¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ Fraser T. Smith: Introduction and Hits
Hello and welcome once again to Soda Jacker on Songwriting. I'm Brian O'Connor.
I'm Simon Barber.
And joining us today is a Grammy winning English record producer, songwriter and musician who to date has been involved in sixteen number one albums, six number one singles and two US number ones, and as a session musician has performed on over two hundred records.
In an impressively varied career he's worked with the likes of Adele, Stormsey, Craig David, Britney Spears, Sam Smith, Craig David, Teo Cruz, Lily Allen, Kaiser Chiefs and Tinchi Strider, to name but a few. We are delighted to welcome the fantastic Fraser T. Smith to the show.
We've wanted Fraser on the show pretty much since day one, haven't we? Back in twenty ten when the show was still a glint in our eye, we attended a basket event in London called Songfest. which is sort of a a songwriters conference really, and Fraser was on one of the panels along with our former guest Sasha Skarbeck, and we liked the cut of his jib, so to speak. So less than a year later when we were making a list of writers we'd like to speak to, Fraser was among the first names on that list.
Took a while, but we finally got our money.
I always did have the patience of a serial killer. Fraser was a very warm and generous host, and we think you're really going to enjoy this chat.
Fraser Thornycroft Smith was born in nineteen seventy one and grew up in the town of Marlowe in Buckinghamshire, England. His parents were avid music listeners and raised their son on their eclectic record collection. He studied the guitar as a teenager and moved to London at eighteen, enrolling on a business course at Woolwich Polytechnic, but his heart was set on a career in music.
He started playing in pubs and clubs and eventually won a scholarship for a music course at Thames Valley University.
He entered the UK session scene when he was just nineteen, and perhaps surprisingly, given his later pop and urban exploits, he got his first big break in the world of prog rock. He met keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman in nineteen ninety two, and toured and recorded with him for several years.
Another of the defining relationships of his life and career began when he was introduced to Craig David in nineteen ninety nine. Fraser joined Craig's band as his guitarist and essentially became his right hand man. He performed and recorded with Craig for a number of years until around two thousand six when he became more heavily involved in production and songwriting.
Before long, his hard work began to pay off, and he soon established himself as one of the go to writer producers on the UK music scene, a status he's maintained to this day.
One of Fraser's first major commercial successes was James Morrison's two thousand and eight top ten hit Broken Strings. which also earned an Ivanovello nomination. As if to demonstrate his versatility, the following year he scored a UK number one with Tinchy Strider's number one. How's that for nominative determinism? And topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with Teo Cruz's Break Your Heart.
Another career highlight for Fraser was sharing the twenty twelve Grammy for Album of the Year for his work with Adele on twenty one, having produced, co-written and mixed Sapphire to the Rain, which was another US number one. Incidentally, that track was written and recorded in the very studio where we conducted this interview, as was Stormsey's record. Fraser was nominated in the same category for his contribution to Sam Smith's twenty fourteen album in the Lonely Hour.
And the accolades didn't stop there. Kano's Made in the Mana record, released in twenty sixteen and featuring writing and production work from our guest, was Brit and Mercury nominated. and won best album at the twenty seventeen Mobos, and he won two further Grammys for the twenty fifteen Jesse and Joy album on Besito Mas.
Of course, one of Fraser's most noteworthy recent collaborations was with UK grime and hip hop artist Stormsey. The pair spent ten months in almost total secrecy writing and producing his debut album, Gang Signs and Prayer, released in february twenty seventeen. It met with huge critical acclaim and entered the UK album charts at number one.
I believe that at one point every song from that album appeared in the UK singles chart, which I think was unprecedented.
That's right, yeah.
In February, the record won British album of the year at the twenty eighteen Brits. If you saw this year's Brit Awards ceremony on TV, you might have seen Stormzy sweeping Fraser up in a bear hug when his name was announced.
Other recent credits include the rapper Dave's debut EP, Six Pats, released last year, and the recent Craig David hit single I Know You, which was a duet with Craig and Dan Smith from Bastille, who we've heard is a fan of the show, by the way. Hi Dan, if you're listening. He's also been working with singer songwriter and former X Factor winner James Arthur, and emerging talents such as Callum Scott and Anne Marie.
Also, as we record this, Fraser took home the twenty eighteen Ivan Novello for Best Contemporary Song for co-writing Question Time along with Dave. For God's sake, Fraser, will you stop achieving for five goddamn minutes? I just can't take this anymore, Brad.
You can hear some examples of Fraser's work if you check out our Spotify playlist for this episode, head to Sodajeker.com slash podcast, click on Fraser's page and there's a link beneath the episode player. His official site is at FraserT Smith. com and you can also follow him on Twitter and Instagram at FraserT Smith.
We're at Sodajeker.com, Facebook.com slash Soda Jaca, and at Soda Jacker on Twitter and Instagram. If you're a new listener and haven't yet subscribed on Apple Podcasts, we would recommend doing so and while you're at it give us a fawning review and a big fat five star rating to help others locate us in the ever expanding podcasting universe
Also, if you want to support the show in another way, you can donate whatever you can spare at sodajacker.com slash donate. No pressure, but we're currently surviving on stale bread and thing gruel, and I think I might be developing rickets.
Okay, without further ado, let's hear from our guest. Please enjoy our chat with the formidable Fraser T. Smith.
🎵 Music
¶ Studio Welcome and BMI Recognition
Well thanks for seeing us today Fraser and welcoming us into this incredible studio.
Glad you like it. Yeah, we've we've been here about five years and that's a great place to be. I live really close to here in Fulham. Had quite a few different artists in. Yeah, for sure. Artists seem to like it, so yeah, it's a good place to be.
V And we can see uh the various awards around the room as well. You won another one recently, didn't you? The BMI?
I did. That was amazing. That was for three million plays of Set Fire to the Rain in America. So it's uh incredible. It was a great night and uh BMI, you know, they they Do so much more than just administering all the income from the radio stations, you know, really have an active
A and R department and help people. There's actually one of the top guys there in the UK, Brandon, I do have to say, is an incredible guy and I've known him for such a long time. He was he showed a real interest in my songwriting when I was playing at what has become the Bedford, so like an open night, mm, acoustic night. And um in those days it was it was quite a hard slog for me. I was usually playing in foyers of hotels and the only request that I used to get was uh
If I could turn down, if people were not really taken to my acoustic guitar and vocals, understandably,'cause they're not that good. But um yeah, Brandon was always great. And I was just used to going like road test songs in uh this place in Maralibone. And yeah, he introduced himself as being this guy from the BMI. I didn't know what the BMI was.
hadn't really got a chance of anything being released in America at that point. So um it's really great that he is still doing what he's doing and yeah, those guys both here and in America are just really positive helping out young songwriters and more established guys as well.
Yeah. What a gift having a song like set fire to the rain in your repertoire. You know, I mean you've got a Grammy for it, I think, and now the BMI Award. I mean, that's amazing, isn't it?
Yeah, it was an amazing opportunity of working with Adele and and being part of that whole record that was like a roller coaster and I don't think you could have written it in the when the Grammys were in I think it was in twenty thirteen. Set Fire to the Rain was number one in America as well, so was an incredible time to be alive. You know, it was just like all those all those late night sessions and all the sort of rejection was just repaid in that glorious kind of
six months of that song doing really well and getting a Grammy and and being part of the whole success. Yeah, I was just, you know, so thankful for that opportunity. It was amazing.
¶ Crafting Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain"
Yeah. And do you remember where you started out with that song? Was it with the the piano line?
Yes, yeah. I I came up with the piano line and and actually came up with the the rolling tom feel on the MPC, the drum machine and just had that looping and thought that was that was a pretty good start and luckily
Adele really liked it and started singing some melodies and was then coming up with some lyrical ideas. So while she was doing that I was developing the track and the music and then she'd come back in from From the kitchen where she was making herself a coffee and uh and we'd run some ideas back and forth and Yeah, she was getting quite frustrated, I think, because she's such a perfectionist in terms of lyrics that it took a while for it to come, but that's
testament to her greatness as a lyricist, I think, that she really takes the time and I think if it's if it's not working, tracks can easily fall by the wayside. So I knew that the melodies that I she was singing I absolutely loved. And I loved the feel of the track. I love the fact that that we could do something that was quite for her, quite rhythmic and and drum heavy.
But really the the track was in the balance'cause with her it's always gonna be in the balance until she can feel that the lyrics are really working. So she eventually finished off the lyrics and were bouncing ideas backwards and forwards. But I you know, I can't take any credit for the lyrics at all. She was running melodies and I would I would say, Oh, I think the melody should maybe soar a little bit more in into the chorus and she'd then just sing another a amazing melody back. So
she was really doing the majority of the top line but when she finished the lyric, you know, it was just that golden moment of realisation that you'd you'd just we'd got something got something really great. And that happened over the period of about two days. Right. And then she sang the vocal which was super close. In fact, the final record was pretty much all the original vocals, which again demonstrates how how good she is and that was a real you know, hair standing up.
So you're not kind of separating a demo process and a record process, you'll you'll just be in here doing it and eventually that might be the track.
Well I think the thing with that was that I mean for me I produce most of the things that I write. So I always go about any demo thinking of it as a final kind of thing, but Adele was very upfront at the beginning and said, Look, you know, I I like your production, but Rick Rubin's gonna be producing the whole record. So she said, So don't worry too much about, you know, the production. I was like, Well, Rick Rubin is gonna hear anything that I've done.
I'm gonna make it as good as it can possibly sound just'cause he's obviously one of my heroes. for years, you know, right back from, you know, Johnny Cash of the Beastie Boys to really pretty much everything he's done. So I was kind of as nervous working with Adele as I was sending anything to Rick.
So, you know, I thought well I just wanna give him as you know, the make the stems as good as they can be and and uh if he's gonna hear it then, you know, want to make it sound as good as possible. So so the irony was is that again, Rick being Rick, maybe thought that making the demo sound better would have been cheating. So he took a different approach, which was equally as good. He j he made it a little bit more laid back, which I just think
didn't resonate with Adele when it came to it. It was a great version, but I think she felt that the original had the the spark, literally. So she came back and and said, Look, what would you do to this if, you know, you had the chance to produce it? I said, Well I get the drums replayed'cause I'd I think I'd just recorded some toms on them myself and added that to the live drums, so I got
a brilliant drummer called Ash Sown to re record the drums, which she did brilliantly. And I said, because we've programmed strings on it, I would definitely suggest that we get a live section. So we used Rosie Danvers who We've worked before together a lot on a whole record with Claire Maguire and CeeTo and some different bits.
um, but who had also worked on chasing pavements on Adele's first record. So Adele was familiar with her and I was as well. So she was a natural fit and she's brilliant. So She did the string arrangement and then we came to re record vocals and Adele did a few bits. I think she did the outro, but we looked at it and she's really good actually. She taught me a lot about production in terms of if it ain't bro don't fix it. So she was listening to things and she's very
Again, very good in in terms of listening to things and saying, you know, do we actually need that? Does does that sound serve a purpose? So I don't know whether she actually got a production credit in the in the final thing, but I definitely said to her, you know, you deserve one. I think she maybe she was gracious and said, Look, I'm I'm fine of you know
it's my record and everything, but I I definitely feel when an artist gets involved in things like that, you know, that they should they should be recognised as such, you know. So she had a a big input on that.
I think she came up with that evocative image for the chorus, didn't she as well?
Yes. Yeah. Lot of people have asked about that, actually, where where the concept comes from and it's basically that she just met up with her ex boyfriend and or her boyfriend at the time and he'd said that the relationship wasn't working. So she's then walking away from him in the rain and can't even light a cigarette. So that's she's at literally the lowest point of
Don't really know what else I can do. I mean I you know, all I need to do at this point is just light a cigarette and um yeah, you can't even do that. So I guess at that point all you want to do is set fire to the rain. So it's uh it's a very powerful Uh songwriting.
🎵 Music
¶ Producer's Work Ethic, Empathy, and Genre Adaptability
Um to get to those kind of magic moments you must need to be quite kinda rigorous about your work routines. Um we spoke to Egg White a few years back and and we got the impression that was it noon till
Not till six PM I think is his sort of prime time.
Yeah. What's a typical day for you?
Well, I I get up really, really early. Like my quiet time, you know, where I can just experiment and do all sorts of, you know, songwriting and learning and playing and practicing is actually crazily early, like six in the morning. Right. So I actually like to start
early ish and and actually you know, I'd I'd thought about Egg and and the fact that he works pretty much like office hours. Yeah. I know that like Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs likes that. And I remember working with Damon Orban on a Kano track and I've worked on the latest record as well. And and actually he likes to keep as kind of crazy and creative and amazing as he is, he likes to keep those kind of hours.
And Adele actually the same. It's always a thing that I say to to artists, you know, if those artists, some of the best in the world, can do that. And I think it there's something really powerful in that, in that you leave the studio and you've got some time in the evenings to I don't know, have a listen to the track and do something else, like listen to some other kind of art, you know, watch a film or something, then come back really fresh.
I think it definitely depends on the artist. I mean, I'm not one of those guys that'll say, look, I'm sort of open for business in terms of being there between twelve and six because I realise that sometimes, you know, the business just doesn't work like that and and sometimes artists are really creative at one in the morning or two in the morning and so I think, yeah, I'll go wherever the
wherever the artist leads, if it's not being that productive, I'm the first person to say, Look, I think maybe let's shift it forward a little bit and go to eleven rather than two, but Sometimes you just need to be there to catch it. So I'm pretty amenable in terms of people's Hours.
And when some of these artists are coming in, do you tend to have a few things up your sleeve just in case nothing's happening?
Yeah, yeah. I think I believe in letting the flow of the session work, but I think sometimes artists will wanna come in and just see what your ideas are. Like in the case of Adele, you know, she wanted to hear something. So I think just a couple of ideas usually
And do you find you build up a cache of ideas? Like have you got the notebooks with titles in or a set of musical ideas on your phone or that sort of thing?
You've got s that sort of stuff as a fullback. But I tend to like to approach stuff fresh as well. I don't know why. I mean I've got all those lists and all those books and all the you know, the backing tracks, but it always just seems as though approaching something bespoke seems to be the best way. It's better for me anyway to have a conversation with the artist and to then
See where they're at.
And I think if you're in the right frame of mind you can usually come up with something fresh.
Yeah.
And as a self taught person you've kinda not only gotta master the the kind of technical aspects of the studio but also be like a a great communicator, especially kind of if you're jumping between quite radically different artists and that must take a lot of skill, I imagine, to do that.
I think communication in being a writer and a producer is really key. Having empathy with people is is a big thing and I think that really I still view myself as like the guitarist or the right hand man of the artist. So I'm really there to to make things happen and in here this is just a glorified version of that really. So whenever the artist comes in, I'm really there for them, as the guitarist is is usually
there for the singer in a band. You know, y as a guitar player, I was always the person that would probably be the last person to be in the studio with the engineer, sorting out rehearsals, putting the kettle on.
That sounded bit downtrodden actually. Maybe it was maybe that was my my fault. I should have been a bit more a bit more of an ego. But no, I I like that ability to be just looking after stuff and you know, I really Yeah, the artists I work with are people that I love and appreciate the demands that are placed on artists because I've toured and I've done
promo as a session player. So I really understand how hard it is and how hard it is emotionally to put stuff down. So I'm not saying it's the only way that would work the way that I work, but I've definitely got a lot of empathy. it can also work if you're a producer that maybe has the same level of ego as as the artist and you meet them head on and I know that that can definitely work. So I'm not saying that my way is the
Especially with with a lot of the younger artists as well. I definitely feel the sort of fatherly as I've got older, you know, the the age of the artists has sort of come from you go from sort of being
the same age to being like the older brother, to being like the weird uncle, to being like definitely the dad. And then when people come in and they say, Oh, you know, how old are you? And then they say, Oh, actually my parents are younger than you then you start to really feel old. But um hopefully older and wiser.
Yeah. I guess they must come in with different kinds of energy as well. Some people will have loads of ideas and others might be a little bit more reticent to kind of, you know, show what they've got.
Yeah, and I think that there's maybe a thing that, you know, if you're slightly older and you know, I've been doing what I've been doing a while now. So I try and put artists at ease, you know, um even if it's like a a new eighteen year old artist, for them to feel like
I'm maybe as nervous as they are. When someone walks through the door, I may have had, you know, a few number ones and big albums or whatever, but I'm back to nil nil, you know, at the point where you walk in. I mean it's not no one's riding off the back of Adele or Stormsey or whatever, it's when someone comes in, I've got to approve myself as much as they have. So it's you're just we're in the band at that point and it's about having fun. So
So yeah, people come in with different approaches, but that keeps me fresh as well. Recently on the Stormsey record, you know, he'll come with the maddest ideas, and I think that that keeps you fresh to have to think, well, how are we gonna execute this?
When he says, Can we listen to The Simpsons'cause there's some sacks that I really like in that, you know, what is he liking about the sacks? Is it the playing? Is it the sound? Is it the setting of the sacks against the other instruments and so it's a constant challenge. To make sure that you're, from a writing and production point of view, have the necessary skills and tools and sounds and approach.
That's what I love. It's just keeping keeping current. In terms of songwriting and production as well, so
And when you're working with those kind of wordsmiths like Stormsey or or Tinchy Strider or Plan B, do you find that they're as receptive to melody as they are to words, or are you usually the one in there looking for the kind of melodic hooks?
Yeah, I mean melodically and lyrically they're they're very open. I think With hip hop and M Cs and grime, I think now it's about capturing the melodies and I think that's where I'm I'm at my strength is helping with melodies and and the overall sound and chords and movement and the tracks that Stormzy or Dave or whoever is gonna be is gonna be rapping over, you know, that's such a precise
type of discipline, you know, to get that right. And with someone like Stormsey, he's so careful about how things sound and chords and and the same with Dave. these guys are so good that they can hear that one note out of place or one B P M that's too fast or too slow for them to rap over it becomes like a very, very fine discipline to get that right before they put their verses down and also before they start putting the melodies down as well. So so that's really challenging in a good way.
🎵 Music
¶ Creating James Morrison's "Broken Strings"
So many great singers that you've worked with over the years as well. Not only the women like Adele obviously and um Ellie Goulding and Lily Allen and all these people but um James Morrison we wants to mention, his broken strings was a massive one for you.
Yeah, really well.
Wondered uh if you could tell us how that song came about.
That song talk about preparation actually. We Nina Woodford and I got together the night before that session and You know, we were both really excited about it. For me at that time, getting any artist in the room was really hard. I was pitching a lot of songs and that can be
quite a soul destroying type of situation. I mean just sending songs off to the publishers and waiting to hear back and more often than not, you don't hear back. And so to get an artist like James in the studio, he's I just love his voice and just meeting him, love him as a person, he's a great guy, loads of fun.
we'd sort of wanted to do our homework, Nina and I, and come up with something that worked that maybe he would like. So so Nina had the concept of broken strings and had the melody of the chorus and I came up with the chords around that. And then when James came in the next day, I think he only had one day. So we basically had a short amount of time. That was our shot.
I think he'd been in with Rick Knowles as well and had written some great songs with Rick. So it was like the session kept getting delayed and delayed'cause I think he was spending more and more time with Rick, understandably,'cause Rick's a great songwriter, so
we were thinking, Oh, is this session ever gonna happen? So it was actually really good that we had something up our sleeves to present to James that he liked and he sang and it sounded really, really good and he obviously came up with a lot of that song and his own chord choices and we worked backwards and forwards between the three of us and and the song came about and was was I think pretty much there in the day and
Yeah, I mean, it was one of those moments where we thought it was really, really good. I think because he would normally come up with like the full song, maybe, or would start from scratch. I think he was a little unnerved by the fact that Nina had the chorus to begin with. So I think it took him a while
to like it. And I think when it, you know, is finally done, he he obviously loved it. And he he came up with loads of the chorus anyway. But I think because Nina had come up with that great concept Yeah, that probably unnerved him a bit at the beginning. That's not a normal way that he would have written but
You know, so we just developed it and ran with it and yeah, very proud of that. It was interesting when when the'cause I'm a big fan of Nanny Fitado as well, obviously, and when she sang it, that was incredible and, you know, such a great collaboration between the two of them. You know, as a songwriter when you you see something that you've you've written being performed, it's an amazing thing.
We went to see James Morrison concert at Wembley. Right. And no one in the audience knew and no one any fan of James had hadn't seen Nellie do it. And I remember being having these amazing seats sat with my wife Sarah and seeing the Levitado about to go out, but none of the fans had actually seen her go out. And I don't think anyone knew it was like a surprise. So James sang up to the second verse and and then Nellie came out and when she came out I've never felt so much electricity
from a crowd. I mean I've seen some amazing gigs as we all have. You know, but just to feel that rush of like a big song and people knowing that we're gonna see something that had never been done and that was like an exclusive moment and to have been part of that songwriting process was just an amazing
🎵 Music
¶ Organic Roots of Pop Anthems
And that song like Setfire to the Rain's an example of your aptitude for for a more kind of organic band based sound as well as the kind of dancier stuff and the grime stuff. Yeah. Um well you find that even sometimes like the synth orientated Songs might start out just with an acoustic guitar or something.
Yeah. Break your heart, Tyre Cruz. And a lot of the Tinshi stuff was started on acoustic guitar. And then I've changed the guitar into synth hooks and always think it's a really good place to start you know, organically. I heard actually that Mura Masa, I'm a big fan of, is an incredible artist and producer. starts off on piano and I think he plays guitar as well, but definitely that organically, which is interesting'cause his you know, his stuff is
great blend between programmed and organic, but you never know nowadays. You know, there's there's so many great producers out there that draw the notes in. It's hard to tell but yeah, definitely for me, organic.
I like Break Your Heart, I like that a guy sings that song'cause he sounds kinda high maintenance, doesn't he? Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. I don't know if you know, but that was... Uh. Right. That we were writing for her when when Cheryl was doing her first record. And we got to the end of it and I thought, you know, this is really, really good but not that Cheryl wouldn't have sounded great on it, but Tayo sounded so good on it. And I said to him, you know, you should definitely think about staying on this. You know, this is I think it's a big song for you.
I think because Cheryl at the time was like a well, she still is, but at that point had so much momentum coming out of Girls Aloud and doing her first record. And the fact that Ty were being very sort of humble guy was was saying, Oh no, I I wouldn't I wouldn't talk like that. I said, but if you imagine that you were a rapper, a rapper would talk like that.
you know, he would say those things. And the way that you attack the verses, it definitely has that swagger to it. So if you think about it in terms of you being a rapper, then, you know, it would be cool. So I was waiting for him to to come back to me and I think he finally decided that with a bit of help maybe from the the label and his management team, like just you should stay on this is a big song.
And then um that was my first American number one. So I remember getting the news of that from Darkas at Ireland. Amazingly, for someone that's had like loads of number ones, Darkest B's at Island Records, that was his first American number one as well. So it's lovely to be able to share that. I think it was like the fastest rising number one ever on Billboard at the time. So it took everyone by surprise in that everyone was really behind it, but
the people in the American record label had thought that it was gonna, you know, be a long sort of burner, but it literally had just zoomed straight to the top of the charts. So I remember getting this this call and I was in a songwriting session with Ed Druitt and I got the call
And I sort of had to go out and I can't remember what I did. Probably started crying, punched the sky. Uh can't remember what I did, but I remember talking to my mum and my wife and it was a lot of emotion. Um, so we I think I uh just ran to the off licence and grabbed like a few beers or a bottle of champagne or something and just like celebrated the moment'cause my engineer at the time
Beatrice had worked on the track, so it's her first American number one. So I remember like having a half an hour break and then getting back into the song. Slightly distracted but really like keen to keep the work ethic going and keep focused. But that was definitely an amazing, amazing moment, you know. And obviously like the American record company got ludicrous.
on that trap which just kinda kept a little bit of hip hop edge, which I loved. I was a big fan of Ludacris, so when I got his vocals and mixed his vocals into the trap it was like an amazing moment as well. So yeah.
🎵 Music
¶ Behind Stormzy's Debut Album
And coming back to Stormsey for a second, I think that Gang Signs and Prayer album had quite a long gestation period, didn't it? You spent quite a while kind of writing and producing that.
Yeah, we did um took about nine months, which I don't know if that's that long a period actually. I mean he was in every day and we sort of approached it really like an old school record in that yeah, we were together every day, five, six days a week and loads of whiteboards up with all the track titles and all the things that we needed to do to the tracks and tracks we needed to write and tracks we were waiting on features to come back and and all those kind of things. So yeah, it felt
for like about the right amount of time I think. Even though by today's standards maybe that's a long period of time. But yeah, I had a an incredible time with Stormsey. You know, he he is I mean I said it before, but it definitely shares a lot of the qualities that I see in Adele and Sam Smith and some of the greatest artists that I've ever worked with in terms of strength of conviction. I think that when you get to superstar level and I really put Stormsee in that bracket of superstar
they really are their own machines, if that if that makes sense. And they need collaborators, they need people to help them and sometimes someone to say
Have you thought about doing this or do that or I'm not sure about this or that, which is my job. But really the the strength of conviction that Stormsey has in terms of coming up with the idea of of Blinded by Your Grace and writing that with him and, you know, I have to give him credit on the songwriting front where if it's not apparent, people may think that
for Blinded by Your Grace, part one and part two. Also Gretz and Kush, you know, the melodic tracks on the record that maybe we had a team of writers in here as well as us doing it. But it was literally We work with people at M and E K and and there was Dion who played some great keys on that. Um but Like honestly, Stormzy was coming up with the majority of the the melodies on those tracks, which for a rapper or anybody is incredible. So, you know, I can't give him enough credit.
🎵 Music
Yes sir.
I mean it's really powerful stuff, isn't it? Like Blinded by Your Grace part one and the way the keyboards work on these songs is incredible, isn't it? They're really rich harmonically with
Definitely. Definitely. We were both influenced by um Blond, Frank Ocean, and Life of Pablo, Kanye West, just in terms of the ambition melodically on those tracks, I think. Yeah, Storms is a powerhouse.
I was gonna say he gives you a shout out for your chords, doesn't he?
Yeah it does. I'm glad to work. He also played me the um track off Frank Ocean's uh mixtape where he samples Hotel California.
And
Sometimes you get those amazing sort of experiences where like a younger artist will come to you and say, Oh, have you heard this? He said, Oh, I love the guitar on this and I'll say as I did, I said, Have you ever heard of the Eagles? No. So you've never heard of Hotel California? No. Right. Okay. Well, me being a guitar player who's obviously a lot older than him, like I would have obviously have
played that song in bars and clubs up and down the country for fifty quid a night, you know, and and so I'm really at home with that. So we had this sort of slightly um Amazing thing where he said, Well I want you to just to do what they do on that song.
right throughout Blinded by O Grace. So I was basically saying to myself, Okay, so you want me just to solo gratuitously through that track and then he came to do the vocals and he gave me a shout out. I thought I said to him actually at the time, I said, you know
It's not actually even my birthday today. Yeah, you've just allowed me to solo over the whole track and you give me a shout out, like, what have I done? What have I done right? You know. So, um I mean we'd we'd gone through different versions of that song and and it finally came right, we came up with some chords and jammed it out and came back and tweaked them again and that was an amazing experience where we got, you know, the the bones of the song together, me and Stormsey.
which was sort of quite late one night and then Eminika came in. a little bit before Stormsey on like the third day or whatever and I talked him through Stormsey's ideas and Eminek being the brilliant artist and writer that he is. was able to understand that and came up with a lot of the melodies for the second half, so not the chorus, but the drop section and his lyrics were just completely on point. And then he went in and
like just tracked like a whole choir's worth of vocals, which he sort of did in fifteen minutes. So it was just an amazing experience to then hear how like one person can come in and take something which is already great into like another stratosphere and then Stormsey came in and
recut vocals. It just it took the whole song up to a different level. And everyone then raised their game and it's just amazing how songs can sometimes come together in like a day or sometimes they're like sculptures where you keep chipping away and then you listen back to the early demo and it's one thing and then you listen to like the final mix and uh We're gonna be releasing that like in the next couple of weeks and storms even.
has improved so much as a singer through going out to sing that live that he was even recutting vocals. We've done a radio edit, so it's amazing even how much better it sounds now and that's again a testament to his improvement as a singer and as an artist.
I was just gonna say though about the vocal on that, because he's not a technical singer, it there's kind of a vulnerability about the vocal. It's really, I think it kind of makes it more effective normally.
Yeah. I mean I was very keen to to have the vulnerability of his vocals like across the records and I wanted to keep in all the as much as some of the tracks are you know, some of the R and B tracks, they're quite heavily produced, I think as they should be, but was really keen to keep in all the the little off mic things. I think it keeps the thread really between like the very early videos like Shut Up, you know, where he was in the part with his friends and the whole like wicked skangman
thing where it's it's very raw and it's very much like someone just filming it not on the phone, but it's got that feeling, hasn't it, where it's very immediate. Mm. I wanted to keep that on the record, so glad that you noticed.
We definitely got that sense of the atmosphere in it, yeah.
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I think from an emotional standpoint, Lamie Bird just flawed us really, you know. Yeah. The mood of the song and the way he delivers it is just incredible, isn't it?
Yeah, really amazing. He wanted to wait till the very last sort of moment of the process. Right. he was a little bit unaware of the process and and we were ending up mixing it and um yeah, the end of the process to him was almost after we'd mastered it. So it was kind of so late in the process. And I mean you get to this thing now with because of pre orders you have to put the track titles in. Sometimes before you've even written the track. So it could be a slightly unnerving.
process. So we had this track, Lay Me Bear, which was on the album track listing, which had not been created. So but we knew, you know, what it was gonna be about. It was going to have high emotional intensity and um Stormsey and I work with a really talented producer called E. Y who just came with kind of a basic and I don't mean that in in any derogatory way, but uh this basic haunting vocal sample and and the piano chords and we chopped those a bit and I I came up with drums and
helped out a bit on some of the chords and uh yeah, it was amazing how that came together really, really quickly. So that was something I think that we did in in one night. Oh. I think because the deadline was so tight. But also it was at the end of the process where it we'd been on a long journey, so it wanted to feel which I think it does feel like Stormsy was quite tired, you know, and was just wanting to get this last thing off his chest and
wanting to do that knowing that the rest of the record was done. So it definitely sounds like how it was meant to be approached.
¶ Evolution of Urban Music Genres
I guess it helps that you're constantly, as you said, updating your approach and the sounds that you're using and things. I guess you've mastered the codes and conventions of all these urban subgenres. I mean there must be subtle distinctions between them all.
Yeah, they really are. They really are. And that's even on coming to write for the next record, you know, it's interesting how a genre like Grime it's sort of transmuting into lots of you know, other subgenres, as you said, and we were listening to some like UK drill, which I don't even know what that was, you know, until like two weeks ago. Yeah. Now I'm a like a master no, I'm not a master in it, but, you know, we you know, these these kids
you know, that are are like fifteen are creating some amazing music. Again, it's coming out of South London and the the lyrics are like super to the point. But you can tell that they've been influenced as much by Drake as they have been by Grime. But they've come with like this whole new subgenre. And it's great that Stormsey is as big as he is, is still tapped into that
really what's going on at like real grassroots level. Mm-hmm. That helps me as well. Like be as cool as you can be for a forty six year old guy from Fulham, which isn't that cool. But
Yeah. But you've got quite a long history in kind of urban music, haven't you? Kinda dating back to the to the nineties?
Yeah. Well the first sort of break that I got production wise was doing an R and B remix for Drizerbow. So I was working with Vince at the time who was a bass player and I got this break to remix one of their tracks called Let It Out and yeah, that was my first first remix that I did. So that was in that sort of Underground
UK R and B world and then at the same time I was playing guitar with Craig David. So we were doing lots of like garagey bits and even though I was playing guitar we were remixing and I was learning to DJ at the time.
And then
I got connected with Kano because Kane's manager, Richard Thomas, who's an old friend of mine, wanted Caine to do a guitar track. So Sing Kane over to me to work and we've become you know, like best of friends ever since that session. But I didn't know anything about grime at the time. I knew about guitars, so I managed to get the guitar riff, which is a song called Typical Me.
on his first record, which uh yeah, we got that going, but I didn't know anything about the drums. I didn't know anything about grimes, so I got Kane to tap out the rhythm in some of the sounds that became the drums on typical me and we were just jamming out for hours like that and yeah, he he was explaining grime music and and I got it because of the way that Garage had influenced
grime music. But in the same way as grime is now influencing UK drill, it's like it's almost like the baton is passed over to like new generations of kids. And it's really interesting how quick it changes and how like
Stormzy, I think he's twenty three or twenty four now. You know, where you've got kids that are coming up with like these new genres at fifteen, there's actually quite quite a big age gap. So Yeah, it's great to to see what what the new thing is, you know, and and how you can Maybe help in some small way that post.
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¶ Craig David Collaborations and Career Shift
Songs like uh World Filled with Love and Hot Stuff, those Craig tracks, they were yours, weren't they?
I mean I you're always sort of reticent when you sample something, especially if it's if it's like one of your favourite with genes, like a massive David Bowie fan. But I was just I found it really interesting, like playing different stuff to Craig and
I was just playing him some David Bowie stuff'cause I loved it and I just wanted him to like he'd play me loads of R and B. So I was saying, Well, I wanna play you some of the stuff that I've been influenced by and he just fell in love with that song and that sample so we used it and
Yeah. I mean, ultimately if David Bowie hadn't of liked it then he wouldn't have agreed to let it go. So, you know, he liked it. Publishing splits weren't terrible. So you know, it's just a an amazing opportunity to use that and sort of do a different version of that.
No way could it challenge the original'cause that's obviously, you know, set in stone is one of the greatest you know, up there with the greatest piece of music ever. But I think World Food with Love as well was more of a sort of retro, like Beatlesy type of type of sound and Craig being the great artist that he is was was and is very open to like all different genres, which I think dates back to his
at the very beginning, like, he came up as a DJ. Obviously he's doing T S five now, but I don't know how many people know but I mean he's really a DJ first and foremost, you know, that used to sing over his own beats and backing tracks that he'd got. So it's amazing to see how T S five now is just a return to what he's always loved doing. But because of that he's so open to a bit like Storms, you know, he'll say, Have you heard
P. Diddy missing you. And I'll say, Oh yeah, but you you need to hear that every breath you take. The police'cause that's it's amazing how music just yeah keeps being recycled in a good way. You know, like the Stormsey story about Hotel California, how, you know, this music, if it's great, just keeps having different audiences because of sampling, which I think done right is a really creative thing.
And it was after touring the world with Craig and stuff that you decided to focus on songwriting and producing full time?
Wasn't it? Yeah, definitely. I think when I first met Craig he was about seventeen. And I was just getting into the songwriting and production world at that time and I think I'd I'd sort of hit a wall with guitar playing where I just thought, I've done this now, you know, I really want to become a songwriter full time. and become a producer full time and I realised I needed to put that line in the sand really where I said, Look, I've hanging up my guitar
Not to say I'm not gonna play it in the future, but I've done that and I think that, you know, it was a pretty strong sort of move to do that moving forward. But then Craig sort of put a spanner in the works in that I got introduced to him and I heard the tracks that he'd been doing with Mark Hill, which was the basis of the Born to Do It album. And he said, Look, you know
Need a guitar player and the more we work together the more I realised there could be a great opportunity with me working with him and hopefully with him with me to to broaden what it was that I was doing. I love the fact that he had guitar on his early work.
So I was just obsessed with working with him on that record. I didn't want to derail anything that he was doing with Mark,'cause it obviously that was working. It was incredible. But I remember working through the night, doing guitar tracks with beats and then cycling over to the place where he was living at the time and like putting literally like cassette tapes and C D s through his his letter box in the hope that he'd hear them and
And um we eventually worked together on Can't Be Messing Around on that first record and then as you said, World Fort With Love on the next record and we were doing remixes together and obviously doing a lot of guitar playing. But it I mean it's that's not a but in a negative sense because I think working with Craig took my guitar playing to the next level and I got to
tick all the boxes that I hadn't actually ticked at that point. I'd had a great career, worked with Rick Wakeman and hundreds of people in the studio and Spanal Ballet and Tony Hadley and all these guys. But when I worked with Craig I just literally went through the the kind of bucket list of what I would had always wanted to do as a guitar player but had never done. So Top of the Pops, Madison Square Gardens, Jules Holland like three times, uh Radio and Live Lounge three times.
Tours Holland Hootanani twice, you know, so did all these things. World tour, yes. You know, travelling at the top level of touring, private jets, yes, amazing. So I got to the point where it was a real wrench for me because Throughout that time Craig and I became super tight, was he's the great best man at my wedding, you know, like the best of friends. So it's really hard for me to take myself out of that very comfortable
you know, creatively and and friendship wise, very comfortable and, you know, beautiful relationship. But I had to do it and Yeah. You know, made that big leap at the time actually into becoming a songwriter and a producer full time, with Craig's blessings. You know, we've just written five tracks on his latest record and it's a great thing to have found our stride together creatively again, you know, and to see that he's on fire and I feel that I'm always improving. So
You know, I know that's a good idea.
how I was at the beginning, you know, I wasn't ready necessarily to to be a full time producer. I was more as of a guitar fit that was getting into production. We're a great fit now in terms of he'll challenge me and I'll challenge him. So it's it's great times.
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¶ Lifelong Learning and Cultural Impact
One of the other things I wanted to mention is how impressed we are with your kind of approach to learning. We hear about you doing the Berkeley online courses and and improving your skills all the time. I mean that's not everyone in your position would situate themselves as a student. What do you think brings that out in you?
I think that like when I started songwriting and producing I f I felt there's like a massive hill to climb. And I also realised that I was getting into it at about the age of about thirty. So I had a lot to learn in a short amount of time. And I s I stumbled across the Berkeley online school really just by looking at stuff online. And I did my first ever course, which I think was like an ear training course.
I had a lot of experience like musically but hadn't really been taught about lyrics or engineering or mixing or any of these things. So I did the first course and it was a massive benefit to me, the ear training course, just in terms of like listening to the way songs are created but also the technical side of mixing and placement of instruments. I just basically became like addicted to this.
early morning learning sort of routine to feel that you're getting better, but also feel that you're just of more value to people in the studio. But also I didn't get the chance to go to university and I didn't get the chance to go to Berkeley or any kind of institution to to learn. And I just realized it's it's one of like my great loves in life. And I've done about
twelve or thirteen of these courses and I'm doing one at the minute which is um keyboard course. So absolutely loving it. And just getting in like I was in super early this morning. doing scales and learning more about the harmony of keyboards and Everything else. I'm never gonna stop because it's Getting better and better and better, which is good.
Yeah. And and by now do you have a kind of sense of how much stuff you need to produce in order to find those those hits?
I think with with writing and production and I uh for me they're interlinked. I think it's about working with the right artists and working on on music that moves me. Mhm. So I felt definitely after I think in the past like two, three years working with with Keno on Maid in the Manor, so closely with him I wasn't sure like what the next step was and then I met Stormsey and he said, I wanna take things in this direction, I wanna do this and we worked together pretty much solidly for nine months.
And at the end of that process I was thinking, Oh, you know, I wonder what what, you know, we can do here and then I started working with the amazing rapper Dave and we've just come up with the track Question Time, which which is a politically charged track where he tells the world about how him and I think his generation are feeling in terms of
being slightly unheard in terms of the political landscape. And I think that that as a powerful cultural moment is a real moment that that so many people are identifying with and I think just to be part of something that's cultural doesn't have to be political at all. It can be cultural in terms of what, you know, a Taoism is saying, what Storms it's saying, or what any great artist wants to communicate.
But really you wanna be part of something which leaves its mark. And I think that whether that's a hit or not, we're just in a great age now where An artist like Dave, and I use this as a as an example, only because he's completely unrestrained by record company formats or radio formats. So that song in itself is approaching seven minutes, I think. There's no censorship on what he's saying and I think that that in terms of self expression and in terms of art is
really where it's at. And I think that that is echoed Well, it came before it, so it's like a pre delay but like something that happened before an echo. Um but
foreshadows
Foreshadowed like that. Um yeah, Storms the Stormsy record foreshadowed that and is as honest as Adele's twenty-one. in terms of saying exactly what he feels. Writing a an ode to his mum, Hundred Bags, telling telling the world how he feels about his depression, about his feelings on life, about people getting shot out of nightclubs, about black culture, youth culture, his own loves, his own fears, you know, that to me tells me that we're in a golden artistic age.
So just coming back to what you were saying about how many tracks I need to do to to make the hits, it's it's more about for me about being engaged with the right sort of artists that that have that engagement with their fans, that want to speak honestly. And I think at that point then The hits will definitely definitely come.
That is absolutely fantastic, Fraser. Thanks so much for taking the time out.
so much for coming down all this way and uh coming down to the studio. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah.
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That was Fraser T. Smith talking to us at his studio in London. What a great guy he was, Bri.
Really lovely fella and he gave us a little tour of the studio, didn't he, before we started? And it's just an audiophile's paradise, isn't it?
Yeah, I mean it's decked out with some serious gear. And it's beautifully lit and stuff as well, isn't it? Nicely furnished and fragrant.
Yeah. A few scented candles dotted around. But basically if you had to spend day after day in a windowless room, this is the room you'd want it to be.
I could die in that room. Yeah, so as you heard, Fraser's a very thoughtful guy. He's got a fantastic work ethic and a very kind of positive attitude.
Yeah, and after spending some time in his company it's abundantly clear why he gets such great results with his collaborators and we just found that a very rewarding interview and we hope you found it as rewarding to listen to.
Okay, so thanks to Doorbell for their help in setting that up. Hope you enjoyed hearing from Fraser. We'll be back soon with another episode.
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