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Mike Posner talks "Sugar," coming back, and album
Mike Posner Talks Second Chances, Comeback Hit “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” & His Long-Awaited Sophomore LP
How does your current success compare to 2010?
The difference is, in 2010 it was my first try and it went really well and so I thought, that’s just automatically what happens. I think I was naive to the rarity of such rides. It’s really amazing that I got to do that in 2010 and it’s even more amazing that I get to do it again now. I think the knowledge and the experience of 2010 was required for me to say that prior sentence. It was required for me to be grateful and enjoy it more.
Were you amazed that the song took off so organically?
Yeah, I learned a lot from that. You can’t plan everything. There’s that old saying — if you want to make God laugh, make a plan. It really wasn’t until I let go of the project a little bit, before I had this notion of myself becoming the 2016 Bob Dylan. I would only perform with my guitar, I never performed with any other instruments because I wanted everyone to hear every word. I wouldn’t do interviews like this. I would only do it if they sent me the questions so I could write them in print. I was just holding on to the thing really tightly. I sort of just like let go, and I started making new music for another project that’s still a secret. When I started working on other things, everything else just started happening with this one. I think there’s power in letting go.
You also penned hits for Justin Bieber and Maroon 5. Did you record “Sugar” first?
Yeah, a version of it. My friend Ammo, he really brought the bulk of that song. When I went to his house he had the track started and the melodies and I thought it was amazing. [Jacob Kasher] and I, we wrote the lyrics to it. I really struggled with the lyrics on that song for a while because I was trying to write it in the tongue-and-cheeky way that I wrote “Cooler Than Me,” that I wrote “I Took A Pill in Ibiza,” where there are lines that are simultaneously funny and sad. It didn’t seem to work on that track. Finally I said, “What would Marvin Gaye say?” I just wrote the song like that, the lyrics like that. Then [Adam Levine] worked on it and he puts his own spin on it and [Justin Bieber] too. They get in there and they changed the words and make it more Maroon 5 and more Justin. That’s really important, those guys wrote that song too. They both respected me. On both those tunes, they were writers as well.
Why wasn’t your version of “Sugar” released? It’s an obvious hit.
I guess it was so obvious to them. After a song is a hit, it’s easy to say it was an obvious hit. I think I was coming off like a couple of singles that were not hits. We thought that were obvious hits before, like the songs “The Way It Used To Be,” “Looks Like Sex” and “Top Of The World.” None of them reacted like “Cooler Than Me.” I am proud of all those songs, but they weren’t big hits. If you’re asking me what RCA was thinking I’m sure it was, “Hey man, we spent a ton of money on this guy, we can either keep spending money on him and maybe make some back, but probably not.” It would be a safer bet to just do nothing and we can spend money on bigger artists that are more of a sure thing, or people that have more momentum going which they had many. That was probably the right decision. Honestly, I would have done it too if I was running that business. So I asked if I could leave the label and they graciously allowed me to go eventually and now I have a really awesome label. Not to say RCA isn’t awesome, but I am just in a different situation.
Will we ever hear the songs from your shelved albums?
I am working on that now. I think we’re close to getting the rights to it. The tricky thing for me now, honestly is, I mentioned the secret project I’m working on, so I have that coming and then I have my new album coming. Really, I just don’t know when to put it out. My fans are probably like, “Dude, you suck. Just give it to us now.” I just have a lot of new stuff coming out that’s more current to me, so I’d like to really focus on that. Then maybe, present this old music in a cool way. I’m not sure exactly how I want to do it.
When is the album due?
I think we are talking about May for the album. I do not have a hard date. I’ve heard people on my team mention the month of May.
Is it finished?
Yes. We just got a feature. That is a secret. I had to see if we could put it on the album. I turned it in Monday.
More @ the source.
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TERRIBLE song. 