Songwriting Therapy with Madonna, Beyoncé, and John Legend: A Conversation with Toby Gad

From John Legend's "All of Me" to Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry", Toby Gad has been writing hits for decades. We talked about how he's made musical magic for so long.

When I found out that I was going to interview Toby Gad, I was excited. He’d written some of the biggest hits in the last 20 years, including “All of Me” by John Legend and “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Fergie. But as I scrolled through his discography, I noticed something weird. Many of his songs had soundtracked my life, songs that I didn’t even know that he worked on.

He made music with Hannah Montana and One Direction, two artists who were in regular rotation in my house given that I grew up with younger sisters. He wrote Demi Lovato’s “Skyscraper”, a song that I covered with my friend in high school. He wrote a song called “Born Bob Dylan” for the singer Susan Justice that my youngest sister’s friend insisted on playing in the car every time we’d bring her to swim practice. Additionally, some of his first professional songwriting credits were for Milli Vanilli, a group that fascinates a semi-professional music nerd like me because they are the only act to ever have a Grammy rescinded. In short, though I didn’t know it, Toby Gad’s music has been following me for decades.

Over an hour, Gad and I spoke about his journey from the child of jazz musicians to the top of the pops, the unexpected marriage of ballads and dance music, why writing music is like therapy — even when Madonna tells you to fuck off — and why he’s decided to rerecord some of his biggest hits.

A Conversation with Toby Gad

I want to start with a question that probably only matters to me. Growing up, my sisters loved Hannah Montana, so I heard her music constantly. As a young guitar player, the one song of hers that I loved was “Rock Star”, which you produced. I’ve got to ask. Who played the guitar solo on that song? It’s fantastic.

This was so long ago I actually need to re-listen to the song. Hold on. [Pulls up the song.]

I think that was actually my brother. I recorded that in Orlando with Miley. After the session was done, there was a secret door in that music studio that if you walked through would take you to Disney. I’m not kidding. So, after the session, I just walked through this door and I was in the middle of Disney.

So, you and your brother are both musicians?

Yes. He's amazing on the guitar, drums, and bass. He’s also a great singer. We started making music really young. My parents had a jazz band and my brother and I would take over the instruments after they finished their rehearsals. Eventually, we’d perform during the intermissions of their jazz club gigs. When my parents went back on stage, we went through the audience and collected money. That was our first time making money from music. We made music together until I was maybe 20. But the biggest thing we accomplished was getting three songs on Milli Vanilli’s debut album.

That’s crazy that you were involved with them.

Yeah. We just wrote the songs. We weren’t in the studio when they were recorded, so we had no idea who was singing on the tracks.

But at that time, you weren’t just a writer. You were also an artist, right?

Correct. In the wake of the Milli Vanilli album, Frank Farian signed my brother and I. He was the guy behind Milli Vanilli. We put out one album under the name Q called NRG. It wasn't successful. But we did tour for a little bit and met George Clinton. He invited us on stage to jam. He tried to get us to come to America, but that wouldn’t happen for another decade.

Toby and his brother Jens on the cover of their album NRG., their only album released as the musical duo Q.

Do you think being an artist influenced your writing?

I’m not sure. When I shopped my demo tape around as an artist, I got rejected by everyone. So, I decided that I wasn’t an artist, and I would just write. It took a long time from when I decided that to me having my first global hit, which was Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. We wrote that 20 years ago. That opened a ton of doors for me. From there, I got in the room with Beyoncé and John Legend and so many others.

In the last couple months, I’ve gotten the artist bug again. I’m rerecording all my biggest hits with new singers. It’s just piano and vocals, and the project is called Piano Diaries. I love the intimacy of this project. You can really follow the lyric and it draws you into the song sometimes more than if it had a full production.

Let’s talk about that project. After decades as a songwriter what compelled you to want to record your hits yourself? Did you feel the need to reclaim them?