Cool Interview W/ Danja

Found this on rhapsody.com


If 2006 was the year that Nate “Danja” Hills became the hottest co-producer in the game, 2007 was the year he established himself as a force to be reckoned with on his own. The 27-year-old Virginia native made his name sharing board duties with Timbaland on Nelly Furtado’s Loose and Justin Timberlake’s Futuresex/Lovesounds, racking up platinum stats, number one hits and Grammy Awards. However, when you break in with one of the most influential producers in pop history, people tend to be skeptical of your contributions. Thankfully, the music industry is not short on opportunities to prove oneself: Danja did so by producing Britney Spears’ comeback single (“Gimme More”), DJ Khaled’s heavyweight anthem (the futuristic, electronic “We Takin’ Over”) and a handful of songs by Canadian emo-popsters Simple Plan (on their new self-titled album). While he continues to work closely with Timbaland on upcoming Missy Elliott and Madonna projects, it’s clear that Danja is far from a sidekick.

Rhapsody: You have previously spoken about the desire to do a full project by yourself. How was it producing most of Duran Duran’s new album, Red Carpet Massacre?
Danja: I’ve learned that you hit a wall trying to do the whole project yourself unless you're working with a team of people. That’s why me and Tim were able to do a whole album, because it was two brains working at the same time. The good thing is, if you hit that wall, it’ll trigger you into going somewhere else. But it may not be for this particular album. During the Duran Duran project, toward the very end, I started feeling like, "Ah, what can we do?" But by that time, we already had so many songs, we didn’t have to keep going back in to create something new.

When you hit that wall, is that discouraging?
That’s the most frustrating [thing]. I’m surrounded by 12 keyboards and I’m looking at every one of them like, "Nothing is gonna come out." It can just be depressing. Especially when, for years, you just sit and create non-stop. Not saying that I haven’t experienced writer’s block before it [lifted], but it’s definitely different now [having done] music that was ground-breaking.

Explain how you test your melodies as ringtones to see if they’re catchy?
I call it “ringtone” because it’s a silly little melody that catches you. I do those melodies and loop them and build songs around that melody, whether the artist is singing it or [an instrument] in the track is playing it. I’ll pull a random person into the room and say, "Listen to this." They listen to it and I come back [in 10 minutes] and say, "Sing what I just played for you." If I know they can remember it from hearing it one time, then I know we have a potentially good record.

How did the collaboration with Simple Plan come about?
I was in London working with Duran Duran. [Atlantic Records] hit me about who was on their roster and who I’d want to work with. I picked Simple Plan. We was all on the phone; they just told me what they wanted to do. We finally got in the studio in Miami and fully collaborated. I’m doing beats and they playing on the beats. At that time, I wanted to venture out and challenge myself. I was working with Duran Duran, but it wasn’t so much rock. Simple Plan was similar to Duran Duran because we would come up with the basic idea, and then they would take it and record on their own with the drums, guitars and vocals. But the basic bed was laid down.

They were talking about how the night before you did “The End,” you guys all went out to a club where DJ Tiesto was spinning.
We went to dinner and we went to Mansion. So we just vibing out to Tiesto. We all was thinking, if we could just take something like this, and flip it. “The End” has a techno feel in the beginning, but they replay it with guitars. By the time we got to the hook, it’s just a smash pop-rock record. But that’s usually what we do. Go out and grab inspiration from the clubs.

When I was hearing the stuff you were doing with Simple Plan, it reminded me of TV on the Radio and Radiohead, of how the rock and electronic elements are melded. Are you a fan of those groups?
Definitely. I brought a TV on the Radio [album] one time and just rolled to Virginia from Miami. That’s like a 12- 13-hour drive. I’ve been listening to a lot of Foo Fighters lately. I was listening to a lot of Coldplay before that. I like listening to Nirvana. If I can figure out how to capture that “Teen Sprit” energy, I know I’m gonna have something monstrous on my hands. I listen to the weirdest things, like Massive Attack sometimes and find myself doing it subliminally in my music. It’s things inside of that music, whether it be a little weird sound that you put inside yours, that just turns your track into something totally different. I’ll ride around to this French group called Air.

Have you been working on T.I.’s upcoming album, Paper Trail?
I did. I sent him a few tracks. He wrote to one. From what I hear, it’s incredible. I’m not allowed to go in his crib. But I’ll be in the studio completely focused on T.I., sending him tracks and we’ll be communicating. I hate emailing beats. It’s the worst thing you could do, because it’s a magic that has to happen in the studio. I can see and feel when you don’t like something. When I worked with Tip on the last album, I ended up with three [songs]. But it’s another six records that he started, where he at least got a verse and a hook on, that we were just doing so fast -- just from being in the studio [together]. So I’m gonna try to recreate that magic even though there’s going to be a distance. The difference is he’s writing everything now. The last [album] he just went in the booth. So now he’s thinking about what he’s saying. It’s gonna take a little bit longer. But the quality of the work is gonna be phenomenal.

What’s going on with the Clipse?
We haven’t got in. I really want to get in them just for the sake of Virginia. Pusha, pound-for-pound, a lot of people ain’t touching him with the spitting. I wanna do at least six or seven joints and make that album a classic like a Dre with a Snoop, or Primo with Big and Nas. There hasn’t been any more conversations [recently], but we gonna make that happen for sure.

Keri Hilson was saying because Britney wouldn’t open up about her own personal experiences, it made it tougher to write for her. Did you find that it made it harder for you as well?
It wasn’t hard for me in the creative process with Britney because I was totally left to do pretty much whatever I wanted to. If she felt it, she was gonna ride with it. If she didn’t, you’d see it in her face. I don’t think she needed to open up. She did have one record where she’s mentioning certain things, but it’s in a clever kind of way, not necessarily pouring her heart out. We’ve known Britney for entertaining, dancing and giving you a sexy record, getting you moving. And that’s what we did. Unfortunately, she’s in the state that she’s in, but the music speaks for itself. In the studio she was dancing, laughing in the booth. She gave the right type of energy. That’s all that matters.

Did it disappoint you that the public didn’t respond as well to her VMA performance as they did to the actual “Gimme More” song?
It didn’t bother me until nine months down the line. I was like, "I wish she could’ve really nailed that performance ‘cause that really would have set it off." It was still top five [on the Billboard] Hot 100. I didn’t think the performance was really that big of a deal. She looked a little spaced-out. To me it looked like she was completely nervous. She hadn’t been on stage in I don’t know how long. During the performance, I was watching like, "Just give me that one pop to let me know you back." And it never happened. I was rooting for her regardless.

At the end of “Gimme More,” you were talking on the record. What prompted that?
[Laughs.] I just felt like I needed to say something. People haven’t really seen me or heard my voice, and that was one of my first solo productions. So I definitely had to stake my claim. There's a lot riding on my future, because people think I’m around because of Tim and they don’t really know what I’m capable of. After we mixed that record, I just knew that record was crazy. Period. We got all these hit records and I haven’t got any on my own. Well, here’s one.

Has all the drama overshadowing Britney’s project and Duran Duran's lackluster sales had any affect on you?
It definitely weighed on me. At one particular point last year, I felt like, "Man, I did all this work, and it ain’t pop like it’s supposed to pop." I was down for a little bit. It wasn’t that I wasn’t proud of my work. It’s just things with the business that sometimes happen that affect your music. You could put your all into the music, and it’s some executive decision that ruined it. I don’t count it as a failure. It’s just a lesson learned. In the Britney case, every producer, songwriter or arranger on that record did their thing. The record label did their thing. That was just something uncontrollable on her part. Duran Duran [is] an old group, [and] a lot of people are not familiar with them. Not saying that it’s over for them. It’s just a matter of reintroducing them.

Are you still working on Madonna's album?
Actually Madonna is finished. Me and Tim did four or five [songs] together. He also did three more with a new producer, Hannon, out of Virginia. Then Pharrell did the rest. So it’s like a Virginia-produced album. I’m actually kind of proud of that. Even though me and Tim and Pharrell didn’t work together, just for us to completely conquer an artist such as Madonna ... I’m good. Either way, whether we got a single or [Pharrell] got a single, Virginia got a [Madonna] single.

What was the vibe like?
She was cool. She had a dark sense of humor that I can’t explain. She might just say something crazy that you might feel is out of line. But it’s not. It’s just her sense of humor. She was in the studio chilling with us, being open and the whole nine. With any session when you don’t know somebody, the first session is the hardest. You gotta break the ice, but after that initial session, it was all good. Another person that I worked with, Mariah, was really cool and so down to earth. [I did] her new single that’s coming out with T-Pain, “Migrate.”

So, right now, who are your top five producers in the game?
Danja. [Laughs.] I’m playing. Of course, Tim would be number one. I love the Runners, Pharrell, Dr. Dre, Swizz Beatz. I don’t put myself in the top five. Not right now. I need more classic joints under my belt. I’m working on that.

Posted by Toshitaka Kondo on 13 February 2008