How to write a breakthrough pop hit

Stop, collaborate and listen … Rapper Seth Sentry is working with Fuego for his next album. Picture: Nicole Cleary
Source: News Limited

Fuego is known for co-writing rapper 360’s multi-platinum hits Boys Like You, Child, Killer, Live It Up and Price of Fame.

He’s also worked on songs by Seth Sentry, Owl Eyes, Aston Shuffle, Diafrix, Peking Duk and worked with Chris Lilley on the S Mouse songs from the Angry Boys soundtrack.

Fuego is sharing his knowledge in a live chat at 8pm on Monday night as part of Telstra’s Road to Discovery program. But here’s a little head start on the art of songwriting:

How do you usually start a song?

It might start with chords, maybe a melody. Sometimes an artist comes in and we might just talk about an idea, or they might play me songs they like and we’ll develop something around that idea. I try to create musical beds so I have something ready. It’s so much less pressure than when someone comes in and says “I want to do a song like this’ and you go ‘Ah. OK’ and you have to come up with that on the spot. Especially if it’s a bigger artist, you haven’t got time to tinker with beats while they’re waiting for a song.

Breakthrough moment … Rapper 360’s album Falling and Flying was producer Styalz Fuego’s moment to be taken seriously.
Source: Supplied

What as your big break?

In 2006/2007 I did this Chamillionaire single with Kelis, Not a Criminal. I think I was 21 or 22. Super young. It was so far in this hip hop try-hard space at that point, all I wanted to do was be like an American producer. I only wanted to make rap music in America. I thought I was ready for it. That song didn’t end up doing that well. Looking back when I listen back to the tracks from then I so wasn’t ready. And everything that happened here wouldn’t have happened if it had worked. That was a reality check, I thought people knew who I was. I don’t know if people know who I am now, beyond people who are about production credits.

Did the 360 album winning an ARIA put you on people’s radars?

Yep. I guess that was when I was taken more seriously as a producer here on an industry level. It’s definitely good being able to live off music. I quit my job when I was 22. I was working in a bank call centre. I hated it. I did a lot of remixes purely for the money. There was one American dude, the song was awful but it was $ 3000 so I took it.

Hit maker … producer Styalz Fuego at work in the studio.
Source: Supplied

How do you look back at that?

My advice is to keep working a job, dedicate all your time outside work to doing what you love in music instead of quitting and trying to make it in music as a producer. Putting your name to things you think are horrible — you’re not finding a sound for yourself, you’re not able to progress. It’s not creative … I’d focus on doing what you love and not trying to make money out of it. But then I hated working a job so..

There are songs on the radio that sound like they’ve been copied from hit songs. Does that happen?

Yes. More hit songs than not are written in that way. Especially on major labels. And for the manufactured pop artists from Idol, X Factor and The Voice. A lot of the time people are writing to briefs. I’ve seen people put a hit song into the Pro Tools session, mute it, do their chords, write their chorus, unmute the song to reference it, think it’s pretty close and then keep going to get the exact same feel and tempo of that original song. They change enough so it feels new and everyone will love it because it’s familiar. People will get a brief like “Write a song for J-Lo that’s like Katy Perry meets Diplo” and they copy elements from both songs. Sometimes you can have five great writers in one room and make the worst song.

New single … Peking Duk’s new song Take Me Over was written with Styalz Fuego.
Source: Supplied

Increasingly hit songs have six, seven, eight or more writers on them. How does that happen?

I’ve been involved in songs that have five or six writers.‘60sLive It Up, there’s no samples but I think that had six or seven writers. It went through so many different stages, I was bringing in writers and producers I work with to bring in ideas, `60s on it, Pez is on it, so many different ideas. Kanye albums will have songs with 15 writers. It’s that new approach of collaboration, everyone has Dropbox and a Mac book. They can all contribute a few snares or two chords and then it’s taken over to someone else. It passes through so many different people and stages. That’s going to become so much more common. I might have a friend who is a great writer, if I get stuck on something I can get a producer help me work on the drums or the feel of the track. So there might be four writers from my side before the artist is even involved. But that’s positive. If you know why people are involved you get to the best final product. I don’t understand the concept of trying to keep a song you need help on to yourself just because you want all the publishing to yourself. It’s like looking at music from a financial point of view before a creative one.

No stranger to using multiple songwriters … Kanye West. Picture: Pierre Suu/Getty Images
Source: Getty Images

Some songs surely can’t be copied?

Songs like Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know, Macklemore’s Same Love or Thrift Shop — the production is so weird or different you couldn’t emulate it without sounding exactly like it. That Ariana Grande song, Break Free, that’s a very standard pop song at this point in time, it’d be easy to copy that and base another song off it. The weirder or more unique a hit song, the less likely people are to copy it. And if you put the biggest songs of the past two years together they’re all kind of weird. Lorde’s Royals, that’s four sounds and a vocal in that song. How do you copy that? The most unique songs are the biggest hit songs. Why don’t we try to all make more unique hit songs? That’s easier said than done. Those songs aren’t about sounding like a hit, it’s all about timing or being so fresh that people gravitate towards them.

Highly rated … Guy Sebastian. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin
Source: News Corp Australia

Do you say no to a lot of acts?

Yes. People like Guy Sebastian, Stan Walker, Jessica Mauboy, Nathaniel — they came from a TV show but they’re also incredible singers. I don’t just want to work with someone from a TV show because they’re high profile. When Boys Like You was a hit certain major labels hit me up to work with X Factor or Voice artists. They’d say “We want a song that sounds like Boys Like You”. That is not possible. That song is not necessarily the greatest, but all these pieces fell into place that made that song. I don’t want to have a particular sound, but I want to have things people can identify that I do.

If you had to pick one song you’ve worked on you are most proud of which would it be?

360’s Child. It means something. But it was also in the charts and got lots of radio play. There’s nothing about it that I feel we were reaching for anything going on or that was current. There was no aspiration for it to be a single. It came together so quickly. ‘60 was across the road, I played the chords and started singing the chorus and recorded it quickly. he came over and said he’d had this song about my family it’d be perfect for. We had a kids gospel choir on it, I had to do a version without swearing before we could play it for them to sing over. And hearing people sing it in concert is a pretty cool feeling.

Go with the flow … Chris Lilley went to Fuego for rap tips for S Mouse’s music.
Source: Supplied

You’re singing on the latest Thomas Gold track Remember as Kaelyn Behr.

I’ve started singing on more things. After 360’s Falling and Flying was so successful, and I pretty much wrote all the choruses and all the melodies on those singles, that was a bit of validation to put my ideas forward, be more of a songwriter than just a beat guy producer. I had a song on the last Wiley album I sang on. Thomas Gold is on my favourite EDM label, Axtone. When the song first went on YouTube people were saying the vocalist was Aston Shuffle. So I needed another name, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted another name that wasn’t my real name, so I used my given name to keep it simple.

If you’re moving into singing as well as production and songwriting is there someone who’s career you’d like to emulate?

A lot of people associate Styalz with 360 and the Australian hip hop thing. Kaelyn Bear has only been featured on dance music to this point. Moving forward the ultimate goal is to bring it all into one, like Pharrell. He was Neptunes for a while, then Pharrell kept appearing more and he’s just Pharrell. I’d love everything to fall under Kaelen Bear as a whole ultimately, but I want to work so it doesn’t feel contrived and people realise it’s the same person. Everyone loves Pharrell, he’s critically acclaimed but while he’s done some bad songs he gets a pass. There’s maybe 20 people in music who are critically acclaimed and a household name, like Pharrell. And they’re the actual creative force behind their music. That’s my goal.

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