stamp of approval from Farrell, you got to go with it. Did you know attention was a hit? when you finished it? Did you think like that's the single?

I didn't know attention was a hit right away. I just knew it was fun. And it felt like something that I could finally attach myself to as an artist. It felt like a Charlie Puth song. And I wrote it originally thinking because I used to play jazz and classical, obviously I said it like 100,000 times.

I'm sure you're sick of hearing it. But I thought what would it be like if I wrote an orchestra? like a blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum-blum and like a cello. Like something like sneaky and promiscuous sounding and I took the strings out and ended up playing each individual note on a guitar boom boom boom and putting it, lining it up in Pro Tools you know all about that Joe and putting it on the grid and I got that loop and I just started layering it with like boom boom and originally it was like

like big explosion i was like what if we did the opposite and we did an anticlimactic drop because i was looking up all these anti-jokes last night uh the night the night before you know what an anti joke is it's like a horse walks into a bar and the rabbi and uh uh the white guy and the black guy all walk out as they see the immediate danger yeah that's it's an anti joke um i was like one if there's a thing called an anti drop because you know it's everything for a while was yeah right why not just make it a soft kick drum a bass which is trillions

it's a fake bass and just a really high melody kind of like and we don't talk anymore and when I did that I knew and I wrote all there was something and I just had you just want attention and of course I write everything from the personal experience and you know I was I might have been going through something at that time you can read about that online

is that hard um yeah like putting all of your private life into something kind of uh inconspicuous that and the fact that like i mean people talk about it um

i'd rather than people know your story it's like you can't really well they don't they think they know it right they they don't really like the genius of uh taylor swift is you think you know what she's singing about but it's actually something completely different or it's something

a little bit different. With this, no one's ever nailed it. They think that they know what it's about, but it's actually about something completely different. I'll tell you what it's about at the afterwards. After this, yeah. Are you famous? Am I famous? In your head, like when you walk, are you

get stopped in the street? Yeah. You probably get stopped now kind of a lot. I get stopped everywhere now. Is that is it everything you wanted it to be? Is it more? Is it less? I'm not even going to lie and pretend like,

oh, I just got to get used to this life. It's great. Going into Nobu and being able to get a table right away that they put on reserve for a couple people. That's awesome. It's not awesome when I'm driving on Beverly Boulevard

and a paparazzi is trying to slam his Prius into my car or try and divert me and so he can get a story that I like, you know, got a fender bender on the road. Did that happen? Yeah, happened last week. And, you know, the people

it's, you know, it's not so much fans, like, around my age are a little bit younger than me. It's their parents. Everyone's so entitled nowadays. It's like, I don't always want to take a picture. I don't, it's dangerous for you to be

in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard right now. Now, with your daughter, who's all embarrassed, saying that I need to take a picture with her, she is a fan of my music, and I'm happy she's a fan of my music, or he's a fan of my music. You're putting your daughter or son in danger by doing it. That actually happened.

Can you believe that? So those are the aspects I don't like when I'm having dinner with my family, and people are like, can you take a picture with me? It's like, I'm eating with my mom, who I never get to see. She never comes to L.A. but I've gotten really good at telling people.

So to answer your question, yes, I'm famous, but hopefully for the right reasons. Right, exactly. This next segment, I'm going to list five people. Okay. And you get to tell me like the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay. All right.

Ellen DeGeneres. A very sweet lady, a savvy businesswoman, a friend. Megan Traynor. A savvy business woman, a melodic genius. a chord genius, one of the best songwriters in today right now, in pop music. I am, to me,

she reminds me of what like Dolly Parton would have been. Yes. Like I keep... She writes things like, Don't call me a friend if I end in her again. It's like, oh, it's beautiful melodies that she writes.

She's incredible. All right, so instead of, of going to each one, I guess we'll just say APG and we'll include, let's go to Mike Karen first. Mike Karen, a huge reason as to why everything that's happening to me right now, he is a pro, I describe him as very proactive, goes above and beyond. He's a music publisher, but goes out of his way to think of great production ideas. outside of the music, great video ideas. Just a really, really, really smart guy.

What about Miles Beard? Miles Beard, another reason why I'm here. He was the one who emailed me. He was the guy who emailed me and said, you have to come out here. And in my opinion, one of the best ears in the A&R game right now. Yeah, I mean, he's responsible for a lot of massive hits.

Yeah, when I'm producing a... When I'm producing a... record I really don't I kind of like do my thing I don't really take a whole lot of suggestions of like oh this chord should be different but I do listen to Mike and Miles about like that guitar shouldn't be

there like they're usually right yeah J-Cash I mean come on he he opened up he's writing my story right now he's doing everything that I can't do

lyrically he is helping me express myself. I went through some shit times last year and I wasn't able to voice it in the right way and I would have these conversations with him

and him coming from like, you know, the young money background and the rap background, he voiced it perfectly. He helped me craft my artist's the reason why my artist project is the way it is right now. Sure. Your siblings. Stephen, okay, and Michaela, twins, they're 23, they're hustlers. The Puths are hustlers.

Stephen was graduating Gettysburg, he was a history major, and he told me, in his dorm room, I drove to his, I drove to Pennsylvania to meet him. I was in Baltimore, and he said to me, I want to do what you do. And I'm like, okay, here's that Juno right there. I gave him that Juno. let him learn pro tools in his dorm room and he literally one year later is now being

I don't know if I can say it exactly but he's being courted by 10 publishing companies right now and is like the new hot songwriter on the block and he wasn't even doing it a year ago he didn't go to music school he was just inspired I guess by what I do and with the hustle and determination he is where he is now and Mikhail is my manager

I mean I love that Yeah, we're all... When it comes down to it, you were saying the rough parts of the last year, and a lot of it is like what happens going from, you know, you get a... Getting your first record deal, I know I went through that too,

where you get in, you're like, I'm going to be huge. I got a record deal. And then you realize that that isn't even like the first step. No. And then record deals come and they go, and you can have multiple record deals. I mean, Bruno Marr gets,

Mars gets dropped. You know, like, so many people get dropped out of their first deal. And it's like, you're just trying to figure out how to, how to, like, balance your life and all this stuff. And then all of a sudden you go from that to having one of the biggest songs of the last, you know, 60 years of Billboard. And then you go, you know, getting Grammy nominated and having to perform on live TV and all these things. And then having songs come out, it's all big. Then you have to follow it up. Yeah.

all the pressure of like, you know, you go, you're spending a lot of your teens, you're saying, you know, you don't, it's not like you're, you have a bunch of girlfriends. You're like, you're, that's a very nice way of putting it now. You were, you were, you spend years practicing your instrument at home. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you, you then for the first. You switch it up. Yeah.

You do something polar opposite, but related. Then I guess we'll end it on this. I mean, I, my, my goal from day. one was, you know, when I heard Neil Sedako, when I heard TLC, was to find the similarities between, in pop music, modern day pop music, and find the similarities in jazz and classical music, taking so what by Miles Davis, that beautiful melody and writing a melody in a hip-pop song. Yeah. Hit pop song.

Yeah, right. Or a hip-hop song. You know what I mean. And that's what pushes music. music doesn't reinvent itself it borrows from a past generation and 2% is different and that's how music progresses

and that's been my goal from honestly day one to be responsible for making music just like that yeah well thank you for doing this I you know I I hope when people hear this they get an opportunity to see what it's like to be in a room with you it's so fun to write

because we can go in a million different directions and all of us alone, you're still in your mindset and you're pulling from whatever you know. But when you co-write, in theory, you go in a room with people who are better at what they do than what you do. And it's always a pleasure to be in this session with you because you can do things that almost no one in the world can do.

And at the end of it, you end up with a song that you didn't expect to have when you walked in. You know, and I love that. That's like, that's the whole purpose of what we do. And I'm proud of you. And this is going to be a fun ride for this album too. Well, thank you. And you realize that I can't get there on my own.

So I, like you guys, you guys are both talented, talented ass guys. And I, the reason why I work with people like you is because I feel like I need to step my game up when I'm around you. And Cash has said that before too. I want to impress Cash. I want to impress Ross. I want to impress Joe. I want to impress blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, everybody. And you guys are the reason where I'm at right now.

I love it. So on that note, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer Is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist or visit our website at anandthwriteris.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us on iTunes. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter.

And The Writer is, is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah, and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. On next week's episode, we sit down with Claude Kelly. You know, I think a lot of what, this is my own experience, I would guess that I think a lot of what makes most musicians work and create the way they do is their inspiration. but also, I think we're formulated by the doors that are slammed in your face on your way up. So a lot of the chip on your shoulder or the reason why you work with certain artists is partly the ones that inspired you and part of the ones that everyone tells you, doesn't think you can do.

I heard a lot of, like, if you're a black writer, you got to write R&B. And I got putting a lot of awkward sessions that really weren't the best for me because you guys are black. so there should be a hit here. And sometimes I got putting really great sessions for that and it had and worked out. But more often than not, I felt like it wasn't so much that I couldn't write the song because I usually wrote,

I was able to make it work. It was just, I was so offended by the fact that I was being pegged because of if I was from New York City or if I was black or if I was, or if it was R&B or hip-hop. I was like, but I like Cindy Lauper. Like, I want to write Phil Collins record. Like, what are you talking about? Like, put me in with a rock guy.

And it was the few A&R as an artist that took a chance on that that allowed me to prove that people, that those ghosts, I think we're probably in my head too, were wrong. Until next time, this is Ross Golan.