Interview:
Toby Gad
Interview:
Toby Gad
e’s the architect behind some of the biggest global anthems of the past two decades – the man who helped John Legend write “All of Me,” worked with Beyoncé on “If I Were a Boy,” and Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. Toby Gad, the German-born, LA-based songwriter and producer, boasts a discography studded with diamond certifications and chart-topping hits for artists ranging from Madonna to Miley Cyrus. Yet, despite this staggering success crafting the sound of modern pop, Gad is currently embracing a different kind of spotlight – one centred on his own musicianship and a deeply personal reinterpretation of his life’s work.
Calling in from London ahead of the release of his new album, Piano Diaries, the Hits, Gad is audibly enthusiastic about this new chapter. The project sees him step out from behind the mixing desk and sit squarely at the piano. “It is 16 songs of my greatest hits imagined in sparse minimalist piano vocal orchestrated versions,” he explains. “Where I’m playing a minimalist piano and have a singer featured in a way that they have a lot of room to unfold their voice and dig into the lyric and then orchestration coming in as well with real strings.”
The tracklist reads like a roll call of modern classics: “All of Me,” “If I Were a Boy,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” Madonna’s “Living for Love,” and more. Selecting just 16 must have been daunting, given his prolific output. “The first part of the selection is just the charts of my biggest songs,” Gad admits. “As we went on to number eight, 9, 10, 11… 16, those could have been 30 more songs. So that selection was really hard.”
This new album isn’t just a victory lap; it’s a reflection of a journey that was anything but straightforward. Success on this scale doesn’t happen by accident. “Looking back it’s been a very improbable and crazy journey,” Gad muses. Born to Danish-German parents who led a jazz band, his musical path started early in a small farm village near Munich. “My brother and I when I was five, six years old, we started creating our own sets and performing in my parents’ intermission.” Their first taste of professional success came dramatically – writing three songs for Milli Vanilli. “It was an instant success and a drama,” Gad recalls wryly, alluding to the infamous lip-syncing scandal that led to the duo returning their Grammys. “But the music celebrated, we were happy. This is the first time my brother and I made music, money with music and from then on I knew I wanted to make music.”
Image Credit: Daniel Mayne
Toby worked on many early projects including with Mauritian singer Jacqueline Nemorin, ranging from albums, TV shows and feature films.
Feeling the need to move from Germany to pursue his career, Gad set his sights on New York “In 2000, I chose New York and started over from scratch,” he says. His early hustle involved rudimentary self-promotion: “putting little leaflets on traffic signs. ‘I’m a young European songwriter. You want to work with me?’ And that way I found my first artists.” After three years of struggle, things began to click.
Toby worked with artists like, Ricky Martin and the Veronicas and a big breakthrough came in 2006 with Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” “That opened the doors, it was the biggest song in America.”
With a global number one under his belt, Gad aimed high. “I felt I want to work with the biggest artists and Beyoncé was next on my list.” Getting through her door wasn’t easy. “It took me six months of running in the doors to get into the door with Beyoncé. And we did ‘If I Were a Boy.’ I recorded her vocal. Was a real highlight of my career to work with Beyoncé”
Then came John Legend and the phenomenon that is “All of Me.” “That was just a simple love song,” Gad shares. “John was in love with Chrissy. I was in love with my wife and we poured our hearts out and the song came about… It went very few diamond songs and billions of streams.” He followed this with an intense collaboration with Madonna for her Rebel Heart album. “We did five weeks in the studio together with Diplo and Madonna. And ‘Living for Love’ is one of the key songs of these 13 songs we wrote together.” For Piano Diaries, “Living for Love” features rising British talent Jerub. “Such a beautiful vocal. I’m a massive fan of his,” Gad enthuses. “We filmed a music video in the Metropolis studio in London with Jerub that I’m really proud of.”
Gad’s preferred method of collaboration is intimate and personal, often just him and the artist. “I always sit with the artist and I love to work with artists who are authentic and have something to say and want to sing about their own personal life stories,” he explains. “Then I’m more like the shrink. I just dig into their lives and I poke into their wounds. I see what is song worthy… If there’s an intense feeling if they’re in love, if they’re angry, if they just broke up, all of this can lead to very good songs.” This contrasts sharply with the “writing by committee” approach common in pop, where sessions can involve numerous writers and producers. “My big songs are all 50/50s,” he notes.
However, the relentless pressure and pace took their toll. By 2015, Gad was juggling multiple high-profile projects, including Madonna’s album and finishing Leona Lewis’s, all while “All of Me” dominated the charts. “I had triple sessions every day and writing 180 songs a year… I looked at my itinerary and it was months and months of two to three sessions every day. And I thought, ‘I want to be a surfer. I want to be this kid on the bicycle. I want to live. I have two daughters now. What am I doing?'” His solution was radical: “I told the world I’m not writing songs anymore in 2015. And was a very healthy decision.” While he does write “every now and then again,” the relentless pace is gone.
When asked about the song he’s most proud of, commercially successful or not, Gad points to a track less ubiquitous than his biggest hits but deeply resonant. “Yeah, I really love ‘Untouched’ with the Veronicas, in Australia it really became somewhat like the unofficial Australian anthem.” He describes it as a “rebellious almost like an electronic punk rock anthem,” which posed a unique challenge for the Piano Diaries treatment. The new version features Canadian TikTok sensation Johnny Orlando. Finding the right emerging artists for these reinterpretations was crucial. “It was a lot of DMing people that I liked… also I tried to do opposites.” For instance, swapping John Legend’s male perspective on “All of Me” for a female voice (Selena Sharma) or finding Angelina Jordan to deliver a “chill, laid-back” take on Beyoncé’s powerhouse “If I Were a Boy.”
Does he have a least proud moment? He chuckles, recalling his time working with numerous Disney and Nickelodeon stars early in their careers (Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato). “There was one TV show on Disney called ‘Hey Jesse.’ And we wrote the theme song and it’s the silliest, stupidest song I’ve ever written. And we got a lot of awards for it… I had to go on stage… and receive the ‘Hey Jesse’ award. And I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to walk.'”
Having started when vinyl was transitioning to CDs, Gad has witnessed the seismic shifts in music distribution. He sees the digital age as largely positive. “Back when I started out, it was the record companies who had to put it into a store, bribing the radio, convincing people to go into the store and buy this piece of plastic without ever listening to it,” he recalls. “Nowadays, any artist has the freedom to just whatever they write, put it up on Spotify or Apple and then have their own community that is not curated by a record label, which is incredible. I think it’s such an amazing improvement.”
However, the next disruptor, Artificial Intelligence, gives him pause. “There is the kind of AI that makes our dumb computers smarter and easier to use, I welcome that kind of AI,” he clarifies. “And then there’s the kind of AI that competes with us! That AI is frightening and I don’t like it.” He believes authenticity and live connection remain human strongholds. “Unless you write really authentic personality-driven songs, that could only be your song out of your life story, you still have a chance. Going live on stage, that’s also something that AI will never be able to do.”
This brings us back to Gad’s own move towards performance. Having spent decades behind the scenes, he’s now embracing the stage, performing the Piano Diaries material live. “For the longest time I was always in the studio, and then handing them off. I just realized these are my babies too and these are my songs too.” An invitation from Alistair Weber (Andrew Lloyd Webber’s son) to perform at the London Palladium sparked this new direction. “The audience was so appreciative that 20 shows later I’m on stage a lot, quite often the audience sings along.” He recounts a recent show at London’s Jazz Cafe: “I got on stage to do ‘All of Me’ and Casey [Abrams] sang the first word and then the audience sang the entire song! Such a great feeling.”
His advice for aspiring musicians today reflects the changed landscape: “Back in the day, you’d have to suck up to the major labels. Nowadays, all this power is in your hand. Go and release them and see what the community responds to. Be your authentic self, play in open mic events, go on a stage, all the tools are in all our hands now, which is such a blessing.”
Interestingly, for his own relaxation, Gad steers clear of pop. “A lot of music creators actually do not listen to the music they make,” he admits. “I listen to Indian sitar music, Tabla music. I listen to Keith Jarrett piano improvisation, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, music that is not pop! When I listen to pop music on the radio my mind works and I just can’t rest.” This perhaps circles back to his roots – his mother was the pianist in his parents’ jazz band and loved Keith Jarrett. Though he confesses to being a “very bad student” who bluffed his way through early piano lessons by playing by ear, never quite mastering reading sheet music – “to my detriment, I wish I would have learned it.”
Now, alongside performing, he hosts his own podcast, “Songs you know” interviewing fellow songwriters about their craft and hits. With Piano Diaries offering a fresh perspective on his incredible back catalogue, and a newfound comfort on stage sharing his “babies,” Toby Gad isn’t just resting on his laurels. He’s actively reshaping his legacy, connecting with his music and his audience in a deeply personal, authentically Toby Gad way. And his perfect day off? “Ocean, surfing, and sunrise.” Spoken like a man who has truly found balance.
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