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The Oral History Of The Weeknd's Beauty Behind The Madness

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58th GRAMMY nominees The Weeknd, Stephan Moccio, Dannyboystyles, Ali Payami, and others tell the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated Beauty Behind The Madness
Bruce Britt
GRAMMYs
Feb 9, 2016 - 6:57 pm
GRAMMY.com

The Oral History Of The Weeknd's Beauty Behind The Madness

He caught the global music scene unawares, thumbing his nose at pop convention with a fearless fusion of brooding R&B and high-concept art rock. Within three years of his 2011 debut, Canadian singer/songwriter Abel Tesfaye, known as The Weeknd, had cultivated an underground following so loyal he headlined the world-famous Hollywood Bowl without ever having placed a Top 40 U.S. single.

So when fans learned in 2015 that their mysterious antihero was collaborating on a new album with renowned hit producers, including Max Martin and Savan Kotecha, it came as a shock. Was The Weeknd abandoning his trademark shadowiness to perform smiley-faced pop?

Fans needn't have worried. The Weekend's Beauty Behind The Madness has been hailed as a masterful reconciliation of R&B, pop and rock. Spawning the Album Of The Year-nominated "Can't Feel My Face" and No. 1 hit "The Hills," the album garnered an Album Of The Year GRAMMY nomination, and officially marked a breakthrough for The Weeknd and his XO imprint.

It was tempting to view Beauty Behind The Madness as a cynical appeal to radio listeners but, in fact, the album represented a massive risk. Beauty Behind The Madness is the result of The Weeknd and his collaborators heedfully seeking that sweet spot between engaging Top 40 and exquisite, R-rated urban pop. Following, The Weeknd and other key participants give the inside story of the album.

*The Weeknd (artist): I think the worst thing anyone can say about an artist is, "He could have been great." I was always scared of being that guy where it's like, "He could have been big. He could have been a star." I was afraid I'd see somebody else up there and be like, "You're trying to tell me they're better than me? Why? Because they've got a couple of smash records? I can do smashes. I could figure it out."

Savan Kotecha (songwriter): We had this song for Ariana Grande called "Love Me Harder," and we felt like it needed a duet. Wendy Goldstein at Universal was really pushing The Weeknd — "You gotta get The Weeknd! You gotta get The Weeknd!" I think it took like a month for Abel to finally agree.

Stephen Moccio (co-producer): We were commissioned [to write songs for the Fifty Shades Of Grey movie soundtrack]. The producers were looking for a specific, old-school sound, kind of an Al Green-meets-James Brown sound. So I was in my studio in L.A. with Abel, DaHeala [Jason Quenneville] and Belly [Ahmad Balshe], and I just started playing these innocent chords, and Abel and DaHeala start freaking out — "Oh, that stuff's amazing! Record it, record it!" There were no lyrics at the time, but those two chords just became such a huge foundation of "Earned It [Fifty Shades Of Grey]."

Kotecha: We sent Abel "Love Me Harder," and I think he recorded it in Toronto. He sent us back his verse, and we had a couple of tweaks we asked for, which he did very graciously. Then he sang his vocals, wrote a second verse, did some ad-lib stuff, and that was it, really. Then Wendy contacted us, saying Abel would like us to collaborate with him for his album.

Moccio: By the time [the movie producers] heard "Earned It," we had weeks to lock and produce, it was that under-the-gun. So a lot of the simplicity of the song could be blamed on the fact that I didn't have time to do more, other than to just concentrate on the performance of the strings, a great bass performance, a piano performance, and Abel's incredible vocal. Had I had another week, there [might] have been other instruments in it.

Danny "Dannyboystyles" Schofield (co-producer): I think Beauty Behind The Madness really started with "Often." That song set the tone for all us creators. It marked the letting go of [2013's] Kiss Land and the start of graduating. It was all of us in Miami just having a good time — me, DaHeala, Belly, Ben Billions, and Abel. I think it began with Ben Billions doing some programming, then DaHeala chopping up some samples, and Abel and Belly doing some melodies over the beat.

Ali Payami (co-producer): I met Abel at the studio here in L.A., and almost right away we started working. It was me, Max [Martin], and Abel's friends DaHeala and Belly, and everybody just throwing around ideas. The energy was so great. If anybody would get a little bit tired, somebody would give them energy to just, "C'mon! Let's do this!"

**The Weeknd: Max's studio used to be Marilyn Monroe's old house and I came up with the concept for a song called "In The Night" in her bedroom. That was pretty amazing.

In a span of like a month, we did so many songs. It was a learning experience for me. When you work with someone who has been doing it for as long as Max Martin, you can't help but learn.

Kotecha: The first song we did was "In The Night." We were talking about Michael Jackson, about doing a kind of shuffle beat like the one on "The Way You Make Me Feel."

Payami: We were listening to "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow, and talking about how the song is happy, but the lyrics are so depressing. So we wanted to make this dance-y song with real lyrics that would not be as happy. That's how "In The Night" came about. Thank you, Barry Manilow!

Dannyboystyles: I initially started ["As You Are"] with me, Abel and Belly on a keyboard here in L.A. Initially it was just a song we were having fun with. As time went by, Abel's manager said, "That song is amazing." We were like, "Really? You think so?" Initially, it was a harder record, but DaHeala had the idea to make it more of a "feeling" song.

Kotecha: "Can't Feel My Face" was just fun … all of us in the room, coming up with melodies. It was a much brighter song when we started it, but Abel really kept pushing us to make it more moody … so Ali actually went back and sort of darkened it up really quickly, and that's what turned it into a hit. Ali and Max did a great job of translating what Abel was saying about the song.

Payami ["Can't Feel My Face" is] a very spare song. It's very concentrated on Abel's vocals. He's the one making it special.  

Kotecha: The funny story is that me and Max didn't realize what "can't feel my face" meant. Then we found out, and we were like, 'oooooooh!' [The expression is slang for feeling intoxicated].

**The Weeknd: I wrote "Dark Times" with Ed Sheeran; that was kind of spontaneous. He was hosting the Much Music [Video] Awards in Toronto and I invited him, and pretty much the entire awards show, to my condo to party. It went on until about 5 in the morning, but we didn't write the song until that next day, so you can imagine how that night went. Ed also did a freestyle battle with [rapper] Waka Flocka [Flame] in my kitchen. That was pretty dope. Good times.

Payami: Being a kid from a little South Sweden city … to be GRAMMY nominated … it's a special feeling. And it was so much fun doing it. We really didn't think, "Let's sit down and make hit songs." We just did stuff we loved. You knew that you were part of something special.

Bruce Britt is an award-winning freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, Detroit Free Press, San Francisco Chronicle, and other distinguished publications. He lives in Los Angeles.

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.

*As told to Rolling Stone
** As told to GQ magazine

Feature

'To Pimp A Butterfly': Kendrick Lamar shares history

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58th GRAMMY nominees Lamar, Terrace Martin, Thundercat, Rapsody, and other key players reveal the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated To Pimp A Butterfly
Andreas Hale
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am
GRAMMY.com

Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly album cover
'To Pimp A Butterfly': Kendrick Lamar shares history

In between Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and To Pimp A Butterfly, a 2014 trip to South Africa changed Kendrick Lamar. As he toured the country — visiting historic sites such as Nelson Mandela's jail cell on Robben Island — his worldview broadened, and so did his music.

The trip led Lamar to scrap "two or three albums worth of material," according to engineer/mixer Derek "MixedByAli" Ali. Lamar wanted to make music that reflected the sounds of his upbringing in Compton, Calif. He began to listen to the likes of Sly Stone, Donald Byrd and Miles Davis. Eventually To Pimp A Butterfly took form, incorporating elements of jazz, funk, soul, spoken word, and hip-hop.

"I wanted to do a record like this on my debut album but I wasn't confident enough," says Lamar.

Lamar garnered 11 GRAMMY nominations, including Best Rap Album and Album Of The Year. Following, Lamar and key collaborators tell the story of To Pimp A Butterfly.

Kendrick Lamar (artist): The title grasped the entire concept of the record. [I wanted to] break down the idea of being pimped in the industry, in the community and out of all the knowledge that you thought you had known, then discovering new life and wanting to share it.

Sounwave (co-producer): I remember he took a trip to Africa and something in his mind just clicked. For me, that's when this album really started.

Lamar: I felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn't taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put [together] a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they're still in the ghettos of Compton. I wanted to put that experience in the music.

Derek "MixedByAli" Ali (co-engineer/mixer): [Lamar is] a sponge. He incorporated everything that was going on [in Africa] and in his life to complete a million-piece puzzle.

Lamar: I was on tour with Kanye [West] and I had Flying Lotus with me because I wanted to work on the bus studio. He would make beats and it was one particular beat that he forgot to play. He skipped it but I heard about three seconds of it and I asked him, "What is that?" He said, "You don't know nothing about that. That's real funk. … You're not going to rap on that." It was like a dare.

Thundercat (co-producer): ["Wesley's Theory"] started with Flying Lotus and I sitting on the couch in front of the computer analyzing George Clinton. He became the fuel for creating. I was really blown away that Kendrick was so into that song.

Sounwave: That song is the album cover.

Lamar: I had to find George Clinton in the woods, man. He was somewhere in the South and I had to fly out to him. We got in the studio and just clicked. Rocking with him took my craft to another level and that pushed me to make more records like that for the album.

Sounwave: When we first did "King Kunta," the beat was the jazziest thing ever with pretty flutes. Kendrick said he liked it but to "make it nasty." He referenced a DJ Quik record with Mausberg ["Get Nekkid"] and he told me what to do with it. I added different drums to it, simplified it, got Thundercat on the bass, and it was a wrap.

Thundercat: That strong-a** rhythm with banging drums and bass was created by me and Sounwave watching "Fist Of The North Star" while eating Yoshinoya. It's funny because a lot of this album was created eating Yoshinoya and watching cartoons. It was so funky and so black.

Terrace Martin (co-producer): If you dig deeper you hear the lineage of James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Mahalia Jackson, the sounds of Africa, and our people when they started over here. I hear something different every time. I heard Cuban elements in it the other day.

Martin: [For "Complexion"] we were listening to a lot of J Dilla, Jimi Hendrix and Lalah Hathaway, who's on that song too. Robert Glasper played piano over it. Me and Sounwave heard the piano but wanted another beat so we called Lalah Hathaway and got into the spirit of J Dilla. Then Rapsody got to it and murdered it.

Rapsody (featured artist): I was in New York the first time I got the call. [It was] the day after [Lamar's] "Control" verse dropped. Everybody was talking about the verse and Kendrick was in Africa. I went about a year before him so I knew what that trip does to you, especially as a black person.

Lamar: The idea was to make a record that reflected all complexions of black women. There's a separation between the light and the dark skin because it's just in our nature to do so, but we're all black. This concept came from South Africa and I saw all these different colors speaking a beautiful language.

MixedByAli: [Lamar] has an index in his head of everyone's voice and when he hears something that fits, he knows. He sees music as colors. Every song is like putting together a rainbow.

Lamar: Immediately when I heard the beat I heard [Rapsody's] voice and vocal tone. But what made her special was that I knew that she was going to bring the content from a woman's perspective about complexion, being insecure and at the same time having gratitude for your complexion.

Rapsody: He said he wanted to talk about the beauty of black people. I told him to say no more. What tripped me out is Kendrick originally said that he didn't want to do a verse on there. He wanted me to do two verses and Prince to do the hook.

Lamar: That's true. Prince heard the record, loved the record and the concept of the record got us to talking. We got to a point where we were just talking in the studio and the more time that passed we realized we weren't recording anything. We just ran out of time, it's as simple as that.

Thundercat: The album's theme was forming over time and a lot of the social issues he presents on the album were inevitable for him being a black man in America.

Sounwave: I didn't expect ["Alright"] to be the protest song but I did know it was going to do something because the time we're living in made it the perfect song.

Martin: One of the biggest moments was seeing kids marching to "Alright." We cried like babies because we were doing something. This is [our] vessel to get the message out. We had to use art for the message to help heal and help love.

MixedByAli: [The] session [for "U"] was very uncomfortable. [Lamar] wrote it in the booth. The mic was on and I could hear him walking back and forth and having these super angry vocals. Then he'd start recording with the lights off and it was super emotional. I never asked what got into him that day.

Lamar: It was real uncomfortable because I was dealing with my own issues. I was making a transition from the lifestyle that I lived before to the one I have now. When you're onstage rapping and all these people are cheering for you, you actually feel like you're saving lives. But you aren't saving lives back home. It made me question if I am in the right place spreading my voice. "Should I be back home sending this message or be on the road?" It put me in this space where I was in a little bit of a dilemma.

I sat on the beat [for "The Blacker The Berry"] and then the Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown situations happened and I knew that this needed to be addressed.

Sounwave: That last line, "gangbanging make me kill a n***** blacker than me," was a slap in the face. He wants you to be uncomfortable.

Lamar: If you speak on this kind of subject matter you're labeled a conscious rapper. I don't even know [if] that word conscious can only exist in one field of music. Everybody is conscious. That's a gift from God to put it in my heart to continue to talk about this because that's how I'm feeling at the moment. The message is bigger than the artist.

When Tupac was here and I saw him as a 9-year-old, I think that was the birth of what I'm doing today. From the moment that he passed I knew the things he was saying would eventually be carried on through someone else. But I was too young to know that I would be the one doing it.

With over a decade of experience as a journalist and editor, Andreas Hale has been called the "Swiss Army Knife of Journalism" by his peers. His work has been featured on Billboard, MTV, Complex, Jay Z's Life+Times, XXL, and The Source, among others. He is also the co-host of combat sports podcast "The Corner" on the Loud Speakers Network.

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS. 

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The Oral History Of Taylor Swift's 1989

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58th GRAMMY nominees Swift, Imogen Heap, Mattias Bylund, Tom Coyne, and others tell the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated 1989
Paul Zollo
GRAMMYs
Feb 17, 2016 - 1:04 pm
GRAMMY.com

The Oral History Of Taylor Swift's 1989

Taylor Swift; Album Of The Year speech for '1989'

(Taylor Swift's 1989 won Album Of The Year honors at the 58th GRAMMY Awards. The following oral history, which was published prior to the 58th GRAMMY telecast, features commentary from Swift and some of the album's key contributors.) 

It can take a village to create an album, and in the case of Taylor Swift's 1989, an international village.

From Sweden to New York City to London to Nashville and beyond, 1989 represents a true team effort. Quarterbacking the team was Swift, a self-assured artist who envisioned the unabashed pop project after awakening in the middle of the night with sudden clarity. With select collaborators such as Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, and Jack Antonoff onboard, Swift carried out her singular vision of making a "sonically cohesive record."

1989 proved to be not only cohesive, but another career milestone for Swift. The chart-topping album sold more than 1.2 million copies in its first week and netted the seven-time GRAMMY winner seven total 58th GRAMMY nominations.

Following, Swift and other key players behind her pop triumph share their inside story of 1989. 

Taylor Swift (artist/co-producer): I woke up [one morning] at 4 a.m. and I [decided the album is] called 1989. I've been making '80s synth pop, I'm just gonna do that. I'm calling it a pop record. I'm not listening to anyone at my label. I'm starting tomorrow.

I liked the idea of collaborating. But with 1989 I decided to narrow down the list. It wasn't going to be 10 producers, it was going to be a very small team of four or five people I always wanted to work with, or loved working with. And Max [Martin] and I were going to oversee it, and we were going to make a sonically cohesive record again.

Imogen Heap (co-producer/co-engineer): We met at my studio in London. She had the bare bones of "Clean." She had the lyric, the chorus and the chords. I thought it was brilliant.

Swift: I had this metaphor in my head about being in this house, there's been a drought but you feel like there's a storm coming. Instead of trying to block out the storm you punch a hole in the roof and just let all the rain come in, and when you wake up in the morning, it's washed away.

Heap: I was really writing the tiniest amount just to help her do what she does. I put some noises to ["Clean"], played various instruments on it, including drums, and anytime she expressed she liked something I was doing, I did it more. It was a really fun day.

She recorded all her vocals [for "Clean"] during that one session. She did two takes, and the second take was it. We always thought she would probably re-record it, because we thought it can't possibly be that easy. But after we lived with it for a few months, we felt it was great.  

Swift: The coolest thing about Imogen for me was that there was no one else in the studio. There was no assistant; there was no engineer. It was her doing everything.

Heap: I knew she loved ["Clean"]. She said she loved it and her mum loved it. But I wasn't sure it would be included on the album. But everyone felt it had something special. It came together really magically.

Niklas "Nikk" Ljungfelt (guitarist): I played on "Style," a song I started with Ali Payami for ourselves. He was playing it for Max Martin at his studio; Taylor overheard it and loved it. She and Max wrote new lyrics. But I recorded the guitar on it before it was a Taylor song. It was an instrumental. I didn't have a clue that Taylor would sing on it. The inspiration came from Daft Punk and funky electronic music. Taylor liked that a lot when she heard the song the first time. [She was] taking a big step from the music she had done before.

Swift: "Blank Space" was the third thing I played [Max and Shellback]. And they [said], "No, this is the very first thingwe are working on today!" It's a very sparse track. We just wanted it to be about the lyric and the vocal.  

Mattias Bylund (string arranger): We were listening to a mix when Max Martin came in and said that he wanted me to listen to [some songs]. We got to hear "Shake It Off" and "Wildest Dreams." We immediately realized these were going to be future hits, and I was really happy to get the mission to arrange and record strings on "Wildest Dream." I recorded them in my home studio in Tuve, Sweden. The Mellotron notes through the song were there, and the staccato strings in the chorus, those I dubbed with real strings. I added some big chords and a build-up in the bridge. On the choruses I recorded Coldplay-type rhythm chords.

Jonas Thander (saxophonist): I recorded alto and tenor sax [for "Shake It Off"] at my studio in Sweden. Max had recorded some MIDI horn ideas for me, and I came up with my own parts. It had no vocals when I did my part. I recorded all my horn parts, and then overdubbed other players, and edited it in a 10-hour overnight session. Sounds like a lot but I'm really picky. Then I did it all over again after the next recording day. But I love it, so no real harm done on me. People think it's a baritone horn on the ["Shake It Off"] intro, but it's a Mellotron.

Swift: The Mellotron was really helpful for us in coming up with sounds. Sometimes we later replaced them with real instruments.

Thander: The first time I heard Taylor's vocals was when the song was released. It sounded amazing. Those guys really know what they're doing.

Laura Sisk (engineer): I worked with [producer] Jack Antonoff on three songs, "Out Of The Woods," "You Are In Love" and "I Wish You Would." It was just Jack and I in the studio for a lot of the tracking. Especially on "Out Of The Woods." He and Taylor were collaborating long distance and would send ideas back and forth rapid-fire. The songs came together really quickly. There was a lot of excitement surrounding the music.

When we got Taylor's vocals for "Out Of The Woods," I couldn't stop listening to it. I love the chorus so much and when her background vocals kick in at the end, it brings this anthemic feeling to the song that you can feel even just a cappella.

Tom Coyne (mastering engineer): My job was easy. Max Martin's collaboration with Taylor Swift pretty much assured the album was going to be big, bold and beautiful. I mastered the whole album in two days. When working with professionals of this caliber, things go smoothly.

Heap: [Taylor is] a force of nature.

Paul Zollo is the senior editor of American Songwriter and the author of several books, including Songwriters On Songwriting, Conversations With Tom Petty and Hollywood Remembered. He's also a songwriter and Trough Records artist whose songs have been recorded by many artists, including Art Garfunkel, Severin Browne and Darryl Purpose.

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS. 

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The Oral History Of Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color

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58th GRAMMY nominees Brittany Howard, Shawn Everett, Blake Mills, and others tell the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated Sound & Color
Bill Forman
GRAMMYs
Feb 9, 2016 - 5:40 pm
GRAMMY.com

The Oral History Of Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color

Alabama Shakes' Boys & Girls was among the most soulful and celebrated debuts of 2012, yet few anticipated the degree to which frontwoman Brittany Howard and her Southern cohorts would up the ante on Sound & Color. The band's evolution earned four 58th GRAMMY nominations, including Album Of The Year and Best Alternative Music Album.

With a spacious and evocative sound that defies genre barriers, Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color was written and recorded over the course of a year, during which time Howard would hole up in her basement with a stash of granola bars for 12-hour songwriting marathons. Most of the songs were recorded during four two-week sessions at Sound Emporium in Nashville, Tenn., followed by a final recording and mixing session at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles. The process included recording furnace vibrations, therapeutic coloring books and escaping into a world of one's own creativity.

Following, Howard and other key participants behind the chart-topping collection give the inside story of Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color.

Brittany Howard (artist/co-producer): Instead of saying this record is really, really different, I would just say it's more evolved. Recording a Boys & Girls Part 2 would have been really boring for me. We'd had plenty of time to learn more, to learn different types of music, and of course our tastes are always growing. So this record was half looking forward and half looking back. It was like, "I've always wanted to do this. I've always wanted a vibraphone, I've always wanted to arrange a string section." But I can only play a few instruments, so when I was doing a demo for a song like "Gemini," everything was on keyboards. And then we'd go into the studio and have to figure out how to map that across the band.

Shawn Everett (engineer/mixer): I always loved "Gemini" a lot. In the initial demo Brittany had this insane digital harmony on her voice and it made her sound like a god. She already sounds like a god, so it was like a god times two. We tried to approximate that effect in our version as well. I also love the crazy guitar that keeps appearing out of nowhere on that song.

Blake Mills (co-producer): Generally the band felt that their wide range of influences weren’t necessarily making their way into their own music. Their sound previous to this record felt like an attempt to capture the live sound of the band, like you might approach recording an orchestra. Many of the records they love don't sound like a recording of an artist's rehearsal, but rather an attempt to transport their listeners to a world of their own making. 

Howard: I was definitely making it up as I went along. I was like, "OK, there's four days before we go into the studio. How many songs do I have ready?" Sometimes it'd be two and sometimes it'd be none. And that's when I'd go down to my basement and just keep writing songs without taking a break. I've worked on [my basement] a lot, but there's still a bat that lives in there, and there's a little mouse family. So I wasn't lonely.

Rob Moose (string arranger): The main challenge we faced was to not make [the album] feel like "Alabama Shakes plus strings." The idea was certainly not to have bells and whistles, or something that just sounds expensive, or even to play a huge role in the emotional expression of the record, as strings can do. It was really "detail work" that we wanted to do, and I'm proud of some of the touches, especially the ones that most listeners wouldn't know are strings. 

Everett: In addition to Rob Moose's incredible string parts, there are several moments in which you think you're hearing strings but it's actually furnace vibrations or other strange acoustic sounds rattling. The individual frequencies have been melted and distorted into sounding like a string section or some other otherworldly texture.  

Howard: When you're in the studio, you might be listening to someone hit a snare drum for about an hour and a half. So while that's going on, we're doing coloring books — you know, adult coloring books, not children's coloring, not The Lion King — and we're doing art, and we'll sit in the lounge writing country songs. And sometimes, before the session would start, we'd go in there and record country songs. Then Blake would come in and we'd be, "OK, back to work!"

Mario Hugo (art designer/video producer): The label had me come in and listen to the new music, and I was taken by it right away. It was very visual, enigmatic and spacey, but also honest and raw. And challenging as well. I listened to the final mixes through the entire design process, which is exceedingly rare. I can say that Sound & Color was, musically, one of my favorite albums to work on.

Mills: I think it's very unusual these days to find a majorly successful band who can be this fearless in challenging their audience. We dumbed nothing down, no one seemed to second guess their convictions and their fans have really stepped up to the plate and supported that bravery. 

Moose: The band had some friends visiting the studio and they cooked a southern feast, which was actually amazing. I've never seen home-cooked food in the studio, and the vibe that day kind of summed up the soulful, down-to-earth qualities of the band for me.

Howard: We're just a normal group of people who believe in writing and making something. And honestly, it was truly from a point of having fun. It wasn't to get famous or anything like that. We wanted to play gigs, that was our goal, but we didn't have anywhere to gig. So it's crazy now that we're nominated for [an Album Of The Year] GRAMMY. It's remarkable and really divine, I think. But we also worked really, really hard to get here. And I won't let something like this make me relax.

Bill Forman is a writer and music editor for the Colorado Springs Independent and the former publications director for The Recording Academy.

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS. 

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The Oral History Of Chris Stapleton's Traveller

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58th GRAMMY nominees Stapleton, Dave Cobb, Vance Powell, and others reveal the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated Traveller
Lisa Zhito
GRAMMYs
Feb 9, 2016 - 3:52 pm
GRAMMY.com

The Oral History Of Chris Stapleton's Traveller

Chris Stapleton was a hero in country music circles long before Traveller topped critics' best of 2015 lists and garnered the coveted GRAMMY nomination for Album Of The Year. As a songwriter, the Kentucky native quickly forged a successful career, writing hits for such artists as Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney and Darius Rucker, and everyone from Adele to George Strait has recorded his songs.

Stapleton developed a cult following of his own through stints with GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass band the SteelDrivers and Southern rock band the Jompson Brothers. But it was Traveller that catapulted Stapleton from Nashville's best kept secret to superstar.

The intimate, often mournful collection has been called a throwback, reflecting a musical sincerity rarely seen in modern Nashville. The album was recorded almost entirely live at Nashville's RCA Studio A, just as news that the historic space had been sold to developers — who planned to demolish the building — was rocking the music community.

"The space that you record in, the history of it, can really play a huge role in the music that you get out of a session," says Stapleton. "Places have stuff in the walls, is the best way I can describe it. You gotta try to live up to that, even if you can't."

Following, Stapleton and other key players behind his acclaimed album tell the inside story of Traveller.

Dave Cobb (producer/guitar/percussion): Chris had called us about another artist's album that I had produced. I was blown away because I had actually seen him about eight years ago with the SteelDrivers. I had always wanted to work with him.

Chris Stapleton (artist/producer): I mainly hunted him down! I was like, "Who's this guy, who's Dave Cobb? I've got to find out who this guy is that makes records that sound like I want them to sound."

Vance Powell (engineer/mixer): [Traveller] was [recorded] in August, September and October of 2014 at Ben Folds' place, RCA Studio A. We would have been the last record recorded there if they hadn't saved the place.

Cobb: That was Chris Stapleton's call, really. It was like, "If it's gonna go, we're gonna go down with it." [It's] such a sacred, old historic room, he felt like we needed to be there at the time.

Stapleton: We had a budget to cut six songs so we booked time for that.

Cobb: We got in there and it was just coming out so easy. We have a lot of the same influences so it didn't seem like work, it felt like we were just hanging out. The label came by and they loved it, and gave us encouragement to keep going. The six songs we were supposed to do turned into a full album.

Robby Turner (pedal steel guitar): It was very relaxed, very creative. There was never pressure on anybody. It was so unlike the studio. When you do a day rate, by the hour, people always watch the clock. This was a very relaxed atmosphere, very creative. It was just a perfect vibe for recording.

Cobb: RCA was actually booked one of the days we'd scheduled for recording so we went out to the Castle [Recording Studios in Franklin, Tenn.] It looks like a castle, it's out in the countryside. I started walking around the outside of it and the building sounds incredible. I started clapping my hands and it had such an incredible sound on the front porch that we actually set up outside and recorded. It was really magical.

Powell: We did "Might As Well Get Stoned" on the front porch [of the Castle]. We actually recorded everything but the drummer outside. The porch wasn't big enough for the whole band so Derek Mixon was inside, but we pointed his kick drum out the door. You can hear cars going by and crickets on the track. It was right at sunset. It felt like heaven out there doing that.

Cobb: "Was It 26" wasn't supposed to be on the album, it just happened. We were just checking mics and Chris started playing it.

Stapleton: There wasn't a big discussion about it. I said, "Could we run through it one time?" And [Dave was] like, "No!" So that's what you hear on the record. It's the first time we ever even tried to play it. That's very much the spirit of the record.

Jim Beavers (songwriter): We wrote "Parachute" in the summer of 2014. When we wrote this song, I didn't know Chris was about to go make a record. We wrote it in one day, sang it into an iPhone, and I remember listening to it and thinking it was really cool. Four or five months later, Chris called and said he was going to cut it.

Powell: "Parachute" is one of the songs that Chris sang [more than once]. The band's performance on the song was so good, but it was late at night and he didn't feel like his vocal matched the intensity of the band's performance. So, we just did it again. That's a rarity.

Turner: I believe "Traveller" was the very first thing I played on [for the album]. I realized when I was playing on it that this was a special project. At the end of that day I told Dave, "Man, this record is really something special."

Becky Fluke (photographer): The album cover was actually shot a year before the album was even made. Chris and [his wife] Morgane bought a Jeep [Cherokee] online, so we went on a road trip to drive it from Phoenix back to Nashville. The photo was shot somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico.

Stapleton: We were taking a trip and my wife decided it would be good to have Becky document it. We didn't know that we'd end up doing an album cover or anything like that.

Stapleton earned for 58th GRAMMY nominations, including Best Country Album for Traveller and Best Country Solo Performance for the title track. Cobb earned two nominations as co-producer of the album, including Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical.

Cobb: Morgane and Chris called me about the GRAMMY nomination. My grandmother, who was kind of like a second mother, had passed the day before. It was a horrible day. The next day I get a phone call at 8 in the morning about the GRAMMY [nominations]. It was a lot of emotions at one time.

Stapleton: I was at my house and we were attempting to watch the GRAMMY [nomination] announcements. Somehow we got our time zone information wrong. So my sister-in-law walked in the house and said, "Congratulations!" We said, "For what?" We looked them up online. That was our finding out.

Lisa Zhito is a writer and teacher based in Nashville, Tenn. Her most recent work for GRAMMY.com was an interview with Colbie Caillat for the GRAMMY Hall of Fame Inspirations series.

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.