Taylor Swift

I think I messaged [Taylor Swift] on Twitter. I think I said—I sent her a direct message saying, I have this song, I think you're the one for it. And I don't normally do that. It took me four records for me to get to a song where I said, Wow this can really mean something—or maybe it took someone like Taylor coming around to really make that an organic process instead of an arranged marriage of a duo.

And so I called out to her and she agreed to do it. Came into the studio. One of the best work ethics I've ever seen on somebody. Some people you get two or three tries of asking them to do it again before they disengage. She was a tank. I got to a point of comfort with her I went, Wow this girl is gonna stay. This girl's gonna stay til it's done! Which is the greatest and sadly the rarest thing when you're getting people racing the martini. You can just feel someone is racing to get out.

I just remember at some point being comfortable enough to say, Do it again. Instead of, That's good. That's good. Without having to coddle. She sort of just made it clear through her behavior like, Let's just get this thing, however long it takes, you got me. And that of course opened up the experience into being great. I'm learning in my career now when you let there be an experience, when you let something go in it's own way and flow, you get ten fold back instead of micromanaging everything.

SS: Taylor Swift. She's on your record. How were you introduced to Taylor Swift, how did you find her as an artist?

JM: I've written a song, keeping with the Tom Petty context, I've written a song that's straight up melodic to the point chorus and I was thinking, well if I, in my little imagination, am Tom Petty in a song, who's Stevie Nicks? And it was like, I'm very strange about getting other people to perform on my record because I feel like I want those records to be around forever. And I don't know what someone else is going to do in their life.

SS: So you choose a 19 year old?

JM: Yes, that's a good point. That just goes to show you how confident I am, that this is not a gimmick. It's not featuring so and so and so and so just to sell a record. That's evidenced by her coming in and us having a great time in the studio. And singing on a song that's a little less than a duet. But where she is, it's just fantastic.

RF: And how’s technology changing that when you look at say, Taylor Swift coming out and saying—and I’m talking about Taylor Swift professionally.

JM: We have to be able to talk about Taylor Swift professionally! [Laughs] We have to be able to talk about Taylor Swift.

RF: So tell me about that. When she comes out and says I'm not putting it on Spotify, right, that doesn't respect the artists and the writers enough. 

JM: I think that's cool, I think that's really cool. Artists need the person with the loudest voice to speak for them and— 

RF: Is she doing that? 

JM: I think so. When you say that we can go to the Met Ball you know that's great, that's a great way to use your voices go I'm wearing Valentino, or you can use your voice to give things. Well now some people, the cynical, could say you're helping yourself but it's trickled down. You're not saying I want this just for me. I think that's a really cool thing for a musician to do like there's only like like two percent of the music industry has 80 percent of all the media about it, you know what I mean? There's like four people who get all the press and if any of those four people say I want to speak for the other people who just would never make this a story the only reason that we're talking about Taylor Swift taking Spotify on is because she's Taylor Swift and that's great.