Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftstetch Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is producer songwriters sometimes artist Lauren Christy. Lauren,
Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2: It's great to be here, Bob.
Speaker 3: So, what's the status of songwriting today in a world
Speaker 3: that's dominated by streaming and frequently only one song off
Speaker 3: an album has millions of plays?
Speaker 2: If that hm hm, wells, yeah, it's very, very different.
Speaker 2: I'm on the board of SONA and the new NMPA
Speaker 2: Songs Board, and of course we spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time talking to this about this problem, and Michelle Lewis
Speaker 2: and Kay Hanley, who are the heads of SONA, there's
Speaker 2: so much more equipped to talk about the details of this.
Speaker 2: But I can tell you what it means to me
Speaker 2: is okay, So basically it's voluntary.
Speaker 3: Just to start for a second, that's a National Music
Speaker 3: Publishers Association for those people who don't know an MPs. Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: so it means.
Speaker 2: To you, It means to me that I mean, I
Speaker 2: teach a masterclass on songwriting and the first thing I
Speaker 2: say is please don't just be a songwriter. It was
Speaker 2: very important to me that in nineteen ninety nine after
Speaker 2: I came from being an artist that I started the
Speaker 2: Matrix and with my partner Scott Sparkan my ex husband
Speaker 2: Graham Edwards, and so we were producers. And so I
Speaker 2: didn't even realize at the time that that was a
Speaker 2: very important thing to do because of what was going
Speaker 2: to happen in the future with songwriting becoming volunteer work
Speaker 2: basically because there's no money on streaming really unless you
Speaker 2: maybe there is money if you have a massive top
Speaker 2: forty radio hit, like Top ten, because then the songs
Speaker 2: get synced in all the TV adverts and you know,
Speaker 2: basically Top forty still pays money, but that's like kind
Speaker 2: of the quan right getting to that top ten spot.
Speaker 2: And today with streaming, that's all anyone really cares about,
Speaker 2: and it seems that's all the record labels care about.
Speaker 2: Like radio. I don't even know many kids in their
Speaker 2: early twenties who are listening to traditional radio. So it
Speaker 2: means that the streaming is not really paying an artist.
Speaker 2: So what I preach is, please become a producer. Please
Speaker 2: become the artist or the producer, because then you have
Speaker 2: master ownership, and that's what it's all about. If you
Speaker 2: don't have master ownership. You are basically not going to
Speaker 2: get paid. And it's like sort of like being a poet.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure it's very nice to be a poet,
Speaker 2: but they don't make a lot of money, or maybe
Speaker 2: two of them do in the world.
Speaker 3: Right. Okay, Let's say an artist with some success says
Speaker 3: to you, I want you to write songs for me.
Speaker 3: Do you only choose to work with people who have
Speaker 3: a good chance of having a hit single with the
Speaker 3: song you're writing, or is it like the old days
Speaker 3: since you get a royalty on every song on the CD?
Speaker 2: You say, fine, I mean, I do this for the
Speaker 2: love of it. So if I think the artist is
Speaker 2: a star and they've got an incredible voice, if they've
Speaker 2: got nothing going on, I'll work with them as long
Speaker 2: as I'm the producer. I have to be the producer,
Speaker 2: So I'm taking like long bets, you know. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be that. I can see that, you know,
Speaker 2: the president of the labels signed them and that they've
Speaker 2: got the best manager in the world and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: because I've seen things come out of nowhere and become
Speaker 2: successful in my career. So it's really like, does my
Speaker 2: heart feel like I want to do it if they
Speaker 2: if they're impressive to me, then something extraordinary could happen.
Speaker 3: Okay. Needless to say, recording budgets have gone down. Prior
Speaker 3: to the Internet era, producer, we get three to four
Speaker 3: and frequently from record one in addition an advance against
Speaker 3: those royalties. What are the deals like today?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I do think that there seems to
Speaker 2: not be so much money, especially for newer artists. I
Speaker 2: think still there's probably I should think Mark Ronson and
Speaker 2: Rick Rubin of making some gangbuster money. Still, I kind
Speaker 2: of have a certain price list of how I do
Speaker 2: things for independent artists, it's so rare I'm ever going
Speaker 2: to see any money on the back end, so I
Speaker 2: charge quite a big fee on the front end. For majors,
Speaker 2: I drop it a little bit because there's maybe a
Speaker 2: chance of getting to that top forty spot, you know.
Speaker 2: I see a lot of people working for like what
Speaker 2: I think seems like ridiculously small amounts of money. I
Speaker 2: just think as usual in this business, there's no rules.
Speaker 2: It's the wild wild West, and you have once you
Speaker 2: have some success, you sort of have to set a
Speaker 2: standard of what you get paid. And it's worked out
Speaker 2: quite well for me to just say no quite a lot.
Speaker 2: It's the most powerful world, most powerful word in the
Speaker 2: music business or in entertainment is no, and I stick
Speaker 2: to that quite often. Okay, sometimes if I love somebody
Speaker 2: and it's they've got no money to pay me, I'll
Speaker 2: sign them and to my production company and just do
Speaker 2: it all for nothing.
Speaker 3: Now, there are a lot of people who've made money
Speaker 3: from record labels in the last century beginning of this century,
Speaker 3: and that money has dried up, and they have done
Speaker 3: vanity records over the last ten or fifteen years. Where
Speaker 3: somebody says, I have the money, my son or daughter
Speaker 3: is twelve, they want to make a record. Is that
Speaker 3: something that's in your world that you've done.
Speaker 2: M yes, I have. But I have a very strict
Speaker 2: rule about that too, that is, if they're not an
Speaker 2: amazing singer, I'm not doing it. I feel like, when
Speaker 2: you've got a reputation for doing some good work, I
Speaker 2: don't want to ruin that reputation and just be about
Speaker 2: the money. And it's not really ever been about the
Speaker 2: money for me, thank god. It's just been you know,
Speaker 2: as long as they're really talented. Sometimes they have a cause,
Speaker 2: like I work with a girl who had a very
Speaker 2: pretty voice, and she was running this charity for children
Speaker 2: with Down syndrome, and she were going I think it
Speaker 2: was called Happy House or something, and just they would
Speaker 2: all like do music together, and I just thought it
Speaker 2: was so beautiful that I got involved and made eight
Speaker 2: songs with her. And I wasn't sure where it was
Speaker 2: going to go or if there was going to be
Speaker 2: any success, but she had a lovely voice and it
Speaker 2: was a good cause, and so yeah, I'll do things
Speaker 2: again if my heart's in it. I never just want
Speaker 2: to say I'll give me the money. This kid's crap,
Speaker 2: you know, but I'll take the money. I just can't
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 3: Okay, Diane Warren. She is hustling, even in this late
Speaker 3: day twenty four or seven. She's calmbing the trades, you know, movies,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Looking for work. Are you more active or
Speaker 3: you more passive waiting for the phone to ring? What's
Speaker 3: it like for you?
Speaker 2: I'm definitely more passive in arm a person of faith,
Speaker 2: and I feel like sometimes it's not your door you
Speaker 2: earth to open or to bang on. So I do
Speaker 2: kind of wait for things to come to me, and
Speaker 2: things do come to me, thank God. I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm really busy, and I'm always saying, Okay, I got
Speaker 2: to slow down. I got to slow down. About ten
Speaker 2: years ago, I tried to drop my schedule to three
Speaker 2: days a week because I really wanted to be in
Speaker 2: my kid's life and I have two daughters and I
Speaker 2: had to I wanted to go pick them up from
Speaker 2: school like three days a week and just you know,
Speaker 2: be hanging out of the house while they're doing the homework.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want to be in sets every day.
Speaker 2: So I've tried to stick to that. But what happens
Speaker 2: is that suddenly one week I'll be working six days
Speaker 2: and then I'm like, okay, slow down, next week three days.
Speaker 2: So I would never say that I'm lost for being
Speaker 2: able to find work. It's always being offered to me.
Speaker 2: And have a lot of friendships in this business, long
Speaker 2: standing friendships, and people come back, so I don't think
Speaker 2: I feel I don't feel like I'm hustling. I could
Speaker 2: probably hustle for like bigger, more high profile artists and
Speaker 2: seek them out, but I'm kind of a strange fish,
Speaker 2: and that I really love working with new artists or
Speaker 2: up and coming artists. And I've worked with a lot
Speaker 2: of stars and you find yourself waiting at the studio
Speaker 2: for two hours for them to show up. But it
Speaker 2: was more exciting working with them before they became stars.
Speaker 2: But I'm busy now.
Speaker 3: If someone wants to work with you, do they contact
Speaker 3: you directly or do you have a manager or an
Speaker 3: attorney who filters?
Speaker 2: So I very closely with my partner in crime, Donna
Speaker 2: Cassain at Reservoir Media. I have ADMIN through that company,
Speaker 2: and Donna is way more than just admin. She's really
Speaker 2: my publisher and we've been working together, oh like sixteen years,
Speaker 2: very closely. So on my Instagram and TikTok, I think
Speaker 2: I have like Donn reach out to Donna Cassain, and
Speaker 2: then it started to get a bit overwhelming. So at
Speaker 2: that point I put like an email up. I don't
Speaker 2: have management. I just manage myself because I know my
Speaker 2: schedule better than anyone and it's just quicker for me.
Speaker 2: And so between Donna and I, we we deal with
Speaker 2: it with everything. People can direct directly email me like
Speaker 2: they see me on TikTok, and people will send me stuff.
Speaker 2: I found some incredible stuff. You know, amazing artists who
Speaker 2: want to work with me and they've got nothing going on.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I want to sign them. Sometimes I'm just like,
Speaker 2: you know, this is my fee, and quite often they
Speaker 2: want to pay it again, as I say, they have
Speaker 2: to be a ma but just me and Donna really
Speaker 2: working it all out, Okay.
Speaker 3: Frequently there's negotiation involved. Do you do your own negotiation?
Speaker 2: I do? I do everything.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I'm an artist and I say I want
Speaker 3: to pay you X, and in your mind you say,
Speaker 3: well I'll do it for two X. Do you then
Speaker 3: say well I'll do it for three X. What's your
Speaker 3: negotiation technique?
Speaker 2: I mean, if they say, you know, they want to
Speaker 2: do one song, then I'm pretty much just going to
Speaker 2: charge my fee. But if they say they're going to
Speaker 2: do three songs, I might lower my fee by five
Speaker 2: grand a track.
Speaker 3: Okay. What I'm trying to say is, let's say you
Speaker 3: quote a fee and they say, oh on, I want
Speaker 3: to pay that. You're you charge five grand? I want
Speaker 3: to pay three grand? What would you say?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: If I really love then I might say, okay, that's fine,
Speaker 2: but can we do three songs at three grand?
Speaker 3: Let me change it a little bit. You're obviously talented
Speaker 3: on the creative end. How good a business person are you?
Speaker 2: I mean, I've managed myself for the last fifteen years
Speaker 2: and I feel like I've done pretty well, so I
Speaker 2: think I'm good at business. I had to become a
Speaker 2: business person. I had to.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're with Reservoir, which is a relatively new company.
Speaker 3: How'd you end up with Reservoir?
Speaker 2: Well, what happened was I finally managed to get out
Speaker 2: of my record publishing deal with Universal and Donna Cassein
Speaker 2: had been at Universal. She kind of inherited us after
Speaker 2: I can't remember his name now, but he left the company,
Speaker 2: the head who'd signed us when I was in the matrix,
Speaker 2: So Donna was there. We started working together. My contract
Speaker 2: then came to an end, and I was like, let
Speaker 2: me just do my own publishing company myself. And I
Speaker 2: get this call from Donner and she says, Babe, I'm
Speaker 2: going to work at this company called Reservoir Media. It's
Speaker 2: run by this incredible woman, Golna closure Shahi, and it's
Speaker 2: female run publishing company. And what do you think? And
Speaker 2: I said, when do we start? Actually, I couldn't be
Speaker 2: without Donna. She was so amazing and just the thought
Speaker 2: of getting to be with all these incredible women, Faith Newman, Golna.
Speaker 2: It's incredible there. And I get to talk to Donna
Speaker 2: like every week and just kind of plot what we're
Speaker 2: up to. It's a great company, and I think they're
Speaker 2: like just doing amazing things, expanding all over the place,
Speaker 2: buying catalog they have, They bought Christmas records. It's like,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any stopping them. Actually.
Speaker 3: Okay, you say you've got out of your deal with Universal?
Speaker 3: Is that an admin deal? Did you have a regular
Speaker 3: publishing deal?
Speaker 2: Now? That was a traditional publishing deal?
Speaker 3: Okay, So when you had success with the Matrix, gigantic
Speaker 3: success with Avril Levine, did you own your publishing then
Speaker 3: or were you with a company?
Speaker 2: Actually, I was on Warner Chapel when we wrote the
Speaker 2: Avil stuff, and then Scott Francis that was it signed
Speaker 2: us to Universal. We actually sort of publishing deal ended
Speaker 2: about six months after the Avil record blew up, which
Speaker 2: was fantastic, and of course our manager at the time
Speaker 2: steamed in and got us a big publishing deal with
Speaker 2: Scott's at Universal, and of course that you know, it
Speaker 2: took a long time to play out and pay all
Speaker 2: the money back. But once it was done, I kind
Speaker 2: of felt really strongly that I didn't want to do
Speaker 2: another publishing deal.
Speaker 3: Okay, the songs that you wrote with Universal, do they
Speaker 3: still have ownership interest in those? Or do you own
Speaker 3: those songs one hundred percent? Now?
Speaker 2: Ooh gosh. I would say they're slowly coming back to me.
Speaker 2: Some of them are still owned by Universal, and they're
Speaker 2: slowly coming back to me, and then I take them
Speaker 2: over to Reservoir as they come back to me.
Speaker 3: Okay. So someone starting out might say, Okay, if I
Speaker 3: write the songs, I get one hundred percent. If I
Speaker 3: make a publishing deal, I get an advance, but the
Speaker 3: publishing company's going to have an ownership in that. Everything's negotiable.
Speaker 3: What would you tell a young person?
Speaker 2: But I think if you're a young songwriter trying to
Speaker 2: make it, I think the reason to sign a publishing
Speaker 2: deal is one because you really need some money. Like
Speaker 2: obviously that's the first thing. If you really don't need
Speaker 2: the money, then you don't really you shouldn't really do
Speaker 2: a publishing deal, do an admin deal. But I also
Speaker 2: feel that probably having a good team is important to you.
Speaker 2: Having Donner at Universal, they were like pushing me into
Speaker 2: the right sessions, and that's invaluable to have a team
Speaker 2: that's like working with you and getting you in the
Speaker 2: right rooms. So they're the reasons to do a publishing deal.
Speaker 2: But if you're already in the right rooms, and you
Speaker 2: have a hit already and you're kind of on the
Speaker 2: going up, and you don't really need the money, then
Speaker 2: I would definitely just do an admin deal.
Speaker 3: Okay, you said at the top of the hour here
Speaker 3: you tell everybody to be a producer. You started off
Speaker 3: as an artist. How did you learn to become a producer,
Speaker 3: And in your eyes, what does a producer actually do well?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's many different ways producers work.
Speaker 2: I mean, like Rick Rubin doesn't work the board right,
Speaker 2: and he's not an recording engineer. He's got excellent taste
Speaker 2: and that's worked out to be very beneficial for the
Speaker 2: artists he's worked with. But I started out when I
Speaker 2: was seventeen getting signed to E and my publishing by
Speaker 2: Alan Jacobs. And the first thing they did was they
Speaker 2: bought me a four track recording studio for my bedroom.
Speaker 2: Then I got an eight track recording studio, and then
Speaker 2: I got a sixteen track recording studio, and I would
Speaker 2: sit at home and I would just knock out my
Speaker 2: own little demos. So I felt like I kind of
Speaker 2: knew how to work all the gear and do all
Speaker 2: the programming. As I progressed in the music industry, I
Speaker 2: started to find it annoying that I was looking to
Speaker 2: for loops and kick drums and snare sounds, and I
Speaker 2: was like, hang on, what I'm really really good at
Speaker 2: is lyrics and melody and chords, and it was slowing
Speaker 2: me down. And so when I and also being a
Speaker 2: female artist, you know, suddenly you're put with all the biggest,
Speaker 2: coolest producers. And I was eager to learn when I
Speaker 2: came to America, So I wasn't going to say I
Speaker 2: need to produce myself, but I felt like I've always
Speaker 2: been a producer, and I've always been involved in the
Speaker 2: sonic bed of a track of is the groove right
Speaker 2: to me? As soon as we've written the song, getting
Speaker 2: the groove right is so important, So I feel like
Speaker 2: I've always been a producer. After my career as an
Speaker 2: artist started to kind of wane a bit, that was
Speaker 2: when I started the Matrix, and what I found was
Speaker 2: having a team of people who made up for my strengths,
Speaker 2: like Scott Spark was an absolute genius programmer and a
Speaker 2: brilliant piano player and an arranger. He had a degree
Speaker 2: in arranging. And my ex husband, Graham Edwards had been
Speaker 2: like he played with Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck, and
Speaker 2: he really knew how to routine bands, and he'd done
Speaker 2: a lot of production himself. So I tell people like,
Speaker 2: if you're like, at some point, I kind of really
Speaker 2: lost interest in doing all the tech side of it,
Speaker 2: of producing the tracks and building the tracks. But I
Speaker 2: was sitting there the whole time saying, hmm, that's not
Speaker 2: quite right, Let's do this. How about a keyboard sound
Speaker 2: like this? So I feel like I'm just incredibly involved
Speaker 2: with the production, and now today that's mainly what I do.
Speaker 2: It's like everything I do is, but I have a
Speaker 2: co producer almost on every session I'm in because I
Speaker 2: don't want to be torn between making a great song
Speaker 2: and trying to think about the production at the same time.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of jumping between yeah, how about this
Speaker 2: idea and then like, okay, how about this MIDI I
Speaker 2: work with this guy, Middie Jones a lot and He'll
Speaker 2: be like, literally, we call it building the plane while
Speaker 2: we're flying the plane. It's all happening at the same
Speaker 2: time today, and everything takes honestly like one day, Like
Speaker 2: we go in at one o'clock and by seven o'clock
Speaker 2: we have something that sounds like a record written and produced.
Speaker 2: To me that it all comes from the song. If
Speaker 2: the song's no good, then I'm just we're polishing a turd.
Speaker 2: So I try to focus in the session on the
Speaker 2: song being amazing, and then I'm running over and like
Speaker 2: talking about Chap used to go here, We need to
Speaker 2: how about this? How about we lay out on this point.
Speaker 2: So I'm very involved with the production. It's so important
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you were saying you're in the studio today.
Speaker 3: You used to work with your ex husband in a
Speaker 3: third guy Spock, you're working today you literally are you
Speaker 3: saying about working with an engineer or you literally have
Speaker 3: a co producer in every session.
Speaker 2: I have about five different co producers that I love,
Speaker 2: So I probably have like five different records being made
Speaker 2: around town every day, and I will be on the
Speaker 2: phone or popping in to hear what's going on. And
Speaker 2: you know, after that initial day where you kind of
Speaker 2: take a shot for an artist, and normally it's on spec.
Speaker 2: By the way, you don't get paid up front. And
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, I said to my husband,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm on chopped sometimes, you know, where
Speaker 2: the three people have all the ingredients and you've got
Speaker 2: to like present your dish, and whoever's dish sounds the
Speaker 2: best gets to be the winner. It's kind of like that.
Speaker 2: And so sorry, what was the question again, Bob? I
Speaker 2: lost it.
Speaker 3: No, no, you gave a great answer. But today, literally
Speaker 3: as we speak, do you have multiple sessions happening in town?
Speaker 2: Yes, right on my way here, I was just talking
Speaker 2: to two different producers about what we need to do
Speaker 2: on the track. Okay, on two different tracks. And then
Speaker 2: I have like three different records going on for my
Speaker 2: daughters that I'm helping oversee. And yeah, it's music, music, music.
Speaker 3: Well, this is interesting because most people who had success
Speaker 3: prior to the last ten years, they have trouble getting
Speaker 3: work at all. And you're saying that you know you're working,
Speaker 3: you know you've got a plethora of work.
Speaker 2: I do, I really do. I feel so blessed to
Speaker 2: say that, and I I'm not even like again, I've
Speaker 2: said to my husband, shall I get a manager so
Speaker 2: I can really organize this stuff? And he says, what
Speaker 2: are you going to do? How can you work anymore?
Speaker 2: It just comes to me naturally the things I want
Speaker 2: to work with work on, and I don't. When you've
Speaker 2: been doing something for this long, it's like a hard
Speaker 2: cruise ship to turn around. I don't know how I'm
Speaker 2: going to stop. And as long as amazing artists come
Speaker 2: to me, I think I'm getting better as a songwriter.
Speaker 2: So I think it might be a bit of a joke.
Speaker 2: I might be in my you know, seventies and still
Speaker 2: working with young artists, but it's still exciting for me,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to stop.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go a little bit more micro. Somebody approaches
Speaker 3: you and they say, I want to work with you
Speaker 3: forgetting the money. What's the first thing you say to them?
Speaker 2: I have to listen and see if I like their voice,
Speaker 2: and see if I think they've got some real talent.
Speaker 3: When people send you something, how many people send piano
Speaker 3: or guitar and vocal rough demos? How many people send
Speaker 3: pretty fully fleshed what tends to come over the transfer?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: Quite Often it's artists who've already got stuff released. So
Speaker 2: I'll say, let me just go and check you out,
Speaker 2: and I'll go to Spotify as soon as I'll just
Speaker 2: google them find who they are. If Donna sends me something,
Speaker 2: do you want to work with this person, I'll go
Speaker 2: on Spotify and have a listen, and if I like
Speaker 2: it and they sound good, I'll take a shot. I'll
Speaker 2: take a day.
Speaker 3: Okay, a little bit slower forgetting the money. Once again,
Speaker 3: you listen to it, you say, this is interesting, I
Speaker 3: want to work with you. A financial deal is made,
Speaker 3: what's the next step.
Speaker 2: There's no financial deal made at first, it's just literally,
Speaker 2: will you take a shot? And if I am, I
Speaker 2: have to be blown away. It has to be really
Speaker 2: really interesting. There's just so much music out there, so
Speaker 2: it has to be really amazing. I have to go ooh,
Speaker 2: I could help. I think that's the most important thing
Speaker 2: is I could help this person get to the next level,
Speaker 2: or I could. I can see what they're angling at,
Speaker 2: but I don't think they have a hit. I feel
Speaker 2: like that's kind of my special sources that I've helped
Speaker 2: find the key to the door for a few people
Speaker 2: like Avril Hillary Duff her first single, Jason Moraz his
Speaker 2: first single with a remedy, but I feel like that's
Speaker 2: my and the Matrix Special source was being able to
Speaker 2: kind of say, okay, where does this need to go?
Speaker 2: So that's my first thing is can I help? And
Speaker 2: after that, once I've listened to the music, then let's
Speaker 2: set up a session. And so I look at my
Speaker 2: calendar and they look at their calendar, and we find
Speaker 2: a day. I pick one of my co producers that
Speaker 2: I think would really suit you know, this style of music.
Speaker 2: Do you want to do it? I say to my
Speaker 2: cop do you want to do a day on spec?
Speaker 2: You know? And we show up at one o'clock and
Speaker 2: by seven o'clock we've we've taken our shot. And that's
Speaker 2: when you hope everyone says, oh my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 2: This has to go on the record. How much you're
Speaker 2: going to charge us? And that's when you make a deal.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's just assume you hear something. Let's call it
Speaker 3: an established artist. You can go on Spotify, you can
Speaker 3: hear their past material. You say I want to take
Speaker 3: a shot. Do you then say send me what you've got? Well?
Speaker 2: Yes, if they've had stuff released. Then they're working on
Speaker 2: a new project. I'll say, I'm so interested to hear
Speaker 2: what this new EP or this new album is. Where
Speaker 2: are you heading with this? And so I'll have a
Speaker 2: listen to it, and if I love it, then like
Speaker 2: I'm in, you know. And sometimes it's so good, I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, I gotta I gotta come with my a
Speaker 2: game today and I love it. I'm so excited to
Speaker 2: go in. I'm just so excited to know the first thing.
Speaker 2: I'll say someone answers to what do you what do
Speaker 2: you work on yesterday? And if they say, ah, oh,
Speaker 2: we just did this with so and so, so and so,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my goodness, let's hear it. I hear it,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, okay, I got to beat this one.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait wait. Let's just assume you've decided to work
Speaker 3: someone sends you a demo. Will you react to that
Speaker 3: demo before you get in the studio. Will you say, well,
Speaker 3: I think it needs this or ex or why? Or
Speaker 3: do you wait until you're in the studio?
Speaker 2: Well, are you saying that a demo just for me
Speaker 2: to produce their song that's already existing? Because nobody's really
Speaker 2: coming to me to produce something they've already written, and
Speaker 2: I'm not really that interested in it. I'm a songwriter, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: So when somebody walks in the front door, there is.
Speaker 2: No song, no nothing. We have a conversation, We have
Speaker 2: a cup of tea and talk about Okay, who's going
Speaker 2: through what? Let's like. I also like to bring two
Speaker 2: or three concepts to the table. It's always been that
Speaker 2: way for me. I like, I think it's plight if
Speaker 2: an artist is coming to spend the day with you
Speaker 2: and you just say I got nothing, I feel it's
Speaker 2: a little rude because they've taken the time to be
Speaker 2: with you. So I like to have three things up
Speaker 2: my sleeve, and then the first thing to be polite
Speaker 2: is to say what do you want to do today?
Speaker 2: And listen to them, And quite often the artist is like,
Speaker 2: I've just been through a breakup. I just feel so awful,
Speaker 2: I just feel so nervous, I can't hardly breathe. I'm like,
Speaker 2: do you want to write about it? Yes? Then I
Speaker 2: just keep my three ideas up my sleeve for another
Speaker 2: session with someone else. And if they say I've got nothing,
Speaker 2: I'm completely lost, I don't know what I'm doing. Have
Speaker 2: you got anything? That's when I'll bring out something, and hopefully,
Speaker 2: more often than not, they like it because I've really
Speaker 2: listened to what they do and I've tried to cater
Speaker 2: to something I spend my mornings. I'll work out in
Speaker 2: the morning, and then before the session, I'll sit at
Speaker 2: the piano and I'll try and come up with something
Speaker 2: that sounds exactly in the vein of what they're doing
Speaker 2: and their vocal range too. I try and figure out
Speaker 2: where's their vocal range. Oh, this chorus, I'll start with,
Speaker 2: like a chorus that will hit their perfect money notes
Speaker 2: and their timber of their voice. So then when I
Speaker 2: play them my little ideas I have up my sleeve,
Speaker 2: they're often like, oh, I can see myself singing it,
Speaker 2: you know. So it's always very exciting because you never know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes occasionally I've played my rough and I'm only talking
Speaker 2: about like a verse and a pre chorus and a chorus.
Speaker 2: It would be really presumptuous to say, and here's a
Speaker 2: whole song with a second verse and a bridge written,
Speaker 2: So I like to maybe it's just a chorus. But
Speaker 2: usually I have a little verse to go with it.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes they hate it and they say no,
Speaker 2: I don't like that, and I'm like, okay, great. Then
Speaker 2: they can be a little uncomfortable and you just have
Speaker 2: to So the other way we start, it's okay, any
Speaker 2: songs that you love right now, tracks that you're just
Speaker 2: as so inspired by, And they'd be like, I love
Speaker 2: this track by so and so, so and so and
Speaker 2: this one of the So we'll have a listening session
Speaker 2: at the top of the the session and I'm like,
Speaker 2: something will calm, like my co producer partner and I
Speaker 2: will sit like maybe with a bass and piano and
Speaker 2: I'll just be playing. And then suddenly the artists will say, Okay,
Speaker 2: I like that. That feels like me, and we go
Speaker 2: from there and I and then I always have a
Speaker 2: list of fifteen titles, not just the you know, that's
Speaker 2: just my backup, is fifteen titles that I think are
Speaker 2: hot with a little bit of a concept of what
Speaker 2: it's about. Like for instance, I have a song called
Speaker 2: Last Hurrah that I did with Bebie, and I took
Speaker 2: into the session these lines that I had. I'd pretty
Speaker 2: much I call it a song map. I teach this
Speaker 2: on my masterclass so I i'd do you want me
Speaker 2: to go into this bob. It's a long story, okay.
Speaker 2: So basically, one day my husband said to me, I'm
Speaker 2: going to the store. What do you want? And I said,
Speaker 2: I have a pine to pistachio Hargenedaz And he's like, well,
Speaker 2: I thought you were on a no sugar diet. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, last hurrah, ooh voice my memos on my
Speaker 2: phone and my notes lyric notes, last Hurrah. And I
Speaker 2: was like, hmmm, I'm done with the drinking, I'm done
Speaker 2: with the smoking, I'm done with the playing, I'm done
Speaker 2: with the joking. And I was like, oh, that's a
Speaker 2: good verse. So I then thought, oh, like, what's this
Speaker 2: song about. It's not about hargain Das and my my
Speaker 2: weak wills, so what is it about? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: maybe it's about how everyone in life has something they're
Speaker 2: struggling with and we all put it off and put
Speaker 2: it off and put it off. And so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: so the verse is going to be I'm done with
Speaker 2: the drinking, I'm done with the smoking, I'm done with
Speaker 2: the playing, I'm done with the joking. And then I'm
Speaker 2: done with the ladies. I'm done with the fellas just saying.
Speaker 2: Then I was, and the pre chorus has got to
Speaker 2: say something like, I know we've said it all before,
Speaker 2: but would it hurt to do it just once more?
Speaker 2: And then I was like, then the chorus has to hit.
Speaker 2: The chorus is going to say this is my last Hurrah.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, that's going to be a
Speaker 2: cool chorus. But that hurrah word is really cool. So now,
Speaker 2: because a post chorus is, post hook is a big
Speaker 2: thing today. So I was like, I'm going to make
Speaker 2: a post hook out of that word hurrah hurrah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: something like that. So I go into the session. I
Speaker 2: have not got a melody, and I said, Bibi nick
Speaker 2: long and wonderful producer Andrew, Oh my god, it's the
Speaker 2: problem with getting old Bob. I can't remember his last name.
Speaker 2: I'll let you know. I said, listen, Biby, how about this.
Speaker 2: I got this verse. I'm done with the drinking, I'm
Speaker 2: done with the smoking. I'm done with the playing, I'm
Speaker 2: done with the joking. She because I love it, and
Speaker 2: I said, then we do it another second half of
Speaker 2: that verse. Then we go into the pre I know
Speaker 2: it all before, but would it hurt to do it
Speaker 2: all once more? This is my last hurrah? And she's like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, And I said, we do a whole
Speaker 2: chorus after that, and at the end of the chorus
Speaker 2: we go hurrah yah. Yeah. Yeah. So without even having
Speaker 2: a single melody, I could pretty much show them the
Speaker 2: song map, and we wrote that song in about half
Speaker 2: an hour, the four of us, and it became a
Speaker 2: single for her and I kind of sketched out like
Speaker 2: the goalposts, I knew where to kick between.
Speaker 3: Okay, just to stopping you for one second. Four point
Speaker 3: people are involved. How do you split up ownership?
Speaker 2: Four ways? Okay, because honestly, everybody was so integral to
Speaker 2: the melodies and building the track is really really important.
Speaker 2: I mean, right, didn't it used to be just lyrics
Speaker 2: and melody were important. I think in the days of
Speaker 2: Scott Storch, when suddenly he was doing tracks like in
Speaker 2: the Club for fifty cent and the track was a
Speaker 2: star before you'd even put anything on it. That was
Speaker 2: a new way of writing for me, by the way,
Speaker 2: But again, fifteen years ago started to be so interesting.
Speaker 2: I'd walk in and the track sounds like a fucking
Speaker 2: hit already, and I'm like, it's kind of like sex
Speaker 2: that's already started and you have to jump in. It
Speaker 2: was new to me rather than just sitting at the piano,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I got really good at it
Speaker 2: just jumping on in and coming up with hot melodies
Speaker 2: and lyrics on top of a blinding track. So I
Speaker 2: think everyone it's like a soup and everyone's involved, and
Speaker 2: I'm happy to split it four ways. Of course, now
Speaker 2: it gets kind of crazy because after you've written that
Speaker 2: initial day, suddenly some star will get involved and they
Speaker 2: have their team, and that's how you end up with
Speaker 2: ten writers on it. But initially I just split the
Speaker 2: song between who's there on that day when we start
Speaker 2: writing it.
Speaker 3: So let's just assume you start at one pm. You
Speaker 3: say you wrote that song in a half hour. What's
Speaker 3: the longest it will take you to come up with
Speaker 3: a song.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's three hours. If I haven't got anything in
Speaker 2: three hours, I'm going to call the session. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to see no, I don't have the juice today,
Speaker 2: And it very rarely happens. It just doesn't happen because
Speaker 2: we're pros. You know, anyone who I know in this town,
Speaker 2: who's used to doing stuff. Even if you come out
Speaker 2: with I'm not saying everything I do is fantastic either,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of a practice to learn how to
Speaker 2: weave a song together and get it done. I like
Speaker 2: to say that two hours is spent probably on writing
Speaker 2: the song, and then two hours will be spent on
Speaker 2: the vocal, and then probably another two hours will be
Speaker 2: spent on brushing up the production. Because the artist is
Speaker 2: going to want to go away with an MP three
Speaker 2: at the end of the day and they are immediately
Speaker 2: going to play it to their team. So I don't
Speaker 2: like to leave until I have something that sounds like
Speaker 2: a smash on that day. So I kind of divide
Speaker 2: up the time like that. Very occasionally, I've been in
Speaker 2: the session where it's just the songwriting's not going very well,
Speaker 2: and it's just I would say it hasn't happened to
Speaker 2: me for years that I haven't nailed it in the day,
Speaker 2: You know, I don't. I'm not saying it's a smash,
Speaker 2: but we get it done.
Speaker 3: Let's say there's a male singer or female singer, that's
Speaker 3: all they have. Will you hire musicians? How will that work?
Speaker 2: You mean they don't play any instrument.
Speaker 3: Well playing instruments, and there is no band.
Speaker 2: Or that happens to me, that happens all the time.
Speaker 2: That's why I pick co producers who are amazing instrumentalists,
Speaker 2: you know, as otherwise I'd be doing it all myself
Speaker 2: if I could, if I could play really, really well,
Speaker 2: I can play piano, but I'm no virtuoso and I
Speaker 2: can't play guitar. It's just never been something I've got
Speaker 2: my head around. So I'm definitely picking co producers that
Speaker 2: can just fill in all the gaps. And you know,
Speaker 2: I can do the vocal production. I used to do
Speaker 2: that in the Matrix all Averrols vocals I recorded, comped
Speaker 2: and tuned and consolidated, and nowadays can I still always
Speaker 2: record the vocals and I like to camp them too.
Speaker 2: It's really important to me. So when there's an artist
Speaker 2: who doesn't care, it doesn't matter because my producer partner
Speaker 2: and I are going to be actually coming up with
Speaker 2: the sounds. Okay, well, very it's important to us that
Speaker 2: the artist loves it.
Speaker 3: I understand, but you're not saying I'm working with this person.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to call in a guitarist and a drummer.
Speaker 2: But I do because I just think there's like amazing people.
Speaker 2: There's a guy I'm working with right now called Lowell Wolf.
Speaker 2: He's new and and I found him through an artist
Speaker 2: I was working with. She hired him to do a
Speaker 2: gig and he was so impressed of I hired him
Speaker 2: to do a gig when I played at Hotel Cafe
Speaker 2: and he played with me. And then just the other
Speaker 2: day I had in come and play on this Jasmine
Speaker 2: Bean record I'm working on for Interscope and Corky James.
Speaker 2: He played on all the Matrix stuff. Incredible. I'll hire
Speaker 2: him and he's so great. I can send him my
Speaker 2: record and say I want some stuff like this, I
Speaker 2: want it to sound like this, and he does all
Speaker 2: his studio with all his amps and sends it right
Speaker 2: back to me. Victor Druso plays drums with Alanis Morissette now,
Speaker 2: who's Macy Gray's drummer. Same thing. He has his own
Speaker 2: studio set up. Victor, I need drums like this. We've
Speaker 2: already programmed the drums to be what we want, but
Speaker 2: we just want the real live thing. So yes, we
Speaker 2: do hire people and violinists. Bianca McClure I use all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: I have some false they're not in the studio. You
Speaker 3: send them the track, they work on it, they send
Speaker 3: it back.
Speaker 2: Sometimes like Lowell Wolf came in the other day and
Speaker 2: he bought his little pedal board and we did it there.
Speaker 2: That's not done on the day of writing, though, the
Speaker 2: day of the writing where we do the sketch of
Speaker 2: the whole thing. So at the end of the day
Speaker 2: we kind of have what sounds like a hit. If
Speaker 2: the label or their part of business managers say we
Speaker 2: love it, then the next step is, let's put some
Speaker 2: violin on this. This was some real drums on it,
Speaker 2: and generally we go out for the real drums, and
Speaker 2: but violin will bring them in. Guitarists normally we bring
Speaker 2: them in, so that will be another day. We'll take
Speaker 2: a day on production once we've got the gig Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, in the old days, these records were cut soup
Speaker 3: to nuts in big studios, maybe in the smaller room.
Speaker 3: Then it became we'll cut basics in the big studio,
Speaker 3: we'll do the rest at home. Where are you cutting
Speaker 3: this stuff?
Speaker 2: Bo It's so strange, like it's so such a long
Speaker 2: time since I've been in a studio where there's a
Speaker 2: huge SSL desk. It's just not it's not needed anymore.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The song I'm Not Like Alice that I did with
Speaker 2: my girls, that was cut in my daughter's bedroom. We
Speaker 2: have like a studio set up in there. Everybody's just
Speaker 2: working at home. The quality is so good today, I believe.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Barbara Streisen is still in those big rooms.
Speaker 2: But like today, with the way the businesses, we're just
Speaker 2: working in. Sometimes it's really nice places like publishing studios,
Speaker 2: but most of the co producers I work with John Levine,
Speaker 2: they have like amazing home studios, getting garage conversions, and
Speaker 2: just like and I would rather be there. In fact,
Speaker 2: every produce I co produce with wants to be on
Speaker 2: their own gear. The last thing they want to do
Speaker 2: is have to go down to Capitol Records and cut something.
Speaker 2: The string sessions are done there. Of course, you know
Speaker 2: you need those rooms with the big for that, but
Speaker 2: not for what we're doing.
Speaker 3: And what about getting the sound of drums.
Speaker 2: Real drums, Well that's where we do go out, and
Speaker 2: like Victor has his own room that's tuned just to
Speaker 2: sound fantastic, so we will go out for drums. Definitely.
Speaker 2: John Levine has drum kick because he plays drums set
Speaker 2: up in his live room, which is in a garage conversion,
Speaker 2: and he just hops right up on the drums and yeah, okay, amazing.
Speaker 3: The tr eight oh eight Roland came out really hit
Speaker 3: it stride in the early eighties, then disappeared, and it's like,
Speaker 3: on every record, what's your take with that sound?
Speaker 2: Okay, Honestly, Bob, that is way above my pay grade.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Okay, you get those faking in claps. You hear them
Speaker 3: on both pop records and country records. They're set to
Speaker 3: a rhythm. They're quite obviously synthesized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not aware of that. Again, that stuff that
Speaker 2: I stopped doing years ago, of looking for sounds and
Speaker 2: looking for drum loops that sound cool. I'm just like
Speaker 2: to my co producer, I feel like it should be
Speaker 2: like this, the groove should be this kind of feel.
Speaker 2: Can you make that happen for me? And I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to say, call up that sound on this keyboard.
Speaker 2: That's just not my bag. I'm too deep in the
Speaker 2: lyrics with the artists at that point. Normally, as I
Speaker 2: saw Tody, we're building the plane while we're flying the plane.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're a pro, you're never gonna do something bad.
Speaker 3: But well, no, listen, it's a nature of the game
Speaker 3: that's not only a compliment, it's a nature of being
Speaker 3: a pro. Do you know when you have an eleven?
Speaker 3: Let's be very clear, eleven's are inherently weird. No one
Speaker 3: can create eleven every day.
Speaker 2: But it's so funny because I just talked to a
Speaker 2: manager of an artist I'm working with this morning and
Speaker 2: he said, this song's an eleven, and I've never heard
Speaker 2: some had somebody say that to me. So it's fun
Speaker 2: so weird that you would say that today, and I
Speaker 2: I would say that most sessions I go to, I
Speaker 2: feel like it's a nine, like I'm really hitting hard.
Speaker 2: I'm so disappointed if it's It doesn't often happen to
Speaker 2: me that I feel it's a dud anymore. But it
Speaker 2: will be that production and that other day that we
Speaker 2: take to brush it all up that can make it
Speaker 2: into an eleven.
Speaker 3: No, But my question is a little bit different. There's
Speaker 3: a Eureka moment where you go, holy fuck, this is
Speaker 3: just fantastic. Do you know. You know there are people
Speaker 3: who say I made the record, I had no idea
Speaker 3: this would be a hit.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a different example that's dated. Talking to
Speaker 3: Al Cooper produced Leonard Skinnyard and they came in a
Speaker 3: year before the record was released. They called up and
Speaker 3: they said, I want to cut a song. They cut home.
Speaker 3: They cut Sweet Home Alabama a year before it came out.
Speaker 3: I said, Dal did you know it was a hit?
Speaker 3: And he goes, it was sweet Home Alabama. Do you
Speaker 3: ever have that feeling like, wow, this is amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did, honestly with the April Levine stuff. When
Speaker 2: we did Complicated, I was like, holy shit, this is
Speaker 2: a hit. And I remember Graham's dad playing it to
Speaker 2: him and us being so excited. He said, I don't
Speaker 2: think that's going to cut the mustard. We were like
Speaker 2: so disappointed and they were like, no, this is a hit.
Speaker 2: And Skater Boy I had the same feeling about it,
Speaker 2: just oh my goodness, I'm with you. I did not know.
Speaker 2: I did not know that that song. And my manager
Speaker 2: at the time said, I just think it's a nice
Speaker 2: album track. That one took me by surprise, that it's
Speaker 2: kind of beloved by a lot of people. I look,
Speaker 2: I even put a tattoo on my wrist of it
Speaker 2: because it's actually my favorite song that I've written. It
Speaker 2: just meant so much to me. It's kind of dark
Speaker 2: and sad, and I didn't expect it to hit so hard.
Speaker 2: So that's a rare one, but quite often, like last Hurrah,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, this is a smash. I wished
Speaker 2: it had gone higher on the charts, but I think
Speaker 2: it kind of made a video that was like a
Speaker 2: priest in a bath with an upside down cross smoking
Speaker 2: a cigarette with a nun adjusting her habit, and I
Speaker 2: was just like, I think maybe the video was a
Speaker 2: little too edgy to make that song push into the
Speaker 2: top five at top forty. But I knew it was
Speaker 2: a hit when we wrote it. And right now I
Speaker 2: have about five songs. I have this song coming out
Speaker 2: called Sweat Tomorrow Night with Hayden Henderson Thursday night. It
Speaker 2: comes out nine pm, and I think it's a smash.
Speaker 2: And my daughter's next single, boy Sober, comes out again
Speaker 2: Thursday night. I think it's a smash. I I'm so
Speaker 2: excited about the records I'm working on. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 2: there smashes and the day he wrote it, I was like, damn.
Speaker 3: You mentioned it. Tattoo. It's very visible. This is not
Speaker 3: a video podcast, but it's very visible to me inside
Speaker 3: your right wrist. Yeah, is that your only tattoo?
Speaker 2: It's my only one. When I went through my divorce,
Speaker 2: I thought, I'm going to get I'm with you put
Speaker 2: on my wrist because it's just me. It's just me,
Speaker 2: myself and I there's another song we wrote. And then
Speaker 2: I became a Christian in two thousand and nine and
Speaker 2: I realized, no, you're saying to God I'm with you.
Speaker 2: It's a decision you make, and he says it back
Speaker 2: to you, I'm with you. So it meant so much
Speaker 2: to me, and that when I put the tattoo on me,
Speaker 2: it wasn't just about me. I'm alone and it's just
Speaker 2: me against the world. And then I thought, you know
Speaker 2: how nice I put this on my wrist because I
Speaker 2: really feel as a human being, I want to say
Speaker 2: to artists or just other human beings in general, I'm
Speaker 2: with you. Let me just let me just sit with
Speaker 2: you and we'll try and work it out whatever you're
Speaker 2: going through and put it into a song or just
Speaker 2: have a conversation as humans together. So I felt very
Speaker 2: comfortable putting that on. It's my favorite song I've ever written.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's a huge, great, big tattoo. It's no
Speaker 2: hiding it.
Speaker 3: So you talk about working with your husband and then
Speaker 3: getting a divorce. Was a divorce caused by working together
Speaker 3: all the time or this business? Were those contributing factors?
Speaker 2: I think? So? I mean, I got together with my
Speaker 2: ex husband when I was nineteen, I moved in with him,
Speaker 2: and I was with him until I was forty two.
Speaker 2: It's a good kick of the ball, right, And we
Speaker 2: had a very successful marriage, and we have two amazing children,
Speaker 2: and we created all these other babies with our songs.
Speaker 2: And I think just people grow apart and probably like
Speaker 2: you know, like me rolling over in bed and saying
Speaker 2: to him, what about that bridge? Do you think the
Speaker 2: last line could be better? You know, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: intense about music and both of us. Graham is now
Speaker 2: married to a lovely lady, Sarah, who's not in music,
Speaker 2: and my husband's a business guy and a golfer and
Speaker 2: an actor. Funnily enough, all three things. And it's actually
Speaker 2: refreshing to come home after doing music all day to
Speaker 2: someone who doesn't particularly want to hear all about it.
Speaker 2: And it was really difficult for Graham and I to
Speaker 2: just we lived and breathed it, and sometimes like after
Speaker 2: the session, the bands would come back to our house
Speaker 2: and then we'd party until like two am, talking about
Speaker 2: music and playing songs around the pool. And I just
Speaker 2: think Graham and I grew apart, and we're great friends
Speaker 2: and appreciate everything that happened with us, but we just
Speaker 2: grew apart.
Speaker 3: And how did you meet your new husband?
Speaker 2: I met him on a movie set, one of my
Speaker 2: really good friends inviting me to go down and see
Speaker 2: her filming, and when I was there, I met him
Speaker 2: and we've been together ever since.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go back to the records. You're talking about hits.
Speaker 3: The business has completely changed, certainly from the eighties to
Speaker 3: the first decade of this century. It was we lived
Speaker 3: to a great degree in a monoculture, certainly in the
Speaker 3: days of MTV, where if a song was a hit,
Speaker 3: it was ubiquitous, as on MTV, it was on Top
Speaker 3: forty radio, it might even slip over to other formats.
Speaker 3: Today there's the Spotify Top fifty. Terrestrial radio reaches a
Speaker 3: lot of people, but has never been less powerful. And
Speaker 3: in addition, there are a lot of successful songs that
Speaker 3: are not on the Spotify top fifty. To what degree
Speaker 3: do your clients and yourself focus on those are the
Speaker 3: hits the Spotify top fifty, they do have the greatest
Speaker 3: market share. To what degree are you influenced in trying
Speaker 3: to penetrate that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm always standing with the bat trying to
Speaker 2: hit a home run. And it's different now because I
Speaker 2: feel like if I wrote skate a Boy today, it
Speaker 2: might just be a niche thing that blows up a
Speaker 2: bit on TikTok. But we're talking about to go to top
Speaker 2: forty radio now. You really need to have over one
Speaker 2: hundred million streams before a record label is going to
Speaker 2: put their muscle behind sending it to top forty radio. With
Speaker 2: the independent promotion money they have to spend, right, it's
Speaker 2: expensive and I feel like I just can't think about
Speaker 2: it if I do that, So I'm just going to
Speaker 2: get like miserable because it's so different today. Now, it's
Speaker 2: just so different, and I don't I think also with
Speaker 2: social media, like things become successful because you were a
Speaker 2: girlfriend of somebody who like at another artist who was
Speaker 2: a Disney star wrote about you. And these things help,
Speaker 2: Like the tea as they call it, the gossip that
Speaker 2: spreads around social media can really elevate a song. And
Speaker 2: so it's a bit difficult to just come with a
Speaker 2: good song and a good voice. You know, it's like,
Speaker 2: what have you got going on in your life? Like
Speaker 2: to make it interesting to people? You know?
Speaker 3: Okay, there are hits songs today there are one chord.
Speaker 3: There are hits that have very little melody, hits that
Speaker 3: are to a beat. So these are big hits in
Speaker 3: the Spotify top fifty. When you go into the studio,
Speaker 3: you're starting from scratch. Are you saying I want to
Speaker 3: fit in their quote into that matrix? Or do you
Speaker 3: say I'm a traditional verse chorus person. I just want
Speaker 3: to write the verse, chorus, bridge, et cetera. And if
Speaker 3: you do it well enough, there's always room for it.
Speaker 2: I don't really think there's any rules to songwriting. I've
Speaker 2: written songs that are over one chord and things that
Speaker 2: are almost like a rap, and I just don't think
Speaker 2: there's any rules, and I'm down to adapt, you know,
Speaker 2: I really am. I had the number one hip hop
Speaker 2: song with Me myself and I and I just feel
Speaker 2: like I'm down. Let's evolve, evolve or die. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to just come writing kind of classic
Speaker 2: Elton John songs when I'm trying to fit into an
Speaker 2: artist that's more techno or you know, you just got
Speaker 2: to adapt no rule and that can be great. You know,
Speaker 2: like something that's just so simple, remember liked How simple
Speaker 2: was that? To me? That's just one of the biggest
Speaker 2: smashes of all time.
Speaker 3: Okay, we have the Beatles, we have classic rock. I
Speaker 3: could go through every genre. I'm not going to. But
Speaker 3: my point is, are you really as excited about today's
Speaker 3: music as you were about the music of the past.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am. I think there's an incredible music out there.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of Chapel Roone right now. I
Speaker 2: think she's amazing. I think her songwriting is fantastic. This guy,
Speaker 2: Hayden Henderson, I think he's a great songwriter, great singer,
Speaker 2: can really pull it off live. My daughters some of
Speaker 2: the best singers I've ever heard, and they constantly impressed
Speaker 2: me with their music and their songwriting ability is so amazing.
Speaker 2: It's frustrating because I almost wish if it had been
Speaker 2: back in the averall day, I really could have helped
Speaker 2: them because all you needed was a smash song and
Speaker 2: a label that believed in you, and then they go
Speaker 2: to radio. And today that's just not the case. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got to build it through social media. You had
Speaker 2: the olden days, it was I guess when I was
Speaker 2: an artist, we were sort of infantilized and that you
Speaker 2: just show up at the studio with your music and
Speaker 2: you make the music and then we'll take it from there.
Speaker 2: And the record label did everything. And now the record
Speaker 2: label's like, that's fantastic, good job. Now go blow yourself
Speaker 2: up on social media. So you have to be a
Speaker 2: marketing genius today to be an artist, and you've got
Speaker 2: to work at it every day. And that's what's frustrating
Speaker 2: to me. It's like, whoa, it's not enough to just
Speaker 2: be like imagine if Elton John had had to you know, now,
Speaker 2: turn your phone on yourself and make short form content
Speaker 2: every day and do five stories on TikTok, and that's
Speaker 2: how you're going to break Elton. You know, it's a
Speaker 2: different time, but I think the music's just as good.
Speaker 2: I keep hearing them amazing music now.
Speaker 3: You have a good presence on social media. Are you
Speaker 3: someone who's always been into the internet or does someone say, hey,
Speaker 3: you have to be on social media. What was the
Speaker 3: start of this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm not at all like somebody who knew
Speaker 2: about it or was interested. But what happened was my
Speaker 2: daughters once they got signed to Warners, well actually before
Speaker 2: they got signed to Warners, they had a friend called
Speaker 2: Sam Short, who's a wonderful artist that I work with
Speaker 2: and she has a record coming out on Thursday night too,
Speaker 2: called Supermodel that I didn't do, but she's amazing. And
Speaker 2: Sam was helping my girls to get them used to
Speaker 2: posting every single day. And she was ran at our
Speaker 2: house one day filming them and she says to me, Lauren,
Speaker 2: we'd be interested to hear about you. And I said,
Speaker 2: who is we and she said all of us young
Speaker 2: people in the business. She's like twenty one or something.
Speaker 2: She said, all of us would love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I'm really behind the scenes, and
Speaker 2: she said no seriously, And then she said the kindest
Speaker 2: thing to me and always would be grateful. She said,
Speaker 2: can I do it for you? And I said, what
Speaker 2: do you mean? She said, I will come round once
Speaker 2: a week and film you, and then I'll edit them
Speaker 2: and I will do three posts a week and we'll
Speaker 2: just see how it goes. Oh my god, no one's
Speaker 2: going to be interested. I think maybe two years before
Speaker 2: I tried a couple of times and got like fifty
Speaker 2: views and stuff and retreated fast because I was nervous
Speaker 2: about it. So anyway, we do a calf of things.
Speaker 2: She's just telling me point and she plays like complicated
Speaker 2: above and a little box above my finger. I got like
Speaker 2: four point nine million views, and then I do it
Speaker 2: like another one and get like, you know, three point
Speaker 2: nine million views. I was like, okay. So then she
Speaker 2: started saying to me, Okay, I'm going to give you
Speaker 2: a list of what I think I I'll come round
Speaker 2: to your garden. I'm just going to ask you questions
Speaker 2: that we would want to know young people in the
Speaker 2: music business, and I would just answer them and then
Speaker 2: she'd edit it up for me. And I've been doing
Speaker 2: it ever since. I do three a week, three posts
Speaker 2: a week, and it took off on Instagram, and it
Speaker 2: took off on TikTok, and it took off on YouTube.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of part of my business now, while
Speaker 2: I'm lying in bed three mornings a week, I take
Speaker 2: the little thing. I have a folder with everything that
Speaker 2: we drop in, and it really does come down to
Speaker 2: me too, because it's like, Okay, this week, I'm going
Speaker 2: to sit at the piano and play I'm with You
Speaker 2: and show how I came up with the verse. I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about bridges. I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: who I think is the next five big acts are
Speaker 2: going to break, and so I kind of come up
Speaker 2: with ideas and I'll run them past Sam. I work
Speaker 2: with a lovely girl, Eva now because Sam got a
Speaker 2: big record deal and she said, can Eva do your
Speaker 2: editing now? So Eva hits me up. She just hit
Speaker 2: me up before I got here. What are we doing
Speaker 2: this week? Lauren? If I go from my folder, I
Speaker 2: have fifty pieces of footage, I'll be driving in my
Speaker 2: car and I'll be, oh, let me talk about this,
Speaker 2: and I'll just put the camera on while I'm driving
Speaker 2: and I'll just talk about the music business. I'll send
Speaker 2: two or three things to Eva every week. She edits
Speaker 2: it for me, sends it back, and then I do
Speaker 2: the posting myself. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that's it. It's just
Speaker 2: like another little business. And then I have my email
Speaker 2: at the top and I have a new emails, so
Speaker 2: it's just for business and people constantly hit me up.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's scary the people who hit me up, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it's amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, let's just assume you're lying in bed, you
Speaker 3: get an idea, you film something. You ever say, Oh
Speaker 3: I filmed it. I'm gonna post it right now without
Speaker 3: going to the editor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do so, they do.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Actually even now cut it down to two posts a
Speaker 2: week for me, I do my masterclass Little Flyer. You've
Speaker 2: probably seen it. I post that once a week, and
Speaker 2: then I post me in the studio stories of me
Speaker 2: and the studio stories of me talking. I'll just post
Speaker 2: that stuff myself. Yeah, I would say i'd probably post
Speaker 2: like eight times a week.
Speaker 3: Okay, just so we can get the time frame.
Speaker 2: When did this start last July?
Speaker 3: Okay, so like, are you sixteen months something like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, what works?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Oh, I think just being brutally honest works. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what works is showing me sitting at the piano
Speaker 2: writing the songs. Like people don't really get to see
Speaker 2: songwriters really like saying this is how we did it,
Speaker 2: that really works, giving little secrets and tips about songwriting
Speaker 2: that really works, what works every time. But I don't
Speaker 2: like to do it because I feel like, yeah, everyone
Speaker 2: knows you're at the Avrolovine stuff. Is like if I
Speaker 2: could keep pointing to skater Boy and probably get like
Speaker 2: millions of views because it's like the algorithms strange. It's
Speaker 2: sending out to new people too, so it's like you
Speaker 2: have to sort of you have to get over the
Speaker 2: fact that all your friends and family are looking God
Speaker 2: Lauren's work in social media again, because it's just new
Speaker 2: people that you're reaching, And I'm always like, why am
Speaker 2: I doing this so well? The reason I'm doing it
Speaker 2: is because I want to keep doing music, and songwriters
Speaker 2: have kind of always been pushed to the background. I
Speaker 2: think it's really important in this day and age, particularly
Speaker 2: with them being so undervalued and streaming, to say, hey,
Speaker 2: we're the guys here behind the scenes. That there's no
Speaker 2: recording studios needed, no engineers needed, no mastering engineers needed,
Speaker 2: no producers needed, no record labels, A and R men,
Speaker 2: nothing without a song. So that's what drives me to
Speaker 2: do it, is to keep saying, hey, folks, us songwriters
Speaker 2: are back here like starting your project off, We're the
Speaker 2: we're the beginning of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, would you ever post like your grocery shopping You're
Speaker 3: in Whole Foods or erewhon and the fruit looks amazing.
Speaker 3: Will you ever shoot it and go wow, I'm here,
Speaker 3: it looks amazing or is everything music connected?
Speaker 2: For me? Everything's music connected? Because who wants to see
Speaker 2: my old ass in the supermarket? You know? It's like No,
Speaker 2: for me, it's like I'm there to educate and help
Speaker 2: people and that's it. And I don't think anyone would
Speaker 2: be interested in me lying on the beach drinking a
Speaker 2: glass of champagne. No, no one wants to see that.
Speaker 3: Okay, you talked that you could post Avril Levigne every
Speaker 3: time for obvious reasons. You're not going to do that.
Speaker 3: To what degree are you tracking? Like, Oh, I did this,
Speaker 3: it got amazing number of views. I did this. I
Speaker 3: thought everybody would love it, but almost no one saw it.
Speaker 3: To what degree are you invested by in that?
Speaker 2: I don't even think about it, Bob. I post it
Speaker 2: and maybe at the end of the day I'll look
Speaker 2: and go ehh, damn, this one got like twenty thousand views. Wow.
Speaker 2: And then I take it really seriously to answer everybody
Speaker 2: who writes me. So maybe the next morning I'll spend
Speaker 2: like half an hour just writing back to people. And
Speaker 2: sometimes you get like five hundred views. Why whatever, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, It doesn't matter. I don't have anything that
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: There's Instagram, wheels, there's TikTok. Do you find any platform
Speaker 3: is more productive than another?
Speaker 2: I think equally TikTok, Instagram, YouTube shorts, and Instagram feeds
Speaker 2: right through to Facebook. Facebook's that my least successful one
Speaker 2: because somehow I kind of got off Facebook years ago
Speaker 2: and I feel like they won't let me back in.
Speaker 2: But I do post everything on Instagram and it goes
Speaker 2: through to Facebook. Somehow my algorithm has been hidden. And
Speaker 2: am I going to really care to go and figure
Speaker 2: out why? No, because I'm too busy making music, you know,
Speaker 2: just it's just fun.
Speaker 3: For me, Okay. And what is the optimum length for
Speaker 3: a post?
Speaker 2: Well, definitely less than a minute. Sometimes I'll do a
Speaker 2: long post like where I'll take a whole complicated and
Speaker 2: talk about how I wrote it. Well, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: one thing that did really well, I showed like the
Speaker 2: pictures of me and Arol and the original lyrics of
Speaker 2: I'm with You and skater Boy, and people love that.
Speaker 2: So that could be like a whole minute of me
Speaker 2: talking and really homing in on the page this is
Speaker 2: where we wrote this, see how we crossed this line
Speaker 2: out and people dig that kind of thing. So, but
Speaker 2: sometimes eleven seconds it can be amazing and get a
Speaker 2: lot of views.
Speaker 3: So tell me about this master class.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, when this all took off with my social media,
Speaker 2: my neighbor Angelie Pasad, who's an amazing artist, Canadian, very smart.
Speaker 2: She said, Lauren need to create a business of the
Speaker 2: fact that all these people are interested in you. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do? You know? And she said,
Speaker 2: why didn't you start some master classes and career consultations?
Speaker 2: And so I had to think about that, like why
Speaker 2: would I do this and what is it? And my
Speaker 2: husband was lying next to me and he said, you
Speaker 2: know what, I would pay to know how you write songs.
Speaker 2: You didn't go to Juilliard, you didn't go to Berkeley
Speaker 2: School of Music. You pretty much self taught. So I
Speaker 2: would really pay to just hear how you do it,
Speaker 2: and he says, I hear you sitting at the piano
Speaker 2: hunting and pecking finding the bass notes that you want
Speaker 2: against the vocal melody. Can you put that into words?
Speaker 2: So I said, yeah, I think I can. So I
Speaker 2: started to write it with absolutely no limit of when
Speaker 2: it would be finished. And it took me about three months.
Speaker 2: And I literally just went every process that I do,
Speaker 2: from lying in bed or in the shower to hearing
Speaker 2: the melody? How do I do it? And I just
Speaker 2: analyzed it all and I just sort of free form
Speaker 2: rose all this stuff. Then a very nice lady who's
Speaker 2: a friend of mine called Aviva. I can't give her
Speaker 2: last name, but she's she's actually a speechwriter for the
Speaker 2: president current president, and she's a friend of mine. She
Speaker 2: came to the house and I said, I'm in the
Speaker 2: middle of writing this thing, and she said, can I
Speaker 2: have a look at it? Showed it to her and
Speaker 2: she said, this is fantastic. Let me show you how
Speaker 2: to organize it. And she says, when I'm writing a speech,
Speaker 2: this is how we do it, because first of all,
Speaker 2: do this, what is your overview? What are your tools? Right,
Speaker 2: Let's let's break it down, you know, to how you
Speaker 2: actually do it, how do you put the melody to
Speaker 2: the lyrics? What comes first? And she just kind of
Speaker 2: gave me all these bullet points and it really helped
Speaker 2: me organize the masterclass into something that I thought was
Speaker 2: very cool. So I decided that I would do it
Speaker 2: on Zoom and it's not that expensive, And to be honest,
Speaker 2: like I, I do like specials fifty percent off for
Speaker 2: like three months, so if everyone wants to sign up,
Speaker 2: they can sign up up in those first three months.
Speaker 2: I'm only doing it bi annually. So next one's October fifth,
Speaker 2: twelve noon on Zoom, and it's an hour of me
Speaker 2: doing a breakdown crash course on how I write songs,
Speaker 2: and then half an hour industry crash course just my
Speaker 2: opinion on everything about the music business. Again, you've got
Speaker 2: to be the producer or the artist. Today. All the
Speaker 2: advice I would give to my own daughters I poured
Speaker 2: into this. And then I do a fifteen minute guest speaker,
Speaker 2: and then I do a fifteen minute question answer and
Speaker 2: one member I pick their name out of a hat
Speaker 2: and I send them a home studio setup with a
Speaker 2: video that we've made of how to assemble the studio
Speaker 2: and how to record your demos so you can start
Speaker 2: to be a producer. And it's really very simple. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you've got a laptop, it's pretty simple. And I
Speaker 2: just wanted people to understand that for one hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: you can get a little studio set up. You know
Speaker 2: it's and you can start doing it yourself, because you're
Speaker 2: going to write fifty songs to get one good one
Speaker 2: when you first start out, so you don't want to
Speaker 2: be going into a local recording studio and paying big
Speaker 2: fees when you just need to really be learning. And
Speaker 2: so that's that's how it started, and I love it. Now.
Speaker 2: I have kids from Teen Cancer America that I work with.
Speaker 2: I have four spots every class given to students from there,
Speaker 2: and two from SONA and two from the NMPA, so
Speaker 2: I always have eight people in the class who kind
Speaker 2: of have scholarship spots. And then other people just from
Speaker 2: my socials hit up that email and I have a
Speaker 2: lovely assistant called Kelly, and she reaches out to everybody.
Speaker 2: They all sign a waiver and that's it. And then
Speaker 2: I have a lot of people calling me to do
Speaker 2: private career consultations and that really came from the fact
Speaker 2: again of like how can I help people. I feel
Speaker 2: like I could give people short cuts in this industry
Speaker 2: so they don't come into peril in it any way.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really important to keep people knowing
Speaker 2: the truth. And even if the truth is you have
Speaker 2: to get a day job if you want to do this,
Speaker 2: because what is it, three percent of people in entertainment
Speaker 2: make money from it. So fund your love of music
Speaker 2: by having a regular day gig. Why not? You know
Speaker 2: I did for a long time.
Speaker 3: So how many people might sign into one of.
Speaker 2: These zooms At the moment twenty five, we're about there
Speaker 2: and it's twenty five thirty. I'm hoping it builds over time.
Speaker 2: But again I'm doing it for the love of it
Speaker 2: and to sort of give back to people. And if
Speaker 2: it was three people, I would do it.
Speaker 3: You know, if eight people are scholarship to get the
Speaker 3: other seventeen. You're on social media? How often do you
Speaker 3: have to tell people about it? How often do you
Speaker 3: have to sell it?
Speaker 2: I tell people every week. That's one of my things
Speaker 2: that I drop every week is sign up for my masterclass. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then like on October eleventh, I'm doing a whole
Speaker 2: school in Exeter. It's coming and I just made a
Speaker 2: deal with them and I'm doing it on Zoom and
Speaker 2: it's going to be a class of fifty people and
Speaker 2: they only want the one hour crash course in songwriting,
Speaker 2: so it's going to be so easy.
Speaker 3: And wait, well let me make you said, Exeter.
Speaker 2: Exeter in England.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they track you down out of the bluey.
Speaker 2: They tracked me down from my social media and said
Speaker 2: would you do your songwriting masterclass to the whole school?
Speaker 2: And I was like why not? Why not?
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're already very busy these one on one consultations.
Speaker 3: Do you have enough time for that?
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. It's quite expensive to do, and
Speaker 2: I'm already doing that for free for people I just
Speaker 2: meet and love and want to help. So I'm pretty choosy.
Speaker 2: I have to again feel like this person's really got
Speaker 2: something going and they've really got a great voice before
Speaker 2: I'll take it on, you know. So I read through
Speaker 2: it and I'll i'll go at people. I don't really
Speaker 2: like to listen to submissions because that could open me
Speaker 2: to a problem. So I like to say, have you
Speaker 2: released anything, and then I'll go and listen to what
Speaker 2: they had released, and if I think they're really good
Speaker 2: and I don't want to just like take people's money,
Speaker 2: it's got to be something that I really feel I
Speaker 2: can help them with and make a map. Had one
Speaker 2: nice lady who went to Berkeley. She came she'd written
Speaker 2: the musical and I'd been involved in working on the musical.
Speaker 2: I'm still doing it right now. I can't really talk
Speaker 2: about it, but it's I kind of knew so much
Speaker 2: information about it of how to do it that she
Speaker 2: came away going, Wow, this is amazing. You've given me
Speaker 2: the next ten steps of what I need to do,
Speaker 2: and I felt so good. I was like, Wow, that's
Speaker 2: what I needed when I was younger, to just have
Speaker 2: someone lay out the map for me. So nothing feels
Speaker 2: better than that. Okay, that's why I do it.
Speaker 3: If I don't call Lauren Christy, who do I.
Speaker 2: Call Linda Perry. There's only two of us who've been
Speaker 2: nominated for Producer of the Year for Grammy, who didn't
Speaker 2: produce other people. I think Linda's a badass. There's other
Speaker 2: people because there's so many people. I'm just one of
Speaker 2: many in this town.
Speaker 3: You know, Okay, you've had a lot of success. What
Speaker 3: do you do with the money? Do you manage it?
Speaker 3: You know, musicians frequently feel they're going to run out
Speaker 3: of money? How do you deal with it?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I mean so I used to live a
Speaker 2: pretty extravagant lifestyle when the matrix blew up, and you know,
Speaker 2: that's what happens, like bigger cars, bigger houses, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And then when I went through my divorce, I just
Speaker 2: went through this period. Honestly. I became a Christian in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, and you know what happens when
Speaker 2: you become a Christians become incredibly happy and content. I
Speaker 2: was always a little bit itchy and like nervous about things,
Speaker 2: and that all went away. And so the first thing
Speaker 2: I did was I don't want ever ever ever worry
Speaker 2: about money. And I said that to my husband. I
Speaker 2: don't want to ever lose anything. I don't want to
Speaker 2: ever lie in bed at night feeling like I'm biting
Speaker 2: my fingernails saying I need to have another hit. What
Speaker 2: do I do to accomplish that? And he said downsize?
Speaker 2: So I downsized everything. I literally live a pretty small life.
Speaker 2: I don't want to boat. I don't really like to travel.
Speaker 2: I will if it's like to see my family, important
Speaker 2: things for my family, or there's a large check at
Speaker 2: the end when I get there. I live in the
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. I'm one of the rare people who thinks
Speaker 2: this is paradise. And I felt it when I got
Speaker 2: off the plane when I was twenty three. I was like,
Speaker 2: this is it. I love it. And so I don't
Speaker 2: live a big lifestyle and I can't really see the
Speaker 2: need for me to say, sell my catalog. I did
Speaker 2: sell half my catalog back in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: and it comes back to me. Fortunately I kept the
Speaker 2: bi RISI's side and then I built a new catalog
Speaker 2: with Donna at Reservoir and it was it facilitated some stuff.
Speaker 2: But I kind of feel, what am I going to
Speaker 2: do buy a big mansion. It's just me and my husband.
Speaker 2: My kids have left home now, just me and the
Speaker 2: cats and Lawrence. So I don't worry about money. And
Speaker 2: it's nice. I'm gain making more money and I'll leave
Speaker 2: it to my kids. But I can't really think of
Speaker 2: anything that I would want to do. I don't want
Speaker 2: to build a massive recording studio because, as I said,
Speaker 2: like I pop into my co producers studios, and they
Speaker 2: have all built their studios. I don't need to do that.
Speaker 2: I don't have ambitions on things like I I really
Speaker 2: want a house in the south of France or in
Speaker 2: Santa Barbara less as I get order less.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you regret selling in two thousand and seven?
Speaker 2: I can't say that. The only thing is I have
Speaker 2: a lot more understanding of why it's not so good
Speaker 2: to sell. And I actually loved your piece you did
Speaker 2: about it, calling everyone's suckers for selling it, because I
Speaker 2: thought it was so brilliant. You're going to end up
Speaker 2: potentially on a preparation h commercial with complicated or something,
Speaker 2: and you'd have no say in it. And so I
Speaker 2: understand that. And mainly because my husband was a banker,
Speaker 2: He's like, well, if they're offering you twenty multiple of
Speaker 2: twenty in the front door, that's forty out the back door,
Speaker 2: and just know that and why we And so that's
Speaker 2: twenty years of money that you're going to receive or
Speaker 2: what happens in year twenty five or year thirty or
Speaker 2: year forty five? You know, wouldn't you rather just hang
Speaker 2: onto your hits And if they're they're drizzling in a
Speaker 2: ten grand you know a year, well in year forty,
Speaker 2: that's not bad. Like if I sell it, and again,
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do with the money. And
Speaker 2: I know people say money's worth more now than it
Speaker 2: will be in the future. I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: It's an everyone's looking for passive income, you know, money
Speaker 2: you're making while you're sleeping. And that's what I have.
Speaker 2: And it's a nice piece of mind. It's a nice
Speaker 2: clean transaction. It doesn't gather moth and rust.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I had a house at the beach. I never stopped
Speaker 2: having to like redo the stuff that was rotting from
Speaker 2: the seawater, the pipes and everything. It's all these problems.
Speaker 2: So I just I feel like, keep hold of it.
Speaker 2: Why do you need to sell it? You know, and
Speaker 2: then what you put the money into could be risky,
Speaker 2: you know, earthquakes, fires, I don't. At one point I
Speaker 2: had four homes, one at the beach, one in Handcock Park,
Speaker 2: one in Studio City actually in two in Tarzana. I
Speaker 2: didn't sleep well at night. It was like it got
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger and bigger, and I just don't feel
Speaker 2: like I don't want that I just want a nice
Speaker 2: small life and to have good health and peace of
Speaker 2: mind and get to do my music.
Speaker 3: So at this point in time, how many houses? How
Speaker 3: many cars?
Speaker 2: One house and three lease cars from the company for
Speaker 2: my for my kids, because I'm because we're smart about
Speaker 2: business and I need, you know, live the life or
Speaker 2: pay the taxes. And another car that we own, which
Speaker 2: is my husband's, and that's it.
Speaker 3: So where did you grow up?
Speaker 2: I grew up in Shirley Croydon. Surrey. Croydon's like famous
Speaker 2: because Kate Moss comes from there and David Bowie grew
Speaker 2: up around the corner in Beckenham. So it's South London.
Speaker 2: Took us about thirty minutes to drive up to Big Ben,
Speaker 2: so I felt like very close to the city, but
Speaker 2: it was very nice countryside vibes you calabasas vibes, I'd say.
Speaker 3: And what did your parents do for a living?
Speaker 2: So my father was the youngest comedian in England. He
Speaker 2: started professionally working at sixteen and had like a wonderful career.
Speaker 2: He opened for Shirley Bassie at the Palladium and he
Speaker 2: was doing very well right before TV really took off,
Speaker 2: like the Frost report became a big thing on TV,
Speaker 2: and his first marriage didn't work out. He had two children,
Speaker 2: my brother and sister, Stephen and Sharon, and when he
Speaker 2: met my mom, my mom was like, oh, hell no,
Speaker 2: you're not like traveling around the UK doing this anymore
Speaker 2: with all those hot show girls. And so my father
Speaker 2: quit and my mother was a stay at home mom
Speaker 2: and did it brilliantly and never stopped talking to my
Speaker 2: brother Brandon and I about his years on the stage
Speaker 2: and performing and he was the biggest supporter for me
Speaker 2: of my music when I showed an inkling, you know,
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a ballet dancer very seriously, and
Speaker 2: I auditioned for the Royal Ballet School and I didn't
Speaker 2: get in. I was devastated. But a girl at the
Speaker 2: audition said you should audition for this other school, Bush Davies,
Speaker 2: and it's the optional school to the Royal Ballet and
Speaker 2: they do instead of just doing ballet, they do jazz
Speaker 2: and tap, singing, acting everything. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll try auditioning, thinking I'm not going to get in there,
Speaker 2: and I got in and on my first day of
Speaker 2: having to go to boarding school when I was eleven,
Speaker 2: I met Michelle Hatch and her dad was Tony Hatch,
Speaker 2: who wrote Downtown for Patula Clark. And that's the moment
Speaker 2: that changed my life because I was like, what songwriting?
Speaker 2: What's that? That's a job? She said, yeah, my dad's
Speaker 2: really successful. And in every ballet studio there was a
Speaker 2: piano and so I before I knew, I wasn't interested
Speaker 2: in ballet at all. I just wanted to sit and
Speaker 2: write songs. And that's how it started for me. And
Speaker 2: my dad was like, Okay, let's buy you an amp
Speaker 2: and a mic He was just so supportive because he
Speaker 2: had it in his blood to be an entertainer, you know.
Speaker 2: And my brothers ended up doing music too, and he
Speaker 2: is a great singer, the music for TV shows, and
Speaker 2: it's just it really came passed down through our dad
Speaker 2: of just kind of his frustration to not be able
Speaker 2: to perform anymore because he stayed at home. Was a
Speaker 2: really hard working father. He became a manufacturer's sales agent
Speaker 2: of furniture and did very well at it, and his
Speaker 2: gift of the gap just he would travel all around
Speaker 2: London at all the stores, and every shop owner loved
Speaker 2: my dad's showing up and he'd just come back and
Speaker 2: saved like fifteen orders today. You know, he was a businessman,
Speaker 2: but still he said to me, don't do this because
Speaker 2: you want to do it, do it because you have
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 3: So you went to boarding school at eleven? How long
Speaker 3: did you stay there?
Speaker 2: Till I was sixteen? And when I was fifteen, I
Speaker 2: became a day girl, so I would travel it there
Speaker 2: every day. So yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, why did
Speaker 2: you be coming?
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 2: A day girl? That's what they called it. So instead
Speaker 2: of going, instead of sleeping at the school, you got
Speaker 2: to get a day girl, they called it. So you
Speaker 2: would just show up like I get a day girl.
Speaker 3: Okay, if I was thinking of a job, I mean,
Speaker 3: you didn't board anymore. So yeah, what was it like
Speaker 3: going to boarding school to eleven?
Speaker 2: I mean I always tell the story about how my
Speaker 2: first night there, I was the only kid not crying.
Speaker 2: We had a room of twenty girls in the beds
Speaker 2: all around this big dormitory room, and a nanny who
Speaker 2: had this little room at the end, and she kissed
Speaker 2: everyone good night. Right before I went to boarding school,
Speaker 2: we had a burglary in my house where a man
Speaker 2: broke into our house, and it was terrifying and my
Speaker 2: dad had to chase him down the street. So literally,
Speaker 2: I was going to boarding school the next week. And
Speaker 2: that safety and numbers thing really worked for me. I
Speaker 2: was like, I feel safe here with all these kids.
Speaker 2: All these girls were crying they missed their parents, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm so fucking glad I'm not so
Speaker 2: it was terrifying this guy breaking into our house.
Speaker 3: Okay, I went to college and forty five percent of
Speaker 3: the people went to prep school, boarding school, and they
Speaker 3: had a radically different upbringing in that you know, it's
Speaker 3: almost like one of these movies where they grow up
Speaker 3: real fast, they understand the system they're acting out.
Speaker 2: What was your experience, Well, I feel like it's kind
Speaker 2: of like being raised by wolves going to boarding school,
Speaker 2: because they give you prefects, who are girls who are
Speaker 2: like fifteen who are in charge, or sixteen, you know,
Speaker 2: the older girls. And it was it was crazy, like
Speaker 2: it was a crazy time. It was like being in
Speaker 2: It was like a mini Los Angeles for me, Like
Speaker 2: last night, we had the entertainment capital of the world.
Speaker 2: We had our own theater, we had constant musicals being done,
Speaker 2: and it was it was incredible. I could just pop
Speaker 2: off with a like a boombox to a studio on
Speaker 2: my own. And I was really into choreography as well,
Speaker 2: which is very close to songwriting, and it was incredible.
Speaker 2: And we also could be really naughty because they just
Speaker 2: couldn't watch us. I was often having a cigarette and
Speaker 2: a Gin and tonic before ballet class, you know, at fourteen.
Speaker 2: So I grew up very young and we had boys
Speaker 2: like sneaking up to meet us in the woods or
Speaker 2: in the car park at night. Your parents had no
Speaker 2: idea what you were doing. It was. It was kind
Speaker 2: of a wild time and I loved every minute of it.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't regrets it. It's like when I talked to
Speaker 2: people who went to Bush Davies, We're all like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. It was something that no one would ever understand,
Speaker 2: kind of like Centrinians. I don't know if you know
Speaker 2: the cent Trinian's books of like the Wild All Girls
Speaker 2: school that's a boarding school. It was very similar. I
Speaker 2: would say it was definitely Hogwarts Vibes in the countryside
Speaker 2: in England, a big old house. It was. It was
Speaker 2: amazing and I think it set me up for the
Speaker 2: work ethic of being in this business that I'm in.
Speaker 3: Now, Okay, you're sixteen, you stop going to that school.
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 2: Then I did some photographs because I still thought I'm
Speaker 2: going to be a dancer. And this is where my
Speaker 2: brother Stephen, from my dad's first marriage, we're really close.
Speaker 2: And he had a best friend called George McFarlane and
Speaker 2: he was signed in a band called The Quick, and
Speaker 2: he had his fabulous recording studio, and when I was fourteen,
Speaker 2: he agreed to do some of my demos and that
Speaker 2: was so amazing for me because the school heard the
Speaker 2: demos and then they wanted to use all my songs
Speaker 2: in the school shows. So I'd already like had this
Speaker 2: kind of this is what I'm going to do with
Speaker 2: my life. And I had other people saying, are you crazy.
Speaker 2: You're such a good dancer, you need to be a dancer,
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, I'm going to do music.
Speaker 2: So I went to this photographer to get my shots
Speaker 2: done to be a dancer, and he said to me,
Speaker 2: you know a friend of mine starting a band and
Speaker 2: Bruce Forsythe's daughter's going to be in the band. And
Speaker 2: Bruce Forsythe at the time was one of the biggest
Speaker 2: comedians in England. He had this show called The Generation
Speaker 2: Game and it was one of my favorites. So it
Speaker 2: was just such a big deal to be invited to
Speaker 2: go to an audition or this band that this girl
Speaker 2: was going to be in, who was pretty famous. I
Speaker 2: went to do the audition, sat down at Wigmore Hall
Speaker 2: in London and I played a song I'd written at
Speaker 2: the piano and they immediately said, you're in the band.
Speaker 2: And so for the next two years sixteen seventeen eighteen,
Speaker 2: I you know, to get a record deal with this band,
Speaker 2: and we didn't get a record deal, and it was
Speaker 2: kind of disappointing. I was like, oh, how am I
Speaker 2: going to get into this business? But one of the
Speaker 2: producers I'd worked with with that band, he offered to
Speaker 2: do some demos with me, and at that point he
Speaker 2: introduced me to a bass player who came to one
Speaker 2: of the sessions, and that's my ex husband, Graham, and
Speaker 2: Graham said, you're so talented and can I take you
Speaker 2: for dinner? And we got close and got together and
Speaker 2: around about that time this is an incredible story, but
Speaker 2: Tony Hatch, my friend's father, offered me a publishing deal
Speaker 2: because he'd been listening to the demos I've been doing
Speaker 2: because I was still friends with Michelle, and I think
Speaker 2: it was like for seven thousand pounds. I was like
Speaker 2: seven thousand pounds, Oh my god. And what happened was
Speaker 2: Graham said, do you mind if I'd just played to
Speaker 2: my friend Alan Jacobs em and I was like, they're
Speaker 2: not going to be interested. I went in and I
Speaker 2: had a meeting with Alan Jacobs and it was the
Speaker 2: worst meeting of my life. It was just cold, nothing.
Speaker 2: I came out saying I'm going to sign to Tony
Speaker 2: Hatch and the next day I get a call from Alan,
Speaker 2: the nicest phone call ever. I think he was trying
Speaker 2: to like just be tough with me in the meeting
Speaker 2: to see if I had what it takes, and he said,
Speaker 2: I think you're it. I want to sign you. So
Speaker 2: I ended up signing to EMI when I was nineteen,
Speaker 2: and that was the beginning.
Speaker 3: Let's go back a chapter. You met this girl when
Speaker 3: you were eleven whose father wrote Downtown. At what point
Speaker 3: did you literally start writing songs and what did that
Speaker 3: look like?
Speaker 2: Right then? I said, will show me how to do it.
Speaker 2: So we sat at the piano together in the music
Speaker 2: room and we wrote a song called I'm Sick of
Speaker 2: Your Trick. That was our first one that we did.
Speaker 2: And then Michelle was not interested in writing songs. She
Speaker 2: went on to become an actress and she's fabulous. But
Speaker 2: was it just clicked with me? And then the fact
Speaker 2: that my brother Stephen had this friend and who had
Speaker 2: a record deal, and that will became very glamorous to
Speaker 2: me of getting a record deal. That was the path
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: Did you already know how to play the piano?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, My mom and had given me piano lessons
Speaker 2: from a piano teacher when I was like five, so
Speaker 2: I could read music a bit. But again, I never
Speaker 2: I've never ever gone, let me really study this. My
Speaker 2: brother became a brilliant pianist, but for me, it was
Speaker 2: the songwriting and I'm just like, let me figure out
Speaker 2: these chords rather than I have to. You know, I
Speaker 2: can't even be bothered to this day when I write songs,
Speaker 2: I'm just like chill. Before before I'd like to play
Speaker 2: bass notes to find that special melody and then I
Speaker 2: can fill them in too if I want to. But
Speaker 2: I'm not really that interested. I never got better. I
Speaker 2: wish I had that soul too late.
Speaker 3: Now, when you're sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen and you're in
Speaker 3: this band looking for a record deal, where are you
Speaker 3: living and what are you living on?
Speaker 2: And when I'm sixteen, I was still living at home
Speaker 2: with my mom and dad, and we had like a
Speaker 2: garage with carpet in it, and we had mirrors set up,
Speaker 2: and we were the girls and I. We were in
Speaker 2: the three of us krashishi haha, and we were doing
Speaker 2: all these dance moves and stuff. And I just after
Speaker 2: about a couple of years, I'm like, this isn't working.
Speaker 2: And then one of the producers who'd worked with us said,
Speaker 2: I'll do your demos and then as I said, I
Speaker 2: met Graham, he played them to EMI had I had
Speaker 2: some really good songs. I had a song called my
Speaker 2: jeans I Want Them Back about one of my ex
Speaker 2: boyfriends who when we broke up, he said I want
Speaker 2: my fucking jeans back. That was his last words to me.
Speaker 2: And I was like, ooh, wow, my jeans, I want
Speaker 2: them back, you know I was. That was one of
Speaker 2: the first songs I got signed on to EMI. And
Speaker 2: then EMI introduced me to my first manager and my
Speaker 2: first manager. His name was Andrew Tribe, God Rest his soul,
Speaker 2: and he said to me, we need to go to America.
Speaker 2: This is I don't know if you're going to get
Speaker 2: signed here. There was an A and R man heard
Speaker 2: my stuff and basically said, I just don't really think
Speaker 2: it's good enough. And then what happened was my manager
Speaker 2: went over to America and he met this fabulous man
Speaker 2: called John Carter. And that's John Carter who was behind
Speaker 2: Tina Turner's success with Private Dancer, her big comeback. He's
Speaker 2: the guy in the documentary and Tina Turner who got
Speaker 2: on his knees and said to the A and R man,
Speaker 2: you can't drop her. So John Carter signed me without
Speaker 2: ever meeting me. He just talked to me on the
Speaker 2: phone and there was no FaceTime back then. He loved
Speaker 2: my geenes and want them back, and a couple of
Speaker 2: other songs I had, And at that point, I'm still
Speaker 2: doing my demos on an eight track and I moved
Speaker 2: in with Graham and John Carter said that's it. So
Speaker 2: he signed me and gave me some money and I
Speaker 2: paid off my debts with the money, and then they
Speaker 2: gave me some money to make a record, and so
Speaker 2: we're in the studio making the record and then we
Speaker 2: get a call that they fired everybody at Atlantic and
Speaker 2: John was gone. He's like, I'm so sorry, Lauren. And
Speaker 2: now I look back on it, I'm like, this was
Speaker 2: kind of a crazy story. But my manager convinced me
Speaker 2: to go to my bank and get alone for like
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand pounds to finish the album. Bad idea.
Speaker 2: I did it and made the rest of the record
Speaker 2: and then like, my man's like, it's amazing, let's send
Speaker 2: it to Atlantic Crickets. No one responded. So I'm stuck
Speaker 2: with all this debt at twenty one years old, twenty
Speaker 2: two years old maybe, And I remember at night just
Speaker 2: thinking I'm fucked. That's what I thought. I've completely blown it.
Speaker 2: I'm screwed. And what happened was John Carter did not
Speaker 2: let me down. He said, I'm going to my friend
Speaker 2: Tom Vickers. I don't know if you know Tom Vickers.
Speaker 2: He is an amazing, amazing A and R man, and
Speaker 2: he's responsible for me being in America. And he took
Speaker 2: it to Ed Eckstein, who was the head of Mercury Records,
Speaker 2: and Tom and Ed worked very closely together. And they
Speaker 2: flew me to New York and I'm like, tainted goods.
Speaker 2: I'm signed to Atlantic, right this is? And I sat
Speaker 2: and played for Ed in his office and he said,
Speaker 2: let's make a deal, and so they literally bought me
Speaker 2: off Atlantic. Doug Morris was very nice. I had to
Speaker 2: write to him because no one would reply to me
Speaker 2: all the messages. My management said that no one would reply,
Speaker 2: and Doug Morris FedEx me a release and the advance
Speaker 2: from Mercury Records paid off the one hundred thousand pound
Speaker 2: debt and all my lawyer's fees, and I showed up
Speaker 2: in LA in ninety one at twenty three. It took
Speaker 2: me that long, Bob, from nineteen to twenty three. I
Speaker 2: know it's probably not a long time, but it felt
Speaker 2: like forever. And I taught tap dancing to supplement myself
Speaker 2: in that time. And so I show up with one
Speaker 2: hundred bucks in my pocket and they told me you're
Speaker 2: going to get a PIDM of fifteen hundred bucks a month.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what, this is amazing. And they
Speaker 2: put me up at the Oakward Apartments on Woodman Avenue,
Speaker 2: and that was the beginning. I kind of felt like
Speaker 2: I'd just been so much struggle, and I almost like quit,
Speaker 2: you know, because I didn't think it was what am
Speaker 2: I doing? Chasing this dream? And so I showed up
Speaker 2: in La and that was the beginning of good things.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go back. Why did the bank lend you
Speaker 3: the money? Did your parents have to guarantee it or something?
Speaker 2: No, they didn't. I don't know how they gave me
Speaker 2: the money. I don't. My dad knew the bank manager
Speaker 2: quite well, and I don't know how might my dad.
Speaker 2: It's not with us anymore. I would love to ask him,
Speaker 2: what were you thinking? Dad? But he didn't guarante all
Speaker 2: the money. They could have lost it easily, but I
Speaker 2: paid back every penny. It was just a stupid move because,
Speaker 2: you know, my manager just believed in me so much.
Speaker 2: He thought Atlantic, the new people at Atlantic would be
Speaker 2: won over by my amazing record that I've made. It
Speaker 2: was a very bad move. Don't don't finance your own stuff,
Speaker 2: do it for free.
Speaker 3: Okay, the label puts you up in Oakwood on Woodmanten.
Speaker 3: Where's Graham?
Speaker 2: So Graham he came out with me and he became
Speaker 2: part of my band, and he was in a band
Speaker 2: called Breathe as well, who were doing quite well in America.
Speaker 2: They had that song Hands to Heaven, and so when
Speaker 2: he came out, he kind of had stuff to do
Speaker 2: and he was quite busy, and but he joined my
Speaker 2: band and we got like work visas through the record
Speaker 2: label and it was great. It was I started making
Speaker 2: my album with Tony Paluso from the Carpenters. Well, it
Speaker 2: was so weird. The first thing they did was they
Speaker 2: put me with about five different producers. One was called
Speaker 2: Michael James Jackson who produced Kiss. There was Pieter Vanetta
Speaker 2: and his partner who were very nice, Tony Paluso. They
Speaker 2: all did one song for me, no different to what
Speaker 2: I do today, taking that shot like chopped. And Tony
Speaker 2: came through and he was one of the funniest people
Speaker 2: I've ever met. I love him dearly to this day.
Speaker 2: And we made a great record together. It was a
Speaker 2: beautiful experience, and that record I got a Best New
Speaker 2: Artist nomination at the American Music Awards in I believe
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, and I had a song called the
Speaker 2: Color of Night, which got a Golden Globe nomination for
Speaker 2: that Bruce Willis movie, that thriller I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember it. The color of the night, but still close,
Speaker 2: but no cigar. I knew that this is a money
Speaker 2: business and my record had sold one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand copies and that wasn't going to cut it. And
Speaker 2: then I had left the company and Tom and they
Speaker 2: bought in Danny Goldberg and I'm at a brand new
Speaker 2: company again, and at this point my manager and I
Speaker 2: had kind of just grown apart. It did it did
Speaker 2: not work, and I went to my friends at Hits Magazine.
Speaker 2: I knew a girl who works at Hits Magazine, and
Speaker 2: she said, you should go and talk to Lenny, and
Speaker 2: so I went and took Lenny beer for lunch at
Speaker 2: the IVY. I remember him being very amused that I
Speaker 2: pulled that cash from my purse to pay I wanted
Speaker 2: to pay for him. And I asked his advice and
Speaker 2: what she should do. And I said, I'm stuck on
Speaker 2: this label. Now Ed's gone, Tom's gone, what am I
Speaker 2: going to do? And he said, let me go and
Speaker 2: talk to day Annie Goldberg. And they listened to my
Speaker 2: music first and they were like, this is really good.
Speaker 2: And they made me come over to his house and
Speaker 2: sit at the piano and play and they you're really good,
Speaker 2: like back to the beginning. And they came back and
Speaker 2: Danny Goldberg gave me some money and then I made
Speaker 2: my next record, which was called Breed because at that
Speaker 2: point I really started to think, how am I going
Speaker 2: to have kids? Like I'm twenty seven or something like that,
Speaker 2: and how am I going to do this? Like I
Speaker 2: will the clock sticking? So I made that album with
Speaker 2: my friend Gary Clark, and Tony did some of it too,
Speaker 2: I do believe, and had the song in the Batman movie.
Speaker 2: And then I remember Lennie calling me one day and
Speaker 2: said record label doesn't want to do another single. It's
Speaker 2: not reacting, it's over. Oh dagger to the heart. I
Speaker 2: remember crying all the way home and then just like
Speaker 2: am I going to do?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 2: Was bad? I'm in La. I'm like, why am I
Speaker 2: in La? Why am I living here when you know
Speaker 2: all my family's in England? What am I going to do?
Speaker 2: And at that point a friend of mine, Gavin McKillop,
Speaker 2: who produced Tone in the Wet Sprocket, he said to me,
Speaker 2: let me do some demos view and he came around
Speaker 2: and set up a studio in my house. Very nice
Speaker 2: of him, and we did four songs. He said, let
Speaker 2: me play it to my manager. Played it to his manager,
Speaker 2: Sandy Robertson. Sandy said, I think I can get you
Speaker 2: a deal. I'm like, okay, fantastic, because I think you
Speaker 2: need to go to England and meet this a ANDR guy.
Speaker 2: He's interested. So I flew all the way to England
Speaker 2: to sit down the restaurant and the guy said to me,
Speaker 2: I don't know that I see you as an artist.
Speaker 2: Could I have this song called Sugar Snow that I'd
Speaker 2: written with Gary Clark? He said, could I have that
Speaker 2: song for Natalie? I'm Brulia And I was just like, ooh,
Speaker 2: this is over. It's over. Maybe I was twenty nine. Anyway,
Speaker 2: it was nineteen ninety eight. Yeah, so I was. I
Speaker 2: was thirty, and I was like trying to pretend like
Speaker 2: I was twenty six, and you know, it's an age's
Speaker 2: business back then at least it was so where am
Speaker 2: I in the story, Bob, I just lost it.
Speaker 3: Well, the guy says, can I have this song? You're
Speaker 3: thinking about having kids?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Thirty?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I get on the plane to come back,
Speaker 2: and on the plane, I'm just like don't cry, don't
Speaker 2: you cry? Like this be tough. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I kept seeing when I was in London at these meetings,
Speaker 2: this girl Britney spears all over the TV and I'm like,
Speaker 2: who's behind this? And my man and this guy Sandy
Speaker 2: Robertson kept talking about Max Martin, Max Martin. So I
Speaker 2: did some research and Max Martin had this company called Shaeron,
Speaker 2: And so I'm on the plane saying don't cry, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, it just came to me. I'm going behind
Speaker 2: the scenes and I'm going to be Max Martin and
Speaker 2: I'm going to have share On and I'm going to
Speaker 2: start it with Graham because Graham was signed to RCA.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, we're going to be Shareon, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to ask Graham to ask the other guy in
Speaker 2: the band, Scott, who does all the production, who's like
Speaker 2: a genius with all the gear, if the three of
Speaker 2: us can form a company. So we came back, we
Speaker 2: sat and had a meeting, the three of us, and went,
Speaker 2: let's do it. I called my fancy management who managed
Speaker 2: Fleet with Mac that Lennie had hooked me up with,
Speaker 2: and Lenny was kind of co managing me He's always
Speaker 2: been like my godfather in the business and I love him.
Speaker 2: And he said, I said, Lenny, I'm going behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do this artist thing anymore. I
Speaker 2: just want to write and produce. And He's like, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: And I said, I'm saying goodbye to you as a manager.
Speaker 2: Is that okay? Because I need to go be managed
Speaker 2: by this guy, Sandy Robertson, And he said that's fine
Speaker 2: with me. Lauren, I love you. And I called Tony
Speaker 2: Demitriardist and I remember his partner said, Lauren, what makes
Speaker 2: you think you can just go behind the scenes and
Speaker 2: be as songwriter? And I said, I don't know, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to do it. And that was the beginning
Speaker 2: of the Matrix. And we came up with a name
Speaker 2: because we'd looked like what could be a cool name
Speaker 2: before the movie had come out, and we thought the
Speaker 2: matrix means the womb if you look up in the
Speaker 2: Oxford English Dictionary, and we're like, ooh, we'll be like
Speaker 2: this womb where artists. I don't think they'd been really
Speaker 2: apart from Sharon and Max Martin like a team. The
Speaker 2: Neptunes came up at the same time as us, Well,
Speaker 2: we can I just can just come and hang out,
Speaker 2: like sit on the floor and eat pizza with us,
Speaker 2: and we'll just like let them incubate with us, and
Speaker 2: we'll kind of find a direction for them. And that's
Speaker 2: how the Matrix started and we didn't look back.
Speaker 3: Okay, we live in a world where there are almost
Speaker 3: no bands anymore. Everybody's a solo artist. Everybody's sophisticated about finances.
Speaker 3: You got three people doing the job that one person does,
Speaker 3: you got to split it three ways. Anybody thinking about that, Well, not.
Speaker 2: Really, because as I said, we all made up for
Speaker 2: each other's weaknesses, you know, and it just worked out
Speaker 2: and we made a lot of money. And also it's
Speaker 2: like we had a studio at my house then our
Speaker 2: main studio, so we could be running two sessions at
Speaker 2: the same time, and then invariably Graham would be at
Speaker 2: a different studio like routining a band and getting them
Speaker 2: ready to record. So, you know, when there's only one person,
Speaker 2: you can only only be one place at one time.
Speaker 2: So we had music going on all the time, every day,
Speaker 2: and we worked ten to seven every day.
Speaker 3: The dearly departed Sandy Robertson, did he get you gigs.
Speaker 2: And I got to tell you, Sandy was the hardest
Speaker 2: working man in show business. This is how I met you.
Speaker 2: Remember at the party and I met you and you
Speaker 2: said you haven't done anything that sucks yet, And I said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to try and live up to that bomb
Speaker 2: and not do anything that ever sucks. So Sandy worked
Speaker 2: so hard once he realized that he had this team,
Speaker 2: and it was shit or bust. I was pregnant, by
Speaker 2: the way, but I decided I'm just going to get pregnant.
Speaker 2: Dangerous thing to do. We didn't have any money really
Speaker 2: when we started, and we took out alone for one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars again, and then we.
Speaker 3: Once again banks don't give you money for no reason.
Speaker 3: What was one hundred and fifty k? What was the
Speaker 3: collateral your house or whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't know how we did it, but we got
Speaker 2: fifty grand each and we bought like a portable studio
Speaker 2: that we could take anywhere in the world with us,
Speaker 2: like rolling in all the great big rigs of stuff.
Speaker 2: And that's how we started. And Sandy, oh boy, I've
Speaker 2: never known anyone work people like this. It was I
Speaker 2: would sleep in the studio when I was pregnant, sometimes
Speaker 2: till like four in the morning. And it's very exciting
Speaker 2: when you get someone like Sandy who believes in you.
Speaker 2: He would tell me you're the best songwriter out there.
Speaker 2: That's why he would say, you, guys, there's no better
Speaker 2: team out there than you. And we didn't even believe
Speaker 2: in ourselves, but he believed in us, and he just
Speaker 2: never stopped hustling and going to every He was on
Speaker 2: a plane to New York all the time, going around
Speaker 2: all the labels, the Matrix or the next big thing.
Speaker 2: You've got to work with them. And so I would
Speaker 2: say that started in nineteen ninety nine. By two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, we were easily making half a million dollars
Speaker 2: a year between the three of us, just on stuff
Speaker 2: that wasn't successful, stuff that was you know, back in
Speaker 2: the day, they would commission you to do five songs,
Speaker 2: ten grand a song, you know. So our schedules was
Speaker 2: like jam packed with these money gigs that we were doing,
Speaker 2: and none of it had become successful, but we were
Speaker 2: having a blast, and you know, we bought houses, little
Speaker 2: houses to start. Oh and of course Sandy signed our
Speaker 2: publishing too, with warners like a joint venture. So we
Speaker 2: got some money from that too, not much, but it
Speaker 2: was it was an I felt like, my god, I'm successful.
Speaker 2: Finally after all the close but no cigar, the Matrix
Speaker 2: was rolling and then one of the people that came
Speaker 2: along was Avril Lavine's.
Speaker 3: We were a little bit slower before Avril shows up.
Speaker 3: You're making money, but you're having no success. Does that
Speaker 3: taint your image or you just still keep having gigs?
Speaker 3: You know you would normally didn't want to work with
Speaker 3: a hit maker.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say that we were getting b sides
Speaker 2: on rolling keating. We were making albums for people and
Speaker 2: then they would get dropped just because everyone got fired
Speaker 2: at the label. When we talk about the stars having
Speaker 2: to align to become successful, there was just so many
Speaker 2: things where I was like, oh my god, what are
Speaker 2: we going to do? We got to quit, We've got
Speaker 2: to do something else with our lives. I remember going
Speaker 2: back to my mom and dad and just saying, I
Speaker 2: don't know if we're ever going to have success. I
Speaker 2: just don't. Our ship has not come in, but we're
Speaker 2: making money and we're paying our mortgage on our house,
Speaker 2: little house that we had, and I and I got
Speaker 2: pregnant again. So this is two thousand and one, I
Speaker 2: get pregnant for the second time. It was still you know,
Speaker 2: it's the first good money I've made in the business.
Speaker 2: And that was when Sweet Aril Levine, well were a
Speaker 2: little bit slower.
Speaker 3: How does the Matrix get hooked up with Arril Levine?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I'm saying. So what happened was Sandy
Speaker 2: called me, as he did most weeks, like you're working
Speaker 2: with this band this week. There's three of them. They're
Speaker 2: called the Swallow members from Canada. You know, we were
Speaker 2: just he just fired stuff at us, and we would
Speaker 2: show up ten to seven, six days a week. We
Speaker 2: would do this just NonStop. He calls me up. There's
Speaker 2: this girl. She's only sixteen years old. She's been signed
Speaker 2: to Arista for a couple of years and they don't
Speaker 2: really know what they're doing with her or where it's going,
Speaker 2: and they and they're a little so we're like, bring around,
Speaker 2: let's have a meeting. And so this little sixteen year
Speaker 2: old walks into the room and she has toothbrushes melted
Speaker 2: together into bangles all the way up her arm on
Speaker 2: both sides. I was like, this girl's interesting. She's beautiful.
Speaker 2: She's got crazy like braids, like little braids that she's
Speaker 2: done herself, and and she looked kind of like in
Speaker 2: a bad mood. And so we were like, okay, what
Speaker 2: do you want to do? And she's played us a
Speaker 2: few dems. She goes, but I hate these demos, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, so, what do you want to do?
Speaker 2: And she said I like this and she puts on
Speaker 2: system of a down the Band. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember them, but yeah, right, and we were all like, Nah,
Speaker 2: this isn't going to work, this is not going to
Speaker 2: work now. I just finished my Breed record, remember, which
Speaker 2: had caused had not happened for me. Had a song
Speaker 2: could I Want what I Want? Which was in the
Speaker 2: Wild Things movie with Denise Richard's I think her name is,
Speaker 2: And I played Avrol some of my last records in particular.
Speaker 2: She loved that song I Want what I Want, and
Speaker 2: she goes, I like that vibe. So we were kind
Speaker 2: of like, ah, okay, we know what to do with this.
Speaker 2: And I was kind of very influenced by say, Garbage
Speaker 2: the Band and Butch Big and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So she went away and the three of us sat
Speaker 2: down and just started like fleshing out a few ideas.
Speaker 2: I think she came back the very next day and
Speaker 2: we had the basic chords for Complicated and we started
Speaker 2: writing that and she said, you know, complicated frustrated. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: complicated frustrated. That sounds cool. We typical, no different to
Speaker 2: today's session, start at one o'clock, kind of come up
Speaker 2: with a loose format for the song. Quite often I'll
Speaker 2: sing the demo because the artists is so like rushed
Speaker 2: off their feet with people like calling them about other stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, do we have all the parts that
Speaker 2: we like? Okay, I'm gonna pop in. I'm going to
Speaker 2: do a quick demo for you, like just a one
Speaker 2: take vocal and you take it away and we'll meet
Speaker 2: up the next day. And so I did the rough vocal,
Speaker 2: and then when she left, I was like, this verse
Speaker 2: isn't good enough? And so that's when I had that
Speaker 2: chilled out yellnivo lay back is I'm being done before?
Speaker 2: And I was like, ooh, this melody is amazing, but
Speaker 2: I know it's something else. It's so catchy. So I
Speaker 2: called my brother, who's like an encyclopedia of music. I said,
Speaker 2: you know this, da da dad, da da da dad.
Speaker 2: What is that? He's like, I have no idea. I
Speaker 2: called five other trusted sources, no one could put their
Speaker 2: finger on it. So I was like, I think it's ours.
Speaker 2: I think that's it. So I went back in recorded
Speaker 2: that verse, sent it over to Averrol's manager. He called
Speaker 2: me back and he said, she's been driving around for
Speaker 2: the for the last three days listening to this in
Speaker 2: the car with a very serious look on her face.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, she doesn't like it, and he
Speaker 2: said no, she thinks it's too pop, but she knows
Speaker 2: it's going to change her life. And I was like,
Speaker 2: that's it. Come around. So Avril shows up one night
Speaker 2: and it's just me and her, just has avel and
Speaker 2: I and we have this weird studio on Saint Clair Avenue,
Speaker 2: and Studio City is just a house that we've converted
Speaker 2: into our studio. The living room's got all our gear
Speaker 2: and then there's a bedroom which has no windows and
Speaker 2: it's just made of wood, all inside wood ceiling.
Speaker 3: It was a.
Speaker 2: Perfect vocal booth. So and we put like a double
Speaker 2: door on it, closed that door, and I said, are
Speaker 2: you ready to do it? And she said yeah, So
Speaker 2: I hit record and she sung the whole thing down
Speaker 2: and it was unbelievable. I was like, hang on a second,
Speaker 2: can you do that again? She said yeah, she does
Speaker 2: it again and it's just as good. I said, do
Speaker 2: it one more time. She does it again. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's all I need. Come on, sit down the couch
Speaker 2: and I just comped all the vocal then and there,
Speaker 2: and it was it was like goose bumps. There's a
Speaker 2: sounds of her voice that cuts like really, no one
Speaker 2: I've heard you know, Adele, you know someone putting it
Speaker 2: in a magazine that she can set off car alarms.
Speaker 2: It's very strong her voice, and it was so much
Speaker 2: better than me singing it. But she got a lot
Speaker 2: of my intonations and just nailed it. It was incredible.
Speaker 2: So that's how we started, and Avril and I became
Speaker 2: very close. We had this I call it well Josh
Speaker 2: Sarabyn and La Read I got a handsOn. They just
Speaker 2: they listened to complicated and this song called Falling Down,
Speaker 2: which we did, which ended up in that movie Sweet
Speaker 2: Home Alabama, funnily enough, and they said send her right
Speaker 2: back there for the summer. So she came back for
Speaker 2: the whole summer and we had this crazy summer and
Speaker 2: we just wrote songs. I remember Josh coming round and
Speaker 2: us playing him skater Boy and him just like lighting up,
Speaker 2: and you know, like things don't often go the right
Speaker 2: way in life or the way you expect it. But
Speaker 2: when we wrote these songs, and then La Reid and
Speaker 2: Josh Sarabyn said, Complicator is the first single, Skater Boys
Speaker 2: the second single, I'm with You's the third single. I'm like,
Speaker 2: sweet Jesus, thank you for making everything go right, you
Speaker 2: know it just I'd never seen anything happen like that.
Speaker 2: And then it came out and we always had TRL
Speaker 2: on the TV in the background while we're working, so
Speaker 2: that we're aware of what the hot songs are, what
Speaker 2: Britney's doing and all that, and Avrol goes on and
Speaker 2: suddenly we see like these like kind of sea of
Speaker 2: kids all singing Complicated, and I remember just crying, just thinking, Dahn,
Speaker 2: this is going to work out. You know. It was amazing,
Speaker 2: and it didn't stop that. You remember, Complicated was number
Speaker 2: one for I would say, I don't know, maybe like
Speaker 2: four months or five months. It was number one constantly,
Speaker 2: and then Skater Boy came out and went nuts, So
Speaker 2: we had the number one spot on the chart, I
Speaker 2: would say for a year and a half, because then
Speaker 2: I'm with You came out, and of course then I
Speaker 2: wanted the next single to be this song anything but Ordinary,
Speaker 2: which was what I thought the first single should have been.
Speaker 2: And at that point, I think maybe Averrol's management were like,
Speaker 2: let's try something with something that the Matrix didn't do.
Speaker 2: And I remember thinking, don't be greedy, Lauren. You've had
Speaker 2: a year and a half of number one songs. Your
Speaker 2: life's been changed. Barbara Kane and E and I came
Speaker 2: and sat and talked to me and the guys and
Speaker 2: said would you like a check? And I was like, what,
Speaker 2: never made any major money in my life? Life and
Speaker 2: everything changed from that point.
Speaker 3: Okay, you have this success forgetting the money, which is good.
Speaker 3: What other opportunities come down the pike is a result
Speaker 3: of this success.
Speaker 2: So people want to work with the person who's number
Speaker 2: one on the chart. So a lot of people came
Speaker 2: through our studio and we had a lot of great success.
Speaker 2: We had a bank called Lilox. We had Jason Mraz
Speaker 2: come by and wrote the Remedy with him. We had
Speaker 2: Liz Fair come by and we wrote why Can't I,
Speaker 2: which was a huge hit for us, and Extraordinary, which
Speaker 2: did very well too. A lot of things that miss too,
Speaker 2: like you Know you Can't. They're not all hits, but
Speaker 2: I would say we consistently kept having stuff on the chart,
Speaker 2: so much so that people at Sandy's office were complaining
Speaker 2: that he turned us into a cottage industry and they
Speaker 2: were leaving him because they were like, all you care
Speaker 2: about is the matrix. And he really did put a
Speaker 2: lot of time into us. But I think one of
Speaker 2: the most incredible things that happened was that Korn decided
Speaker 2: that they wanted to try us out, and we had
Speaker 2: been kind of known as the people who did female artists.
Speaker 2: Shakira took us to Madrid and we spent a week
Speaker 2: in a farmhouse with her and got the first single
Speaker 2: with her called Don't Bother. It was just wonderful opportunities
Speaker 2: over and over again. Heineken commercials where we were paid
Speaker 2: a lot of money to just rip off a song
Speaker 2: identical to make a new master of, like a Pussycat
Speaker 2: Dolls song, movie stuff that we got asked to do.
Speaker 2: David Bowie asked us to do a remix and we
Speaker 2: got to like record vocals and Graham sang on it.
Speaker 2: It was incredible. But Korn was an interesting one to
Speaker 2: us because one, I'd never done any music like that,
Speaker 2: and when I listened to it, I was like, Ugh,
Speaker 2: what new metal? What is there? But there was something
Speaker 2: about Jonathan's voice I loved, and I said, this guy's
Speaker 2: an incredible singer. He's got really one of the best
Speaker 2: singers in the world. I would say, the notes he
Speaker 2: can hit, let's do it. So he was trying out
Speaker 2: a few different people to go in there, and I
Speaker 2: think the idea was that this was their sixth album.
Speaker 2: They were out of a deal, the deal had ended,
Speaker 2: and they were just up for trying anything. And so
Speaker 2: we went along to the studio kind of nervous, the
Speaker 2: three of us, and the whole band's there and they're
Speaker 2: like quite intimidating, these guys, and they looked at us
Speaker 2: like who the fuck are you guys like you pop guys,
Speaker 2: and we were like, Hi, nice to meet you. And
Speaker 2: Graham and I went out in the live room with them,
Speaker 2: and Graham picked up the guitar and it just drew
Speaker 2: a blank. They looked at us like you guys are
Speaker 2: about to be kicked out the studio. That's the vibe
Speaker 2: they gave to us. And I was like ooh, and
Speaker 2: I think Scott said, let's have them play. Let's have
Speaker 2: them So all this stuff was set up. It was
Speaker 2: their studio, so all the drums are already miked, and
Speaker 2: we said just jam and so they went in and
Speaker 2: started playing this thing and so it was like and
Speaker 2: it had all their the guitars that have been like
Speaker 2: tuned down the way they do it. And then that
Speaker 2: night we said goodbye and they all looked at us
Speaker 2: like see ya, like we'll never see you guys again.
Speaker 2: We didn't do anything except record them, and then that
Speaker 2: night stayed up half the night. Chris Holmes, our engineer,
Speaker 2: Scott Spark, edited this recording of them into what we
Speaker 2: would call a pop song with a verse, a pre,
Speaker 2: a chorus, bridge, everything, and I came up with this
Speaker 2: lyric twisted Transistor, and I had like a verse and
Speaker 2: a pre and a chorus. Went back in the next day,
Speaker 2: Graham and Scott and I came up with melodies to
Speaker 2: these lyrics that I'd written, and we were like, we're
Speaker 2: about to for sure get kicked out today, Let's just
Speaker 2: shoot for the moon because who cares, right. It was
Speaker 2: a fun experience for our rolodex of memories, right, and
Speaker 2: we played the track and they were all like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's good. And I said, Jonathan, I've got this idea.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're gonna like it, but here
Speaker 2: we go like, hey you, hey, you Devil's little sister,
Speaker 2: listening to your twisted turns sister. Hold it between your legs,
Speaker 2: turn it up, turn it up. Vibrations coming too, you
Speaker 2: know this? And he's like, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 4: And then I like, because the music, dude, and it
Speaker 4: is reaching inside you forever preaching fuck you two. Your
Speaker 4: screams are whisper heng oh you twisted jan sister.
Speaker 2: And he's like, what the fuck is this? And I said,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but would you try singing it? And
Speaker 2: he's like, I'll try singing it. He got up on
Speaker 2: the mic and it sounded incredible. I have the video
Speaker 2: of me recording him. And then we wrote the rest
Speaker 2: of the pre together, Jonathan and I. We wrote the
Speaker 2: rest of the lyrics, so the next verse we kind
Speaker 2: of put a bridge together and all the rest of
Speaker 2: the band Field monkey. I can see they're thinking what's
Speaker 2: going on here? And Jonathan was kind of in it
Speaker 2: at that point, and so I took a chance. As
Speaker 2: we were about to leave at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I went up to him and we had a three
Speaker 2: week holiday that we'd convinced Sandy to give all of
Speaker 2: us because we'd been working so hard. It was kind
Speaker 2: of nuts. And I went up to Jonathan at the
Speaker 2: end of the day and I said, we've got a
Speaker 2: three week holiday starting tomorrow. Do you want us to
Speaker 2: come in and work with you because we could cancel
Speaker 2: our holiday, And he didn't really react. I remember going
Speaker 2: out for dinner that night and Sandy calls me while
Speaker 2: I'm at dinner and he says, your book for the
Speaker 2: next three weeks with Corn. So we go in and
Speaker 2: we recorded twenty three songs with them in three weeks,
Speaker 2: and they got their huge Live Nation deal off the
Speaker 2: back of those songs, and had we wrote Coming Undone
Speaker 2: and that's their second biggest song to this day, it's
Speaker 2: one of my favorites. And I'm still friends with Jonathan,
Speaker 2: really good friends to this day, and I've worked with him.
Speaker 2: Then we did the entire next album too, called The
Speaker 2: first one was called See You on the Other Side,
Speaker 2: and then that was their sixth album. Their seventh album
Speaker 2: was untitled. We did that one too, and I have
Speaker 2: worked on their record, I don't know three years ago
Speaker 2: and had a number one at rock with them. I
Speaker 2: still work with him. I did his song with him
Speaker 2: with Gary Clark what It Is on Jonathan's solo record,
Speaker 2: and a couple of others. He's probably my favorite person
Speaker 2: in the music business as an artist, because it's just
Speaker 2: he loves that band, it's his band, and he just
Speaker 2: he nurtures it like it's a never ending thing. And
Speaker 2: I feel like they're ageless. You know, they're on tour
Speaker 2: right now. I'm going to go see them in November.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable, Okay, but the matrix was not timeless and endless.
Speaker 3: How did that end?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, my marriage fell apart in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, and we kept it going for another two years,
Speaker 2: working constantly because again that's a hard cruise ship to
Speaker 2: turn around. But then slowly people start to find out
Speaker 2: the interests Scott. He's a very clever guy, and he
Speaker 2: also had a big interest in cars, and he built
Speaker 2: a car, a charger, and he did it all himself,
Speaker 2: and then that car became the main car and the
Speaker 2: Fast and Furious. You know, it's the famous car from
Speaker 2: the First and Furious. It's called Maximus. And so Scott
Speaker 2: had that interest and Graham, like had some other interests.
Speaker 2: And also I just felt it was a little unhealthy
Speaker 2: that I was still working with my ex husband all
Speaker 2: the time, and and Donna called me and said, will
Speaker 2: you go to a session with this guy DJ Frankie,
Speaker 2: And I hadn't really done many sessions outside the matrix,
Speaker 2: and this is just to go as a writer. And
Speaker 2: I went and popped a hit. I wrote this song
Speaker 2: Tonight I'm Fucking You. It was called and I didn't
Speaker 2: want it to be called that at all. I wanted
Speaker 2: to be called Tonight I'm loving You, which is how
Speaker 2: it is how it went to radio. But we wrote
Speaker 2: that song and three weeks later it was number one
Speaker 2: all around the world. I've never had anything happen so fast,
Speaker 2: and so then suddenly I'm in demand as a writer
Speaker 2: on my own, and it was just a breath of
Speaker 2: fresh air to not be in the studio every day
Speaker 2: with my ex husband. And that's the truth, that's kind
Speaker 2: of And Scott was losing interest. You know, you run
Speaker 2: something for ten years, like everybody grows apart a little
Speaker 2: bit and it just doesn't seem as fun. But it's
Speaker 2: very amicable, you know, no hard feelings. And I've still
Speaker 2: worked with Graham to this day. Things will come up
Speaker 2: and we'll do it together.
Speaker 3: Did he ever get remarried.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's remarried and has two lovely children. He's married
Speaker 2: to Sarah Weinstein and has William and Emily his children.
Speaker 2: And he's just being nominated for an Emmy, a second
Speaker 2: Emmy for his wife. Works for PBS and makes wonderful
Speaker 2: documentaries and he does a lot of the music for them.
Speaker 2: So he's still got a lovely life in music.
Speaker 3: How do you ended up working with bb Rex?
Speaker 2: Bb Rex that I met on the steps at the
Speaker 2: bm My Awards and someone said, uh, I think it
Speaker 2: was Samantha Cox at B and My. You guys should
Speaker 2: work together, and she hit me up. We did a
Speaker 2: couple of things. First song we did together with a
Speaker 2: song called I'm Going to Show You Crazy. She said
Speaker 2: that a couple of producers had said, nah, that's no good.
Speaker 2: We did it and it went to number one. I
Speaker 2: think in Germany it was it wasn't huge in America,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of sealed our deal of writing together.
Speaker 2: And we loved it. And BB's actually a genius writer.
Speaker 2: She's a trumpet player, and her melodies, if you look
Speaker 2: at that, hey my mam, mama, hama, I'm getting the
Speaker 2: JOm like them did they She's she's like messing with
Speaker 2: like trumpet rhythms and melodies. She's so cool, and we
Speaker 2: had a period of time where we just worked probably
Speaker 2: four times a week, did some really great work together.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite songs I've ever done is Me
Speaker 2: Myself and I and I Got You Last Hurrah. My
Speaker 2: favorite song is a Bad Bitch Gateway Drug and Small Doses.
Speaker 2: And she actually just hit me up like three days
Speaker 2: ago and said I need songs like these three again,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, let's do it, you know, because we
Speaker 2: have something special. She'll she'll like, the hardest thing is
Speaker 2: having people who respect you. You know, sometimes you meet
Speaker 2: new artists and they hear or your old stuff, but
Speaker 2: they don't know what you did in it. So it's
Speaker 2: really nice when you've got someone who respects you. He'll say,
Speaker 2: hold hold up, listen to Lauren what she's doing and
Speaker 2: I feel the same about her, like I trust in
Speaker 2: her instinct. She really can make things great.
Speaker 3: Okay, what happens if you have success with somebody and
Speaker 3: then they go to work with somebody else.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, of course, it's endless heartbreak over and
Speaker 2: over and over when you because you feel like you
Speaker 2: have this special connection. But you know, I kind of
Speaker 2: feel like artists are bees and we're the flowers, the producer, songwriters,
Speaker 2: and the bee wants to go from flower to flower
Speaker 2: and that's okay. You just have to be okay with that,
Speaker 2: and it's averroll. I didn't work on her second album,
Speaker 2: and I'm a big believer, if you know, don't go
Speaker 2: where you're not invited. And it served me well. So
Speaker 2: I just don't really worry about it because people always
Speaker 2: come back. You know. I've never really fallen out with anyone,
Speaker 2: and so it's people will come back because they remember
Speaker 2: the experience they had, and it's just they know that
Speaker 2: I'm going to take it seriously and I really want
Speaker 2: what's best for them, so I don't. I try not
Speaker 2: to trip too much.
Speaker 3: Okay, you've been in US for a long time and
Speaker 3: I love Los Angeles too. What do people in America.
Speaker 3: Not get about the UK. What is different?
Speaker 2: M I mean, because I'm so out of touch with
Speaker 2: the UK. I did go back for the first time
Speaker 2: in sixteen years last year. Literally I had a sixteen
Speaker 2: year break and that was because I moved my parents out.
Speaker 2: My parents my mom had a stroke and my dad
Speaker 2: had dementia, so I moved them out to live in
Speaker 2: la and my brother was already here. I have cousins here.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, the valley along Venturrea a boulevard
Speaker 2: is littered with my family and we all play tennis together.
Speaker 2: My brother and sisters back in England, though, so they
Speaker 2: would come and visit us. I felt like I had
Speaker 2: no connection to what it's like to be in the
Speaker 2: music business in the UK. And it's just because I
Speaker 2: made it in America and not there, and they've had
Speaker 2: I probably have more success internationally than I do even
Speaker 2: in America from my songs when I look at my statements,
Speaker 2: but I would say that it's quite difficult in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles to say, you know, it's like a jaded ordience
Speaker 2: to get them out to performances. And in England, my
Speaker 2: daughter's just open for Manchester Orchestra at Union Chapel in
Speaker 2: Islington last year and I went as like Mamager T
Speaker 2: shirt sales lady because I wanted to see my family
Speaker 2: and also just support my kids. And what I realized
Speaker 2: is that people take it a lot more seriously going
Speaker 2: to see live music. You could hear a pin drop
Speaker 2: people that were there, like there's no alcohol allowed in
Speaker 2: this place because it's an old church, and people were
Speaker 2: just there to like soak up the music. So I
Speaker 2: think there is kind of something special. Because my daughter's
Speaker 2: the Citizens of UK two, they're going to go over
Speaker 2: and spend some time there working because they just loved it.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's the difference, is that it's
Speaker 2: a good place to really sort of incubate if you're
Speaker 2: an artist, because there's so much support on the live scene,
Speaker 2: you know, But there's no place like La. Bob Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: became the capital of the world.
Speaker 3: I could complain about La all day long, but there's
Speaker 3: nowhere I'd rather live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okayd the traffic case tell.
Speaker 3: And all this other stuff, but I'm not moving. But
Speaker 3: in any event, you had a couple of solo albums
Speaker 3: with major label releases. You had some success in addition
Speaker 3: to being a songwriter. If someone were to listen to
Speaker 3: those records, you have a very good voice. To what
Speaker 3: degree in the back of your mind do you say, hmm,
Speaker 3: if only I wish, or you're totally happy where you are? Oh?
Speaker 2: No, I'm totally happy where I am because the most
Speaker 2: important thing to me is that I wanted to be
Speaker 2: a mother. It was like in belt to me since
Speaker 2: I don't know when, like probably when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: to want to be a mum, And there was a
Speaker 2: time when I was twenty nine and it wasn't going
Speaker 2: right for me that I was like, how do I
Speaker 2: have kids? And so to being blessed to have the
Speaker 2: stability of being able to make money and to be
Speaker 2: able to own a how elson be able to be
Speaker 2: around my kids, and it's just been incredible. There was
Speaker 2: a moment where I was very sad, like when I
Speaker 2: had that song in the Color of Night and it
Speaker 2: was really about to pop off, and there was some
Speaker 2: political stuff at the label that caused it to get
Speaker 2: kind of shelved, and that was very upsetting to me
Speaker 2: because it was kind of my shot. I saw like
Speaker 2: stardom for a second, and the label was ready to
Speaker 2: make it happen, and I can't really go into it
Speaker 2: because I'll get sued, But something happened. One day, I'll
Speaker 2: put it in a book where another act had to
Speaker 2: like basically said stop promoting that it's going to get
Speaker 2: in the way of us. And they were a big act.
Speaker 2: But no, sooner had I given up that dream. I
Speaker 2: told you, like on that plane, I'm tough, I was like, no,
Speaker 2: look forward, don't look back. And so, as you probably know,
Speaker 2: I've I decided after twenty five years of not releasing
Speaker 2: any music that it might be time to just have
Speaker 2: fun because I have the ability to make music for free.
Speaker 2: So I started doing this. There hits My Way project
Speaker 2: and it's just all my biggest songs I've done reimagined
Speaker 2: versions and they're one take vocals because I was like,
Speaker 2: the last thing I'm going to do is get in
Speaker 2: there and be like, you know, taking everyone's time up,
Speaker 2: Like no, just got to be perfect. So I made
Speaker 2: sure it's literally one take vocals on each one. And
Speaker 2: I've loved it. But I can't tell you that I
Speaker 2: would like to be Adele or Taylor Swift. I think
Speaker 2: it's it's an It's incredibly hard work to you know,
Speaker 2: I said to my girls, do you realize that the
Speaker 2: destination if you're successful is to be on planes traveling
Speaker 2: around the world and performing great, big places and selling
Speaker 2: T shirts. That's where all the money is, right and
Speaker 2: so are you game for it? Because I think now
Speaker 2: so it's kind of serendipitous that I ended up going
Speaker 2: behind the scenes because I'm kind of a homebody. I
Speaker 2: like to be home with my cats in my pool.
Speaker 2: If I'm not in a session, I'm with my mom
Speaker 2: and my brother and his new baby and the family
Speaker 2: and hanging with my kids.
Speaker 3: So do you think there's any parallel to your father
Speaker 3: being a comedian and then coming home to you being
Speaker 3: an artist, and then being home and shifting to behind
Speaker 3: the scenes.
Speaker 2: Gusha, nobody's ever said that to me, But it's kind
Speaker 2: of making sense now, is that. I have to say
Speaker 2: my parents had the most incredibly happy marriage, and my
Speaker 2: mom says it's because dad quit doing show business to
Speaker 2: stay home. And you know, I have no regrets, because
Speaker 2: I just don't know if that would have worked out
Speaker 2: for me. My equilibrium's not so good to be like
Speaker 2: shot on, like off on tour, and I did do
Speaker 2: quite a lot of touring I opened for Kenny Loggins
Speaker 2: at Red Rocks. I got the taste of it. Chastain
Speaker 2: Park in Atlanta did Kenny g and I got to
Speaker 2: do some amazing thing. But my true love is making records.
Speaker 2: It's exhilarating to me being in the studio. I say,
Speaker 2: that's the hit for me in that moment when you
Speaker 2: write the song. I feel like every song edifies God.
Speaker 2: Even if it's a mediocre song, it's not the best.
Speaker 2: If it's a six, it's not an eleven. So I
Speaker 2: feel that that's the excitement for me, more exciting than
Speaker 2: really like, it's so funny. We're on the road with
Speaker 2: our girls and they're playing like the Fox Theater in Oakland,
Speaker 2: and it's so like, this is four thousand sister ed
Speaker 2: Sheeran's playing there in two days time after my girls
Speaker 2: and I said, girls, this is it. You see this
Speaker 2: dressing room, how cold and dark it is and shabby
Speaker 2: and cold, and this is it. This is the big time,
Speaker 2: you know, And I said, and the really big time
Speaker 2: will be flying on a private jet everywhere and going
Speaker 2: into the dressing room and then getting out on stage.
Speaker 2: And that's really great for me. It's more exciting being
Speaker 2: in the lab, creating something that could be viral on TikTok.
Speaker 2: Let's face it. It may not be on the radio
Speaker 2: today because it's so hard to get on there. But
Speaker 2: you know, I'm about like touching people and changing people's
Speaker 2: feeling in their heart for the day and lifting people up.
Speaker 2: And I can do that just from sitting in a
Speaker 2: little studio. Now, this is the best gig ever.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're doing all this work. Do you ever go
Speaker 3: on vacation and can you turn it off? Or in
Speaker 3: your mind? Is it always going?
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm good at relaxing. I'm really good at relaxing.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is that I always have my
Speaker 2: phone next to me, and there's always like ideas. I'll
Speaker 2: watch a movie and just go, oh, that line, I
Speaker 2: teach this in my masterclass. Just write it down in
Speaker 2: new lyric notes. Or I'll start crying about something in
Speaker 2: a movie and I'm like, oh am I crying? Oh
Speaker 2: it's because of that. Write that down in your lyric notes.
Speaker 2: So it's like a never ending thing. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: a songwriter, it's my whole. My husband says, who you
Speaker 2: are is not what you'd do, and I'm like, hmm,
Speaker 2: I think it might be. I think who I am
Speaker 2: is what I do. So I do take vacations, but
Speaker 2: it's normally like last year, I did the go back
Speaker 2: to see my family and that was very important. Family
Speaker 2: is so important to me. I'll take I so my
Speaker 2: mom off to Newport Beach to see all the Christmas
Speaker 2: ships go down and Balboa Island, all all the ships
Speaker 2: are decorated, and I love it and I can just
Speaker 2: i can switch off and relax. I'll go down to
Speaker 2: the Coronado Hotel for two days. It's just paradise here.
Speaker 2: As we said, I got to Lake Arrowhead. It's normally
Speaker 2: when I'm completely exhausted and I've just finished a project,
Speaker 2: mixing it and everything, and I'm just like, I need
Speaker 2: two days off and I'll take these like mini breaks.
Speaker 2: But I have not gone to Spain or you know.
Speaker 2: And my parents also traveled us as kids. We had
Speaker 2: a home in Spain, and so I felt like the
Speaker 2: first part of my life we were in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: where my mom's from Australia. I've been to call Through
Speaker 2: and Greece. I've been so many amazing South of France
Speaker 2: making albums. Madrid with Shakira I'm like, yeah, I've seen Europe.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, but I'm not jonesing to go back to.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 2: And the reason I would go back to England is
Speaker 2: because I love my family and I want to see
Speaker 2: them or my girls. I have to go on tour
Speaker 2: and they need me and they want mom to come.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't even need me anymore, so that's
Speaker 2: not going to happen. But I don't really take vacations now.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks so much for taking this time to speak
Speaker 3: with my audience.
Speaker 2: Lauren ah Bob. You know, I'm such a big fan
Speaker 2: of yours. I read you every week and I like
Speaker 2: your personal stuff that you do too as much as
Speaker 2: I like this stuff about the music business. But I
Speaker 2: can say I've been listening, I've been reading you for
Speaker 2: thirty years. I would say, amazing. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for having me.
Speaker 3: Well, you know I could go, well, we'll do this
Speaker 3: on our own time. But you know it's funny if
Speaker 3: you nail the personal stuff that resonates more than anything. Really,
Speaker 3: If you want more of Lauren, certainly follow her on
Speaker 3: social media and of course she has her master class.
Speaker 3: So in any event, Lauren, thanks.
Speaker 2: Again, thank you so much Bob.
Speaker 3: Until next time. This is Bob left stets