And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 73: Tim Pagnotta

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

He is an ASCAP, BMI and Billboard Music Award-winning, multi-platinum songwriter, producer, and musician. As the principal singer and songwriter for the band Sugarcult, he toured the world for more than a decade with multiple platinum-selling success. From there, his writing and production duties with Neon Trees spawned the hits “Animal," "Everybody Talks," and "Sleeping With A Friend”. He produced the Walk The Moon album ‘Talking Is Hard’- which included the chart-topping song "Shut Up and Dance”. And he has also worked with Weezer, Elle King, The Strumbellas and Coin. Most recently, Pagnotta produced and co-wrote two singles (“Blame It On My Youth” and “Happy Days”) from blink-182’s #1 Billboard Rock and Alternative album, Nine. Tim also co-wrote the new Weezer single, “End of the Game,” which is currently #8 on the Alternative Radio Chart. In total, his songs have sold in excess of 12 million copies worldwide and streamed over 1 billion times. In addition to producing and writing, he is also developing artists and writer / producers - and is also about to launch his publishing venture. And The Writer Is…Tim Pagnotta!This episode is sponsored by BMI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Season 5 of Anne the Writer is with your host, Ross Golan. Before I get my spiel, I want to acknowledge the music army that listens to this podcast every week. Since starting this, the And The Writer is community has literally changed the history of the music business by helping pass the music modernization act, gotten songwriters added to album of the year for the Grammys, and still is advocating for positive changes for our industry. industry on a daily basis. So thank you and congrats. Now, as you know, 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 live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear, go to our website www. And The WriterIs.com. This week's episode is sponsored by BMI. Full disclosure, Joe and I are both BMI songwriters. So we didn't write this, but we believe it.

BMI, we celebrate your talent, value your music, and champion your rights. To all our songwriters and composers, your passion is ours. BMI, music moves our world. This episode is brought to you by Abko Music, home to iconic music catalogs of the 20th century, including Sam Cook, Ray Davies, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and Bobby Womack. Whoa, whoa, whoa, rewind. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards. They've also been an advocate for the songwriting community for more than 50 years.

So check out www.abco.com. That's abk-c-o.com. Songwriters, think about your favorite hit song and what makes it in Earworm. You could be the writer behind the next song, and that goes viral. Enter the 20th annual NSA song contest presented by Martin guitars and strings and CMT. You could win several prizes, including the one-on-one mentoring session with El King, myself, and fellow In The Writer is producer Joe London. The lyric-only winner will score $2,000 cash and mentoring session with award-winning songwriter Tom Douglas, as well as other coveted prizes. Send in your best songs now through October 31st at nsaI.cmt.com.

Welcome to And The Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's alt-rock superhero and multi-platinum songwriting producer has not just fronted his own successful rock band, but helped shape the zeitgeist by defining so many others. His unique musical intuition has maintained relevancy over 20 years. Now, we've been friends since we wrote at a writing camp in Aspen in 2012, which goes to show that writing camps aren't only about writing,

but also about meeting people. But I digress. It was there that I learned that this left coaster's standout qualities is his humor and humility. That feels like that might be grammatically incorrect, but I'm going to keep it. Anyway, I should just shut up and dance. Woo! And the writer is my friend, Tim Pagnata. Dude.

Thank you. That was one hell of an introduction. I feel like, will you send that to me after? the hang. No. That needs to be... You will once it's up. It should be...

It'll be your entrance music. Yeah. I want to put that on a Christmas card that goes out to all my enemies. Oh my God. Just the face off. Do you have people... Because you're like the...

You seem like somebody who's never had an enemy in his life. Are there people... Do you have a shit list? Well, the pop punk world could be pretty brutal. I don't remember there was... I have a shit list.

So everyone has a shit list. But do you have a shit list? I don't know if I have like... I definitely there's like if you're putting yourself out there there's definitely a certain amount of trolling here and there. Are there people that you're proving wrong? I don't know. I'll know if it's as deep as that.

Maybe just like, just a few chatter here and there. I think there was a minute like in the pop punk world where you'd read everything that someone would write about you back when you're in a band and oh, it would fucking cut deep. Or of course you like make a record. pour your heart and soul and do an album and write and produce and be a part of like what you feel is like the best thing you've you've worked on and then you hear a couple of bad reviews there's a famous quote out there I think David Lee Ross has where it's like and I'm going to fully botch it I'm going to pull the the George Bush where where you're on the spot and completely just ruin the quote wasn't there's a famous yeah and it's just like fool me once pull me twice and then he and then he passed out and cried yeah right no I think there is the David Lerath quote

somewhere along the lines of it's like when I whatever it's like when I see something good about me it's like on whatever level 7 and when I read something bad about me it's like negative 100 so

so I'll take what you wrote and that will be the new that's like the new mission statement for my life that's the big with a Xerox middle finger why is it that artist because I think a lot of us have that intuition.

Intuition or insecurity. Or insecurity. No, that's right. I mean, if I have, no doubt, if I have a thousand comments and 998 of them were positive, but two were like, this is trash. Oh, yeah. I would for sure think that I need to address those two notes. I know.

We do it, like, I was on Yelp the other day. I can't remember what I was looking up, but I was like seeking out the one star. and like man this person got really nasty they didn't get a callback from the from the business or whatever but yeah in terms of what we do well i mean we put ourselves out there so much and rally the room so hard to get behind an idea and and i've had you know that by the way like you're everyone's a critic now that's that's also such a difficult thing and everyone has a platform and there's Obviously so many reasons why, you know, social media has been amazing and the ability to be able to throw your opinions out there is awesome. But the double-edged sword is, yeah, you like, you'll discover some shit out there that's not very, very pleasant. And it still rocks your boat a bit. I was talking about the same thing with a friend of mine.

Like, you know, and we'll get onto this a little bit later, but just because it kind of came up recently, like I just worked. with Blink on a couple songs in their new record. And when they released the first thing, I'm so psyched, is this complete mix of emotion. Songs come out. It's getting played on K-Rock like five times a day. And I'm looking up to see what, you know, the responses are and how people are digging it.

Just thinking like, man, it's going to be awesome. People are freaking out. The sound's so new, it's so fresh. And people are like, what the fuck did this guy do to my favorite band? Oh, my God. Like there is cover songs of people covering the song, doing it as they thought would be a better version of it. And it kind of bummed me out. Did any of them nail it?

Did you listen to them? There's actually one arrangement where I was like, I like, you know, there's a couple. I like the guitar part. That was pretty sweet. Can we live that? Maybe put it in like the remix? Do you know the Theodore Roosevelt quote about this?

No. Okay, ready? Bring it. It is not the critic who counts. not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,

who strives valiantly who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither

no victory nor defeat. That's a great part about that. It'd be a long reply text. I don't know if it would fit in the body of a of a response. I love the spirit. Yeah. Just a genius to be like, you know, it's like the critic

doesn't do shit. Their job their job is to give an opinion, which is really interesting. Why isn't music just enjoyed or not enjoyed? I mean, that's a deep philosophical question. I don't know if I have the answer to that.

What kind of music do you enjoy? I mean, I love everything. God. This would have to go back pretty far. So I can talk about the first time, you know, some of my first introductions to music. Sure. Let's start from the beginning. So you're... So I was born in San Diego.

Okay. So I'm a little bit of a capital. California rat. Parents are your parents siblings? I was born in 2000 so that makes me 19. Uh-huh. You've been 19 a while, man. A long time.

No, I was a kid of the 80s. Okay. Early 80s, possibly late 70s, but we could probably edit that out. We're splitting hairs. So fine, so fine. We're splitting hairs. Only like 15 years away from like the ARP club.

Right. Yeah. Discounts at Costco for everything. So. The truth of that hurts. God, it's so painful. Stay young kids. Just like...

Just stay in that chirogenic chamber. Is that with the... Yeah. Cryo. Cryo, yeah. No, I was a kid in... I'm in California rat. So, yeah, I grew up in San Diego. My dad was actually in the Navy,

and my mom was an Army nurse. The San Diego. Yeah. The San Diego, like Miramar base was like the Navy. What was your dad in the Navy? He ended up retiring as a captain, so he got pretty far. But then they ended up having career changes, and he went into the tech world. They were really focused and serious on, you know, with business.

And my mom went from being an overprotective army nurse to then selling real estate. Were they strict the way you envision military parents to be? Not really, yeah. It's funny. They're pretty liberal. Especially now, their political views have always. always been pretty liberal, which kind of bucks the norm, I think, typically for military families. But, and there was instruments around the house. I think they're like, like, you know,

there were leftover instruments from like from the 60s, you know, folk, folk guitars, piano. I remember at an early age, my mom would be singing. She can cite read music. She's like a somewhat of a real musician in that regard where, you know, there would be a lot of care. heralds around the holidays and stuff like that and sing-alongs and and and um but uh but they had the record they had like a reel-to-reel and a record collection and my parents were were pretty into music as as a kid so so there was a there was like the sacred stereo in my parents room that for the most part was pretty off limits until like one day i was taught how to use it and the records at the time were like um hewey lewis in the news that's my first concert

Oh, that stuff is just, that is like the best music ever. Yeah. Like if that could just, if I could do that over and over again, that would be an amazing life. Yeah. Just make records like that. And I try to, by the way. There's always a little Huey Lewis in everything. For sure.

I was so cheeky. But, oh, I mean, that's true. There's a sense of humor. Oh, yeah. They're so, yeah. Yeah. So, like, that and then, like, like, big 80s records, Duran Duran. Cindy Lopper

Tears for Fears Yeah all that stuff Michael Jackson So that was like In excess maybe That's probably later That was a little bit later And that was when I really started

noticing production Because that was like a separate thing You start realizing How certain records sound better Than other than other albums Some albums were a little more of a life performance Where you could kind of hear

air in the room And then others were like The most high-fi It was like a renaissance period Of like of records and production And all of these extra tools to help enhance the songs.

So, yeah, so I grew up in San Diego and just, like, studied these records as a kid. And it wasn't, I didn't really start picking up an instrument till there was a nearby neighbor misfit that had a drum set with, like, a crazy, and now this is still the 80s, where, like, every drum set was required to have, like, six more toms than ever necessary. It was like super dialed. Exactly. Not a double bass drum because that would be too expensive. The pedals like the cheat code for the for it.

And so there was a kid up the street that had one of those and we would just blast Van Halen songs and try to memorize the fills. And like in speaking of Phil, Phil Collins, another huge. Well, all that music, all those influences are more song-esque versus the, you know, the remnants of kiss or the you know that the real hair metal like you're not mentioning deaf leopard you're not really mentioning

no but I kind of got into that warrant and all that a little later on I actually got into that yeah and I'll finally and I'll finally bring it up I don't think I've ever like really talked about how much I I really dug poison

and Bon Jovi warrant probably all of the records that like real metal heads hated. Right. It was like... It was the pop for it was the She's my Cherryby Oh, I love that band.

Yeah, that band was awesome. I think they're from Lendora. Did you go see these bands live? No, I was still a kid. So then I was still like probably fourth or fifth grade. But I was still really into music and that was like

in the era of making mixtapes for all your friends and another kid moved in the neighborhood. That was like the thing where it's, you know, and someone knew would move in that had some more, like,

badass, dangerous music taste than you did, make you a mixtape, you're hearing lead something for the first time, maybe someone's, like, busting out a joint for the first time and you're way too young to be getting into that kind of, like, craziness.

For example. Did that actually happen? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was like, I feel like we were, we were wild maniacs. What was your instrument at that point?

Guitar, right? No, so my, parents, I got off track. So my parents somehow, I don't know what the fuck they were thinking, but we begged, I would get like a toy drum set every Christmas and we would destroy it like, like a Rottweiler on a toy for like five minutes. My parents would get us a toy drum set. We'd beat the crap out of it, ruin the heads until finally they were like, okay, like three Christmases in a row of getting these kits. We got to finally actually get a real drum set. So we went down to Ozzy's music.

By the way, the town that I lived in, and it will come back around again in this. It's a town called Poway in San Diego. It's like pretty east. They call it like, has one of these nicknames, like a slice of country in the city or city. Again, totally, yeah, you get it. Any combination of those words,

you'll fill the lens. Right. City in the country. There we go. So the town was Poway. We got a drum set, a CB 700, Sparkle Red Wine Kit from Ozzie's music. Who's we?

Your parents and your brother. So was he also playing drums? Yeah, I mean, I think like brothers kind of share the same shit, you know? How close are you in age? Four years apart. And he became a bit of like a filter of new music too, you know. Like I would say discovering music came from peers and listening to the radio quite a bit too. And then stuff that would kind of funnel through him.

And we were still at this point pretty young. Like this is, you know, 10, 12. Like it's pretty young. They started early with a drum kit. This thing was super loud. Neighbors hated it. My parents probably got it because they thought we'd just stay home more. You know, if you're like home, the idea is that you'll get in less trouble

because you'll be less balzy to really break the law within the house, which wasn't always the case. So we got this drum kit, and that was my first instrument. And still to this day, I mean, I kind of, I'm sort of a bit of a hack guitar player. That came later. I got into, so I learned the drums and I took drum lessons and it never got like crazy good. I mean, I think at that point the goal was like, if one day I could join the marching band,

that would be so awesome because they do these, like, fancy paradiddles and stick clicks and got to wear the outfits. And I probably love the theatrics of it all more than anything. You know, like the idea of coming up and playing instrument, the idea is like maybe one day the instrument is going to be this spaceship that could take me to a stage. Right.

You know, that was like the goal. Like someone gets a Les Paul or like an American strat. That was always the thing like, oh my gosh, it had made an American strat. Holy shit. It's the holy shit. grail instrument, you know, like, you know, where we would spread like wildfire when someone would get a sick instrument in the neighborhood. And then there's a few lightning rod moments

that planted instruments my hand. One was discovering back to the future. Yeah. And I've come across a few friends of mine that like had a musical moment watching back the future. And I don't know it's a combination of like the innocence and the age and the time in America and all of those sorts of things was huge and it was like the

you know like a massive push towards that plus that was the biggest movie it was a different time where movies were made for it felt like for adolescent boys oh dude it was crazy you had all those movies that were happening in the mid 80s

were made for like teenage girls and adolescent boys felt like those were like the demographic So many movies based in that mindset. And now I don't feel like that's really the case. It's like they're like blockbusters or it's Netflix. Yeah, imagine if like Loda the Rings or Harry Potter somehow snuck someone who shredded at guitar halfway in the...

Yeah, Bill and Ted's. Yeah, music scene. That's sort of what that is. Exactly. It's probably, yeah. So that and La Bamba. Yeah. One still bring me to my knees.

Anytime I want to, like, get in touch with my emotions. Yeah. The last 10 minutes of La Bamba will take me down crying anytime. That's free therapy right there. Yeah. My dad had an electric guitar that was kind of stashed away that I started kind of picking up and playing a couple of chords. I was still pretty, pretty young. And, like, just learn a few riffs.

At that time, it was like it was just cover songs. And then we ended up moving around quite a bit. like when I was living in San Diego, we went to like, at that time my mom was in real estate, and we moved to like, I went to like three different, no,

four different elementary schools, three different junior highs, and then. So you know, like, standard friends. So music becomes your, your one steady.

It's just kind of, a little bit, yeah, you're the kid on the block that's making friends because you have the drum set in the room and like some amps

and the guitar or whatever. And then, and then my dad got the call to work, and it was, they were moving to Colorado. and it was just this total devastation like oh my god i'm moving halfway through junior high you know the first year junior high to colorado and uh moved out there and and it was just kind of a short stint it was like two years there kind of got into like the mountains and skiing and

all that sort of stuff and um and the drums lived in the basement they probably got a little more dusty than in years past and then then from there this is now like early high school, then we moved to Colorado, or sorry, then we moved to the Bay Area. And that was probably when, like, that was like that, just that, like, moment of adolescent where adolescents were like you, where everything kind of comes into focus. You're like, you wear your interests, like, on your sleeve. And we were talking about this friend of mine earlier today, actually, about, like, there was a moment in time where you could see someone like rock across the street wearing a pair of, you know, Chuck Taylor's and black jeans and probably guess what five bands they listen to.

Now we live in such a different world. I have no idea. But, but yeah, when I lived in the Bay Area, then it was like, started dyeing my hair, started getting into like Green Day. Now this is 90s. So it's like in prime 90s. So at this point you're playing guitar. So now I'm starting to play guitar. Like prime 90s, like it's like Nirvana.

Then a couple years later, it's like Green Day, and it spans like Faith No More, and Lollapalooza and Smashing Pumpkins. And, like, that was, just couldn't get away from it. It was just my... Oh, totally. Yeah. And that was my life.

That was... That was... Yeah, that was like... That was my uniform every day. When did you start writing songs? So then, really, I didn't start writing songs till I moved down from... from graduate high school,

moved from the Bay Area down to Santa Barbara, and got turned on. I had a room that turned me on to, like, all the stuff that I think influenced some of the things that I was a big fan of. Like I started, like, Green Day was a gateway to some of, like, other bands that had that same tempo. And then I started getting into what types of music

that influenced, you know, those records, like Elvis Costello, like, really clever songwriting. All of a sudden now lyrics became important and I wasn't just falling, you know, just melodies. But I think kind of a few things. I had a lightning rod moment that was probably chemically induced at Lollapalooza when I was in high school. And that was like, holy shit, I want to play music for the rest of my life. This is it. I found it out in an early age. This gave me like the vision, the mission statement and set my GPS coordinates for a life of this of what we do.

But I started taking actual songwriting seriously or somewhat seriously when I was, you know, when I was living in Santa Barbara, I had an acoustic guitar, I started kind of dissecting some of these songs. And I think what was cool at the time was like Nirvana songs were pretty easy to sing and play and they didn't require like a ton of vocal range.

So they were just easy songs. to pull off. And then it became, I was just, I had an acoustic guitar all the time. I was just the guy that, I was probably the weirdo that had the acoustic.

I traveled with it everywhere. I would, and then it became like, going up and, and like meeting girls and singing songs and like, and that was the thing. I was the,

I was the asshole that like tried serenating a room with an acoustic guitar at a party. Yeah, man. I probably really pissed a lot of people off. Like, dude, get that, get that,

guy out of there. Still my life to this day, dude. Totally. I know, I know. I thought about... The cool thing about Nirvana and also being a drummer, first of all, Dave Grohl is the most singable drummer of all times. Like, you can sing all those drum parts.

This sounds like a racial stereotype. But white people, when they try to write songs and they think they're writing melodies, they think that means a lot of notes. But they don't think, they think up and down, down and up. long, short, but they don't think really rhythm. They don't think about how singable rhythms can be and how hooky rhythms can be. They're always looking for that

crazy, you know, we are young melody and they're much less likely to write this really quirky syncopated you know, the kind of melody that a drummer would write. And there's a reason why foo fighters ended up being so huge and it's because you had a drummer as the lead singer. And if you grow up listening to Nirvana and that era,

especially if you're a drummer, so you're attuned to it, I can imagine that being a massively positive influence on writing. If the first songs you're playing... Because if you're playing Carter Beaufort, you know, like early Dave Matthews, it's really hard to, like, sing those parts. There might be some hooks here or there,

but, you know, you'd have to be just a genius to be able to write that in a melody. But you could write a melody to all of those Dave Grohl. Totally, yeah. And he's, you know, like the ultimate drummer, you know, that, like, plays for the song, obviously. But, yeah, so I started writing songs, and I remember as having a summer where I just got totally bitten by the bug.

And I've heard this happening with other people that, like, that got into their sort of year one of writing songs. and I think one summer I wrote like 25 songs. None of them were any good. They were just little verses and choruses. But for me, I was just trying to figure out. I mean, it was just very self-taught. I was just trying to figure out and copy,

like learn as much covers as possible, kind of get an idea of what's going on in those songs. Some of it's some of it a bit subconscious, knowing that, okay, well, chorus needs the lift, probably need to get to it, you know, within a certain amount of time. And I was just writing these really innocent sounding, like pop songs.

Do you remember the first song you wrote? Yeah, yeah, it was terrible. What was it called? It was called, what was it called? Something like red, hell yeah. If I had an acoustic, I could probably figure it out. Oh, if only we had an acoustics right here. But I only see six acoustics around here.

So like, why would I ever want to do it? No, no, we know. But it was like, red hair and she don't care. And it was my friend's golden retriever. Really deep Yeah I mean wasn't Not

What's the What's the Beatles one about And the one that's in Indeed It's in on the white album It's like that The third song on the album I'll figure it out

But they have one that was about Yeah People write about drugs If the Beatles did it Then of course Like Some slack Songwriters

You could be The Grand Prize winner And score up to $5,000 in cash one of 12 Martin guitars, as well as a mentoring session with El King, Joe London, or myself. The lyric winner will win an opportunity to be mentored by award-winning songwriter Tom Douglas as well as other coveted prizes.

Enter the 20th annual NSAI songcutters presented by Martin Guitar Strings and CMT, now through October 31st at NSAI.NSI.com. NSAI, the National Songs Association International, is one of the biggest supporters of songwriters and played a major role in helping past the Modernization Act, a historical piece of legislation that allows you to have a future as a songwriter. This is your opportunity to experience industry access,

one-on-one mentorship with hit songwriters, and fun your creative passions. Song and lyric-only categories are open now for submissions. We can't wait to hear your songs. This week's episode is sponsored by BMI. At BMI, music moves their world, just like it moves mine. BMI is my performing rights organization.

They're the bridge between people who create music like me and the businesses that bring it to the public. They make sure I get paid when my music is streamed on apps or shows, played on radio, at live shows, or in bars, gyms, basically anywhere where music is played. And they do this for over 900,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers, with more than 14 million songs. across genres. But it's more than that. They help us navigate the music industry. They create opportunities for aspiring writers and composers through stages at festivals, song camps, and workshops.

And they connect us with the right people. They're also on Capitol Hill fighting for copyright protection and fair royalties. And they work hard to ensure the future of music. They have my back and they'll have yours. Learn more at BMI.com. This episode is brought to you by Abko Music, home to iconic music catalogs of the 20th century, including Sam Cook, Ray Davies, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, and Bobby Womack. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's rewind.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards. They've also been an advocate for the songwriting community for the last 50 years. So go check out W.W. www.abco.com. That's abk-c-o.com. So I started writing some songs, and I could tell they were getting a little better. And I started pulling together, I started pulling together some friends to start a band. And this is, so this is still in Santa Barbara.

And I was going to the community college up there. And, and I had like, I mean, I had. somewhat of a demo. I mean, my demo at the time was a, just me singing into like a dictophone

recording. And out of nowhere, I remember coming home from like a class one day and on my voicemail was someone that worked at Warner Brothers Records. And it was like,

hey, I heard you're a songwriter and someone told me about your music and I really liked to meet. Who was it? He heard it. He is someone who's not in the business anymore.

And it was like kind of a, a younger guy at the company and we ended up turning into and I'll get there in a second. How did they hear these demos? A friend of mine was like, I think a friend of mine was playing his music for somebody and in the small talk and in the small talk of like, oh, where are you from? Or is there like what's the music scene like up in Santa Barbara? Is there anything like up there that I should know about?

My buddy said, oh yeah, actually there's this guy who's a friend of mine. Tim, you know, and he's like probably going to start a band and he's. writing these cool songs. You should check him out. And he came up and I like sang this guy some songs. And we ended up like continuing talking and I got a, I ended up signing a terrible production deal that I will say this. For the listeners out there, if anyone gives you a contract,

have somebody look it over, not like a family attorney, but like a legit attorney like five times because there was a moment where we like could have signed something crazy, like 50% of publishing and 50% of everything for seven albums if we got a record deal within this time frame. It was like the deepest, it was like the deepest production deal. And luckily it ended up lapsing. But we ended up getting a development deal at Warner Brothers where they had us like, so I put a band together and called it Sugarcult.

And we came down to L.A. and recorded at a super fancy studio and recorded a few songs that were terrible. Thankfully, we got passed on. Why thankfully you got passed on? Oh, they were just like, we were so green at the time. Did you think they were good at the time? Or were you like, oh, this is not? Probably. But like in hindsight, it was just so different than what we ended up becoming as a band.

So then really I think we went back to Santa Barbara and the, from the start of like forming sugar cult, our band to then getting a record deal. It was a pretty short amount of time. It was like a year and a half. And we just like played it. It was a great town to start a band in where the local radio station would play us.

We were pretty self-contained. Our drummer Ben had this awesome like super primitive, like digital four track where we would make these demos that sounded. pretty decent and they would get played on the radio and and we would play these venues up there like the wildcat and gosh someone called the yucatan and um there's like there's so many um there's a place called the living room that would do uh all ages shows out in galita and people were just passing your music along and that's that or was it or were you just sort of it didn't matter who was showing up

or were you building a following we were kind of building following it was like we were we I would say we sped our music up like 20 BPM and found a place for our music. We were super high energy. We're like big on style at the time. We all wear suits. We all thought we were like a power pop band from like the late 70s that was like the model. But it was kind of back at that point. Yeah, that was the thing.

That was the thing. It was cool. We're like the tightest like black, like now it's gotten so easy to get. cool tight black pants. Back then you'd have to buy Dickies and take them to a tailor and be like, you have to explain to somebody why you want to make these things

like as tight as spandex. Not wearable pants. Yeah, like by the time I put these on, I've cut circulation off to like every major artery in the body. So we would, we played shows galore up there and then started

coming down to L.A. And the idea was like, we wanted, we were so hungry. We were like, we had the dream of every young artist in band. We're like, we want to fucking take over the world and travel and and um meet our heroes and and all of that. So we, uh, started making trips down to L.A. and, and, um, in sending off our demo and, like, doing showcases back in the day where, like, people would run out of a club

and A&R people would show up like three hours late and be on their cell phone the whole time and like maybe catch half of a song. It was just such a different vibe. Every label passed on us. At one point, Tori Spelling's younger brother wanted to start a record label and we were all excited

because he wanted to sign us. But it really wasn't a label. I think he just wanted to sign us so we'd hang out with them type of thing. And at that point, we're like, fuck yeah, we're game. But anyway, we ended up signing with a better label

called Ultimatum, who at the times, their only claim to fame was they had Keanu Reeves band Dogstar. Yeah, Dogstar was really actually like a big L.A. band. If you knew Dogstar, like they would, they played the key club. Oh, yeah.

Like, they were a big band. Yeah. So we were labeled mates with Dogstar. Never got to meet Keanu. I still think, you know, I would probably be frozen in his beauty. He was ageless. Have you seen up on the feeds lately?

He's like... Yeah, I mean, like, he was... He's just in a movie recently. where he played himself. I can't remember what a movie was. It was like, there's a movie recently where he plays himself where it's like, and then she's like, she starts dating Keanu Reeves and he's like, yeah, the guy's amazing. Yeah, they're actually redoing Bill and Ted's right now.

Great. Yeah, they're doing Bill and Ted's three with him. Maybe they need some songs for the soundtrack. They do. We'll talk about later. We'll do a side deal after this. Yeah, exactly. So we...

It's weird when it comes to, when you're aspiring to be a musician, like you were saying, you know, have somebody check your contracts. you will take on some level I believe in walk through doors if someone's going to open a door or walk through it within reason

but when it's mid-90s, late 90s and Torrey Spelling's brother when you're like that's somehow one degree of separation from some of the biggest actors and the biggest TV show

but 90210 and like the dad is this like massive rich person there starts to be this like weird logic game and that we're like well had that happen then they're probably worse record deals you know I mean like all things considered

if you're in L.A. and you're an actor you take whatever show you go you audition and you get in you hope that you don't become the face of a you know like a toilet paper campaign but you would have taken that job

you know because that's what you get and musicians is like it's kind of the same thing so if you're in a band and that band and some label offers you a deal, you want that music to come out. If they're willing to spend money on you and partner with you on trying to break you, oh yeah, for me, when I moved to, so when I moved to L.A., so we had finally come down here and got a manager, I was working at J. Crew out in Topanga,

which I think is still might be there. And I was folding sweaters by day and playing like the opium den by night. I would show up in, in where. the conservative part and then the second I was out of there putting on like black eyeliner and spiking my hair and doing like Sid Vicious snarls and singing like

cute pop punk songs. So it was a bit of a double life and you're right like like you know you're in at that time you're just hoping that man there's going to be like maybe someone in the crowd that works out a record company and and you know might like a huge victory be like dude someone gave us a business

card holy shit they may work at a label or have a roommate that works out label, you'd sign anything. It was that or, like, my reality was, you know, and it's still the reality of a lot of people. So I get it. Like, it's like that, a shitty record deal or deliver pizzas, I'll take a shitty record deal anytime. Yeah. You know.

When did you realize that, you know, you start hearing sugar called on like K-Rock? You start, I mean, I know I jumped ahead a little bit. Yeah, no, it's good. We're there. But like, you know, you're hearing it, I assume your family is able to tune into some radio stations and hear it too. At least they were able to see you. Did you ever think that the artist thing would stop or how was the relationship between the guys in the band? Yeah.

So, and everything is still like totally cool and PC and great with the band. And we're not nearly as active. We haven't played a show in. in a long time and we actually never said we're like the band's broken up just life kind of got busy but what we ended up doing is we toured for about

10 years and made three records and that that band brought me to places and this is the one great thing about being an artist and getting into music like everyone has their own path and how they get here mine happens to be I was an artist

first and did that and that was really my college you know we got to it's like you have this all expense paid trip to travel the world it's a shitload of work and I will say that prepared me for the life that I have now

that's in production and songwriting which is like super competitive you have to have crazy thick skin for which is hard for you know a sensitive weirdo like myself but

you know we toured for like what you made three records toured a ton, got songs on the radio, got songs on MTV, hosted shows, played massive festivals, opened for some of the biggest bands in the world, developed a following. And I think that kind of taught us how to, and we were so young too, like my early 20s,

literally went from working at J.Crew and doing like summer landscaping jobs and barely making enough money to buy Taco Bell with no add-ons. I mean, we're not talking like, There's like the supreme menu. It's like 50 cents more. This was low-tech Taco Bell lifestyle. To then, and even like the advance, when we finally got in advance,

when we got a record deal, was still pretty low-d-out compared to, you know, probably some of the stuff going on at the time. And it's split. Yeah. You know, it's like you finally get the advance and you're like, oh, we're good to go. And you're like, wow, this split three ways

and we better make some money on some of these shows eventually. And hopefully merch keeps you. We had six months. We had six months in our advance before we had to then go back to jobs. It was like 40 grand, not including paying taxes and all of the commissions and all that kind of stuff. So then broken out four ways.

And you're like, you better be living real cheap because you got six months to pull it off. So we made a record with Matt Wallace. The first tour we got was the Warp Tour, which was... Yeah, right in its prime. Totally in the prime. And that was at the time, like, so perfect for the scene. And that was like another, you know,

know, experience that kind of informs how I work with artists now because we did so much touring and we never really had like a quote unquote like big, big radio hit. They weren't, we didn't, you know, get to have like number ones. But we toured so much and we were part of a scene and we really tried creating a world for our fans and developed like a really loyal following that would pack shows. And this was like the type of thing that not only was it were our touring in America, but we toured Japan a ton and then toward like the UK a ton. And that's something that I don't see a lot of bands doing now as much,

say on a first record. They really kind of focus on the states. So we did that for 10 years. And then the music you grew up on was pretty diverse. and you know there's diversity within the warp tour bands and a lot of melody too a ton there's a lot of melody and we're seeing a lot of that melody coming back through a lot of hip-hop records now too

sure which I think's cool do you think that because of sugarcult and because of warp tour and because of you know the radio stations you would play with that influences the kinds of artists you work with Or is it just sort of like a coincidence? No, I think it does. You became like the guy who produces those bands.

Yeah, I mean, I would say that my sense of familiarity and what I know is stuff that's a little bit more alternative. But I love pop music too. You know, I want to try to, I love this, like, the writing songs that live in an alternative space that might not be as tight sometimes as pop songs at all. But no, fuck it. I take that back.

Now, I want to try to get to chorus as quickly. Sometimes I just try to hide it. Well, one of the things you do, the reason why I mention your intuition's super unique, is that you, especially with the neon tree stuff, you would start the, you would end the pre-chorus with the chorus. Yeah. You start the chorus earlier.

You start, like, not just before the one, but like you literally like this gets pretty dorky but like you you sing the the chorus hook is how you end a lot of the pre-courses. Yeah. Is that a moment? Is that a design or is it just you? Sometimes, yeah, there was a moment there where we were doing this thing on Neon Tree songs where we'd write a full chorus and then we'd figure out ways to even like take the, take two bars out of the middle of the chorus. So the repeat happens a little faster. And no one really caught that on animal and everybody talks.

I was waiting for us to get like kind of busted on it. But then again, they bust us for our own. The compositional police. Yeah. Just get like a random text from me being like, yo, man. You can't do that. You cannot do that. I'm calling you on it.

I'm calling you on it. You cannot do that. You're like, ah, busted. Such a weird scenario. I mean, some of the stuff is totally, you know, you can only plan so much. Some of it is pretty accidental. And I think probably the first time it happened,

with animal that was a bit of an accident. But you have to trust it because you know it's an accident then, but you could easily say, okay, well, look, we know, let's just keep adding to it. But instead, you're not, but it actually sounds pretty cool, making that choice of, that's a choice somewhere in there. I probably didn't think about it as much in the early days. Now I'm a little, probably a little more methodical to, you know, about it. But to get from Sugarcult into producing records and even that part of my life,

it's pretty funny because when Neon Trees, they were one of the, they were like one of the first bands that I had ever produced. And this happened, and wrote with, and this happened towards the end of, of our last Sugarcult record.

We had toured a ton and, and we're probably kind of feeling a little bit crispy. And on the last tour, we had come across Neon Trees, and they were just a local band playing in St. George, Utah. And there was just something about them that was like just electric. and cool.

And at the time, the only original members now would be the singer and the, or sorry, the singer and the guitar player ended up staying in the two other guys, one often did something else. But they were just really talented. And I remember watching them play. And there was all these crazy technical difficulties on the stage. But the singer totally kept his composure and was super funny and charming. And I thought, you know, that was always the hardest part in touring where like,

when mayhem and chaos goes on on stage, which could easily happen like every other night at a club tour, how you're holding it together so the audience is entertained and having fun and there's banter holding it all together is like so critical to a good performer. So I stayed in touch with those guys, Tyler, specifically,

and they ended up getting a deal like probably six months later and they were coming out to L.A. and they were like, oh, we should, you know, we're coming out to L.A. to work on some tunes. There's a couple of people that the record company wants us to meet. Would you want to get in the room

and, you know, work on a, work on some songs together. And that was like one of my first, honestly, one of my first real co-writes. So I went down to the studio earlier that day. I kind of started putting together a little bit of a track just to be able to have whose idea was it to start co-writing

or we just like oh let's write together it was I think it was a combination of the Evan at the label sent them Evan Lipschitz at the label this is Island had planned a trip for them to come out and by the way this is back you know this is 2009 when co-writing really wasn't the thing

and it was a little bit like for alternative bands For alternative bands, it was like, it was not as received. You were like, you were totally like the secret in the back room as a songwriter. Why do you think that it was? Well, I think some of it had to do with, you know, and by the way, and I totally get it. Like the artist, I think the artist wants probably to feel a certain sense of autonomy that all of the, the, the creative

and again, I'm not speaking for them because I've had an incredibly awesome relationship with them, we've done a bunch of records together but I think in general, like if I were to sort of pull a lot of the bands that I worked with at that time, like we would work on records, make records, I would be involved in write songs with the band

and maybe ask questions about how do the writing come together and would never get mentioned and it would be like, whoa, man, that's, you know. Did you fight for a publisher? at that point or were you just sort of like, well, you know, I'm still a producer and producers don't get writing credit. No, at the time, these were set up as writing sessions,

but I think they just kind of kept the co-write stuff a little hush-osh. It wasn't as, yeah, it's just a little bit different than now. And I don't know if it's alternative music. It was kind of a genre thing. When something like Neon Tree starts to cross over, because that was a pretty big pop record. So that was, by the way, so what was crazy about, that session and these happen

fucking once every never I mean they're insane so we sit down first time real like honestly like first time session pretty much I had a couple of other things before that nothing that crazy and I put together a little simple track

and I was literally just like testing out equipment like okay is this drumbeat work does this guitar line like is everything tracking into the computer to be able to like then work on the real song and Tyler the singer walks in and he was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And it kind of had sounded like sort of a new wave, strokesy type of song.

And he sits down, he just starts singing like Animal, which was the first song that we ended up writing together. And that was, ended up being like, you know, fast forward, whatever it was, six months later, like a year. But at the time, I mean, I always thought that song was really, was super strong. But it was, it was funny. We did that song. and I ended up doing more with the band.

And I'll never forget, after writing like four songs together, they're like, oh, this is so awesome. So, you know, we're going to leave next month and now record the record with somebody else. And I was like, what? Oh, my gosh. Thinking the whole time, like, You're producing.

Yeah, we're doing this together. And they ended up recording it with somebody else on the East Coast, and it didn't turn out as, I don't think, as good as they wanted it. and they end up coming back and we basically like for the most part kind of like remix the demos with a few live drums on it and that was that was the that was the record and like even and even like when I go back and think about like the day that I this this just kind of will keeps coming back in my life in general like nobody knows when songs are hits like you just don't know like I sent the song in to the to the label and I didn't hear back I didn't hear back from them for like about a month and a half after sending in the song that end up later on becoming like... The defining cell. Yeah.

Three million copies and like defining, you know, my career early on. So what I was going to say is, you know, you get this success in songs that cross over and you see what pop is. I guess on some level, what's weird is the success you had previous to that was from Sugarcult. So the amount of money you made from writing for SugarCult wasn't as much as you made. made from touring for Sugarcult, I would assume, and merch and all the other stuff. Yeah. You know, and from record sales and all the other things you got.

But when you start seeing what radio pays, and then when you see what pop radio pays, did you feel like you should be aiming for music that was out of your wheelhouse? Was there ever pressure to be like... Not really, but I will say, yeah, the first time I got a check that probably reflected like a window of pop radio,

I definitely had one of those keel over holy shit moments, you know? maybe a tear was shed. Yeah. My goal was just to never get to a place where I had to deliver pizzas or not that maybe I'll do it one day as a hobby, but like I just didn't want to avoid like, I just had every shit job under the sun

before getting into this. And like I feel like I never had a bit of a backup plan. So when I started having success as a songwriter, producer coming out of Sugarcult, and these songs that were intended to be really just these kind of like alternative new ways, you know, almost kind of strokes meets Depeche Mode inspired pop songs. We had no idea.

Like, holy crap. Like nothing about the project at the time was this, you know, some of these things now you hear about these projects that are like a lot of A&R people are involved. You get like the whispers of like people from higher up going like, we're really going to pull a trigger on this band and take it all the way. There was like none of that. It was just it took forever to climb. And it was like the number one most played song that year on K Rock.

then all of a sudden, like, six months later and broke some record of, like, the longest charting, like, or like the longest climbing song. And then all of a sudden it starts being played on pop radio. And there was a few songs at the time that were kind of doing a little bit of that, like that Owl City song that was like their breakout one. It kind of had a, did a little bit of that, but there wasn't very, there just wasn't as many models the way there have been at the time. Like there wasn't the fun song and there wasn't the pumped up kicks.

It wasn't, you know, Imagine Dragon references where, like, really big alternative songs could cross to pop. They're just what, it was so, so unheard of for that to happen. And for me, you know, like, how I write songs and what I bring to songs and what I try to bring to the productions, I'm just, I'm kind of doing my thing. Like, I'm doing, when I try to do something that would say, would sound like pop, it's probably by most, people's definition not pop. It's through my filter. So, you know, there's certain things that I subconsciously do in my songwriting or production

or help influence in songs. I'm always trying to find a little bit of a left turn. I probably spend just as much time on a song trying to make it weird and doing the thing that you wouldn't expect as I would, you know. And that's something that I'm even now kind of trying to unlearn a little. bit because I have a four-year-old daughter and she listens to some of the most cool, simple music that I love, you know, and I'm like listening to Taylor Swift songs in the morning now going like, fuck, I really got to maybe just stick to this four-cord thing.

Yeah. There's something smart about that. And I ended up having a session the other day with Jean from St. Lucia where it was kind of a perfect opportunity where I was just listening to the last Taylor Swift song with my daughter in the kitchen and we're seeing it at the top of the time. off of our lungs making pancakes. And I had a session later that day, and it was like a perfect opportunity

where we were working on a song, having a bit of a stumbling bach and like trying to write a verse. And the answer was, you know, hey, I'm not that inspired. You know, he wasn't inspired. Let's try changing the track all, you know, to something different

that might spark a melody. And I was like, no, man, let's stick to these four chords. Like, let's try. That's where I think sometimes the discipline and the craft comes into play where, you know, certain types of songs happen and it's total divine intervention

and then other types of songs are written where it's like a bit of a grind and the craft and the like and it's the jigsaw puzzle that's worth fighting for. Of course I love the freebies more than anyone else when these fucking things just happen and it feels like you just got a pass in life. But for the most part, most...