MBW’s World’s Greatest Songwriters series celebrates the composers behind the globe’s biggest hits. This time out we talk to Dan Nigro, who, as the key creative collaborator for Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, is responsible for not just some big hits, but arguably some pretty significant cultural moments. 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.
In the darkest days of the Covid pandemic, it was often hard to know what was going on in the outside world, while the struggle for connection was universal.
So, for Dan Nigro and Olivia Rodrigo, the start of 2021 was particularly surreal. That was when Rodrigo dropped her debut single, Drivers License, co-written with Nigro, and changed both their lives – and the world of pop music – forever.
Because, in a world where everyone was stuck in their own little bubble, Drivers License took off like a rocket and became a communal experience. Nigro and Rodrigo would call each other daily, questioning if the sky-high streaming numbers could actually be real.
Friends would return from their daily jog to report the song was blasting from multiple houses in their neighborhoods. And Nigro himself would wake up every morning at 5am, heart racing, wondering what the hell the next day would bring.
“I’d never really been part of a meteoric record,” he laughs. “I never know when a song is going to be a hit anyway. But that record just took off to the stratosphere. Of course, I knew we were making something special but that never, in my mind, equates to sales or chart numbers. All I could think was, ‘This is good and it feels really good to be making this…’”
Almost four years on and Sony Music Publishing-signed Nigro really should be getting used to such super-sized success. Rodrigo’s 2021 debut album Sour, co-written and produced by Nigro, went on to become the most streamed album by a female artist on Spotify and spawned countless hit singles.
The 2023 follow-up, Guts, which Nigro also produced and co-wrote, has also been a global smash as Rodrigo – who first came to prominence as an actress on Disney shows – has become one of the world’s greatest pop stars (or maybe that should be rock stars, given the way she has returned punky guitars to the singles chart frontline). Nigro and Rodrigo were named 2024 Songwriters of the Year by ASCAP.
And if that wasn’t enough, Nigro is equally closely involved with the rise-and-rise of another global pop femininomenon, Chappell Roan – not only co-writing and producing her The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess album, but stepping in to release her songs through his own Amusement Records (now in partnership with Island) after Roan was dropped by Atlantic.
Their work together features heavily in this year’s Grammy nominations, with Nigro shortlisted for Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical, while Roan’s work sweeps the Big Four (Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best New Artist) and beyond, and Rodrigo’s song Can’t Catch Me Now – written with Nigro for The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes – is up for Best Song Written For Visual Media.
All of which makes Nigro pretty much the hottest songwriter-producer on the planet. But his journey here makes the Driving Home 2 U road trip Rodrigo undertook for her documentary of the same name look like popping down to the local grocery store.
Nigro grew up in Long Island, New York, where his parents started him on piano lessons, aged five. Far from showing the talent that would make him the go-to guy for a generation of pop talent, he “pushed back on playing, performing and practising – I kinda hated it”. It was only when he picked up a guitar and got into grunge that the music bug bit, and he would spend his summers at the Jones Beach amphitheater, watching what alternative band was in town.
“Those are the things that draw me to an artist: do they have an interesting song topic, and can you hear that conviction and intensity in the voice?”
Eventually, he formed his own band, As Tall As Lions. They became a moderately sized emo noise, touring extensively and cracking the Top 100 with third album, You Can’t Take It With You.
But the band split in 2010 and Nigro moved to Los Angeles, where he became a jingle composer and songwriter, getting as far away from his indie rock roots as possible to work with the likes of Sky Ferreira and Kylie Minogue. It was when he spotted Rodrigo singing on social media and reached out to suggest collaborating, however, that his career really took off.
“I just loved her voice and her conviction,” he grins, settling down to talk to MBW in his Highland Park studio. “Those are the things that draw me to an artist: do they have an interesting song topic, and can you hear that conviction and intensity in the voice? I was totally crazy about her writing style, so I felt I had to be a part of it.”
The rest, as they say, is pop hysteria. Nigro has even bigger plans for the future – he’s already working with Roan on a follow-up record and is now thinking of signing other artists to Amusement Records.
But, for now, it’s time to talk to MBW about Olivia, Chappell and what comes next…
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS INCREDIBLE MOMENT WITH OLIVIA RODRIGO AND CHAPPELL ROAN?
It’s pretty awesome. I couldn’t be happier with how things have been received.
With the Chappell stuff, it feels really incredible because we’ve been working at it for so long. We were trying to push through a certain wall and now we’ve got through, so that’s as good as it gets.
I grew up playing music and getting signed in the early 2000s and the way that you had to do it was, go out and play shows, prove to people how good you were in a live setting, grow a pocket of a fanbase and then keep on building these little blocks.
I’ve always known that Chappell was a great live performer even before she was playing shows; with how good she was on the microphone and how much she could control her voice, you just knew she was going to be able to do something special on stage. It’s amazing for fans that get to experience such a great live performer.
AS TALL AS LIONS WERE A SUCCESSFUL LIVE ACT TOO – DID YOU WANT TO BE A BIG ROCK STAR?
I don’t know if it was necessarily the dream to be a rock star. I loved the idea of going on stage and being in front of people but, quite soon into playing in a band, I realized I didn’t love it.
Once we started touring and were on the road all the time, I realized how much I hated not having a routine and I found myself quite disconnected from reality at some points. You’re living in this weird alternate bubble, where you’re moving around, going from show to show, you’re in a new city, you show up at a venue, you’re performing and then getting back in the van and doing it all over again.
The allure wore off quite quickly for me and I realized I like creating music more than I like performing it. You can show up to a venue and have 500 fans that love you, but still be losing money on the show. That’s really tough to deal with, being completely broke the entire time.
IS THAT WHY THE BAND SPLIT UP?
If we were getting along creatively, it would have been worth it. I never mind putting in hard work and really fighting for something; still to this day I’ll fight until the end for a good song and sacrifice so much for it.
But if you’re not getting along creatively, there’s no point to it. The main factor for our band breaking up was, we were creatively at odds. You could blame the other factors as well but, ultimately, if the creative juices are flowing, then everything’s cool.
WAS IT DIFFICULT TO MOVE ON FROM THE BAND?
That’s something a lot of people struggle with, because whoever you are is completely wrapped up in [the band].
But I came into a creative group of people that were making music that was inspiring me. Unlike most people, I took a hard turn into completely trying to cut away from that side of my career.
I didn’t want people to associate me with the band, even though I’m proud of the band. I didn’t want anybody to think that was the style of music I was trying to create like, ‘Dan makes indie rock music’ or whatever. I didn’t want people to go to me for those things. It was actually easier for me to fully separate from it and try to start from square one.
OLIVIA RODRIGO STARRED IN DISNEY’S HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES BEFORE HER MUSIC CAREER. DID YOU HAVE ANY PRECONCEPTIONS ABOUT WHAT SORT OF MUSIC SHE’D WANT TO DO?
The funny thing is, I had never seen the TV show – up to this day I’ve still never seen it. To me, it had nothing to do with that – I heard her voice, I thought she was great and the fact that she was on a television show was just some other thing that had nothing to do with me wanting to make music with her.
PEOPLE WERE SURPRISED SHE MADE SUCH A ROCK’N’ROLL RECORD. DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE GOING TO GET GUITARS BACK IN THE CHARTS?
I’m just there to service the artist. We had a love for guitar music and it was like, ‘This is what we’re doing’. It was never a thought like, ‘Will this song be played on the radio?’
That never crossed my mind. Although the fact that you hear more guitars on the radio now is amazing.
IT WAS STILL PRETTY BOLD TO KICK OFF SOUR WITH SOMETHING AS UNCOMPROMISING AS BRUTAL THOUGH…
We can call it bold but, at the end of the day, we were just doing what Olivia wanted. It wasn’t about being bold, it was about being true to herself.
DID YOU FEEL ANY PRESSURE COMING UP WITH THE FOLLOW-UP TO SOUR?
Yeah, of course! (Laughs) Not to get too philosophical, but it’s like Daoist philosophy. Starting the second record with Olivia, you’re looking at this mountain: these songs are finished, they’re mixed, they’re massive, you have all these accolades, you have Grammys, BRIT Awards and all these things – it’s like this mountain that has been created around this piece of work.
And then you walk into the studio and you’re looking at each other and it’s like the parable that says, every hundred-mile journey starts with one step and every nine-storey building starts with one handful of dirt. You have to be reminded of that. You’ve got to throw the first shovel of dirt at the building and go, ‘Cool, we’re going’.
I wouldn’t be being honest if I said it wasn’t an incredible amount of pressure. It definitely felt very intense to start on the journey again. It took us a while to get to the point where we felt comfortable.
YOU’RE A QUEEN FAN. IS VAMPIRE OLIVIA’S BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY?
[Laughs] That’s a very high compliment! I love that song and it does feel like there are different acts to it.
We spent all this time doing it and we were really excited about it. We played it for some people in our circle pretty early on, before it was done. We were so pumped, we’d finish playing the song and they’d look us and be like, ‘OK, it sounds like three songs in one’. And we were like, ‘Yeah!’
There was a disconnect, but it was great, because you need those moments where you realize, ‘Oh wow, we still have work to do on this’. It helped push the song over the finish line because I knew the transitions didn’t feel right yet, and we really needed to work on making the parts all feel better.
HOW QUICKLY AFTER YOU STARTED WORKING WITH HER DID YOU REALIZE CHAPPELL ROAN WOULD BE A POP SUPERSTAR?
It was the third day. We started to write her song California and I just knew. I don’t know what it was, but I was like, ‘This person is really special’. I became obsessed with the way that she thought about lyrics and how thoughtful she was with the arrangement of the song.
I was so obsessed with that song when we made it. I wanted everybody to get excited about it because I knew things with her record label weren’t in the greatest spot. We invited the label over, and I printed out the lyrics to the song because I wanted them to listen – for the first 25 seconds of the song, there’s no music, it’s just her vocal.
I wanted to make sure when they were listening to it that they weren’t on their phones. The song’s not going to have any impact if they’re like ‘in a meeting’ or doing something and half listening on their phones. I need them in the studio, paying attention, and I want the lyrics in front of their face so they read it as if they’re watching a lyric video. That shows how passionate I felt about it from day one.
IS THAT WHY YOU STARTED YOUR OWN LABEL TO RELEASE HER MUSIC?
Yeah. I just felt so strongly about the project and about her that I was like, ‘This needs an outlet’.
We basically started making songs, just her and I, and when we felt the songs were good and ready, we would just release them ourselves. It was really empowering to A&R a record together.
IS THE LABEL JUST A ONE-OFF FOR CHAPPELL?
I’m now looking to develop the label more. It started 100% as a one-off, and I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew.
Starting a label is a pretty intense endeavor. With someone like Chappell, I was so passionate about it, it didn’t really matter, I would dedicate as much of my time as I could because I believed in it so much. But now that things are going well, I could potentially take on something else – I haven’t spent too much time thinking about it yet, but it’s definitely on the cards.
HOW INTERESTED ARE YOU IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY SIDE OF THINGS?
I love it! I’ve learned there are so many factors involved in breaking an artist between the marketing, A&R, the production, the social media aspect… And I was always involved just in the music part of it.
“If you’re working with the artist on their vision and then it’s marketed the wrong way, you’re like, ‘Why did we spend all this time working on the music if none of the other things are taken care of in the right way?’”
In the past, I’d work with an artist and see how things would not have the right trajectory because of factors that had nothing to do with the music. I started to realize that I’d like to be more involved in helping grow the project in all areas.
If you’re working with the artist on their vision and then it’s marketed the wrong way, you’re like, ‘Why did we spend all this time working on the music if none of the other things are taken care of in the right way?’
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE TREND FOR MULTIPLE CO-WRITERS ON SONGS?
The amount of songwriters on the song doesn’t mean anything. You have to service the song – if it takes four songwriters to make a song amazing, it takes four. If it takes six, it takes six. If it takes only two, great.
Just because a song has a certain amount of writers doesn’t make it a better or worse song. Although it makes it more difficult for people to make money if there are eight writers on a song – you could have a hit song but if everybody only has 10% of it, it’s not as lucrative as the public might think.
WAS IT FRUSTRATING WHEN OTHER SONGWRITERS WERE ADDED TO THE CREDITS FOR SONGS FROM OLIVIA’S FIRST ALBUM AFTER THEY’D BEEN RELEASED?
Sure, of course it’s frustrating – but it’s the music business.
DID YOU MIND THOUGH?
It’s neither here nor there, really. The most important thing is that people love the music and they’re sharing it with their friends and families.
SOME OF YOUR SONGS HAVE DONE VERY WELL ON TIKTOK. DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT PLATFORM WHEN YOU’RE WRITING?
I’ve never, ever thought about it for one second! (Laughs) I actually find it frustrating when people mention it in a session.
I don’t really work with people who think about those things either, but it can really pigeonhole the way you create. At the end of the day, you don’t know where the song is going to take you and, if you’re setting up that type of boundary for yourself, you’re going to limit yourself.
DO YOU THINK YOU’LL WORK WITH OLIVIA AND CHAPPELL FOR THE REST OF THEIR CAREERS?
I would hope so. Things always change, but I have a great working creative relationship with those artists, and it makes me happy. It creates a big sense of fulfilment in my life.
AND WHAT CHANCE IS THERE OF AN AS TALL AS LIONS REUNION?
(Laughs) I don’t know, we’ll see what happens! I keep getting lots of angry DMs on my Instagram about it so who knows, if the noise gets loud enough…
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