Ed Sheeran, Hayley Willams and the Songwriter Roundtable

It’s been four months since “Golden” and KPop Demon Hunters became a global phenomenon — sitting atop the charts for eight weeks and racking up more than a billion streams — and EJAE, the song’s brainchild and main vocalist, still seems to be in disbelief that she’s sharing a table with some of the biggest songwriters of a generation.

“This is a happy accident,” she says, flanked by Hayley Williams and Shaboozey as she recalls her winding path from aspiring K-pop idol to an unexpected sensation this year. “It’s very interesting to be suddenly in the limelight again.”

EJAE was one of six heavy-hitting Oscar hopefuls this season who took part in THR‘s annual Songwriters Roundtable. Over the course of more than an hour on a rainy November Saturday at The Sun Rose in West Hollywood, she was joined by Ed Sheeran (“Drive” and “Zoo” for F1: The Movie and Zootopia 2), Williams (“Open the Door” with personal hero David Byrne for The Twits), Raphael Saadiq (“I Lied to You” for Sinners), Shaboozey (“Took a Walk” for The Long Walk) and Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner (“My Baby (Got Nothing at All)” for Materialists).

The hitmakers went deep, opening up about the first songs they wrote, overcoming the pressure of crafting a follow-up hit, what makes a good children’s song and the mysterious specter at one of New York’s most famous recording studios that might have helped launch one of the biggest tracks of the year.

How often do you think you have a hit these days? When’s the last time you thought that, and were you right?

ED SHEERAN I think it’s 50/50. Most of the songs that I would end up putting out, I like. And when I make them, I go, “This could be a hit,” but I don’t know. I’ve been quite surprised. The biggest song in my set at the moment is a song I did for Pokémon four years ago that wasn’t a hit at the time and then, unbeknownst to me, became a hit in Central Europe on radio.

HAYLEY WILLIAMS What did it?

SHEERAN I don’t know. It’s the end when you finish the Pokémon game. It didn’t do anything so I never played it live. And then I was in Madrid this year and someone had a sign being like, “Play that song.” I played it and it was the best reaction that night. So then I started playing it on tour and now it’s the best song of the gig, but it never was a hit at all.

MICHELLE ZAUNER I think everything I write is going to be a hit, and I’m greatly disappointed when it’s not. (Laughs.)

WILLIAMS I love that.

Ed, you had a couple of big collaborations with “Zoo” and “Drive.” Let’s start with “Drive.” Tell me about writing with John Mayer.

SHEERAN I met him when I was 23, he turned into a mentor of sorts. Every now and then I’ll be like, “Can you play on a song?” So we were in the studio with Blake [Slatkin], whom we did the song with. Blake had been approached by Jerry [Bruckheimer] for F1 and all of us were like, “I don’t really know what that would sound like,” me singing a song for Formula 1, because I’m known as an acoustic guy. But John started off with that riff and then we just wrote it very quickly and sent it to them. They were like, thumbs-up, and then it was in the movie.

And then on the other end there’s Shakira and “Zoo.” Completely different sonic profile.

SHEERAN We got to know each other in the pandemic, weirdly. We had long phone calls about working together eventually, and we did bits and bobs back and forth. I recorded an updated version of “Hips Don’t Lie” with her, which was quite fun.

EJAE It was beautiful.

SHEERAN [The movie] is called Zootropolis in the U.K., and my kids love it. [My daughter] is obviously Gazelle, and she said Gazelle needs a song. I was like, “Say no more,” and Shakira and I wrote it. I’ve got a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, so I watch a lot of kids’ movies and feel like the best songs are all vowel-based, so that’s why it’s “Zoo-ooh-ooh.”

ZAUNER (Sings out “Baby Shark.”)

I’m trying to think of that with “Golden.” I wouldn’t call it a kids’ song, but kids love it.

EJAE I think it’s because of the melody. The kids love it and the dads love it.

SHABOOZEY They’re the ones putting it on.

EJAE I saw a dad during Halloween who wore a [Demon Hunters] outfit. It was great. I love it when the dads wear the crop top when their hairy tummies are up and they have purple hair. It’s amazing.

Is it harder to write a hit when you’ve got these constraints where it needs to work perfectly with the script?

EJAE Because I’m from the K-pop background, I’m really used to having briefs. It was quite natural to do that. I think with KPop Demon Hunters, it was really hard because it was a movie that’s never been done before. It’s not really a musical, but it’s also not music videos and pop songs. And the songs have to drive the story, too. Also with “Golden,” the guideline was Rumi [played by Arden Cho] is this incredible vocalist. Maggie [Kang], the director, wanted it to scale up on purpose to be a metaphor of her reaching a goal that feels impossible. She has a lot of pressure on her. People are literally depending on her voice to hit that note — it had to be an impossible note, right? And unfortunately, I had to make [it].

SHABOOZEY How many takes did it take?

EJAE Oh, oof. It was a lot. Was it hard? Yes. But the melody came out really, really fast. I don’t know if you know, but it came on the way to the dentist.

I did hear this, you were driving and on the way started humming the melody?

EJAE Yeah. As songwriters, there are times where the melody comes really fast, and that was just one of those moments. We had a deadline, but they gave me the track and it was on my way to the dentist, and I had to write the song that day. And when I heard it, it was so good. So the first melody I thought was, “Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na,” and I have the voice memo. Thank God for voice memos.

Is that usually how it happens for all of you? Randomly and be ready whenever, or can you channel it in the studio?

SHABOOZEY I had one in my dream last night. Sometimes I make whole songs in my head in my dreams.

EJAE Do you remember it?

SHABOOZEY I recorded it on my phone. You’re at this crazy high just waking up that early in the morning and just picking up your phone and having to remember exactly what it was from your dream. But sometimes if you get it close enough, you can just get to the studio.

SHEERAN Max Martin said that he had that with “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” In his head, he was like, “I just want to go back to bed.” And part of him went, “No, get up and record it,” and he got up, put the whole of “Baby One More Time” and then went back to bed. If he hadn’t done that … I feel like studios have songs in them and all the big studios have already had the songs taken out of them. Whenever I’m in Abbey Road, I feel like there’s no vibe.

ZAUNER They drained it out.

SHEERAN We build a lot of studios in hotel rooms or we rent houses. That way, I feel like there’s a better energy.

RAPHAEL SAADIQ I like the pressure [of going to the studio]. I feel like the pressure makes diamonds, right? If I go to Abbey Road, I’m thinking about The Beatles. I might not come up with “Let It Be,” but I think maybe I’ll come up with something.

EJAE Have you been to Power Station?

SAADIQ Of course.

EJAE I saw a ghost there while I was recording “Golden.”

WILLIAMS Oh, say more.

EJAE I was on the fourth floor. It was a big studio, the volume knob wasn’t working. So when that happens, the assistant engineer comes in. Sully, my engineer, came in and I heard him open the door. He was like, “Oh, it’s actually working now.” I look up and no one’s there. However, 0.3 milliseconds, I see this tall dude with a red flannel and blue jeans walking toward me, just for a split second.

SHABOOZEY You know what they call that? A ghostwriter.

EJAE OK, that’s good. But yes, he wore a flannel and jeans, this ghostwriter, and he was walking toward me.

WILLIAMS Sounds hot.

EJAE What’s crazy is I couldn’t digest the situation because we had to keep going. But that day, I sang so well. My music director was like, “What did you eat today?”

SAADIQ Maybe it was the ghost singing.

EJAE Also in Korea, there’s a myth that if you see any paranormal activity happen during a recording, that song’s a hit.

WILLIAMS Case in point.

Often, writers say the biggest pressure they face in their career is not just the first hit, it’s getting number two. Is that something that’s hitting you?

EJAE One hundred million thousand percent. Are you kidding me? So much pressure. I’ve had hit songs in Korea, but my goal has always been to get to number one on the Hot 100, and that’s why I signed with American publishing, and I was really ready. But yeah, the pressure is really intense.

Shaboozey, it has to be similar for you. Your breakout song ties for the most weeks at number one, and now the expectation is, “How does anyone do that again?”

SHABOOZEY I think you’ve just got to have fun. Trust your gut a little bit. That was a big thing with “Good News,” the song I put out after [“A Bar Song (Tipsy)”]. Trusting your gut, having fun and realizing when you have a song that big, it’s like the pressure’s on, but it’s also off. You’re like, “I could not do anything for the rest of my life.”

Do the rest of you still feel pressure to make a hit?

SHEERAN I think it builds up into a catalog, and then you have some big songs, you have some medium songs, you have some ones that don’t do well, but if you like all of them and you continue … None of us is going to stop making music. When I was younger, I used to go on Elton John’s Wikipedia, and it used to be very calming. He’d have four number ones in a row and then his next five years, he’d be really up and down.

ZAUNER I think the paradox is that people can tell when you’re trying to follow something up. It’s one of those things where you have to tell yourself to calm down. It’s almost impossible, but the best thing you’re going to make is not thinking about what you made before at all and just trying to find it from as pure of a place as the last thing.

SAADIQ I never cared about Billboard. I never looked at it. When I wrote a good song, I knew it.

Michelle, with “My Baby (Got Nothing at All),” Materialists director Celine Song says she was looking for a song, and the ones she references are John Prine’s “In Spite of Ourselves” and Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten.”

ZAUNER Yeah, that was a wide spectrum. (Laughs.)

Are you like, “Yeah, I got it,” or are you thinking, “What the hell is that?”

ZAUNER I had a great Zoom with Celine Song, and it was really lucky because it’s not a specific moment in the film, it’s the end credits. So you really get to encompass just the whole feeling of the film. And so I felt like I had real free rein to express something that I know a lot about, which is always falling in love with people who have no money.

Were there other rom-com vibes you were pulling from for inspiration?

ZAUNER I really wanted some really simple, heartfelt sentiment because I think that all great love songs are often some kind of turn of phrase. They all have the word baby in them. And so I knew I wanted to have the word baby in it, and I wanted to have some sentiment that was a play on words, so, “My baby is nothing at all.”

You’re talking to and have maybe the greatest love song writer of a generation next to you.

SHEERAN I don’t know because I don’t actually use that in my vernacular. It’s not something … I don’t think I’ve ever called my wife “baby.”

ZAUNER What do you call her?

SHEERAN I actually call her Mooj.

WILLIAMS Does it sing well?

SHEERAN I have no fucking idea. It just sounds good, doesn’t it?

ZAUNER Mooj?

SHEERAN No, baby.

SHABOOZEY Mooj too, though.

ZAUNER Can’t wait for the single: “Mooj.”

SHEERAN I don’t even know where fucking Mooj came from, but we just …

SHABOOZEY What’s her name?

SHEERAN Cherry. She calls me Mooj as well. I bought a car and they were like, “Do you want to put anything on the seats?” and I was like, “Yeah, put Mooj on the seats.” My security guard now has that car and it has Mooj on there. Anyways, that’s a tangent.

Raphael, with “I Lied to You” I know you’ve previously said you had that phrase, “The truth hurts, so I lied to you,” since you were young. Were you holding it for a song?

SAADIQ No, I used to say it all the time. I didn’t have a song, but I used to say, thinking about your girlfriend if you got caught lying and then you just tell her “Well, they said the truth hurts, so I lied to you.” It was like a joke.

You’ve been saying it for years. How did you know it’s time to put it in for this?

SAADIQ I really love blues, and blues songs have great titles. Johnnie Taylor has a song called “My Last Two Dollars.” I hooked up with [composer] Ludwig [Göransson] and went to his studio and he was telling me about the film. He went through the whole film with me, and then Ryan Coogler is also from Oakland. His dad and my brother were really good friends. So we had this connection. When they gave me the specs of what they wanted, they were on their way to shoot the movie Saturday. It was Wednesday. So I said, “Yeah, when do you need the song?”

SHABOOZEY There’s that pressure.

SAADIQ They said, “We would like you to do it today.” I’m like, “Today?” So I said, “Can I take it back to my studio?” They were like, “Well, we’d like you to do it right now.” It kept escalating like that, and so I sat with Ludwig, who’s an amazing composer, amazing guitar player, and we sat together and we started working on guitar riffs. I saw it the week before it came out, and when I saw how great it fit the scene, I didn’t know lyrically that could even happen.

Hayley, let’s go into “Open the Door.” You clearly had built a rapport with David Byrne, as you worked on his solo album last year. Tell me about coming together for Twits here.

WILLIAMS He was already working on the soundtrack for a while, and they wanted an end credit song. I don’t get these kinds of calls much, so the fact that it was an end credit song and it was David Byrne, there was no way I was going to say no. Also, I am in a place in life where I’m like, “I need to go to the pressure a little bit more. I need to, post-COVID, leave my home and put myself in scenarios that grow me.” And I was terrified. We were at my house out here when I still had it, and we were in this little basement studio. David Byrne comes over, we’ve only seen each other in real life once, and he brings a briefcase and sits it on the kitchen counter and goes, “I figured we could split this 50/50.”

SHABOOZEY What was in the briefcase?

WILLIAMS A lot of papers. A lot of paperwork.

ZAUNER I thought it was cash.

SAADIQ Like Pulp Fiction.

WILLIAMS (Laughs.) Yeah, it was cash, he was like, “Here’s the guarantee.” We went downstairs, and I was unsure. He had some music he had sent to me, and I understood that there was a tone, and I felt like I really understood the moral of the story. That was like “All right, I’ve got my assignment,” because I knew I was going to be handling a lot of the lyrics. He sat downstairs with me, played my guitar and it was so sick to just watch him even just fumble around for a little bit to try to find a guitar line or a change to the progression. The fact that someone’s happy with it and I got to have this experience with one of my heroes was just beyond.

Shaboozey, “Took a Walk” is hopeful and beautiful. The movie is dark — it has these glimpses of hope, but The Long Walk isn’t a hopeful movie.

SHABOOZEY I’m always a huge fan of juxtaposition. I remember watching the movie and I was like, “Yeah, this is crazy messed up.” But it’s funny because the first thing I pitched to the studio was, “How about we do a cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘Walk the Line’?” They were like, “That’s too on the nose.” I watched the movie. I’m a huge Stephen King fan, and I used to walk around with a different Stephen King novel every day. Not even to read it, that’s just how much of a hero he is to me. Just having the opportunity to write a song for his first novel he’s ever written in his career — it was always a dream of mine to be a part of anything Stephen King.

Do these sorts of moments for all of you start to feel small as you’ve gotten bigger? Or do they still feed that 12-year-old who couldn’t imagine doing this?

WILLIAMS The pressure and what’s going on in my mind can honestly shrink me more than anything else. That’s why I keep trying to push myself into places that are not just comfortable. I love to write by myself. I love to be in my bed. That’s where I think I write the best. But I do think that when you have the moments where you push and then you find out that it’s safe there and it’s beautiful — and actually, you might get to live some part of your dream — that’s what keeps me going back to those opportunities.

SHABOOZEY It’s cool to see a sense of manifestation. David Byrne was one of your idols and to work with him or —

WILLIAMS Stephen King.

SHABOOZEY Stephen King, and you just becoming a K-pop superstar (Looking at EJAE). I know there are probably stories around the table with all of us about manifestation to be like, “Wow, I’m really doing something that I wanted to do when I was a kid.” It’s crazy.

This story appeared in the Dec. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.