Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Diane Warren: Songwriter Extraordinaire

Transcript

Diane Warren: Songwriter Extraordinaire · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. If you've sung along to a power ballad in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the last thirty years, chancers are, you're already intimately familiar
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: with Diane Warren's songs. Some of her biggest hits include shares,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: if I Could Turn Back Time, Selene Dion's Because You
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Loved Me, and Aerosmith's I Don't want to miss at You,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: like your mayor stool, like the handicuffs, you go the fool,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and I'm no wage shit, I'm nowhere. Over the span
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of her thirty five year career, Diane Warren has penned
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: hits for hip hop, country, R and B an adult
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: contemporary artists. In late August, she finally released her own alley,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: The Caves Sessions Volume one, where she wrote songs for
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: artists like Tydalla Sign, Darius Rucker, and John Legends. The
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: genre spanning project is modeled after DJ compilation Aalogus and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: brilliantly shows off Warren's incredible range as a writer. On
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: today's episode, Rick Rubin talks to Diane Warren about how
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: she decided to become a songwriter when she was just
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: eleven years old, and how her parents built a shed
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: in their backyard where she could work out her early arrangements.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Warren also talks about her one and only music teacher,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: who told her dad she had no future in music,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and why she feels she has yet to write her
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: best work. This is broken record liner notes for the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: digital Age. I'm justin Richmonds. Here's Rick Rubin and Diane
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Warren and to see you same great to see you.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It's been it has been I don't know how many years,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: but it feels like it's been a long time, really
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a really long time. I'm trying to think when the
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: last time I saw you was. I can't remember. I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: can't remember I did last week. So I remember visiting
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you in Malibu, and I feel like that's like ten
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: years ago. Probably. I remember coming your studio. I remember
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: being in the studio when you played me a Wheezer's
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: version of Unbreak My Heart, which was odd fucking awesome,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: which I loved to this day. I love it. I
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: love just people flipping my songs. Yeah, I think that's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: one of my favorites of your songs. I just love
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that song. It's a it's a really special song. Thank you.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Tell me how that one got written. It started with
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the title Don't Break My heart. It was a weird title.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I'd never heard it before, you know, and I can't
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: remember the magic of that song. No no no non
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: this signe me break. I went from B minor to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: D minor. It was like, when I came up with that,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, fuck, that's fucking that's the part.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: That's the part where it gets you. It hits you immediately.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It's like it's an emotional change. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't make any sense. But you know
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that's because I you know, I didn't really study music,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: so I didn't know, you know, when something's fucked up
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and wrong. So I probably do a lot of fucked
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: up wrong things that are cool. When did you start
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: writing songs? How old were you? I was eleven, But
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: when I was when I was fourteen, I became like
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: obsessed where it was all I lived for. I would
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: study Billboard. I mean, I was a shitty student. I
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: got kicked out of, you know a couple of schools,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and I fucking hated school. But when I really got
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: into writing, you know, I made my dad get me
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a subscription of Billboard. I studied it like that was
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: college to me. I studied to see who wrote every
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: song and who produced songs, and I didn't really care
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: who sang them, you know, as much. I was interested
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: in all the behind the scenes stuff going on, but
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I was just obsessed, obsessed with writing. And that was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: on was fourteen. So I'm the same way now. I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: just go, you know, I you know, I say I'm
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in a nicer play to write, but I'm not. I mean,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: my room is disgusting right where I mainly work. You know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: it's really messy and dirty and stuff. So at the time,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: you know, as a kid, my dad got me a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: shed in the back of the house because my parents
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: couldn't stand listening to me playing the same song over
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and over. That's why I do when i'm writing, I'm
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: just kind of playing it over and over and getting
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: it right. So I would go in that. I'd be
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: in that shed in the backyard, you know, this like
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: metal kind of shed thing and just writing and if
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: it was cold, eye a little heater there. I've just
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: been like this and I'm the same way now. I
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: just I just I do the same thing. I'm still
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: as obsessed. I think hopefully I'm better and I keep learning.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I think I'm really writing my best songs right now?
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: You know that I've ever written from the time you're fourteen,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Did you know you wanted to be a songwriter and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that's what you wanted to do with your life or
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: did you think you'd have a real job and you
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: would write songs too, a real job? What no I
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: knew when I was I knew I was eight years old.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It's what I wanted to do, you know, And there
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was no plan B. Plan B is you know, being
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a bag lady and you know, living on the street
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: or somethings. I literally do not know how to do
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: anything else. I don't I don't know to do anything else.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I'm utterly useless at everything except this. Where do you
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: think the idea came from to do it? What did
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you see that at least made you want to do this? Well?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I always loved music, and i've you know, I've always
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: just been immersed in it. You know, I have older sisters,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: so I always heard music. My mom and dad had like,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you know, all the all the great show tunes, you know,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Man and La Mansha, all those, you know, My fair Lady,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and then my sisters had all the pop music of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the day. And when I grew up radio played everything,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: so I just got fed this diet of just great
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: music and I but anyways, I remember looking on a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: single on a forty five Kids when They're there used
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to be forty fives back in the old days, and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it was a forty five of up on the Roof,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and I saw a goffin King and I loved that song,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, and I remember, I still
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: remember looking at it and going, I want to be
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: in those parentheses. I want to be that. I don't
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: want to be the singer, I don't want to do
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: any of that, but I want to be in the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: parentheses a kid when I thought that, so, how the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: fuck did I know that? So cool? That's a great
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: album title for your next album. In the parentheses would
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: be a great name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that you knew so early and you dedicated yourself to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: it and it worked and it's one of them billion.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: But it's the passion that you put in that makes
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: it what it is. It's like you're meant, you were
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: clearly meant to do this. It's interesting. Yeah. And then
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: there's all these you know things that these pinched me
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: moments like like I was the biggest Beatles fan, Like
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: my older one of my sisters took me to see
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the Beatles twice, you know, when I was like a
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: little kid, like six or seven or something, and I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: just had Paul McCartney and Ringo Star on my song
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Here's to the Nights. In the video, they're singing my
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: song and with a bunch of other great artists as well,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: like Lenny Kravitz and Cheryl Crowe and Chris Stapleton, you
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: know a lot of other artists on there, but the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the main part of that song is Paul
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: McCartney and Ringo Star. And I'm like, I still like,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: if I think about it, it kind of blows me away.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Did you take piano lessons as a kid? No, I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: didn't take any. Okay, So I'm gonna tell you the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: one time I took music lessons, my dad brought me
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: a little guitar from Tijuana. He took me to a
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: guitar teacher in the valley. So the guart teacher wanted
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: me to learn scales and I didn't. So the second time,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to make up my own songs. I mean,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: fox learning scales so I came back the next week
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: to take my second lesson, and the guy said, mister Warren,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't bring your daughter back. She has no future
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in music. So that was that was, That was my
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: music lessons. You know. I taught myself to chords. I
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: taught myself. I taught myself to play the piano. Someone
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: once told me that the piano is the songwriter's instrument.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So when I was eighteen, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: learn enough to you know, I'm not a good piano player.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not even a good guitar player, right right. I
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: can get around. I know chords. You know. I took
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: one theory class in school that you know, beginning theory,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: but I don't I didn't really pay attention to it,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: but maybe some of it seeped in. But again, I'm not.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not a schooled musician, which is good because if you're,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: if you if you have too much music education, you'll
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: go like, well that you can't do that, that's not
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the right, that doesn't you know? Well fuck that. I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: don't even know what's right or wrong. I just go
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: by what I feel. What's your rhythm of writing? Do
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you write every day every day. It's funny with t
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: shirt you chose to wear fuck off, I'm writing, Yeah,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that's kind of my favorite shirt. I thought it was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: appropriate since I'm since we're talking today that I should
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: wear that. My rhythm and my first hit being rhythm
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in the night, So rhythm is a good word. You know.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I just show up, you know, I go to work
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: every day. I go get my coffee and go to
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: my office and either starting something new or working on
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: what I'm working on. How did the first one happen?
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: How did the DeBarge song happen? I was signed to
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a guy named Jack White, who not not the White
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: stripes Jack White. I'm a German producer and through Jack,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I was signed to arist To Publishing and ministered him.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So someone over there named Linda Blum actually told me
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: about that this movie on the Last Dragon, and I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: did the song for it. I've done a lot of
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: movie songs. I still That's what I do a lot of.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So my first big hit was from a movie Berry
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Gordy's The Last Dragon and to Bars did the song
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: and its the first time that I had to you know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: hit words and music you know by me. I wouldn't
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: have guessed that you wrote that. I didn't. I didn't
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: know that you wrote that song until until recently. Again,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you write all kinds of songs, yeah, I do, but
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that's not one that I would have imagined you wrote.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And it really made me happy to see that you
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: wrote it. I love I love that you wrote it.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I probably wrote a bunch of songs you didn't know
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I wrote. You probably didn't know I wrote Blame it
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: on the Rain, Yeah I didn't. It's so cool. Yeah,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: let's say you were to sit down now to write
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: a song, just start the process for me. I mean,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how to do that
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in front of somebody, Like I mean, I play some chords,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I might have a drum going on
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a programmed to drum pattern or something, or I might
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: start playing something. What's going to come from that? Who knows?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And when you play, are you listening to what you're
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: You're playing and listening, and then based on what you hear,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you make decisions to change things or do something different,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: or to go somewhere else. I'm not even conscious of it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It's it's such a weird, like that's why it's hard
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to like, you know, people are going, well, what's your process?
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have no fucking clue, you know, I'm
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: just I'm just in the moment. I'm just going with it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And and concepts kind of pop up, these crazy concepts
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: like I just started something. I'm not gonna play you
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: because I don't know how much of it. But I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was like, the fucking coolest concept, Like you know that
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: no one's done this, you know, so it's kind of fun,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's on break my Heart or whether
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it's you know, something else I'm coming up with. You know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it's just kind of finding something that maybe hasn't been
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: said that way, or some notes that excite me. And
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, have you always programmed a beat first
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and then played to the beat or not necessarily? No,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't any I'm just sitting at the guitar
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: or my keyboards. You know. I love big string sounds,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you know too, I love that that so, you know,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: yesterday I was trying I was kind of trying to
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the song was working on. I was kind of playing
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in my hand on the drum machine, was and trying
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to play the bass on the on my left hand.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: It was kind of funny and horrible sounding, but the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: song I think would be good, So you know just
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: how I however, way I do it? Do you typically
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: get the melody before the lyrics and then you fill
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: in the lyrics. Yeah, I mean the really good ones
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: kind of come together in a weird way, but then
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the rest of the song I have to fill in,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: like like what's you know, the first verse might have
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: come easy, and then you know where am I going
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to go in the second verse? And I remember going
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: near the bridge until I have every part of the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: song written, because I have no idea what the bridge
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: wants to take me, even musically. Would you not know
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the bridge until the rest of this written? Yeah, unless
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I might have had something that that I didn't use
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: in the in the verse that like something I did
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: a few weeks It was like that where it's this
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: part didn't work in the verse, but I was like,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I made a mental note to myself, there's there's your bridge. Yeah.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Do you ever start the process with an artist in mind,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to write a song for share or do
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: you just write a song? I try just to write
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: a song, you know, like, um, yeah, I just I
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: just try to write a great song. I don't want
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to have any preconceived notions, like if I write it
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: for with one person in mind, that's going to only
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: be for that one person. And if they don't do
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the song, you know, then what you do? You know, So,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: if you write a great song, you know it can
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: go a million different ways and to a lot of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: different people. You know, when I'm writing something, I go, oh,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that's really great for so and so or so and so.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: But I don't sit down to write a song for somebody.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm the only time I stand to write
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a song for something in particular as a movie. Yeah, Typically,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: if it takes a week to write a song, has
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: there ever been a case where a song has come
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: really quick or where a song that you've had to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: fight with for a really long time, Has it ever
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: happened nothing I've had to fight with for a really
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: long time. A couple of them have come quick. I
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: could think of two songs that came really quick, you know.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Two of my favorites too. One is Until It Happens
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to You, done by Lady Gaga. That song just wrote itself.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The other one is a song that called when I'm
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: back on my feeding in it. Michael Bolton did that
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: to this day is one of my favorite Both those
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: songs are two of my favorite songs. When they come
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: quickly like that, when do you start thinking about who
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: could record it? During the process? You know, while I'm
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: writing it, I think I like different artists I could
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: do the song. I'm not above calling people you know,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you know me? Yes. How often does it happen when
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you finish a song and you think, wow, this is
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: really great? It's been happening a lot lately, amazing. Like
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like wow. Used to be where I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: felt like I'd write one of those songs every now,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: like in a bunch of songs and one of those
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And now I'm feeling like with a lot of what
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I'm doing right now a great feeling. Yeah it is.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm learning and just getting better. I'm
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: just hungry to learn and hungry to write, and you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: hungry to succeed. Yeah. How would you describe what makes
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a song great? It's hard to describe it. You feel it, right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: A great melody, I mean, you have to have a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: great melody, and to me, you have to have a
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: great lyric too, and you have to have the marriage
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: of the two. What do you think makes a great song.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's the feeling. I think it's the way
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: it makes you feel. I don't think there's any technical
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: way to describe it, right, but that is what's making
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you feel something when it's that perfect combination. Yeah, the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: example you gave when you played Unbreak the piece of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Unbreak my Heart with that change. To me, those moments
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: are what makes a song great, like an unexpected change
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that the fact that it's unexpected makes you listen closer,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you know, like it catches your ear, it makes you
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: pay attention. Yeah. But often things that catch your ear
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and make you pay attention or things you don't like
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: so for be something. It's like a fine line when
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: something can be challenging enough to be interesting and still
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you want to listen to it again instead of never
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: hear it again. Yeah, I prefer I prefer the other way.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I prefer it the good way. We'll be right back
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: with more from Diane Warren after a quick break. We're
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: back with Rick Rubin and Diane Warren after the DeBarge song.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: What was the next song that somebody recorded of yours?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I think nothing's going to stop us now, or I
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Get Weak? I can't remember. There's a bunch of them.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Then nothing's gonna stop us now. It was from Mannequin,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of become a classic. I did that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: with my friend Albert Hammond, and then you know, a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: bunch of other ones. At that time, I'm just trying
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: to think a big hit with heart. Who will you
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Run to? Blenda Carlile I Get Weak, which is still
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite songs I've ever done. You know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the doors started opening, you know, the doors that are
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: closed as you know, you know, you know, when it
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: became easier, you have a little success, and and all
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, you know, it's it's the people that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: didn't like that song. Oh I really like that song now,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you know that shit goes, you know, but it's just
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: like it's natural. Describe what the record business was like
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: when you entered it versus the record business of today
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and all the changes it's gone through. Just describe your
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: experience of seeing it change. Okay, Well, one thing stays constant,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and that's a great song. So what I do stays
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the same, Right, I still have to write a great song.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: The negative difference to me is it's so data driven. Now.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: To me, the data that matters is if it makes
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the hair on your arms stand up and it makes
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: you your heart feel something and you just go, fuck,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: what is that right? As opposed to your TikTok numbers
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and all the all the algorithms. Algorithm of the night.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I'll rewrite it, the algorithm of the night. I was
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: talking to an artist and he's really good and he
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: just put his album out and I gave him a song.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So it's like last year and one of his managers
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: works for a major come any you know, he's on
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: an independent label, and I go, why doesn't your manager
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: sign you? And he goes, my TikTok numbers aren't high enough.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, fuck, like you know, and you think you
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: think that like the greatest artists, you know, with the Beatles,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: you know, if their TikTok numbers weren't high Wood Prince
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: get signed today? Would to me some of these some
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: of that I find I find sad because it's really
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: all about, like we were talking about what a song
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: makes you feel, not about your numbers, because you know what,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: some records and artists might take longer. But I don't
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: know if a label will stay with you for that
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to happen. And to me, that's sad, don't you think,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: don't you think? Absolutely? And some of the biggest artists
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in the world didn't break to their you know, to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: their third album. Yeah. And in today's the world, if
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: you know, if now it's a first single, yeah, you
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: don't even get to your second forget your second album.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: You don't get to your second single. Yeah. It takes
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: time to develop. It's sad. That's sad, and I feel
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: bad for artists, and then they kind of have to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: do all the work even before a label is you know, interested.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: But for me, it's it's the same thing. I have
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: to write a song somebody wants to sing. So that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: hasn't changed at all. What's the feeling when you hear
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a great singer sing your song for the first time?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: What's how? Does it? Nothing better? I mean nothing better?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: You know. I'm sitting here writing a song and I'm
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: singing it and I sound like shit, you know, And
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: then look, I have one song. I'm gonna give you
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: an example, and I got to hear two great singers
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: on it. I wrote a song called I Was Here
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that Beyonce sang really one of my favorite songs, and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: then last year Dame Shirley Bassi recorded it. It was like, fuck,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it's like so cool, you know, the original James Bond.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Dame Shirley Bassi just did my song. Both song amazingly,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you know, but so different, Like Beyonce is singing it
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: fucking amazing, but you know she's talking about you know,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I was here, I lived, I Love. She's almost looking
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: ahead and then Shirley Bassis behind in a way like
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: everything she's done. And it's so it's such a different
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: reading of the song and both are just genius. I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: think it's an incredible thing when the song's context changes
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: based on the person singing it. Oh yeah. Well. Another
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: another example was when I did how Do I Live?
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: And it was out with Leon Rhymes and Trisha Earwood
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and Leon Rhymes was fourteen and then Shushia Earwood was older,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and so it meant something different like you're fourteen years old,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: how do I Live without you? And both versions were great.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: One was you know, kind of innocent and one was
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: lived in you know, and they both were fantastic. I
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: love to see my songs get other lives. And get reinterpreted,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you know, and I really love I love to go
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: on on YouTube and listen to all the covers. Yeah,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: and there's some fucking cool ones I heard. I did
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the song stand up for something that common and Andrew
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Day sings would common. It's kind of become like this
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: protest anthem, you know, since it was written for this movie.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Marshall and I went online just to see if there
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: was any cool covers and it's like these little kids,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: girl is probably eight years old, you know, singing from
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: her heart and singing the shit out of it, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a little kid rapper doing Commons rap, and that just
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: made me so happy, like that that song got through
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it right. It's like the coolest thing in the world.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Have the way that people have reinterpreted your songs. Like you,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you write the song, you give a demo to the artist,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: or you given demo to the producer, and then they
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: make the record. How often is it very aligned with
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the demo and how often does it really stray from
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the demo as far as the production goes. Usually it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: it's pretty close or someone flips it, which I love.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: You know. Here's the thing, it's my song, but it's
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it's your record, so I know that, and that's cool
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: with me because I mean, you know, you want people
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to respect the song, and you know, I work really
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: hard on them, but sometimes it'll someone will flip something.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I remember I had a song called I Could Not
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: ask for More that Edwin McCain did, and I remember
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: matts letta who's a great producer, produced it. I heard it,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this fucking sucks it like you sped it
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: up like fifteen you know, beats. You know, it's this
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: ballad and I just I hate it when I first
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: heard it, And then the more I heard it, I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: was like, this is fucking brilliant. What he did. He
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: like he flipped my song and made it better, you know.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And then it became a hit by two artists. It
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: became a hit with Edwin McCain and then Sarah Evans
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: had like a number one country record with it too,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: with that arrangement. So you know, I'm all four people
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: flipping my songs. You know. I just wrote something recently
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that kind of was just doing this afrobeat kind of thing,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and then one of my producers played for me, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: it's I had to listen to it a couple of times,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you know, but it's fucking great. He kind of flipped
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: it and flipped it on its head a bit. But
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: after someone's it takes me listening a few times to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: hear past what's in my head, because what's what's in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: someone else's head might be better. Would you say most
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of your songs are love songs? You know, a lot
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: of them are, But then you know, but then my
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: songs about other things too. You know, I was here,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: it's an a love song. Stand up for something's not
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a love song until it happens you is not a
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: love song, you know. I've I've trying to think on
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: my album, there's a lot of love songs. But then
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: then there's times like this, the Darius Rocker song. In
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: times like this, we could all use an angel. How
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: did this new album come about? Because in the past
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: we've talked about a different kind of album that I
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: thought you were going to make. Well, you never know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you never know about that one, okay, because that's what
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I thought. When I heard you you have an album
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: coming out. I assumed it was that, and it's and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: it turned into this and tell me that, tell me
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: how it happened. Yeah, it's it's it's me being DJ Diane.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You know what is is. You know, I saw a
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: lot of these DJ producers, the Mark Ronson's of the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: World or you know, Calvin Harraz, David Getta. You know,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: they all curate records of different artists. I thought, and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I have this song that John Legend did, so it
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: kind of happened the same time. I just don't call
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: it where Is Your Heart? I think it's the best
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: thing he's ever done. He probably doesn't because he didn't
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: write it. It's one of my best songs and performances
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that I've ever heard on any song online. And he
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: kept saying he was going to use the song, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I kept giving it to other artists and having to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: pull it because he wanted it, and then he didn't
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: want it. In my mind, I was like, I'm determined
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to get this song heard right and then I know
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: no one can sing it like him, but whatever. I
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: don't know if he's ever gonna put on his record.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm thinking that this idea
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: is percolating in my mind. Like you know, I do
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: so many different I'm in all genres of music. Most
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: songwriters are in one genre, whether it's hip hop, country
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: or Latin or rock. And I've always been in all genres.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I've always worked with every artist there is, you know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the classical, crossover artists, everything. And it got me thinking,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: you know, why can't I do that? Why can't I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: curate a record and let me just do all kinds
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of songs. Let me just let me do songs like
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Sweet with Pentatonics and John Batiste and Domino with LP
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and and give Selene Dion a really totally different song,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: you know, super Superwoman, and then give a hip hop
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: country song to ty Dolla sign And then why can't
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I put gez In Santana on a song She's fired?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: You know, so it's it's all over the place, or
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Louise Fonzie or there's so much variety on this album.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And usually, like when the DJ producers do something like that,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: they're getting tons of writers. And by the way, every
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: song now, as you know, has like ten writers on it.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Well mine has one or more, you know. Or I'm
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: like I'm going like, what do you guys? So what
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: do you guys do? You got the coffee, the high
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: hat pattern and the bridge? What the fuck got you
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: a writing credit on that. But you know, I didn't
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: write the Spanish lyrics on this, so I do have
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: people that did that. Um, and I didn't write clearly,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't write g Easy's rap, so that's that's all
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that's his. But you know these songs are all written
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: solely by me. And you hear a song like sweet
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and You and you go, how did that same person
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: write Where's Your Heart by John Legend and how to Like?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But that was what I went in, you know, wanting
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to do. I kind of wanted to go, like, just
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: show what I do. And I have so many songs
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I have. I already have like part of Volume two
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: because I kept changing it, because I kept writing new songs.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: My favorite song on the record to Sea Side tell
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Me about Oh thank You? You know, I just you know, um,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: obvious season. It's not the sun drinking amtobn Zogan of
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the sun Sunlight. It was just a happy song, you know.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I just, um, I can't, I don't know. I don't
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: know what happen. I just kind of was. I had
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: this drum beat I just had on my on my
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: drum machine. I started playing chords to it, and the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: song that's the chorus just came to me, you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and it's just such a happy, uplifting song. And it
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: was like right before the pandemic, you know, but it
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: just kind of makes you happy, right like you could
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: close your eyes and just be trans you know. The
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: best songs to me are the ones that transport you,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: you know, and they and and that song you can
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: close your eyes and if you can't get to the
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: sea side, you know, that song kind of brings the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: sea side to you. When you're writing that chorus, do
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: you have a picture in mind? Yeah, I was. I
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: love the beach. I love the tropics, you know, so
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I love that I kind of took me there and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: it just it just made me feel It made me
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: feel really good, you know. And and I love the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: melody in it and the verses kind of you know,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: you can live your life stuck in a traffic light.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: You know. It's just kind of cool. But you know,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: would I'll be seaside sitting in the sand, drinking a
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: my tie. I just wish it said, sipping a my tie,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: sitting on the sand, sip in a my tie. In hindsight,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: but drinking a my tie is colt that happened often
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: where you'll hear a song or think about a song
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and think about, oh, I could have done it this
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: way or a different either a different line. Well not
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: usually that one. Drinking my tie is fine too, but
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: sometimes I hear it I thought I kind of thought
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that I wrote it that way, and I hear I go, oh, no,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I didn't, you know. But it's a fun song and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and and having the Spanish in it. I love that
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: as well. Are there any of the songs that you
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: that you're surprised were successful in my life? Yeah? Like
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: like you thought the song would any particular undry think, oh,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that one's a good one. But it you know, I
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: don't know that it wins these awards, but it does.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Like have you had that experience where one just like
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: outperforms your expectation. I'm more like the opposite. Whenever anything works,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I'm shocked, to be honest with you, Like, there's so
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: many it's so like, there's so many things that could
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: go wrong, as you know, like you probably made great records,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: your best records. You go, what the fuck happened? Yeah?
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: And I've done that. No, I mean I remember I
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: did a song with the Cult called Painted on My
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: heart that like that should have been as big as
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to miss a thing to me. You know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the Cult did it and was for this movie Gone
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: in sixty seconds. But I have a bunch of those
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: you know that that didn't work, and you go, why
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: didn't that work? So when they work, it's like you
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: just go, that's fucking awesome. How how did that happen?
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: You know it is. It's one of the things that's
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: interesting about the process is there are so many things
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that have to go right, yeah that aren't and you
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: can break through. Yeah, even even honestly writing it isn't
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: totally in our control because the ideas don't always come,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you know, like the best the best ideas don't always come. Yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: but when they do, when they do, and you could
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: have the best our control. Yeah, it's just like you know,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: who knows what's going to happen. Just I just I
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: want to keep creating great songs. And by the way,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: know my best songs aren't even heard yet. That have
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: so many great songs, Yeah, I'm always writing them. So
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: it's always great when you know when they happen or
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: or even if they're not the biggest hit, you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: like maybe Here's to the Night Nights, the song did
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: with Ringo Garney on there that wasn't technically a hit,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: but I think it's a perennial song that'll be around forever.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And I think that there's nothing cooler that's cooler than
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: having a number one record. To me, we're going to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll be back with
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: more from Diane Warren. Here's the rest of Rick Rubins
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: conversation with Diane Warren. Have you had any songs that
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: when they came out didn't perform well but then found
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a second life in a different way and turned into
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a hit. Oh yeah, I do one of them. Well,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. I did a song called Don't
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: turn Around, and it was after Tina Turner's first album,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: her big comeback out them with What's Love Got to
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Do with It? And she was in her second album
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and I did a song called Don't turn Around and
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Bryan Adams produced it, and it was fucking awesome. It
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: just sounded like a hit, and I remember her manager going, well,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you know it's not going to be on her album.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It's like so bummed out. I just remember, like I
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: stole to this day, remember how bombed out I was.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And but they put it on a song on the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: B side of Typical Male of a song of Tina's.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Somehow luther Ingram, who did if Loving You is wrong,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be right, somehow he heard the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: song recorded it, and you know, it went to like,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: you know, number eighty on the R and B chart,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and then the song has a crazy life.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Then somehow this group called Aswa, a reggae group out
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: of the UK, heard luther Ingram's version and they did
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: a reggae version and it became a number one record
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: all over Europe and in England. And then along the way,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: all these other people recorded, like Bonnie Tyler and Neil
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Diamond and all these like people started ring the song.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: And then I'm Clive Davis heard the reggae version and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: gave it to Asa Bass and it did become a hit.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And here's the irony, here's the total irony, and that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen the Tina Turner musical yet, but in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the Tina Turner musical, one of the big show stopping
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: moments is Tina singing that song. So it kind of
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: came full circle. So yeah, like songs can have a
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: million other lives. I don't give up on a song
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: because it wasn't a hit for somebody. Yeah, it's it's
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: fascinating how they can take on life for their own.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to watch, and it's like a living thing,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: right it is, and it is all out of our control,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and you never know why they come around. It's almost
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: like the way that it works is how it's meant
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: to be. You know. It's sometimes because it had the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: first version of it been a hit, maybe all those
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: covers wouldn't happen. Yeah, exactly. I mean I had Neil
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Diamond cover a song of mine that was cool, you know,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and then it became a hit, and then it went
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: full circle back to Tina Turner's musical. So to me,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: a great song is timeless and genre less. At what
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: point is it the most fun of all the stuff
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you do? Is it most fun to start a new one? Okay?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: It's both. The funnest thing that I love is coming
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: up with something great. Some moms, I'll have a hit
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: of a joint and I'm working on something and I
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: think it's really great. Like God, I hope when I
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: come back and I'm not high, it still sounds good. No,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: But but it's that feeling of coming up with something
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that is my favorite thing. How often when you come back,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: is it different than you thought it was? I know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I usually know that day it's that thing. It's that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: what's what it makes you feel? But just a cool
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: like just saying something in a different way that just
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: gets you so excited, or this melody or the combination,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: or that you come up with something that there's only
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: so many notes and stuff, but yet you can find
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a million ways to make them work. And I love.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: That's my favorite thing, is to come up with something
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and finishing it is great, but coming up with something
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: is better, you know. And then I put up a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: lot of time into these songs, I really do. I'll
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: sit and I'll work all day long. Two lines, the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: last two lines of the bridge, like fuck. Everything else
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is easy, but those two lines have taken me all
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: day or maybe till the next day, you know. But
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: then you know, I'll listen to a song I might
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: have written, you know, a few months ago or a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: year ago. Whatever. If I have a meeting with an
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: artist and I'll listen, I'll go I'm so glad. I
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: stayed with that song, and I didn't. Because I'm listening
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: like with fresh ears, I'm like, yeah, I'm glad I
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: did that. I'm glad I took those two days or
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: whatever it took to get that right, because it stands up.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Do you ever leave a song unfinished or never? You
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: always finish? And I finished everything I'm writing at the time,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: but I have some starts that I should get to
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and start might just be like a cool chord change
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: or like the beginning of something. How how small would
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: an idea be that's worth worth coming back to. It's
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: usually a chorus, it's usually a hook. I move on
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to something else and I go, come, what about that?
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I should go back to that, and I will I will.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I have some really good songs that I'll finished, but
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I'm always coming u the new ones. It's like my album.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I kept like, you know, I kept coming up with
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: new songs. I'm like, well, I want to do this one.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: You know. My album was done, and my dentist his
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: friends with someone in Pentatonics. My album is done and
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: he goes, you need to, you know, meet the Pentatonics people,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and go, oh, I'd just written this song called sweet
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's all my albums called kind
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of motowny and so I met them and my album
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: is really done. I'm like, I want them to do sweet.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And then I ran into John Battiste at the Oscars
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: earlier this year where I lost for my twelfth time,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and it's okay, I'm in the game and I fucking
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: love it. Yea, and John Battiste won, you know, for
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: on his first nomination for Soul and when I when
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I met him, I was like, oh, what if I
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: put together John and and Pentatonics, I could be so
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: totally cool because John's whole vibe is this positivity. He's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: like so upbeat. I wrote the song that's when I
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: was nominated for this year. It's called c Yeah. Laura
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Puzzini sang it. Can you play a little bit of
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the of the song, the one I wrote for the movie? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: but can you just play a little now so we
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: can hear it? M I want you to know know
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: that you see because I see who you sorry, and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I see too who you I can't see it, who
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: can from me? I want you to know that you
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: see when you think then no one understands you. Oh, oh, well,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: it's a beautiful song. I can't see it. It sounds
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: so good. Yeah, listen to it. It's called well in Italian,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: it's called eoc scene and Laura Pazzini sings it, so's
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: it's beautiful in Italian. You've had a couple of other
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: songs that have been translated into Italian. How does that
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: experience work? I love it. I love when my songs
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: are in different languages and everything sounds better in Italian
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and Spanish. Yeah, it just does. They're both such beautiful,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: romantic languages. That's why I really on my album I wanted.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I definitely wanted Spanish. When you write a song for
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a movie, do they tell you the story? Do they
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: give you the script? Like? How much do you like
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to know before writing a song for a movie. Oh?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I like to know everything. Ideally I could see a
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: rough film, like like this year, I did a song.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I did but a few songs, but I did. One
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: of the ones I'm really excited about is a song
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: called Somehow You Do that Reba McEntire sings, and it's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: from a movie called Four Good Days Glenn Close and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Mulakunas about a drug addic daughter and her and her mom,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: and it's a really powerful movie. But I saw I
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: saw a rough of that, and I wanted to write
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: a song, a really hopeful song, you know, at the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: end of that movie. And I got Reba can Tied
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to sing my song, which is really cool too. She's
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: so great, which she puts into it, and that song
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: in that movie it means one thing, but outside of
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: the movie, because it's about like going through tough times,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you know, and if you look at the comments on
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the video, it's a lot about depression, a lot of
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: hardships the people that you're going through. So I try
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to keep the song open as well to fit the movie.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: That's that's the most important thing. But it has to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: live outside of the movie as well, and then people
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: could become whatever anybody wants it to be. But back
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to your question, Ideally, if if I watch a movie
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: or read a script, but I have to see, I
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: have to feel what that is, and then it's a
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: subconscious thing, and it's if I'm doing an end song,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: like I did something I'm so excited about. I'm not
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: going to talk rauts for next year that I read
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the script and it just was so powerful and It
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: took me a couple of days to figure out what
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted to say there, because it was had to
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: speak for the character and it's an actual person, so
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: it had to really be powerful and shok me a
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: couple days. But when I got it and I sat
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: at the keyboard and I started crying, I knew that
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: it was wow, that I knew it was right, Yeah, beautiful.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Do you ever hear something that you wrote a long
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: time ago and have a new understanding of what it
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: means later? Not really. I don't go back and listen
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: to my old songs, but if I did, I probably would.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I'm so forward motion and how I am like I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: don't usually look back, like my rear view mirror is
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: just cracked. But you're still. Your songs are so in
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the culture that you come up. Your songs come up.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: If you live life, we get to hear your songs
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: in life, you know, without the same for me, like
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I don't listen back to my music,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: but it's not unusual for me for me to be
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: somewhere and hear one of my old songs. Yeah, And
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: how amazing is it that you the work you did,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: You've done, but you're thinking of different things now, right,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: you've already moved past that. But when you stop and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: think about it, it is mind blowing the effect what
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: you do or what I do has on people. It's
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's just like when when we grew up,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: think about how that was for us. Well, that's what
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: you're doing or what I'm doing could be for them,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and it's still it has the same effect on us.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know when I hear a song. Sometimes
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I'll hear a song and I don't remember if I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: hear something I like, I can't tell whether I worked
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: on it or not. Yeah, because they fall into the
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: same category of something that I've listened to so much. Right,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: either I was in the room or I wasn't right right,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: but the same I've heard it, you know, ten thousand times,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: so I may have been there, you know. I to
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: think about have to try to picture the room and
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: see if I was there. Sometimes it really feels familiar.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: It's like, wow, where did we record this? Like oh wait,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with this one. You could
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: be somewhere and you hear something you go like it
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: happens to me, Like I was getting coffee BC before
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: COVID and I heard something. I go, what is that? Oh,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: that happened to me recently too, And it was just
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the most random thing. And they were my songs that
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: happened to me at a restaurant like last month, my friend. Yeah.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And it was so weird because I was about to
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: send one of the songs. I forgot that someone even
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: did it, and I was about to send it to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: another artist, you know, like I'm glad I didn't because
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: they would have wanted They probably it was in the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: same genre, muse, they probably wouldn't wanted to do it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Another song comes on right after, and it was this
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: obscure song I did on in sync. I was like, wait,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that sounds familiar. Oh shit, that's my song. And I
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: was wondering if if someone in the restaurant knew that
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I was there or something, because it was kind of
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: obscure songs. Yeah, but I forgot that that was mine.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And then I just she zam it, Yeah, it's happened
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: to me too. She zam songs like oh wow, yeah,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: completely forget. It's just has to do in both of
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: our cases. With the volume even we make, we work
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: on a lot of music and it comes in and
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: it goes out. Yeah, exactly, and it's on in the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: next and not there doesn't mean a lot to us,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: because it does, you know, my songs yet to me.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, I'm I'm what I'm excited about was
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: the next song and what I'm working on now? And yeah,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: anything else from just from your love of music that
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about, I don't think I kind
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: of covered I just I just love doing this. I
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: love writing songs. I feel like I've almost like never
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: had a hit, you know, So it's all it's all
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it's that hunger and that that love of it that
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: means everything. Yeah, it's no different. It's nice when their
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: hits at the same time when we but we when
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: we get to make them. The minute that it's done,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it's a great feeling of like, wow, we got to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: make this beautiful thing. Yeah, it's the coolest feeling in
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the world. You just want the world to hear them,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: absolutely cool. Well, I hope that there's a way for
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the world to hear all of the songs that you
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: have that are that you've never put out and that
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: have not yet come out, and that'd be a fun
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: thing to think about is how to make that happen
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: because they all they all need to be hear. Yeah,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: yeah for sure on this album. You know, there's so
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: many good songs on this album too that I hope
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: that we get singles rights to the John Legend song
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: because that's just such a great song. Yeah. I like
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the Domino song too. I think, Yeah, is that a
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: cool song that's like the that's so unlike. That's one
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that's like people are like you wrote that. It's so different.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: It's like a spaghetti western weird song. And and I
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: love LP's voice on it, and it's just it's so weird.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: But I think that's like a big song on there.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's favorite song. It's really catchy.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: It's just super catchy. And I like the fact that
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: it's not like other songs, you know, it's a particular thing.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: It's it's really good. Thank you. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: I have things that people don't even know that I have,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know too, and that's that's one of them. I'm
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: glad it got a chance to get heard, and I
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: hope it's a big hen that's true. We see you soon. Okay,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: great to see you. I hope to see you in
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: person soon. Same thanks to Diane Warren for sharing her
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: songwriting process with great. You can check out a playlist
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: of our favorite Diane Warren Penn songs plus her new
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: album at broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Broken Record Podcast. We can find all of our new episodes.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Mila Bell. Broken Record is a
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: others from Pushkin, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad free
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushnick
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: exclusively on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like the show,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: podcast to have our the music spect Kenny Beats, I'm
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: justin Richmond,