Berklee today is the official alumni publication of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a forum for contemporary music and musicians.
Issue link: http://berkleetoday.epubxp.com/i/67927
How did your songwriting career begin to unfold? I batted around New York for couple of years, like any other struggling musician. I am fortunate in that I grew up in New York. Other Berklee students who grew up in small towns had to figure things out when they got here, but I was just coming home. I had done a lot of music in churches and choirs here, so I already knew a lot of New York musicians. I took sessions as a singer wherever anyone want- ed me. I drove to sessions in New York, Philadelphia, and as far away as Maryland. Later I figured out that I wanted to write and [homed] in on that. I wrote an r&b; song that didn't work out over here but made it to a production company in Japan. They translated it into Japanese, and an artist there cut it. That was the first time someone cut one of my songs, and it gave me encouragement to keep going. It was probably another year and a half until the opportunity with [singer] Frankie J. came along. That was another accident. I was working on a remix with DJ Clue, who has done remixes for some big artists. He liked my vocal producing and called me to work with Frankie J., who was signed to Columbia Records. That enabled me to meet with the A&R; people at the label. A song I wrote for Frankie, "Daddy's Little Girl," made it onto his album. While it wasn't a big hit, it gave me a second wind when they made a video for it and released it as a single. That got me more work. When did your songwriting really start taking off? Everything started happening around 2006. My man- ager arranged for me to meet with RedOne. He didn't have a lot going [in this country] at that point. Many people don't know that RedOne, Lady Gaga, and I were working together in the studios around here. None of us had anything going on but were hoping to make hit records. Lady Gaga was working on what would become her first album and RedOne was work- ing with various artists. He was introduced to Akon, who wanted to bring him to L.A. to work with an art- ist. RedOne said he needed Lady Gaga and me to come with him. We all went and wrote some songs that weekend. Akon loved Lady Gaga so much that he helped her to get a deal with Interscope Records. He also liked my writing and gave me a CD with five tracks and told me to take it home and write to it to see what I could come up with. I worked on those tracks, and that music opened the door for me. All the songs on that CD were sup- posed to be for Whitney Houston. The label took two for Whitney and gave one to Leona Lewis. Akon liked "Hold My Hand" and pulled it for his own album. There are three versions of that song: my demo, Akon's demo, and a version that Michael Jackson recorded. As a musician, my goal was to work with Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. And by the time I was 23 or 24, my two idols were singing my songs. That freaked me out a bit but also encouraged me to try 14 Berklee today whatever I wanted. Since I'd already climbed a moun- tain, I felt I could have fun and be creative. I set my sights on pop radio, country, and rock. There was no box that anyone could put me in. At this point, do you prefer to write alone or to cowrite with others? I like to be in the room with the artist. The writing I do is very personal, [so] I want it to be what the art- ist is about. I don't want to force a title or a phrase on someone if it doesn't fit them. I'm well aware that, even though I am writing the song, it becomes the artist's statement. If it becomes a hit, the artist may have to sing it for the rest of their life. There is nothing worse than someone having a hit song that they don't want to do. They have to feel it's their story. So I like to have the artist in the room and ask them what they are going through, what mood they are in. Often they don't know it, but I am studying them as I talk with them. Without realizing it, they are writing the song as they speak. I wrote "Bittersweet" with Fantasia. She came into the studio and we talked. She said, "There's this guy—I shouldn't be with him, but I love him." The whole story came out and she said it was "bittersweet." There it was. She just didn't know how to put it together. I con- sider a song to be a puzzle. The pieces are all there, you just have to put them together to see the picture. Do you keep a notebook with lyric ideas or titles that you bring to a cowriting session? I usually go in with a blank slate. In fact, I don't write anything down at all—not even the lyrics. If I'm writing to a track, I go behind the mic and I write the song line by line as it comes to me, and my engineer records it. I have to go with what I feel rather than be confined by the lyrics I think should be there. But sometimes, a great concept comes to me and I'll put it in my phone or make a mental note. If it's meant to be, I'll remember it later. For me, the general rule is if I can't remember it, then it wasn't worth keep- ing. We love songs because they strike a chord some- where in us and we want to go back there when we are happy or sad. You hope that others will share in what you are creating. If you can't remember the idea, then there was no point in doing it. Do the lyrics or the music come first for you? They usually come together. I'm pretty visual. I picture the scenario, and that leads to the lyric and melody together. I start to explain the song's video to the [art- ist] before the song is written. I might say, "You're sit- ting on the bed. The house is dark, and it's evening." That could trigger the first line. It's all a story to me. I never write the chorus first and then go back to write the verses. I have to write the first verse straight through into the chorus. It has to have that develop- ment, or I can't see the story.