Justin Tranter breaks down his love for songwriting during his cover shoot with The Hollywood Reporter. Tranter reveals how becoming a pop songwriter shocked him the most, talks working with Chappell Roan on "Good Luck Babe!" and shares his thoughts on songwriting and AI.
00:29So I think naturally what I bring to a songwriting session
00:34is my love for people, is my love for asking questions,
00:39but everything else is years and years
00:42of painful hard work.
00:44For me, it's not possible to set out and write a hit.
00:48It's just possible to set out and try to write
00:51the best song that you can for that day
00:56and for that artist.
00:58But for me, a hit song, a great pop song,
01:01by the end of the first chorus, you should pretty much
01:04understand exactly what's happening
01:06and be able to sing something back.
01:08What has been my most unexpected success?
01:16I would say being a pop songwriter.
01:19I never really listened to pop music.
01:21My obsession with the craft of songwriting came from folk music,
01:26mainly written by women who write their songs themselves.
01:30So the idea of writing songs for other people came to me late in life,
01:36like in my early 30s, because I wanted to be a singer-songwriter in my teens and 20s.
01:41Then I wanted to be a rock star from my mid-20s to early 30s.
01:45And stumbling into the idea of being a pop songwriter was not something I ever, ever thought
01:52about before I started doing it.
01:54I have to clarify, because the accident is not that I just got lucky.
01:57There was a lot of hard work.
01:58But the accident was literally like before I had my first session to write a song for somebody else.
02:03It was like a week earlier that I was like, should I try to write songs for other people?
02:07Because I've just been dropped from my fourth record deal as an artist.
02:12It's probably time to pivot.
02:15My favorite co-writers and collaborators.
02:18I mean, I've been so lucky to be co-writing songs with and for other people for about
02:2411 years now, 10 years successfully.
02:29And so I've had a lot that I love.
02:30Gwen Stefani is a highlight.
02:32I got to make two albums with her.
02:35Julia Michaels, the songs that we wrote together for other people and for her career changed my life.
02:41Obviously, Chapel Rhone, you know, co-writing Good Luck Babe is is maybe the proudest moment of my entire career.
02:49Working with Selena Gomez is one of the greatest gifts of my career.
02:55I think it's the longest collaboration of my career.
02:59She's so willing to be really vulnerable and serious and deep, but also willing to be sexy and frivolous and fun.
03:12And she's a genuinely kind, kind, kind person.
03:19Every time I know that I'm going to go work with her for whether it's a day or for a week or for a month, it's like, OK, I know I have a good day ahead of me.
03:28I have a good week ahead of me.
03:29It's it's been one of the greatest gifts of my whole life.
03:33A song that I wish I would have written, Don't Cry For Me, Argentina, from Evita.
03:40I think it's one of the greatest songs of all time.
03:42When it comes to AI and songwriting, it's a really hard question to answer, right?
03:48I feel like whenever the music business has resisted technology in the past, we always get left behind and screwed over.
03:57And then it takes a decade to try to recover.
04:00So even though I don't love that AI is here, I do think we have to learn how to make it a tool.
04:10I do think we have to learn and fight to regulate it so it doesn't replace us.
04:15I do think that there will always be a human want for human storytelling.
04:21Maybe I'm just being hopeful.
04:23I don't think AI will ever completely replace the art of songwriting.
04:28But I don't want to fully banish it and resist it, because whenever the music business does that, we just get screwed.
04:34For me, the secret to sitting down with an artist and ending up with a hit is just talking to them.
04:45Now, it's obviously more than that, right?
04:47Because I have had to spend decades writing songs that were bad, then they were decent, then they were good, then they were great.
04:57It kind of is that process still.
04:59Some songs I write suck, some aren't.
05:01But I have to stay in practice.
05:02I have to write, for me, minimum five songs a week, else my muscle gets atrophied and the songs suck.
05:11So I have to stay prepared.
05:13I have to stay working.
05:15I have to stay writing so that when the artist shows up, I am prepared to ask them questions about their life and be a friend and be a listener and turn that into a song.
05:28Hollywood Reporter, thank you for having me.
05:32Thank you so much for dressing me in the coolest clothes I've ever gotten to wear.
05:36And thank you to anyone who's watching this video.
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