To promote his new album "VICTORY," electronic producer Madeon sat down with POPSLAY to talk about his years-long relationship with Lady Gaga, how they were introduced and how their collaborations – "Mary Jane Holland," "Gypsy," "Venus" and "911" – came to be.
Watch the full interview here, and check out the highlights below:
On his introduction to Gaga:
Having been a fan since "Just Dance," Madeon revealed Gaga was his dream collaborator. Following his 2012 set at Lollapalooza, he was approached by Gaga's team about the possibility of him opening for her on the Born This Way Ball. He agreed, but under the condition that she listens to one of his demos for her next album. Music& Audio
The instrumental he sent was called "Revenge," but he was initially apprehensive that he'd send something too "edgy." He said, "She's always been an artist with this experimental dimension, and I thought if I sent her something generic that could work with someone else, it wouldn't be interesting. So for me, I thought this could be our starting point together."
On producing for "ARTPOP":
That demo ended up being the foundation of "Mary Jane Holland." Gaga personally called him to let him know she loved the track and had already written lyrics to it. She insisted they meet, and they finally did in September 2012 after Gaga's Born This Way Ball performance at the Stade de France. Madeon revealed that after the show, they went back to her hotel, where she had a grand piano. She had the chorus to "Gypsy" but nothing else, so Madeon sat at the piano and started to play. He said "something kind of magical happened" as they composed the rest of the song together, and the next night, they recorded it.
For "Venus," his other ARTPOP contribution, he had already composed the basic instrumental track, but he passed it on to Gaga who added more acoustic elements against his heavy electronic ones. Being a teen-aged producer at the time, he said Gaga made him feel understood and taken seriously in the way she valued and used his ideas.
"It was a really interesting collaboration on the three 'ARTPOP' tracks. It was very different because on 'Mary Jane' she really quoted my production and wrote over it. On 'Venus,' there was the track, I produced it, and then she added her own layer as producer. And on 'Gypsy,' there was already a chorus, and then we composed the rest together, and I produced it."
Madeon continued to praise Gaga's music-making ability, saying, "She writes all the melodies, the lyrics, she doesn't have a team of songwriters, she does it all herself. She has real production ideas and really respects the people she works with."
Knowing Gaga worked on plenty of songs during the ARTPOP era, host Guillaume Moglia resurfaced her 2012 tweet mentioning "Tinnitus" in hopes of getting more information, but Madeon shut it down: "Out of respect ... I figure if it's not something that's been released, something that's official, well, it's not my project, it's not my album. ... There have been a lot of tracks that were made for the album, some released, some not."
On producing "911" for "Chromatica":
Madeon also detailed how he ended up contributing to "911." Chromatica producer BloodPop had reached out after being stuck on "911," feeling like the production was "rudimentary." As soon as Madeon heard it, he said he knew "what it need[ed] to be," and the next day, he had a "vey emotional" reconnection with Gaga at the studio to finish what would become the album version of the song.
He said it was cool to reconnect with Gaga because she's "very, very loyal" to the people she works with: "There's still a link, it's really a connection," he said. "And that's why I connect with her, because I don't feel like I'm working with a brand, you know?"
Read more about the production of "911" here.
-
1