Smitty: Yeah, talk about some of the number one songs you’ve written.
BT: Well, number one across Internet charts has been for an artist called Leila, who is an international artist. She really took the Internet by storm. She had seven number one songs from her debut CD, which was Of Life, hit the Internet all at once on different genres, so that one CD spawned a number one song in the pop chart, a number one song on the Spanish chart, a number one song on the R&B, on the soul chart, all different songs, seven of ‘em on that album, so I co-wrote and produced that record. Tadros in Canada, another international artist--they didn’t hit number one, but I got top 15 with them, top 20 with another three of theirs, “Pure Pleasure,” “Missing It” and “Please, Please” all charted in Canada. I got a group signed to Babyface that broke in Hawaii. They were called Tenderoni. They came out on the Soul Food soundtrack. That was a great movie, by the way, with Whitney Houston and Vanessa Williams. Great movie. They came out on that soundtrack. Before they even got signed to Babyface, we actually moved, gosh, I think it was 40,000-50,000 records in Hawaii off their album and I had the hits on those records that got ‘em that deal to Babyface.
I did a lot with Hawaiian artists because that’s when it started breaking for me. Once Tenderoni broke, then there was Lori Salvatera and there was Timmy Gatling from the R&B group, Guy co-produced some of the other up and coming Hawaiian artists with me, so it was just a number of things happened all in succession that have been going on and on, and some international, some local, some regional, all good stuff, and then the TV and film stuff happened where I did a lotta songs on HBO specials from movies like They Call Me Sir with Michael Clarke Duncan, which was a great movie, we had the ending theme song on that one—again to the movie Soul Food to made-for-TV movies, so across a bunch of networks from Showtime to HBO to ABC, we’ve been fortunate enough to have songs on.
Smitty: So if someone wanted you to write a song for them, how would they go about contacting you to do that?
BT: They’d go to www.funkeeboy.com and I don’t hide from anyone. My e-mail is right there, my phone number is there where they can contact me, they’ll get in touch with me directly, and I get called from all over the world to do songs. I basically try to get to know the artist first and get to know what inspires them, and if it’s a fit, it’s a fit, and if it’s not or if I’m not feeling their vibe, I just come out and say “You know what? This project isn’t for me and maybe I could help you or refer you to someone,” and it comes a lotta different ways, Smitty. It comes where they might write the words and they might just need music to words and it might not even have a melody.
Smitty: Right.
BT: And they might have a poem or they might have a concept for a song. I worked with an artist recently that loved her kids so much but she couldn’t even come up with what they meant to her, so she said “You gotta write a song about my kids and what they mean to me” and that’s all I needed to know. It’s like “Okay, what’s your genre?” And she gave me her genre and I listened to some things that she’d demo’ed or recorded before and it kinda had a Sheryl Crow meets Faith Hill crossover-type sound and now I know where to go. And now I know the direction to lay out for that kind of music. The one thing that I like that I’ve been fortunate enough to do, and I ultimately respect Babyface to the limit—he’s like one of my alltime favorite producers—but the one thing that I understood and knew about Babyface is that when he did or produced a song, you kinda knew that it was him whether TLC did it or Toni Braxton did it, or what you said, “Hmm, I think Babyface produced that or wrote that” because it has a certain sound and they all sound like him, you know what I mean?
Smitty: Yeah, oh yeah.
BT: I’m different. I take the different approach where for me as a producer, I don’t want them to know Bobbi produced this and Bobbi produced that song because I didn’t want this country artist that I produced to sound like the Latin artist that I produced to sound like the R&B hip hop guy I produced.
Smitty: Yeah.
BT: So I kinda like that.
Smitty: I get that.
BT: That I didn’t kinda incorporate a signature sound or bite off some kind of fad or whatever, and I just kinda did what’s right for the artist because they have to sell it.
Smitty: Exactly. Well, that tells me you’re writing from your heart and you get into the artists that you’re writing for.
BT: Absolutely.
Smitty: Yeah, and that’s a cool thing. Yeah, man.
BT: Yup, absolutely.
Smitty: All right, man, let’s talk some more about this fantastic record. You’ve had an incredible career, man.
BT: Thank you, and hopefully it’s gonna get better.
Smitty: Yeah, and I’m just happy to introduce you to so many new people and new fans around the world today. But I gotta tell ya, when I first put this record on—and I love the style, by the way. I love the whole design of this whole project. What’s really cool is the actual CD looks like the old black vinyl albums, it doesn’t look like your traditional shiny CD. I thought, yeah, this is Old School. I like this.
BT: (Laughs.) Yeah, it’s totally Old School.
Smitty: I said what a great concept. We’re starting to see a little bit of that, but I love this, as I mentioned earlier, when I heard the first track on this CD, I sat down because normally I stand when I’m listening or I’m walking.
BT: Mm-hmm.
Smitty: Or I’m either in my car and I’m doing my night drive. I do a lotta night drive listening and I can really get into music when I’m doing a night drive on the back roads, but I was standing and about 30 seconds into “Body Music”— I had to sit down. I said “Okay, I’ve got something to listen to here.”
BT: That’s a cool thing.
Smitty: Yeah, very cool, man, and then I did not move until I finished the entire project and was ready to hear it again, so I’ve gotta ask you about “Body Music” and the history of it because I know there’s some strong stuff there.
BT: Wow, okay. Well (both laugh), it’s all about a groove and inspiration comes in different ways. As any good writer will tell you, sometimes you might get a concept in your head, you might be humming a beat driving just like you said. A lotta times I’m driving and I’ll hear something in my head or even on the radio and that might spur up just me to start humming to myself or say “Wow, I like that sound. I betcha if I did [sound effects] or something like that to it, I wonder what would happen?” And honestly, that’s the inspiration which creates a lot of my originals, is they start from different places, and “Body Music” just kinda started with that saxophone lick that I heard.
That killer melody on that saxophone lick, and I just built it from there, I really did. I just said “Okay, I’m keeping this part of it and let me color it up and find what else,” and the cool thing is that I’m one of the guys that as much as I love production, I have a really good balance between technology and how far I will go with technology, and even though I have some great music equipment in my studios and samplers or whatever, the one thing you’ll never find in my studio is a pitch corrector.
Smitty: (Laughs.)
BT: Because an artist—if I have to play, they have to sing. Okay? But yet I will embrace a loop CD or a sample CD that has a killer sound or a killer loop or whatever. I will definitely embrace that or something like that, so I kinda try to find a balance on the technology because I do think you could reach a whole new audience with technology and some current sounds, and I just heard that saxophone lick over in my head and I just built it from there.
Smitty: Yeah, man, and that’s a sweet lick too, bro.
BT: Thank you.
Smitty: Ah, it is unbelievable. Well, when I listen to music, there’s a lot going through my mind in a lotta different directions, thinking about different things, different aspects of the song, breaking it down, what I like about it, what if they had done this different, and I thought about a lot with this one track, which, by the way, it would be my first single to radio in a heartbeat.
BT: Cool.
