As one of the most renowned, multi-platinum songwriters and producers in the game, Sam Hollander has written and produced for the likes of Panic! At The Disco, One Direction, Fitz and the Tantrums, Weezer, Katy Perry, blink-182, Ringo Starr, Def Leppard, Carole King, Billy Idol, Jewel, Train, Tom Morello and Gym Class Heroes amongst many others. To date, he’s achieved 22 US Top 40 Hits, as well as 10 Number 1's, 10 top fives, and 87 Top 10 chart positions globally. His songs have been streamed over 7 billion times, and in 2019, he held the #1 position on the Billboard Rock Songwriters Chart for nine weeks, a year-end record. Sam has also been chosen to be on Variety's Hitmakers list, as well as being named Rolling Stone's Hot List Producer of the Year.
Beyond songwriting, Sam has served as a Governor of the New York Chapter of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The GRAMMYs). He currently sits on the Advisory Boards for Musicians On Call and SONA. As an essayist, he’s been published in The New York Times, Variety & Billboard among others. He recently contributed a chapter to The White Label Promo Preservation Society: 100 Flop Albums You Ought to Know (Hozac Books). His memoir, 21-Hit Wonder: Flopping My Way to the Top of the Charts, will be released on 11/1/2022 via Matt Holt/BenBella Books.
This week we share an exclusive interview with Sam Hollander and Maxwell from Z100 New York.
[the transcribed interview has been edited for clarity]
Maxwell: This is like the coolest thing, man, to have a conversation with family and new friends, and to have this be a bond that is based off of something that is so important to the human soul as music. Sam Hollander, dude, good to meet you this way. In real life, we need to make this happen, seriously.
You know what, just let me come up there one night and hang out and just watch the action in real time. I've always wanted to set up a Z100. I'm like a walking Jingle Ball. Every day for me is a Jingle Ball. So, my FOMO for all my friends who've been able to experience Z100 in person, on air or whatever—I get very emotional about it. I'm a New York dude, man. I'm a lifer.
Maxwell: Let's manifest that because listen, you are a part of the reason why so many artists actually had the opportunity to hit the stage at the Garden as a part of Z100 Jingle Ball.
Certainly depends on the year, but every once in a while. It was cool. It was amazing. I have this memory frozen in my head of when BOYS LIKE GIRLS were really big and Martin Johnson was on stage and they were doing either “Great Escape” or “Love Drunk,” one of these tunes we had written together. He turned over to the side, and this was when Sharon was there, and he just thanked her from the stage. He looked up and he thanked her. He waved. He said thank you, and it was the most rock and roll moment, man. I had chills. I got emotional.
Maxwell: I gotta show love to Sharon: it's so rad that you say that. You know, she's ventured on, she's no longer the program at the station, but she was responsible for bringing me into the fold and being a member of this family. But she now is doing her own thing and brought in some of her newer artists, Hayes Warner and Billy B.
You know what, man? Hayes is a really super talented kid and a very sweet kid, and I'm rooting for her immensely. I hope it happens because she's a great kid.
Maxwell: Heck yeah, man. Let's talk about you though. Not only the amazingness that you have been able to achieve as a writer or a co-collaborator, but as a teammate on all of these records throughout the amazing career that you've had as a songwriter. Before we even get into the book [21 Hit Wonder: Flopping My Way to the Top of the Charts], dude, none of these are flops, bro, none.
You know what? It's a process, dude. I grew into a career as a professional plus one, right? So I grew into this career where somehow I was grandfathered (really grandmothered by Carole King) into a position of being a collaborator in a room with artists: playing therapist, playing lyricist, playing, you know, writing melodies… whatever it took just to get the song out of them and really create. And what's funny about that is that it was born out of 14 or 15 straight years of bankrupting labels with my failures. So you know, I talked to kids all the time, man. And I think, especially at this moment in history with TikTok and everything else, that the speed of success in people's heads [is changing]. They want to just achieve it so fast, everyone's in a rush, right? Everyone has a sprinter mentality. And I was always like one of those gangly marathoners you see running 26 miles. I always envied the careers of people who were grinders, like with almost like a blue-collar grind, who got up every single day and weren't flashy but just put in the hours every day. Like with the Yankees: Derek Jeter was incredible, but my favorite Yankee was Bernie Williams, because I understood Bernie Williams. I felt like this guy was out there every single day for years and he was just consistent. And I felt if I was ever given a platform to create, (I write lyrics and melody), and if I was ever given a platform where I could express that, I could do some damage. And it took me so many years to permeate, man. It did not happen overnight.
Maxwell: That's the thing, man. Where does that persistence come from? Where does that grind come from? Was it something that was a learned thing? Was it something that your family instilled in you? Was it friends growing up?
Dude, that's a beautiful question, man. My parents were both artists and very supportive of it. And they were both really grinders. My dad was very ritualistic. He had routines. He worked every day of the week. He was a professor at Pratt. He was also writing, continually writing. And so I would watch him every day of the week. He would get up, have a cup of coffee, go into his office and for 10 hours, just type, if he wasn't teaching that day. And I think that was embedded in me, but also I've been blessed to be around some killers. So just my peers inspire me. I mean, Pat Monahan from Train, Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, Fitz from Fitz and the Tantrums. These are people who are relentless. They get up every single day and write. And when you have that around you in your friend group, it's inspirational. My management with Crush Management, every day they just outwork everybody that I know. And it's inspiring and I feel like that, through the years, always was ingrained in me: that this was never gonna be handed to me at any point, I had to go for it.
Maxwell: With that, do you see yourself wanting to make sure that you don't let those folks down? Because you know how hard they work, how ritualistic they are. And you wanna make sure that you do your best, to perform to the best of your ability, because you see that around you and don't wanna let them down because you know that that's what they deserve.
I respect everyone's time and I respect their craft. And this is not about me. I hate when writers make it about themselves as opposed to the artist. It is about me supporting the artist and supporting their vision and enhancing it in any way, shape, or form I can enhance it. And everything you say, it completely resonates. Truthfully, I wake up, almost in a state of fear and panic, if I ever feel like I'm letting it down, if I ever feel like I am not carrying it from my end. So my attitude is outwork, outhustle. I'm Jeff Probst on Survivor, man. I don’t want my torch extinguished at any point. Keep me in it, man. I wanna make the final four.
Maxwell: I could not agree with you more, Sam. That's where we are, you and I, that's where we're gonna connect and we're gonna become friends. We're gonna grow our friendship through that. Because I've learned what I love about being a part of this amazing radio station, the position I'm in: it's not because I want to be that guy, it's because I'm the vessel. I wanna utilize where I am to help the creators, to help the artists, to help them get their voice and their story told. It's a responsibility of mine to be able to give that person that opportunity to share their story as big, as best, as loud as they can.
Well, for me, I'm from the MTV generation, right? I'm an 80s kid. So I grew up with the notion that stars were stars. They were these larger than life characters that were so beyond anything I ever believed that I could access creatively in terms of performance-wise, right? So I sang in bands and I did this and that. I got a record deal very young and I got dropped very young. But you know what? I would look in the mirror as I performed my songs in rehearsal rooms before shows and I knew I had this incredible imposter syndrome. I wasn't meant to be at the front of the stage. I knew that my role was a supporting role, but a very important role. I wanted to just craft the narrative, man. I felt that if I told the stories, then it would be fulfilling at a level that I never thought I could ascertain and luckily enough, that's what happened.
Maxwell: To be able to tap into that energy, to be able to tap into that space. Yeah, to be in the room with some super talented folks. As we say, “21 Hits” is what you titled it. There are more than 21, but to be able to be in those rooms and to see that you were able to work with folks: how fulfilling was it for you from your vantage point to know that you're bringing the best out of someone and vice versa?
Well, you know what's cool, man? I can look at my Spotify playlist thing they put up there. I can go through my songs and every single song is a timestamp from a moment in my life. You know what I mean? If I have 400 something songs or whatever up there, I remember the story behind every single song, where I was in my life. I can seriously connect emotionally and have visceral responses when I hear it because I know this is where I was. And that's the magical part of it. And when you see an artist perform a song and it's in a stadium, it’s incredible and it's the most fulfilling thing. But if you see it and they're performing it for the first time and it's a club and there's 15 people, it's magical too, just to see the eruption. It's just incredible. I never wanted to do anything else in my life. I've never had any other real aspirations. I wanted to be a songwriter. I always felt it was my tribe. And so to be able to actually accomplish it on some level and be able to spend my life doing this has been incredible.
Maxwell: You know what else is sick about what you just said is how you're able to create these visceral reactions, these memories, these very vivid moments in time to these particular songs. You're also doing that, through your craft, for everybody who has listened to each one of those songs. There's so many times where it's like, “that's sending me right to when I first got my driver's license.”
What's crazy is if I write a ballad and it's like “When You Love Someone” [recorded by] James TW, that connects on a certain level. You know, “High Hopes” is aspirational, the BANNERS song is an unrequited kind of deal. All these songs through history, from BOYS LIKE GIRLS, the Metro Station, all these things, everything I've ever worked on, I always felt that at the end of the day, they resonated with so many different types of people. That's the coolest thing. It's to meet somebody who is a fan of Ringo, and they just can't believe, “hey, you get to work with Ringo.” And then I'll literally work with somebody who's a fan of a young band and they've just started, I just made their first record, and maybe there's a song that's raised its hand, it's a hit. And it's incredible because it's a different generation. The one thing I dreamed of doing, and I take tremendous pride in because I'm a musical historian to some extent, I call “Matt Pinfield-ian” proportion. I’ve always wanted to be a generational conduit because I felt that somewhere along the line, if people weren't passing down craft, continually passing down all these eras and sharing it to the younger generations, there was gonna be a massive hole. When I first met Travie McCoy and we made that Gym Class Heroes record, I turned him on to all this 80s stuff that he was not aware of and soul things that he wasn't aware of. And he was turning me onto stuff. And I think it's that conversation, it's the generational discussion that makes music so cool: the ability to be able to do this on a daily basis. When I'm writing in my head, we're all pulling from various sources, right? So we're all pulling from the jukebox of our existence, just little interstitial bits that float in our heads, and we run. When I'm doing it on a daily basis, there's days where I'm pulling from five different genres and 50 years of music in one song in my head. And maybe the listener doesn't get it, but I know where I got it. And that to me, I feel like I'm sealing a hole in the galaxy or something. Just trying to connect those dots.
Maxwell: So bring me, and bring us, anybody that's listening and watching this here, bring us into the writing room, or the very first conceptual moment. Is it a Moleskine notebook? Is it, at this time now, some sort of a tablet? Is it when you sit down and you're thinking. “You know what, I got this call here from a friend of mine.”? Where does it start, the creation process for you as a songwriter with the artist who you're looking to create this magic with?
If I'm paired with an artist and let's say a session is on a Monday, I begin a deep dive on the Thursday that precedes it. That consists of scouring your social media, going to YouTube, any interviews. I'll read print interviews, I also really like taped interviews, like what we're doing, because I wanna understand patterns of speech, sense of humor, any insight into where they're at in their love lives or lives or anything where they're at. I'm trying to get inside their psyche before I know them. And then I'm gonna walk into the room and I'll have a verse and a pre and a chorus sort of voice noted on my phone and written down in notes on my phone for two different ideas usually. Some days it lands magically, and other days the room is flat, I get nothing back, and we have to start from scratch. The reality is that there's no rhyme or reason to any of it, but I will always come into that prepped because my feeling is, there's so many incredible writers out there and it's competitive. So I have one shot with an artist, maybe I have two days, maybe I have three days, but they're going on to the next person after. I'm not the only person anyone's working with. So for me to actually permeate a record or a single, I want to at least have the vantage point that I did the due diligence and came in with that level of preparation. And I don't pitch the same ideas around, I'm not that guy. These are bespoke, man. It's custom, I'm writing for the artist. As Nile Rogers once said to me, the great Nile Rogers once said to me, he said… We were sitting down to write a song for Donna Summer, God rest her soul. And Nile said to me, “When you write for an artist of this caliber, don't do what's been done. Write the sequel, write the sequel that no one would see coming. Take that step. Don't rewrite the movie. Take a bold step.” And it was the best advice I ever had. So I go into a room with some crazy stuff, man, you know, because I'm gonna try to push the boundaries a little bit. I'm conceptual. I like writing conceptual stuff. For better or worse, my stuff tends to veer a little bit left to center. And I hope that the artist is feeling it. Many days they're not. Sometimes it doesn't happen and I read a room pretty well. That's one of the better skills for songwriting. I think it's imperative if you're in a collaborative art, any collaborative art. I know when something isn't landing, I don't force it. I've been with other writers who just force and force and force.
Maxwell: And to that point there, like not forcing something, how important is it not to go into a session trying to create a hit? You're creating something that is so bespoke, something that speaks to this particular person, soul, heart… it's an energy that then becomes that hit because you didn't go into the session trying to create a cookie cutter concept to become a hit.
I don't like going in with “hit first” as a narrative because I think bond is most important. If the bond is there, I'll get a second shot and if I get a second shot, I'm gonna go for the jugular. But the problem is this: you have A&R people, you have management, you have entourages, whatever, and they have opinions. And you can do something that you believe is a solid single or a double that should keep you in play so then you can go for the home run. But if it gets clowned? You might never get another shot. And I've got to tell you something, I've seen that happen too. And there've been moments where I played that game tactically and missed… where I felt like probably I should have just gone for the jugular while I had the window open.
Maxwell: Speaking of deep diving, I saw just recently on your social media how special it is for you to connect with young writers. I'm gonna toss out the name Billy Maybury. What does that mean for you: to be somewhat of a mentor to some folks, or for you to be that guy in the industry that folks look up to, aspire to be, and that you put your stamp on some cats like this young man here?
You gotta understand something, man. I wake up every day and I cannot believe that I've been blessed to do this. It is not lost on me. I want other people to have their moments. There's room for everybody. And I wanna do for others what people did for me early on. There were people who believed in me, Nile Rodgers, Carole King, David Frank, like people who took shots on me and gave me opportunities because they believed I had something when I had really nothing to back it up. And the Billy Maybury thing's a very funny story. Long and short of it: a kid pops up in my DMs (I usually get them every other day, maybe every day. There's somebody who is looking for an opportunity. And I don't necessarily have that. I definitely don't have the bandwidth, but I also don't even sometimes even know where to begin. So I give a lot of writing advice. I give writing advice, but I'll answer every DM). This kid reached out from Dublin and he said, “Look, I'm an aspiring songwriter. There isn't a great pop community here. I would love to get to Los Angeles. And I love what you did with Panic! At The Disco. And I know that they're managed by Crush Management. And I think they're the greatest management company, blah, blah, blah. And do you have any inroads to an internship at Crush?” Now that was one of the first times a songwriter had actually hit me for an internship at a management company. And that's very smart because right there and then in there, I know that he's intellectual. He's figuring out all his chess pieces. He's not just saying, “Hey, I want a publishing deal.” He's saying “Let me learn how this works.” And I thought that was impressive. And I hit up Evan Tabenfeld, he's my manager. And Evan, sight unseen, gave this kid an internship and the kid goes over there and has this magical internship. And then this weird thing called COVID happened. And there was, like, a pandemic. I don't know if you remember it, it was like a thing. It was heartbreaking, but this kid goes back to Dublin. And in the midst of all the Zooming and everything, he just bombards England and figures it out. Just finds a manager, gets in the mix. And it's funny because we spoke, he said, “I'm coming to New York and I would just love to have a coffee.” I said, “Great, let's get coffee. It'd be awesome, man.” We go for a coffee and, I'm not joking, we're halfway through the coffee and I said, “What are you doing here in town, by the way?” He said, “Oh, I flew my family over. My billboard is in the middle of Times Square. I'm Spotify's Radar Writer of the Month.” And it was beautiful. And look, I've watched so many people win, like Bebe Rexha or SZA working in my B room. You know, Lou Bell, who kills top 40 as a producer, he's massive. He was a kid in Boston who I worked with very young. I've seen so many people win. There's room for everybody. I think I'm confident enough in my skill sets to know that I do something unique to me. And until AI replicates me next year, I'm gonna ride it and pay it forward. And that's what I try to do. And you know, I just put that energy out there.
Maxwell: But you guys work with AI too, like with “EVERY WHERE MAN,” to bring that song to pretty much every corner of the globe through modern technology.
It was so crazy, man. I mean, working with Chuck [D] and Flav [Flavor Flav] is just the craziest thing for me in the world. I'm a mega fan. Bucket list, right? It was interesting because it really began with [Flavor Flav’s manager] Rhiannon and Chuck discussing where AI was going. They were in this deep dialogue and I believe they really came up with the notion and I implemented it. I had my engineer building out an AI model for the last year before all these voices were available online, because I wanted to find as many demo voices as I could for my song demos specifically. I wanted to find interesting voices throughout history, not for any financial gain, not to post or anything, but just for my own song demos. Because I hate my voice and I've always said I sound like some strange Budweiser commercial from 1992. There's a voice inside of me that I don't hear and I needed AI to do that to get stuff out of my brain. And what happened was, as we were building that model, it coincided with writing the song with Chuck and Flav. And Rhiannon reached out around the globe and found people in different countries to rap Flav's verse. And then we had a Flav model trained and then it could spit it out. And my engineer, Blake Edmonds, and I have to give him the credit because he spent hours and hours on nuances, because the truth is they come back and it's Flav rapping it. The problem is these are different countries and then you would send them back to the countries and they're saying, “This sounds terrible. We don’t understand what he’s saying.” So it's a lot of finessing and one of the coolest things I've ever experienced. I'm not a sci-fi guy, but it was very dystopian and strange in a very fun way.
Maxwell: As we put a pin in the conversation, dude, I want to ask you this as we wrap things up: How proud are you of yourself to have found your path, to have been able to be the best version of yourself within this craft that you have been able to become an expert in? How proud are you of yourself, Sam?
Let me tell you something. It's a combination of pride. It's feeling incredibly lucky, incredibly blessed. I think it's magical. I wake up every day and I can't believe that I've been able to do this with my life. And because it was really out of singular vision, it was the only thing. I talk to kids, and I put this messaging out there, it's very important: If songwriting is everything you ever aspire to achieve and accomplish and really do it on any sort of mass level, but you wake up one morning and you say, “I really want to do this, but I spend a lot of time at Trader Joe's and they have these incredible organic beets. … And I feel like I could have a beat farm …I really feel like this is my calling and I could kind of corner the market and pickle them correctly, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Truthfully, go do that. I've never had another path in my brain. There was nothing else that ever appealed to me. So what happens with that is, when you have a singular notion and you're actually able to achieve it at any level, it's incredible. I have nothing ever to complain about. I don't whine. I think I'm pretty easy to manage because I don't take any of it for granted. I wake up every day and wherever I am on the pecking order, I just do it again. I wake up and fight and fight for my art. And I just really love songs, man. Songs to me are the one beating unified voice for our consciousness. It's the one thing that unites us all are songs. We can all have different political leanings and all this other madness in the world. But you know what? We still all listen to the same songs. And that's why I do this. I'm very honored to be able to do it. And just the fact that I get to rap with you, dude, is magical. Listen, no disrespect to CD 101.9, but I'm a Z100 guy. I'm New York blood, man. Born and raised.