The Knowles family aren’t the only people that producer Rob Fusari is dishing on in his recent Billboard interview, with the “Paprazzi” hitmaker also discussing his time working with pop megastar Lady GaGa who he worked with quite a bit on her record-breaking debut album The Fame.
The story of how they met and GaGa’s transition is quite a long one,
but if you read through it all you’ll see that Rob gives an interesting
glimpse into the makings of one of pops biggest stars.
“In 2006, I got a call late one evening from a songwriter named Wendy Starland. I was into the Strokes at that time, and I’d told Wendy I was looking for a female artist to make a Strokes-type record. I answered the phone, and Wendy said, “I may have found your girl.” She was at a club in New York, where this girl, Stefani Germanotta, had just performed a showcase…”
After being blown away by the GaGa’s talent (he described her as
looking like a “guidette” from “Jersey Shore”) the pair started a
company together and got to work on making music.
How would you describe her musical identity at this point?
“She had a big Gwen Stefani/No Doubt thing going on. Some Fiona Apple, some Beatles.”
No club beats, no disco performance art?
She kicked and screamed: “No! No! I love what we’re doing. We’re not changing it.” I’m like, “Stef, just try this. Let’s at least abandon the live drums and some of the guitars.” I finally got her to agree, and that day we did “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” which was me sitting at an MPC drum machine and Stef playing her piano riff.
Then, one day, I read an article in the New York Times about Nelly Furtado and how she’d abandoned her folk-rock thing and made a dance record with Timbaland. My antenna went up. I said, “Stef, take a look at this. I’m really an R&B guy. I never produced a rock record in my life. I don’t know, you think maybe we should shift gears?”
“Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” caught the attention of labels and
eventually led to Stefani being signed by L.A. Reid at Def Jam, but
according to Rob after signing Stefani the music mogul ignored her
requests to discuss her music and album, and then eventually he dropped
her a few months later leaving her distraught.
After that Rob helped introduce Stefani to the man who would soon become her partner in crime, RedOne,
and then after a lot of hard work and a few phonecalls Rob helped
Stefani get a meeting with Jimmy Iovine, which eventually lead to her
scoring a record deal with Interscope.
Unfortunately though since then it seems that the pair have drifted apart, as Rob cryptically tells Billboard below:
Are you and Stefani still friends?
I don’t know. I feel like I may have been demoted to . . . what would be one level beneath friend?
Professional acquaintance?
Yeah, there you go. That’s it.
What do you think happened?
I don’t know. I can’t figure it out and I won’t ask. I don’t know if I said something or did something. I don’t know.
Will you be involved in her next record?
I don’t believe so. {source}
And there you have it. Do you think that Lady GaGa changed her sound
for commercial reasons, or was it just a natural evolution? Personally I
enjoyed her music much more when she was just Stefani on the piano, but
I love Lady GaGa’s flashy performances so I can appreciate both sides
of the coin.
Maybe the underlying messages behind GaGa’s lyrics and the constant
stripped-back versions of her songs that she insists on performing at
every chance she gets are her way of doing the music she truly loves
away from the formulaic top 40 dance-pop that sent her to the top of the
charts. It’s just a thought.
Thank you Brienna for sending this to me.
