French Rain - Q&A

21/03/21

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After producing French Rain, artist/ songwriter Troi and I have devised a collaborative Q&A that breaks down the individual roles in the process of writing and producing a song.

Below are my responses to Troi's questions about the production process for her new single. To see Troi's blog where she answers my questions about the songwriting side, click here.

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What was your favourite part about working on French Rain?

It wasn’t a technical job on my end as the vocals and guitar were already produced so I had the lovely task of throwing a bunch of creative ideas at it, which was really fun! The brief you gave was to essentially take the demo up a notch and make it sound dreamy, even using a demo I’d done for you a few months prior as a reference so having a bit of my own creative freedom was great and I loved experimenting and refining the sounds I’d used before.

In your opinion, what are some of the most important things about being a producer and working with an artist/ band?

Respecting artists’ creative intentions is crucial. Oak Felder (Demi Lovato, Lizzo) put it really well saying that production is a service and producers aren’t necessarily artists. I didn’t understand this when I first heard it, but over time I’ve come to agree because producers have to essentially be the amplifier for an artists voice and it doesn’t work if the amplifier is adapting the sound as it comes out.

To me, the most important things about being a producer are; really listening and understanding what the artist needs from you, forgetting your ego and taking constructive criticism gracefully (it’s the artist's music at the end of the day). Being a positive driving force in the recording/ production process is important too. When artists are struggling or start losing faith in their abilities, we producers have to lift them back up and get them excited about their music again so the project can be completed to its full potential.

What is your process like when tackling a (difficult) project?

As I said before, being positive is really important. It’s hard when ideas stop flowing and artists aren’t responding positively to anything you try. I’ve found that it helps to create a language for you and the artist to use so you can both be on the same page and stop creative walls from appearing in the first place.

French Rain wasn’t necessarily a difficult project but there was a good example of creating a language to define certain ambiguous words that were being thrown around to describe the music. We had to define the term ‘dreamy’ because it’s a pretty vague word and could have been perceived very differently by each of us so I began by establishing what ‘dreamy’ meant in the context of the song. You provided reference tracks, which helped massively and best of all used a demo I had done for you in the past as another reference so I was confident in the sound I was going for.

As an artist/musician myself, it’s important to know that your producer understands what you need as an artist and where you envision your work going, how do you make sure this happens?

I’ve kind of answered this already but it’s a really important question. It’s all about getting reference tracks, understanding what it is about the tracks the artist likes and wants to replicate, and checking in along the way to make sure I’m not taking the production away from what the artist wants. I always welcome constructive criticism as it helps me to understand where I’m going wrong and how I can steer productions back towards artists’ visions and therefore stick to tight deadlines.

If there’s one thing you wish your artist/band could know about you or how you work, what would it be? E.g. to relieve you of stress.

That I’m not a mind reader! I have had some artists say that they had no specific visions for songs and simply asked me to make them sound good. Providing producers with a basic demo and/or a short list of songs that you want your music to sound like will kick start the process and help us deliver the sound that you’ve got inside your head. I go deeper into this in my blog, “Music Production: Easy, isn’t it?” where you can learn more about how to start creating demos at home to send to producers.

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French Rain was a joy to work on and I'm proud to have been part of the process. The song is available to stream on all major platforms so check it out and show some support!

To learn about the songwriting process for French Rain, click here for Troi's blog.

Stay safe everyone!

Will.