Alex Delicata Interview

0:00 Alex Delicata MUSIC APPRECIATION

0:12 Luke F. Walton Hey everybody, welcome back to Love Music More. I am Scoobert Doobert and I am joined with an awesome guest, Alex Delicata. Alex has worked on all your favorite artists, everybody from Beyonce, Rihanna, Kygo One Republic, Meek Mill, just listened to Sober by Hunter Hayes. That was dope. Super excited to talk to you. How are you doing, Alex?

0:33 Alex Delicata I'm doing great, man. How are you?

0:35 Luke F. Walton Doing awesome. Doing awesome. We're going to talk songwriting, my favorite subject,

0:39 Alex Delicata cool

0:39 Luke F. Walton Loki.

0:39 Alex Delicata yeah

0:40 Luke F. Walton So let's get into it. Let's have some fun.

0:43 Alex Delicata man let's go yes

0:45 Luke F. Walton So you're based in LA?

0:47 Alex Delicata i am my uh my studio here that we're sitting in is in howland park at a place called lemon tree studios um it's sort of like just underneath the main strip of like figaro if you're la people are checking this out um i love the location love this part of the city so happy happy to be here Been here for a couple years now.

1:04 Luke F. Walton I love that part of the city too if I ever if I ever moved back from San Diego that would that would be on the top

1:08 Alex Delicata Are you are

1:09 Luke F. Walton five

1:09 Alex Delicata you from San Diego originally?

1:11 Luke F. Walton I am man I lived in LA for a minute and then uh found my way back down here when my my then girlfriend now wife went to San Diego State and then I made it back and um kind of put down some roots down here so it's

1:24 Alex Delicata Amazing.

1:24 Luke F. Walton cool I

1:24 Alex Delicata It's nice down

1:25 Luke F. Walton love it

1:25 Alex Delicata there man. Great.

1:25 Luke F. Walton yeah

1:26 Alex Delicata Yeah

1:26 Luke F. Walton it's it's a good vibe it's a good vibe so how did you get into songwriting how what was like the spark what was the thing that was like okay I I want to do this or I want to I want to like start writing seriously

1:37 Alex Delicata well it's a really good question actually because i think um probably until i was already sort of like doing it i didn't even realize it was like a job that you could have so like growing up you know i was playing in bands and i was doing that kind of thing and so we would write our own songs and i probably started doing that when i was um

1:56 Alex Delicata you know more seriously in high school and things like that and before that you know when I was starting out making music like just learning how to play guitar and piano and stuff early on I would of course like always sort of even in classical piano lessons like go off script and be like writing

2:09 Alex Delicata Yes. riffs and licks and like that kind of stuff and songs so I've been like writing for a long time but getting into it as a career was something that I think I just sort of happened into like I was I'm from Chicago originally, but I was I went to school for jazz guitar in Miami.

2:28 Alex Delicata And so I spent most of my, you know, the next like 10 years based out of Miami and I started off just doing like gigs sessions, whatever anybody would have me on as a guitar player.

2:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

2:41 Alex Delicata And then that sort of like morphed its way into like helping producers write tracks and like at that point I didn't even really know that. producing was like a thing or like what

2:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

2:55 Alex Delicata that even really looked like and all the different kinds that there were i was just so stoked to be in the studio doing anything so i was going in like just doing guitar sessions for people which turned into like helping make tracks and then uh helping co-write and doing all that stuff and doing the production and so i just sort of fell into it i can't can't remember if i'm answering your question or not but

3:15 Luke F. Walton No,

3:15 Alex Delicata yeah that's

3:15 Luke F. Walton that's good.

3:15 Alex Delicata that's sort

3:15 Luke F. Walton That's

3:16 Alex Delicata of how it

3:16 Luke F. Walton good.

3:16 Alex Delicata all started yeah yeah

3:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's super interesting. I'm actually, I want to latch on to the very beginning.

3:21 Luke F. Walton thing of kind of your musical journey um always curious about like people that have like the writer spirit I feel like there's a different thing between being like necessarily just like I I play songs and I excel at like improvisation and and like laying it down every single night and then the types that like immediately when they start learning stuff they start like being like oh I could go over here or I could improvise on this or like one of my problems when I was younger is I would learn the vocabulary

3:48 Luke F. Walton very so i'd learn like my favorite phrase or riff totally or something like that and then build something weird off of it my parents would be like why aren't you just playing the damn song like just play it down i'm like no you know i'm trying to like mess with it like figure it out and get inside of it did you have a similar experience when you were like getting into music did you feel that writer energy or did that grow over

4:05 Alex Delicata i

4:05 Luke F. Walton time

4:05 Alex Delicata mean i think there was just a curiosity for like what these sounds are like we just had a piano in our house like my parents neither of them were musical

4:14 Alex Delicata old like did anything professionally my dad used to kind of mess around on the piano sometimes he had like i think a really strong ear and could sing and and all that but um i always just had a curiosity for like the piano just sitting in our house and so like before i started taking lessons or anything like that i would just kind of go over there and explore and kind of like play whatever so i think it started off being like just this sort of curious exploration of sounds and things that sound cool and then of course like you know that i think opens you up to listening to stuff more critically and so you're

4:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:43 Alex Delicata like listening like

4:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:43 Alex Delicata listening differently even at a really young age and you're just like oh man that thing on that recording is

4:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

4:48 Alex Delicata fucking amazing can i sorry i don't know if Yeah, i can cuss

4:51 Luke F. Walton you can cuss.

4:51 Alex Delicata but yeah

4:51 Luke F. Walton You can cuss.

4:52 Alex Delicata it's that fucking amazing yeah

4:52 Luke F. Walton We'll throw the E on there and then we're good for the rest of the episode.

4:55 Alex Delicata uh sorry but amazing and then you want to copy that and so then you know my parents of course like wanted to like encourage me to do it and they didn't really know any other way than to like do classical piano lessons or whatever it was so the

5:09 Luke F. Walton Yes.

5:09 Alex Delicata structure i think came then and you

5:11 Luke F. Walton Okay.

5:12 Alex Delicata know that became like a complicated relationship in its own like i loved learning the technique and things like that but i didn't function so well with like structure and lessons became

5:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:23 Alex Delicata this sort of anxious thing about performance rather than about freely creating and i so i think i always latched on to well this feels like more of an escape and it's more collaborative you know so that that part of it i think was always you Was always there for sure.

5:38 Luke F. Walton yes and I think it's funny when when I don't know the modern way of teaching classical which already sounds like an oxymoron is like so performance focused when

5:46 Alex Delicata Yeah.

5:46 Luke F. Walton like if you look at like Bach and stuff these dudes improvise like Mozart improvised like they they were they were players and they would write kind of more like the way the jazz players do today that's kind of how they would do like Bach would sit down at the organ and play his tune but then like go off and do do some exploration and come back back back to the head like

6:04 Alex Delicata yeah i mean totally totally

6:05 Luke F. Walton built in

6:06 Alex Delicata yeah

6:06 Luke F. Walton but

6:06 Alex Delicata i

6:07 Luke F. Walton we don't we don't really teach it that way anymore and and i think that i think that i don't know your instincts were right yeah

6:12 Alex Delicata mean i don't know listen i think it's a great thing for some people like there's obviously a balance no matter how far you are along in what part of music or really anything you're doing there's a balance between like your craft and your technical ability and then like some a totally different uh skill set which is you know creativity i mean this works in anything anything not just like music i mean i

6:33 Luke F. Walton Yep,

6:33 Alex Delicata think yep, people who are great at decision making for large companies that can both understand how something works and then also you know think outside the box and be able to be at like 10 000 feet a little bit sometimes too and that's a hard

6:45 Luke F. Walton right.

6:45 Alex Delicata thing to do inside your own brain is like a musician and a songwriter of course too because you have to sort of play both those roles sometimes in the same day you know so

6:53 Luke F. Walton Absolutely. And I'm moving between craft and creativity or intuition because,

6:59 Alex Delicata Right.

6:59 Luke F. Walton yeah, this is super interesting interplay. And one can benefit the other. When you reach the end of your intuition, you can go back to your craft and vice versa.

7:07 Alex Delicata Yeah. Oh, I mean, totally. I think it's a good way to. I think when you're neglecting either of those things, and this is like a bit of a deeper thing,

7:16 Alex Delicata That's like good. then I That's what this think, pod's yeah, for. I think like then you sort of like get into trouble and you lose inspiration, you can lose like forward motion. So I think like always trying to be learning and improving things, at least I find that to be some of the most inspiring stuff, like just watching other people who I really respect work or whatever it might be even watching like like tutorials like all

7:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:39 Alex Delicata the time i'm always trying to like learn different ways to look at things and stuff like that so that i can then be free but then also taking time away from music taking going outside you know i mean doing stuff like that to just sort of like you know be away from it enough and like be able to have some perspective on everything that you're doing is i think also equally important

8:00 Luke F. Walton I like that a lot.

8:01 Alex Delicata Yeah. Um, on that, on that. So I'm a, I'm a distance runner. Yeah, I don't there you

8:05 Alex Delicata know go. if you're a, you're a, you're an endurance athlete as well. Cycling, right?

8:08 Alex Delicata Yes, exactly. I think I don't that this think anyone's ever called me an endurance athlete, but I like that.

8:15 Luke F. Walton Well, I like that phraseology because it relates really well to music.

8:19 Alex Delicata yeah

8:19 Luke F. Walton Music

8:19 Alex Delicata well

8:19 Luke F. Walton is an endurance athletic activity

8:22 Alex Delicata i

8:22 Luke F. Walton as

8:22 Alex Delicata mean

8:23 Luke F. Walton well.

8:23 Alex Delicata i think there's the thing about i don't know if you feel this way but like i have no fucking control over whether or not i'm going to get a good day or a bad day uh like writing i mean i've been in rooms with people who uh like just incredible rooms and we've gotten terrible songs i mean it happens all the time and and i think you know

8:44 Alex Delicata there's something about just like showing up every day and just like being there and like making time to do it that's like the important metric to watch and i feel that way about cycling too or running

8:55 Alex Delicata Yeah, any endurance sport is like some days you're gonna have good days and some days you're gonna have bad days you just get out there and train you just get out there and run and like just see what happens you have no idea how you're gonna feel 15 minutes into the thing versus how you felt when you started and that can totally be true with music too You know,

9:12 Alex Delicata Absolutely. I don't know. Yeah

9:13 Luke F. Walton And in the same way, like you could like. i i just did a i did a 16 miler i haven't done that in like a year i'm training for chicago marathon um

9:21 Alex Delicata Nice. Great marathon.

9:22 Luke F. Walton yeah

9:22 Alex Delicata Great marathon.

9:22 Luke F. Walton super stoked and it's actually a flat one which is a first for me uh so um but i got my ass kicked i i i like i'm like oh i'm a good runner i've done multiple marathons whatever and i just absolutely hit the wall and it broke me and it was that was that feeling of like what am i doing why did i pick such a stupid activity and then yesterday ran a tempo i'm like i feel great Feel great like

9:44 Alex Delicata yeah i mean it

9:45 Luke F. Walton this rocks

9:45 Alex Delicata it really is just like music in so many ways because like you can have all the hits in the world or successful songs or feel really accomplished one day and then just have like two weeks of just how what is happening like making just the most garbage stuff and it just you just have no control over it so you just have to laugh at it and try to move on and keep keep writing keep working you

10:07 Luke F. Walton And that's

10:08 Alex Delicata know

10:08 Luke F. Walton the stuff that people on the outside don't see

10:10 Alex Delicata Oh, it's yeah. like instagram and stuff you know like you think that i i i tell i tell mixing clients this often too is like hey man don't compare my mix necessarily to that guy's master it's like this is the first mix like we're working on it we're getting there it's like it's not a one-to-one apple to apple kind of comparison like it's

10:29 Alex Delicata Yeah, no, I mean, a process I think, you know, I don't know about you, but like, I probably bat like.

10:36 Alex Delicata i don't know one out of every 30 or 40 songs is good you know what i mean like i think i'm really proud of like

10:42 Alex Delicata Yeah, totally. granted there's great ideas and stuff in there and but the thing is i think you sort of almost have to work through all the puzzles of like and sort of fail at them in order to like get to anything good ever anyways so there's there's learning in all of it even if it feels like just soul crushing after a few days of like not doing well in the studio you know um

11:01 Alex Delicata Totally. Yeah, just remembering that it'll come and trying, I try not to control it, you know, there are certain things you can do, but I think the less you try to control it, the better off you are, you know.

11:12 Alex Delicata I'm curious about that process. So say you've been working on a few, it's not quite coming. How do you rinse and repeat? How do you re-approach that moment and say, okay, no, let's attack this kind of idea in a different way or let's switch up the chords, let's switch up the form. What's your process to like? Keep going.

11:32 Alex Delicata I Keep mean, to that so next level. I think this changes all the time and it's evolving all the time. So like. I guess that's a good question. I think I think sometimes even in the course of one session, you

11:44 Alex Delicata Mm hmm. can do this mostly by a not being too precious about any one idea and like not and it's like sort of this mentality of like not editing while you're creating. So it's just sort of like you've got to just get these ideas out. You got to like get stuff down before you can decide if it's good or bad anyway. So I

12:04 Alex Delicata Yeah. don't know. I feel like If you've been struggling, the best thing to do sometimes is number one, take a break for 15 minutes. You know what I mean? Like that's the main thing. Like go outside, change the environment.

12:16 Alex Delicata I think if things aren't coming like at least to get like a good framework that everyone's really excited about pretty quickly, it's almost always better to pivot and just switch gears, switch topics, start something completely new at a different tempo. I can't remember who I got this from. It was probably Mike Karen or something like that.

12:34 Alex Delicata that but um that like the second idea of the day is typically better than the first idea of the day especially if you're working with new people I feel like just getting the cobwebs off and getting comfortable with one another and like sort of like getting the ball really rolling is its own thing and it's really rare that the first idea is going to be the best one I think once people have kind of gotten their nerves off and we can all laugh and be like that was fucking terrible then like you know you can break and then

13:01 Alex Delicata And then start something with like no pretense, like oftentimes, Yeah. even if we're writing for a specific artist or specific brief or the artist is in the room and

13:08 Alex Delicata Mm-hmm. they're very passionate about a concept, sometimes like the random second idea you have that is coming from totally left field is going to be the winner or third idea. So.

13:20 Alex Delicata Yeah. that I think in a in like is one way that you can sort of like get through things is sort of just kind of not be afraid to start again start something new um

13:31 Alex Delicata Mm-hmm. and I think another thing that I do this is like more of a big picture thing is

13:36 Alex Delicata Yeah. um you know try to find balanced time for like aimless creativity i'm trying to do this more now where there's no purpose to like what i'm doing like if it's like sit down at the guitar or the piano or something in my house even and

13:53 Alex Delicata just sit for 30 or 40 minutes and play for no reason don't think about trying to record these ideas don't think about any of that like and just throw it away I mean just getting like the creative juices kind of like making it not attached to any sort of goal or any sort of anything else just to like abstractly make things up I think is a great way to get your mind out of these patterns that we get ourselves into or sort of refresh yourself

14:23 Luke F. Walton yeah i i so resonate with that last bit because you know i voice not on voice not on my phone but i a lot of them are not for the purpose of actually turning them into a song a lot of them A lot of them are just like the stupidest thing I could think of right there. Just like a dumb.

14:37 Luke F. Walton lyric collection or I'm sitting in traffic losing my mind and I'm just going to record it just so that I have this weird thing and every once in a while one of those little nuggets turns into like a seed of a song but it gets me in the process of I'm in the shower I'm writing something and I always try to write at least one awful thing a day and

14:56 Alex Delicata yeah that's

14:56 Luke F. Walton I've always

14:56 Alex Delicata great that's a great tool

14:57 Luke F. Walton had that

14:57 Alex Delicata people

14:57 Luke F. Walton bad

14:58 Alex Delicata people

14:58 Luke F. Walton idea

14:58 Alex Delicata love doing like that sort of like let's intentionally write a bad song for 10 minutes you know what i mean like it again it's a thing that i think takes the pressure off um

15:07 Luke F. Walton Mm

15:07 Alex Delicata because

15:07 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

15:07 Alex Delicata I think you know if you're a professional songwriter or producer or whatever like there is an inevitability to like the idea that you know you're going to have pressure to create things or to control success or control like okay well if I catalog all these ideas and I'm super organized and I go through them and I have this like process and I think that might work for some people but for me I'm already so

15:31 Alex Delicata sort of like analytical and and judgy in certain ways and self-critical that um and i think this is true for a lot of people the best thing that i can do is just focus on um

15:44 Alex Delicata finding ways to take the pressure off and like remove the expectation piece so that I can just make a lot of stuff first and then let that like analytical instinct in later on and not try to control the process you know

15:57 Luke F. Walton exactly and i love that i love that perspective too of make the thing and then assess the thing and then do it again um like separating the the critic but not abolishing the critic like still Well, making them important, but not necessarily completely in the moment.

16:13 Alex Delicata Yeah, I think that's almost impossible to do like there

16:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah, for

16:16 Alex Delicata are certainly

16:16 Luke F. Walton sure.

16:16 Alex Delicata there are people where their balance is going to be a little different like I know certain people are

16:22 Alex Delicata like uh irrationally overconfident which i almost wish that i had that you know what i mean like this sort of like uh i don't know dj khaled vibe where you're just like dude you are just insanely confident for no fucking reason but it totally works for you that which is amazing like i i wish i had more of that sometimes but um yeah like those people certainly are are you know maybe more at danger of having to remember to judge themselves but like

16:49 Alex Delicata Honestly,

16:49 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

16:49 Alex Delicata I'd rather err on that side of things, of overconfidence, than I would like being crippled by fear of failure or something like that, you know?

16:58 Luke F. Walton On this point, I'm curious what you would do in a session like this, because I've been in a few of these where the ideas are flowing, the song's coming along, but there's a writer in the room that doesn't really believe in editing. They believe like first pass, those are the lyrics, everything's in stone.

17:15 Luke F. Walton And that's hard for me to work with because I like to get stuff done and then let's go back and tweak some things and reassess. Maybe we'll sing it and realize these syllables don't hit. But some other writers will be like, no, as we're going, we are editing and we are getting each line perfect. Have you been in that situation? How would you navigate that?

17:33 Alex Delicata I mean, I think... i guess it really like isn't something that if you don't have if it's a session you're already in you don't have control over the room and

17:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

17:45 Alex Delicata like you know these are things that i think you try to ideally pay attention to um for future sessions where like if you know certain writers work well with other writers that have similar tendencies and and complement each other well then of course you try to put those people together um and uh but if you if you can't in that situation i think you

18:02 Alex Delicata The best thing to do is just like, I don't know, I'm a believer that like I try to be as hands off as possible until as late as possible just to see

18:12 Luke F. Walton Okay,

18:13 Alex Delicata like how

18:13 Luke F. Walton yeah

18:14 Alex Delicata things can go like naturally without, you know, me having to sort of like direct the flow of the session. So if somebody's I think typically the faster moving person usually wins and that's fine. I'm cool with that. And then I think maybe if you're noticing the other person wants to go back and edit, then maybe I give them a little bit of support later on and say, hey, you know,

18:35 Luke F. Walton For

18:35 Alex Delicata what

18:35 Luke F. Walton sure.

18:35 Alex Delicata do you guys think about this lyric or this lyric or does anyone have any thoughts? Like sort of make it just an open conversation so that that person has their time to sort of get in there too and sort of and then, you know. we'll judge the ideas together because at the end of the day you want the best possible product everybody's

18:52 Luke F. Walton Mm

18:52 Alex Delicata in it-hmm. for the same thing and you're supposed to fight over stuff like if

18:54 Luke F. Walton Yes.

18:55 Alex Delicata it's a good song it's a good collaboration there should be some passion there like

18:59 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

18:59 Alex Delicata the worst thing that can happen is for people to come in and just kind of not care that's

19:03 Luke F. Walton Right.

19:04 Alex Delicata a waste of the day you know what i mean like it's you should care you should want it to be um the best that it possibly can be that day you know and also try to have some fun you

19:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:13 Alex Delicata know what i mean like

19:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:15 Alex Delicata it's still got to be fun i think 90 of the time it's a pleasant process writing the good ones you know like

19:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Totally get it. What's the biggest session you ever done? Because I know I like,

19:30 Alex Delicata in

19:30 Luke F. Walton yeah,

19:30 Alex Delicata terms of number of people oh

19:32 Luke F. Walton number of people.

19:32 Alex Delicata that's a good question um I mean, like, so some of these like writing camp sessions,

19:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:38 Alex Delicata like there's the like sort of like the famous Warner Chapel who I'm published by right now there they do like this Vegas camp every year with like, I don't know, there's a hundred people there at a time um

19:50 Luke F. Walton what like

19:51 Alex Delicata not in the not in one studio but like you

19:53 Luke F. Walton yeah but

19:53 Alex Delicata know they're

19:54 Luke F. Walton like in the other couches

19:54 Alex Delicata they're staying we stay at like a hotel in vegas and they stick send everybody out to sessions and i've definitely been in in sessions with like seven or eight people um like collaborating at one time um and then other people in the room like kind of hanging out like especially like i think in like a camp setting like that like a hip-hop session you'll have like three producers couple

20:16 Luke F. Walton Mm

20:16 Alex Delicata of writers

20:16 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

20:16 Alex Delicata and artists you know what i mean maybe two artists and

20:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:19 Alex Delicata um those can be super fun because it's just if everyone's plugged in you're just jamming i mean like i'm like making a guitar lick over here and then passing it over this guy who's fucking it up a little bit and then somebody else is like taking that and doing some drums and then like all of a sudden we have a beat in seven minutes that someone's writing on and we're like off to the next beat and that's like that can be a really fun way to work for sure

20:40 Luke F. Walton That sounds super fun.

20:41 Alex Delicata I don't think sitting around writing like a like a folk like a you know like a piano song with eight people is probably gonna be that good but it's probably happened too I don't know

20:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah, no, and actually that's probably a question that some listeners would be having because they'll see, you know, they'll open up the credits and see a bunch of names.

21:00 Luke F. Walton Maybe can you explain kind of like how that works? So like you look at, I don't know. like Beyonce, just

21:08 Alex Delicata Sure,

21:08 Luke F. Walton like

21:09 Alex Delicata sure.

21:09 Luke F. Walton that

21:09 Alex Delicata Or yeah,

21:09 Luke F. Walton you see.

21:10 Alex Delicata I mean, I think there's a lot of artists that have different processes for how this all works.

21:15 Alex Delicata You know, it can be you're in just different situations all the time, at least for me, like oftentimes, sometimes there'll be an artist in the room in the session and it'll be myself that artist myself that artist a couple of co writers, you know, sort of start off with maybe three, even in a situation where you have the artist in the room, and then, you know, we'll finish and I'll say, you know what?

21:35 Alex Delicata I have a friend who I'd love to collaborate on the production with here. It'd be perfect for this sort of production. So I pull him in and then there's an extra name on the list there as a writer because he's helped me with the track. And then, you know, that's one way that that happens. But I think for someone like Beyonce.

21:51 Alex Delicata typically it's gonna probably go through the hands of a few different producers so what'll happen oftentimes is at least my experience in in having a record with Beyonce was I wrote that song with Diana Gordon and Kevin Costum in Miami it was just the three of us and we were sitting we wrote it on a guitar it was like almost like a country song and

22:13 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah totally I know this like yeah

22:14 Alex Delicata and so that sat on i think we definitely had her in mind when we wrote it was for album prior like it was

22:23 Luke F. Walton cool

22:23 Alex Delicata two years before and

22:24 Luke F. Walton got

22:25 Alex Delicata um it's sad

22:26 Luke F. Walton this

22:26 Alex Delicata on not

22:26 Luke F. Walton you weren't even thinking like lemonade yeah

22:28 Alex Delicata at all we didn't i didn't know i mean not at all

22:30 Luke F. Walton cool

22:30 Alex Delicata um we had no idea that that was even being

22:33 Luke F. Walton didn't know that

22:33 Alex Delicata made i mean but anyway so diana um gordon had it on her laptop for like she was like that's one of my favorite songs like but we have no fucking idea what to do with it um and so like two years later i get a text message from her and she's like yo can you you

22:48 Alex Delicata can you send me like you know the chords and like some other stuff from like basically right out the form and all that stuff for for uh daddy lessons and i said um yeah sure so i just sent it to her and then i got a call like maybe three months later and they were like um

23:05 Alex Delicata so we can't really tell you uh if we're using the song or not but beyonce is gonna buy like the song anyways and so like you know you're gonna do a producer deal whatever and it may or may not be on this next thing that's coming out sometime in the near future so yeah so like then lemonade dropped and it was on there and the production was like way beefed up like they

23:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:24 Alex Delicata kept some of my guitar stuff but like i don't even know if it's me playing i think it got replayed even and they they hooked me up with a uh uh producer credit because they kept

23:32 Luke F. Walton a Yeah.

23:32 Alex Delicata lot of the parts um

23:33 Luke F. Walton Got it.

23:34 Alex Delicata but

23:34 Luke F. Walton Cool.

23:34 Alex Delicata basically her band like replayed the song so um yeah like that one obviously she went in and edited a bunch she like rewrote a bunch of lyrics and like rewrote the whole bridge um and then uh

23:49 Alex Delicata obviously some other people that she works with ended up touching the production so that that probably added some names on there too i think that's a typical process is like

23:56 Luke F. Walton yeah that's it

23:57 Alex Delicata right

23:57 Luke F. Walton yes

23:57 Alex Delicata short answer is like you know you get a song to an artist they have a whole team that they like to make it their style and sort of help them you know rewrite some stuff or whatever to make it more personal and then that's how you end up with essentially two writing sessions worth of people on credits

24:11 Luke F. Walton that makes a lot of sense that makes a lot of sense and that also makes sense why you know a song like that that feels very personal and and folk and country and like you know it feels like a writing session time you do in Nashville or Miami or whatever like around an acoustic guitar around a folk instrument you

24:26 Alex Delicata yeah i mean

24:27 Luke F. Walton know

24:27 Alex Delicata i

24:27 Luke F. Walton yeah

24:27 Alex Delicata definitely definitely was not the brief that we had that day either it was just again that might have been like i think a second or third song thing like kevin called me and he was just like yo bring a guitar we want to do something different than we've been doing all day i said all right cool but um

24:39 Alex Delicata yeah that was a crazy one and i i guess like when when diana had played it for beyonce she was just like damn like i really can relate to that like i need to have that song you know what i mean so it's

24:48 Luke F. Walton Yes, totally.

24:49 Alex Delicata crazy how music does that like you know so many shared experiences through people who you know seemingly would be so different you know what i mean i that's obviously a very broad simple statement but i think it's true

25:04 Luke F. Walton But it's profound at the same time. It's like, you know. that there's that's a reason why we have hits and stuff is it it taps into like a cultural consciousness

25:13 Alex Delicata yeah yeah i guess yeah no

25:16 Luke F. Walton yeah not that i have hits i meant like the royals

25:18 Alex Delicata i mean well yeah sure no but i mean you know any music it doesn't matter if it's 10 people or 100 people or a billion people like you know i think that's that's what's cool about right now in music is for artists i think if you can find

25:35 Alex Delicata you know your little small group of like passionate fans that really love you you can make a career out of this it doesn't it's not either like you're Beyonce or you're nothing you know what I mean like there is like this at least for artists like a middle class that sort of exists now that I think hasn't existed for a long time

25:52 Luke F. Walton totally totally and i and i i like i like that there are more fans that are adapting that too that's part of the reason why i wanted to do this podcast so that the people that want to like get heavier into the process understand the nuts and bolts not necessarily even if they wanted want to do it just to like get the behind the scenes like the dvds and stuff and

26:08 Alex Delicata i mean

26:09 Luke F. Walton you're

26:09 Alex Delicata yeah

26:09 Luke F. Walton like i know the lord of the rings better now because i watched the extended right

26:12 Alex Delicata like i can't drive an f1 car and i never will but i still like watching drive and survive you know that's exactly pretty cool totally

26:18 Luke F. Walton it makes you appreciate the the races more because you're like now i understand the personalities and the teams and what all goes into this and yeah changes it

26:26 Alex Delicata yeah i mean definitely and i think you know i'm not sure that i would wish upon any normal person like learning how to listen to music as critically as maybe you or i do

26:36 Luke F. Walton no

26:36 Alex Delicata like

26:37 Luke F. Walton i

26:37 Alex Delicata just

26:37 Luke F. Walton don't

26:37 Alex Delicata like

26:37 Luke F. Walton wish that

26:37 Alex Delicata breaking

26:38 Luke F. Walton yeah

26:38 Alex Delicata all the parts down and everything you

26:39 Luke F. Walton no yep

26:40 Alex Delicata know and not having trouble enjoying things as like a full just like wonder wonderment type experience but like 10 of that is nice i think to have you

26:49 Luke F. Walton exactly

26:49 Alex Delicata know a little bit more context

26:50 Luke F. Walton i actually i kind of had an existential crisis for a little while like when when my ears changed finished to like music school years i

26:56 Alex Delicata yeah

26:57 Luke F. Walton was like i don't like music as much anymore because like i hear all the parts and how they all interlocked and i'm thinking all the time i've kind of i've gotten to the other end of that but there were there was like there were a couple years in there that was they were scary

27:08 Alex Delicata i mean i think they tell you like you learn these rules and then you're supposed to forget them you know what i mean like i think that that's something people say um

27:16 Alex Delicata and uh yeah like it took me a long time to forget all the rules i still feel like i know too many of them i don't want them you know sure

27:23 Luke F. Walton Totally. Actually, I want to talk to you, I guess, about my favorite songwriting rule, songwriting form.

27:32 Alex Delicata Okay.

27:32 Luke F. Walton I've been noticing some really interesting trends in songwriting form Yeah. and I'm just curious about like how you how you approach a tune and obviously this can change midstream I do this all the time where like oh I'm gonna move the bridge over here instead or I'm gonna take away this first pre-chorus but leave in leave in a second pre-chorus but like the pacing of the song and like going to the different sections curious like how your your thought process of that has maybe evolved like I know that like Max Martin's got like his thing

27:59 Luke F. Walton thing he's got like a certain way that he he wants to like pace out a tune but i'm just i'm just curious like do you think about form or do you kind of like let it flow or how do you interact with like that specific technique based bit of songwriting

28:14 Alex Delicata Well, I mean, again, I think it's a thing where. i used to worry about it a lot more than i do now um

28:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:23 Alex Delicata like you know i think when you're it's important to learn like the shit that's worked forever in like

28:29 Luke F. Walton Right.

28:29 Alex Delicata in your medium like i always tell people like you know if you if you want the song to be for a specific medium like if you want it to be pop music if you want it to be then don't make it eight minutes long and don't make like the chorus come in at four minutes you know what i mean like but if you want to just make a piece of art then that's awesome do that like radiohead has songs that are crazy

28:31 Alex Delicata always tell people like you know if you if you want the song to be for a specific medium like if you want it to be pop music if you want it to be then don't make it eight minutes long and don't make like the chorus come in at four minutes you know what i mean like but if you want to just make a piece of art then that's awesome do that like radiohead has songs that are crazy like that that are amazing but like

28:50 Luke F. Walton Yep.

28:50 Alex Delicata i'm not sure that they work today on like pop whatever radio but who cares like it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish so i think you know if you're trying to make a pop song there's certain things that you know work or are working better now than they were before um and you know you try to pay attention to like the trends and so so you know stay

29:14 Alex Delicata to stay like to make sure that whatever you're making sort of can fit loosely in this mold of stuff right um

29:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:19 Alex Delicata so

29:20 Luke F. Walton yeah,

29:20 Alex Delicata i do pay attention to that but uh yeah there's no like rules to it i don't think you know it's not like i'm i mean maybe like six years ago or 10 years ago you'd be like oh if your chorus hasn't come in by 38 seconds and you know you're not cutting the second half of your uh second pre-chorus then this isn't a correct pop song but i don't think that really applies anymore

29:40 Luke F. Walton I agree. I agree. I mean, it's also interesting to look at the ways that song form changed from like, you know, Beatles, Beach

29:46 Alex Delicata totally

29:47 Luke F. Walton Boys era, like traditional more AABA kind of song form like yesterday, like a good example of kind of a weirder form of that to, you know, what it is today with like, I kissed a girl or something like that on kind of the Yeah, other.

30:02 Alex Delicata I think that that almost has run its course in some ways too like

30:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

30:06 Alex Delicata even

30:06 Luke F. Walton cool.

30:06 Alex Delicata like modern like pop pop songs like yeah of course they have like formats but they're i don't think it's quite as um like syntax oriented um

30:18 Luke F. Walton Agree.

30:18 Alex Delicata i actually

30:18 Luke F. Walton Agree.

30:19 Alex Delicata think that the biggest songs now are the ones that tend to um or the ones that people feel like are classic tend to sort of step outside the box and refer to periods like that beatles beach boys period um almost like directly you know

30:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:36 Alex Delicata what i mean and so it feels like a renewed sort of thing because everything is cyclical trends come and go you know people get tired of 128 to 135 dance music after a while and then they want to hear something slower and then you know a couple years later they you know they want to party again so i

30:54 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

30:54 Alex Delicata mean it's it's it's it's sort of like and i'm trying to like fit into that too much i think he's a you're chasing your own tail i think you just make what you make and and you just try to be um like loosely aware of what works and doesn't work you know yeah

31:09 Luke F. Walton yeah that's a great point it's a great point and i agree with you in terms of the overly syntactical like um i think artists like remy wolf is a good example of somebody that kind of just like has hooks

31:18 Alex Delicata she's so sick so

31:19 Luke F. Walton she's so sick yeah

31:20 Alex Delicata sick yeah

31:23 Luke F. Walton it's refreshing i don't know it's nice to like not and not have to like think as like squarely like this is the chorus it's just like here's another hook and here's an even better hook

31:32 Alex Delicata yeah

31:32 Luke F. Walton and

31:32 Alex Delicata just like

31:32 Luke F. Walton then like here's one more

31:33 Alex Delicata just like write cool shit right just

31:35 Luke F. Walton yeah right exactly

31:36 Alex Delicata like do cool stuff and make it sound good

31:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

31:40 Alex Delicata Yeah, that's

31:40 Luke F. Walton that's

31:41 Alex Delicata the job.

31:41 Luke F. Walton the job.

31:42 Alex Delicata That's the gig.

31:43 Luke F. Walton There's your golden nugget, everybody. One of the things that I've been maybe falling too prey to right now, but if I don't have a good enough second verse idea, I just don't.

31:55 Alex Delicata you just don't

31:56 Luke F. Walton like

31:56 Alex Delicata do the second you don't write it

31:57 Luke F. Walton don't do the second verse you're like i do either like a new section or variation on the second verse turn it into an instrumental but i've just like i i i can't bring myself to write a crappy second verse anymore i just can't it has to be good or

32:11 Alex Delicata yeah well what's

32:12 Luke F. Walton it has

32:12 Alex Delicata the point

32:12 Luke F. Walton to change

32:12 Alex Delicata yeah i mean to be fair like yeah if you're not absolutely thrilled with something by the end of the first chorus you probably probably don't need to write the second verse at all you can just write something new

32:23 Luke F. Walton Oh, totally.

32:24 Alex Delicata you know what i mean

32:25 Luke F. Walton But sometimes it just feels like, okay, I said it. What else am I going to say? It's like, oh, you know, you could do the Nashville thing and change perspective or change time period or whatever. It's like, or you just don't do it and do a different hook.

32:36 Alex Delicata sure yeah

32:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:39 Alex Delicata no

32:39 Luke F. Walton I'm bringing my chaos into this conversation too much.

32:41 Alex Delicata no i like it i like it i like

32:44 Luke F. Walton I'm curious,

32:45 Alex Delicata energy is good

32:46 Luke F. Walton talking Nashville, the Hunter Hayes song that you just . you just uh worked on

32:50 Alex Delicata Yeah.

32:51 Luke F. Walton sober i'm curious curious how that goes um you know country artist how did how was that process were you pitching the tune was that through through warren chapel like how did that how did that come about

33:00 Alex Delicata Let me think about that. I think. yeah i think uh that was something that uh came through my yeah through warner um hunter had just i think moved or was in the process of like moving either full-time or part-time to la and was looking for some like new people to collaborate with um that had a little bit different perspective i think he wanted to move a little bit away from like just being seen strictly as like a nashville country guy

33:27 Luke F. Walton Oh, for sure.

33:28 Alex Delicata um

33:28 Luke F. Walton For sure.

33:28 Alex Delicata and so um that's

33:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

33:31 Alex Delicata great we wrote that one. I think we did maybe four or five days spread out over a couple of months with Hunter. It was myself, my friend Aaron Zuckerman, who I collaborate and co-produce with quite a bit. And Rolo Spreckley is an amazing artist and writer signed to Atlantic or APG. And yeah, so it was the three of us and Hunter. And we just one of the songs that we wrote was was that one.

33:57 Alex Delicata one um and then i think it went through a few different iterations of production some i think was more uh like program sounding some of it the latest version is almost all hunter playing so he he really took took that to the finish line production wise um and so yeah it was it was a fun process to do something a little bit more live sounding and a little bit more like just like leave it in the hands of the artist to sort of do his thing to finish which was which was cool

34:26 Alex Delicata Cool.

34:26 Luke F. Walton That is cool. And it's cool to be, I don't know, part of that. kind of crossroads of that that artist career where they're saying like I want to evolve in this way and then like you can kind of help them you know explore different parts of their sound different parts of their personality

34:40 Alex Delicata yeah i mean he's such a nice guy and like was so easy to collaborate with and like it's so generous and open um like with us just from the beginning which is so nice and i think one of the things that makes any artist really great to work with is just he has a he has a very specific

34:58 Alex Delicata perspective and he really knows what he's trying to accomplish or at least the feeling that he's trying to achieve and so when you have some sort of north star in that way i think as an artist it's really powerful because then the people around you can can really figure out how to help you and and try to execute that vision or explore it with you rather than you know sometimes that's not so clear and so it was really nice for him he came in uh super prepared it was great

35:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's the number one thing that an artist needs is like This is like vision

35:26 Alex Delicata yeah no absolutely absolutely yeah and it's um it's it's it's more rare than i think um that i think a lot of people would would would guess like like a true like kind of uh big picture kind of vision for sure i mean

35:45 Luke F. Walton and i and sometimes it exhausts sometimes people have vision for the first like record or two and then beyond that they're like i don't know where to evolve yet and

35:53 Alex Delicata i think

35:53 Luke F. Walton uh

35:53 Alex Delicata that's

35:53 Luke F. Walton it's natural right it is of course it is that's when you're that's when you run or take a long bike ride

35:57 Alex Delicata yeah man i mean i've never i've never been an artist so i just find it so impressive like just being able to negotiate all of these things and have it have it be so personal and

36:08 Luke F. Walton yeah

36:09 Alex Delicata personal personal and like tied to your you know your identity and all that i mean i you know it's such a tough thing to do i have a lot of respect for for artists yeah

36:18 Luke F. Walton totally and sometimes that's why uh you you know put on a stupid name like scoobert doobert and then uh it makes a little easier yeah

36:25 Alex Delicata yeah exactly yeah yeah then then then you can then you can have some room some

36:30 Luke F. Walton yeah

36:30 Alex Delicata room to have

36:30 Luke F. Walton exactly

36:30 Alex Delicata fun you know

36:31 Luke F. Walton right right then i can write songs about shrimp burritos and nobody bats an

36:35 Alex Delicata There

36:36 Luke F. Walton eye

36:36 Alex Delicata you go. Shrimp burrito sounds great.

36:38 Luke F. Walton they're pretty good man a lot of people that i i added that that was that was one of my like stupid shower songs and i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna track this one it was my birthday i'm like i'm gonna i'm just gonna spend my my morning recording this song that's really dumb um

36:52 Alex Delicata Getting shrimp burritos.

36:53 Luke F. Walton getting shrimp burritos three-part harmony

36:55 Alex Delicata Let's

36:55 Luke F. Walton on go. burrito um yeah it was great um um but yeah a lot of people reacted to that they're like ew shrimp burrito i'm like don't hate it it's delicious

37:04 Alex Delicata What's wrong with a shrimp burrito? Explain that

37:05 Luke F. Walton i

37:05 Alex Delicata one to me.

37:06 Luke F. Walton don't know i just think they don't they don't they like think of like you know burrito chicken or beef or something like that i i'm not i don't think that these are necessarily socal

37:13 Alex Delicata I mean, I think

37:14 Luke F. Walton or miami natives that are used to different things in their burritos

37:17 Alex Delicata people just need to expand their burrito horizons, you know?

37:20 Luke F. Walton exactly

37:20 Alex Delicata It's a beautiful burrito world out there. There's a veritable cornucopia of burrito options. Uh, anyway,

37:29 Luke F. Walton um okay

37:30 Alex Delicata sure.

37:30 Luke F. Walton i want to i want to ask you just one last one last kind of thing it might it might span out for a bit because

37:35 Alex Delicata Yeah, because I

37:36 Luke F. Walton we've

37:36 Alex Delicata can, if

37:36 Luke F. Walton been talking

37:36 Alex Delicata you can a tell,

37:37 Luke F. Walton lot we've

37:37 Alex Delicata I can talk

37:37 Luke F. Walton been talking

37:37 Alex Delicata to a

37:37 Luke F. Walton snake about dude

37:38 Alex Delicata for an hour.

37:39 Luke F. Walton this is great i know this is rad um we've been talking like folk instrument writing primarily

37:43 Alex Delicata Sure.

37:43 Luke F. Walton so far let's talk top line writing beat writing um so i i'm i'm certain that you've done this in a few different ways but uh writing on a beat that somebody like provided versus you know

37:55 Luke F. Walton you know making a beat and then writing on it how do you usually split up those those times are you thinking of hooks as you're like playing the guitar part how do you navigate like the differences between you know folk-based writing and uh you know hip-hop or beat-based writing

38:10 Alex Delicata I mean, I think it's all like more of a hybrid now even like,

38:14 Luke F. Walton cool

38:15 Alex Delicata I mean, I think when I first started out, like I was doing a lot more work in like. hip-hop and even like just hip-hop style like traditionally

38:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:25 Alex Delicata would be like we make a beat writers write on the beat and

38:29 Luke F. Walton Yes.

38:29 Alex Delicata there's no overlap and but like you know even then i think a lot of times like we weren't like bringing in fully finished beats like you go into the session with like maybe like a couple of loops or like instrumental ideas and then like whatever one starts sparking um like even in in hip-hop i think it's super important to sort of hear the cadence of someone like writing a hook or writing like a you know like

38:53 Alex Delicata you know and and and so that way you can sort of like be making it as you're hearing what's going on in the room and it's like you're making the beat they're writing and that happens for pop too i feel like you know you can start with a guitar part or like a drum loop or something and then um like you want to build it around what's going on because i think like doing them together gives you the ability to like sort of

39:15 Alex Delicata follow a melody here or like oh this is going to need a chord change based on where they're going or whatever it

39:20 Luke F. Walton Cool.

39:20 Alex Delicata might be um

39:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

39:21 Alex Delicata there's more flexibility but um

39:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I like that.

39:24 Alex Delicata certainly have also like you know it can be fun to like i don't do a lot of it um because typically i'm like doing some more of the production but um it can be fun to just like flip through a folder of beats and just whip hooks on everything you

39:39 Luke F. Walton totally

39:39 Alex Delicata know what i mean like why not you know

39:41 Luke F. Walton i know that's that's one of the reasons why i like working with edm guys sometimes because they'll just send me something like this is done put a vocal on it it's like you got like this much space that you can fill and it's like kind of like it's kind of fun because it's like it's almost like writing to a to um a brief or something because it's kind of like you gotta you gotta hit this range you gotta kind of be in this space otherwise it's not gonna work yeah yeah

40:05 Alex Delicata i mean i think the the the fun part about writing to finish tracks the energy is already there for you you

40:11 Luke F. Walton Yes. Yes.

40:12 Alex Delicata know what i mean

40:12 Luke F. Walton Totally.

40:12 Alex Delicata the the other thing where it can be kind of like tricky is sometimes it's tougher to tell if it's a good song or not because

40:18 Luke F. Walton I know.

40:19 Alex Delicata like if the production is fun and like you know you're just sort of like sometimes it automatically sounds too good like at the Yes. beginning and then like Yes. two days later you're like oh shit those lyrics are fucking terrible and

40:28 Luke F. Walton Yes.

40:29 Alex Delicata like this melody is not that good and that beat was just kind of sick you know

40:32 Luke F. Walton Yep.

40:33 Alex Delicata so

40:33 Luke F. Walton Yep. Totally.

40:33 Alex Delicata you got to be careful with that but it can be really fun

40:36 Luke F. Walton Have you written multiple songs on the same beat, like just wiped it, written again?

40:40 Alex Delicata no never i mean like i don't i don't think so at least um it's funny like i think about recycling stuff sometimes damn that was a cool beat like i should pull

40:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

40:50 Alex Delicata like at least part of that back out um but i like never do it for some reason i definitely will pull like sounds and cool like cool parts out of productions like if i finish a production and it's like i made a cool snare that i like like you know i'll put that in my little sample library and keep creating like a you know bin of stuff that i've made over the years but um

41:11 Alex Delicata yeah never like full songs for whatever reason or full

41:14 Luke F. Walton yeah

41:14 Alex Delicata beats

41:14 Luke F. Walton yeah it's actually i've done it a few times it's super hard it

41:18 Alex Delicata yeah it's

41:19 Luke F. Walton is like

41:19 Alex Delicata not bad

41:19 Luke F. Walton you already breathed like life into this song and you're gonna take it back out and put it in a new soul

41:23 Alex Delicata i mean we've definitely done

41:25 Luke F. Walton so

41:25 Alex Delicata intense

41:25 Luke F. Walton weird yeah

41:25 Alex Delicata rewrites on stuff where it's like totally

41:27 Luke F. Walton yeah

41:27 Alex Delicata new verse melody totally new lyrics and those are tough man they they can be tough but sometimes it's worth doing if you have a really strong piece like it's worth going hard to get the other pieces up to up to snuff

41:39 Luke F. Walton I agree. I agree. Yeah, definitely. Especially, yeah, especially a verse that's just not quite hitting. If that was like, you know, a throwaway end of session, you know, like, oh, we just kind of want to get something in there and then you come back and like, but everything else is great. And that's the, that's the anchor around its neck. You gotta, you gotta get back in there.

41:56 Alex Delicata Totally fight fight for the awesome pieces. I mean they're like like we said earlier they come rarely so you know use them

42:03 Luke F. Walton Yes, that's great. Well, this is an awesome conversation. Is there any other like, I don't know, personal things about music or life and creativity that you'd love to kind of leave the listeners with?

42:14 Alex Delicata I don't know. I mean, that's, damn,

42:16 Luke F. Walton We said a

42:17 Alex Delicata I feel like, I feel like, I feel like there's like a lot of pressure on that question.

42:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I know, right?

42:22 Alex Delicata No, no. But yeah, it's been, it's been awesome talking to you, man. And

42:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

42:26 Alex Delicata good to meet you. Like this is long overdue. Yeah, thanks for having me.

42:30 Luke F. Walton It's a pleasure. Thank you everybody. How can they find your stuff? I'll throw links in the bio and stuff.

42:37 Alex Delicata Yeah,

42:37 Luke F. Walton It's always

42:37 Alex Delicata links

42:37 Luke F. Walton good

42:37 Alex Delicata in

42:37 Luke F. Walton to... You

42:38 Alex Delicata the bio.

42:38 Luke F. Walton got it.

42:38 Alex Delicata They'll be You there.

42:40 Luke F. Walton got it. Sounds good. Likewise, my stuff, scoobertdoobert.pizza is my website and I'll drop my links in there as well. So thank you so much, Alex, and wish you all the best. Looking forward to hearing more and more songs.

42:52 Alex Delicata Thanks, man. Take care.

42:53 Luke F. Walton Thanks, dude. Take it easy.