MBW’s World’s Greatest Songwriters series celebrates the composers behind the globe’s biggest hits. Here we talk to Julian Bunetta about his start in the business, what he’s learned, AI, TikTok and his recent huge hits with Sabrina Carpenter and Teddy Swims. World’s Greatest Songwriters is supported by AMRA – the global digital music collection society which strives to maximize value for songwriters and publishers in the digital age.
Never mind the algorithm. Forget the focus groups. Chuck the AI models in the bin. If you really want to know whether a song is a game-changer, just keep your eyes trained on Julian Bunetta’s arm hair.
Because, across a remarkable 25-year career in songwriting and production, the thing that Bunetta calls his “spidey sense” has indicated the imminent success of anthems from One Direction’sBest Song Ever and Story Of My Life to Sabrina Carpenter’sEspresso and Teddy Swims’Lose Control.
“When you’re driving around listening to those songs before they come out, the only barometer you have is if the hair on your own arms stands up,” he chuckles. “And if you continuously put them on and then your friends and your parents request to hear them… It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a hit, but it means it’s going to stand out amongst the rest of that person’s repertoire and put them on the next step for their career.”
Bunetta’s arms have been working overtime of late. As well as multiple cuts with Sabrina and Teddy, he produced Gracie Abrams’ all-conquering That’s So True and has worked with everyone from country stars Thomas Rhett and Kelsea Ballerini to returning superstars 5 Seconds Of Summer.
He sees his current hot streak as a sort of second wind to his stellar body of work (“It’s nice to get this type of success at this stage of my career”) but, in truth, he has rarely been out of the charts since he signed his first publishing deal, aged 19, at the start of the new millennium.
He was immersed in the business even before that. His father Peter is a producer, while his uncle Al is a manager and label exec. Bunetta keeps his own career in the family as well. He’s managed by his brother Damon, and his Big Family Music company – which recently partnered with Stem to extend its artist services capabilities – works across records, publishing and management.
“My happy place has always been in the studio, with a couple of other people, figuring out a puzzle.”
“I didn’t think of music as a family business, I just loved being around it,” Bunetta says. “My happy place has always been in the studio, with a couple of other people, figuring out a puzzle.”
Bunetta started as a drummer and, over the years, occasionally toyed with starting his own artist career. But when a friend introduced him to Logic software, he became obsessed with production and then, after that first deal through publisher Judy Stakee, “I focused all of my energies on songwriting”.
That paid off big time; he worked closely with his regular collaborator John Ryan (“The yin to my yang”) and Simon Cowell on helping One Direction transcend their early reality TV stardom by writing more mature songs with wider appeal.
Bunetta – who recently signed to Sony Music Publishing – became close to the band, and has worked with many of them on solo records. When Liam Payne tragically passed away earlier this year, he posted on Instagram: “We wrote songs that changed my life. He encouraged and empowered me. He helped make my dreams come true”.
A move to Nashville saw Bunetta ditch the songwriting speed dates in favor of more long-term projects and also elevated his own craft to the point where he now operates in a huge range of genres, although – even with his phone currently ringing red hot after Carpenter and Swims’ chart domination – he remains choosy about who he works with.
“If somebody really wants to work with me and understands the way I work and how I am, and that’s the type of energy they want around them, then that’s who I want to work with,” he smiles as he talks to MBW in his Nashville studio. “The best chemistry comes from everybody just being themselves, and letting everybody else be themselves. If people dig what I bring to the buffet, then that’s a party I want to go to…”
Before that party gets re-started, however, he sits down with MBW to talk AI, A&R and why he doesn’t like some of his biggest hits…
HOW DOES YOUR CURRENT WAVE OF SUCCESS FEEL?
It feels great. I’d imagine having this type of success would be really difficult for a lot of people in their early twenties. It would have been really hard for me to handle the ego check.
To sustain a career, you have to develop really good habits, and it could be really difficult for some people that have success really fast, really young, to develop habits that will move them through the down times.
DO SONGWRITING AND PRODUCTION GO HAND-IN-HAND FOR YOU, OR ARE THEY SEPARATE DISCIPLINES?
Well, they always went together to me, but they are separate arts.
After this much time, I now see the value of having people who are just focused on a strength in a room, so that you have more perspectives to catch what’s swimming around in the air.
It takes a lot of hours to be a great songwriter and a lot of hours to be a great producer, so they are separate disciplines, but they all work hand-in-hand; it’s just taken a long time to put them all together for me.
I know songwriting has a shorter shelf life than production because there’s always new lingo. With new artists you have to talk the talk and, as you get older and more removed from it. But an elder statesman producer is really good to have in the room because you can help younger people identify hooks and give some wisdom.
“I’m still working on the craft of songwriting because it’s a never-ending journey.”
A lot of songs are written with the vigor of youth and blind ambition and the passionate feelings that you’re feeling when you’re going through break-ups, love affairs and whatever you’re going through in your twenties.
Most of the greatest songs ever written were written by people in their twenties, maybe their thirties. But a lot of those records were produced by people in their forties, fifties and sixties – the combination of the two together is really powerful.
There’s that beautiful balance – I’m still working on the craft of songwriting because it’s a never-ending journey but, at the same time, I’m also focused on my development as an older, wiser producer, wherever that leads me.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR DAD?
He taught me by just being a good person. Paying your people and doing people right. Everybody has their own style, and it wasn’t like, ‘Hey, when you come to a pre-chorus, always make sure you do this…’; it was more holistic.
He always finds the time to talk to somebody about whatever they have going on. He asks questions, he’s genuinely interested in people. I’m more naturally a shy person, so I learned how to pull things out of people by watching him and how much people would open up when you take an interest in them.
So, if you’re trying to write a song with someone, just take the time to care about what is going on. People look to people in the room that they can trust and that are honest. He definitely taught me how to do that.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU GOT INVOLVED WITH ONE DIRECTION?
Truthfully, when I was in the room with all five of them for the first time, I had a semi-out-of-body experience. The chemistry of the five of them in the room… I hadn’t ever seen anything like that. It was like it was scripted.
With their banter, their jokes and the chemistry of the five of them in the room, I was like, ‘Have you practised this? Is this a schtick?’ It was just so fluid and overwhelming, like, ‘Wow, I saw the future’. Like, whatever the fucking ‘it’ factor is that people talk about, I had seen it for the first time – like, bam! I remember it so well. I knew what I was feeling and I trusted my gut.
They were already big, so you hope for the best, but then, when it happens, you never imagine it the way it happens. I knew it would be big and I knew that, after we started writing some of the songs, that they were really good. But I wasn’t thinking 10 years into the future about what it would become.
YOUR SONGS SEEMED TO HELP WIDEN THEIR APPEAL…
Yeah. Historically, boy bands, after about album three, it fizzles out, they break up and go their separate ways. I knew that and figured the only way to keep it rolling is, you really have to change gear.
When I met them, they were singing songs at 20 that they’d recorded at 17, but they were about to be 22 or 23 in the blink of an eye. So, we had to start writing for them in the future, not where they were at when we met.
It was a decision on my part to try and intentionally write songs that they would grow into. Night Changes is one of those songs that has aged really well. When they were 20 singing that, it felt very mature for them, so did Story Of My Life. But, as they aged up a bit, it really worked.
That was just a product of taking cues from them and what they wanted to do, but also drawing on classic rock anthems from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s and steering them out of the traditional, choreographed boy band thing.
DID THAT EXPERIENCE HELP WHEN YOU WERE WORKING WITH SABRINA CARPENTER AND TEDDY SWIMS?
I hope so. They might express how crazy the whirlwind is, but they’re prepared for it. Sabrina’s been doing it for a long time and it’s the same for her; if this amount of success had come when she was 17, maybe she wouldn’t have been prepared for it as well.
Or maybe she would: she knows what she’s doing and she’s built this brick-by-brick, so she’s ready to stand on top of this mountain that she’s built.
And Teddy’s the same thing. He’s done it for a while, they keep their friends and family around them, so they are uniquely built to have continued success because the people they keep around them look out for them.
WHEN YOU WERE WORKING ON THOSE RECORDS, DID YOU REALIZE HOW SUCCESSFUL THEY WERE GOING TO BE?
I dreamed! I thought it, but when you’re just thinking in your head, there’s usually another voice saying, ‘Alright, chill out, don’t get too excited that this is going to be the biggest thing in the world. Don’t put all your eggs in this basket’.
You know, everybody’s going out to hit a home run. Every game, somebody’s trying to score and then, all of a sudden, the bases are loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth and you just happen to hit a homer.
You dream of it, and you never know how or when or why it’s going to come, but I’m really proud of the records and I’m really happy they are successful because there have definitely been other songs that I wasn’t that proud of that have been released. And if they became hits, it would be great for the bank account but, deep down, I’d be like, ‘This isn’t my best work and everybody’s hearing it’s not my best’.
WHICH SONGS ARE THEY, THEN?
[Laughs] There have been so many over the last 15 years. Not every song is your best; sometimes you get the magic and sometimes you chisel it out and sometimes people are like, ‘This is great, I love it’ – and you disagree.
YOU SEEM TO LIKE TO DEVELOP LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS WITH ARTISTS. IS THAT HARDER TO DO IN THE AGE OF MULTIPLE CO-WRITES?
I actually think that it’s now going back to little pods of people that stay with themselves. Artists find their squad and stick with it, even if the first or second try doesn’t work.
“I enjoy really getting in the weeds with an artist on songs and sounds, that’s where the joy really comes.”
I’ve noticed a lot of artists building a trust and rapport with three or four people and just going back to the well. It’s awesome that they’re doing that, because that’s how you’re going to find something unique to you, as opposed to taking a piece of everybody else. I enjoy really getting in the weeds with an artist on songs and sounds, that’s where the joy really comes.
You never know which way the world turns. I’ve watched a lot of other people’s careers growing up, and some of the biggest people have so much success, and then that time goes away and a new trend happens. But the great ones find a second wind, because they’ve been tracking and listening and then the world turns again and they’re right back on top.
I’ve seen it happen to so many of my favorite producers through the ‘90s, 2000s and 2010s. So, I always thought that, as long as I stayed sharp and passionate about music, my chance would come again to run into an amazing artist – and I’m really fortunate that it has.
Teddy Swims
DO SONGWRITERS AND PRODUCERS GET ENOUGH RESPECT FROM THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?
Well, I feel respected. I don’t feel slighted. But I understand why some people would.
It’s always great to make more money. No one’s going to say no to more money, but when you have a big song, you make money and it’s wonderful. I’ve been very fortunate, but the way the money flows means it’s unfortunate that the songwriter gets the last remnants of what’s there – with the exception of radio, you still make money on radio.
I hope songwriters can be paid more on streaming, because there’s so much money being made right now for the labels and artists that own their own stuff, so it would be great for the songwriters to make enough to not have to do other jobs.
The paradigm is going to shift again at some point. The way people get paid is always going to evolve, and, however it is now, I don’t think it’ll be that way in 10 years, something will change. The way we make music is changing, so I have faith that the songwriter will persevere.
YOU SOLD YOUR CATALOG BEFORE IT WAS FASHIONABLE TO BIG DEAL, WHICH THEN GOT BOUGHT BY HIPGNOSIS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ALL THE CHANGES SINCE YOU SOLD?
I don’t really follow it. Because it doesn’t really affect my day-to-day. I’m in the studio writing songs, so whatever’s happening business-wise with the company, doesn’t make my song better or worse. My job is to go in and write the best possible song every day with the artist I’m in with.
That’s another thing I learned from my dad – you can only control the quality of the song you write. There are so many other distractions but, when you write a magic song, it opens doors and that’s all I can really control.
Credit: 19 STUDIO/Shutterstock
DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT TIKTOK WHEN YOU’RE IN THE STUDIO?
No. I try not to. People will put it on TikTok if they press play and it hits them the way a song has traditionally always hit somebody. People have to listen to it and love it from top to bottom. That’s always been the goal and always will be the goal.
“A content creator that just grabbed a song and did some dancing to it probably makes more than the songwriter.”
It makes everybody else money. A content creator that just grabbed a song and did some dancing to it probably makes more than the songwriter – unless it goes to radio.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT AI?
It’s just another piece of technology. I’d imagine that, when drum machines came out, they thought drummers would go away and, when autotune came out, they thought no one was ever going to have to sing – and it’s just not the case. Or, at least, it hasn’t been historically.
It will just be a new tool that will help us build sonic worlds that we’ve never even dreamed of or couldn’t imagine before the tool. You start with the hammer and nails, and then someone gives you a chainsaw and you can build crazier things. Then you have a crane, and you can build a different thing.
I’ve messed around with AI, but humans have a sixth sense for blood, sweat and tears. I think we would always gravitate towards the work that the human made, but we’ll see.
