You performed with Lady Gaga on her Dive Bar Tour recently. That was amazing.
How did you two first decide to work together? When I think Lady Gaga, I donât immediately jump to Mark Ronson producing her next record.
I knew her about seven or eight years ago when she first was getting big with âJust Dance.â She sang a hook for this song âChillinâ by this rapper Wale, that was on my label and we met then and I really liked her. I saw a lot of similarities and parallels between us. City kids, music dorks. Sheâs a little sexier than I am, but it was like⊠I enjoyed it. Then I love watching from afar her success as sheâs blowing up. I remember the first time I drove past Radio City Music Hall and saw her name on the thing there, and that was early on, she was probably playing the Garden two months later, but I just called her and I was like, âThatâs so rad. No matter whatever happens, you played Radio City Music Hall in New York where we grew up.â Then I didnât really see her for about six or seven years. I ran into her sometime last year and she called me in November when she was finishing the Tony Bennett tour and she said, âDo you want to go in the studio and do stuff?â
Itâs always terrifying going in with somebody new, even if itâs somebody that you like or thatâs a good person, thatâs talented, because itâs like this awkward mix of first day of school and a blind date. Itâs all these nerves. Every day before, any night before Iâm starting a project for the first time Iâm always like, âThis is going to be the one where I figure out Iâm a fucking fraud and that Iâve got no ideas. It really is. We go in and you have to accept the first two days you might just be throwing paint at the wall. Itâs a bit of a getting to know you thing. Then on the third day I think, or fourth day, we wrote âJoanneâ the title song for the album and I loved it so much. I was like, âI donât know what this is. I donât know who will like this or what itâs about but I fucking love this. I love hearing her sing like this.â We just sort of followed that path for the record. It wasnât this overarching thing to like, âLetâs make this analog record.â
Then, thankfully, once BloodPop, whoâs this great producer who co-produced Bieberâs âSorryâ and all this stuff, once he came in and added all his wonderful touches to it and we wrote a few new songs with him, that changed it from being me and her, all 70s, like fucking mellow, up our own asses, to something that was really exciting and progressive. Thatâs it. Iâm incredibly proud of the record. I feel like thereâs songs on there, like âJoanne,â that just me and her wrote together that Iâm most proud of anything that Iâve ever written and other songs like âMillion Reasonsâ that I was just lucky to be in the room and throw in a few chords while they were writing it. Yeah, itâs exciting.
Once you started down this road, were you guys nervous in the moment creating this album? This was very different for her, and even very different from the stuff you are known most for.
Yeah, I think that if I was a little bit better about monetizing and being able to make 15 âUptown Funksâ after, I would have a much bigger house and it would be good, but I can only just do what excites me at that given moment, you know? Thatâs what it was. Of course, in the beginning, but I think more than anything, really great artists, you look back at their career, they transcend genre. You donât love a great artist because they stayed in this one lane, you love them for their songs, their emotional honesty, their rawness, their vocal talent, whatever it is that draws you to that thing. I notice with our fans, of course, in the beginning itâs so different than what sheâs done, but I feel like the thing that most of her fans seem to really pull out of their relationship with her is how honest and vulnerable she is. Sheâs just like raw, open thing, being like, âI feel you, I hear you, Iâm singing for all of you.â
I think those songs, regardless of whether they have a four on the floor kick or dance production that goes through it, these songs are as raw as anything sheâs written. Theyâre so honest because theyâre so plain language. Obviously, when âPerfect Illusionâ came out and there was a little bit of this mixed things to it, I was a little worried. I was like, âOh shit. Did somebody give me the keys to the Ferrari and I crashed it?â Then when the album came and seeing her fans react to songs like âDiamond Heartâ thatâs still a rock song and âDancing In Circlesâ and âJohn Wayneâ and be so behind it. Having all these people be like, âI guess Iâm about to buy my first Lady Gaga album,â guys who you wouldnât normally think, they wouldnât think of themselves as Gaga fans. Yeah, itâs a wonderful kind of metamorphosis for her.
So youâre actively watching how the world receives Joanne?
Yeah, because weâre right in it. Itâs been out for a week, and Iâve been playing all these shows for her. I donât live and die by the internet, but Iâd be lying to you if I didnât say that I donât check the iTunes chart position at least two or three times a day. The internetâs a very dangerous thing to put too much of your hopes and expectations into how people react to it obviously, because for every 10 wonderful glowing things you read, you only remember the one shitty negative one. Itâs just how it works. Itâs impossible to avoid, but I feel like, from a musical standpoint, weâve just had, for the most part, amazing feedback on it. I think itâs also such a different thing. Itâd probably take a little while for some of it to filter in. When someone takes something that you love and know so well thatâs a certain thing, youâre not going to digest this new evolution of it in one day.
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