Producer Rob Fusari took some time out to discuss how he molded Stefani Germanotta from small club rocker into the weird cxommercialized dance diva she has become today:
“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…”
Fusari wasn't initially sold on Stefani, who trekked all the way from new York to New Jersey to meet with Fusari until she sat at the piano and sang for him. After that, the rest is history and they began working on music together. Here is the rest of the interview via Billboard:
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.
Shortly after, Rob introduced Stefani to the man who would soon become her Clyde to his Bonnie, RedOne, and then after working hard on new music and making a few phonecalls, Rob helped Stefani get a meeting with Jimmy Iovine, which eventually lead to her new record deal with Interscope.
After launching the haus of Gaga and being catapulted to overnight success, it seems she and Fusari have drifted apart:
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.
Now let's get into slinging grease at a well-known song thief named Beyonce. I know many queens get pissed if you say anything remotely negative about Beyonce, but I feel as someone who watches her videos and purchases her music, I can say whatever the fuck I want. It's not considered hate when it's a fact and i truly believe bitches need to learn what the dam word means. Anyways, ever since she swagger-jacked Amerie's gogo sound with DCrazy in Love and snatched her 'Give Me Body' performance from Kylie Minogue's Fever tour, I've been on to this thieving bitch.
Remember when Beyonce claimed she wrote 'Irreplaceable' and then Ne*Yo called her out on her shit and said he wrote it? Well now Rob Fusari says he wrote and produced the #1 hit song back in 2001 and agreed to give her a songwriting credit because he was trying to make a name for himself.
I came up with the idea to build a track using the guitar riff from Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen.” I really wanted to play the riff from “Eye of the Tiger,” but I was flipping through my CDs in the studio and I couldn’t find it. But I saw the Stevie Nicks CD and I remembered that the riff was similar.
I figured I’d put the guitar loop on there temporarily, and later go into the studio with a guitar and replay it, because I’d learned, after sampling Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” for Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West,” that I didn’t want to lose 50% of the publishing. I vividly remember telling Mathew Knowles, “Mathew, you got to book me into your studio and let me replay that riff.” It was Guitar 101! One note!
He didn’t want to do it. So 50% got cut for one note. That whole experience was bittersweet for me.
What made him furious was when he saw Beyonce on TV taking credit for his song, which is currently a word in the Guiness Book of World Records:
I remember watching Barbara Walters interview Beyoncé about “Bootylicious,” and she told Barbara about how she came up with the idea for the track. And I was just like, “What?” I called Mathew-which was a big mistake; I got emotional, and I apologized after-but I called Mathew and said, “Mathew, like, why?”
And he explained to me, in a nice way, he said, “People don’t want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that’s not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I know, Mathew. I understand the game. But come on, I’m trying too. I’m a squirrel trying to get a nut, too.”
I like the crazy stage flashiness of Gaga and some of the songs. I've said in the past that her music has yet to catch up with the stage personae and the crazy costumes, but I also think she works best when she mixes the Bowie/Elton John rock & roll stuff with the early pop of Madonna. Maybe at the time she was so focused on making it as a performer she didn't see going in another direction would put her on the map. There's nothing wrong with mixing it up, but I also feel that is she had gone the Fiona Apple direction that she wanted to, she'd still be fighting for a record deal.
Now as for Beyonce, that's bullshit and Matthew knows it. Beyonce isn't the first artist to take credit for a Johnny Nobody's song, and she surely won't be the last. If you are a songwriter, your name should go on the writers credits when you purchase a cd. Whenever I buy music, I always open the booklet to see who wrote the song, and taking credit for something that isn't yours is just plain wrong. Now everyone who knows someone in this industry would tell you, Beyonce is a sweet girl but dumb as a box of rocks. You should know for someone who is a graduate from the Sarah Palin School for Dummies wouldn't be brilliant enough to come up with a the 'Bootylicious' monicker. At the end of the day it's a power issue, and someone who is on the come-up in this crazy industry does not want to build a reputation as difficult, especially when someone with more money and power than you can make or break your career. What's also messed up is why did Beyonce accept the award for Song on the year' for Single Ladies when she didn't write it? Shouldn't retarded as The Dream and Tricky Stewart taken their asses up there and accepted it? I guess there is a bit of truth to what matthew said and that no one wants to see some nobody accept something when it's all about the big artist.
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