Lady Gaga has gone on the record revealing the story and inner workings of her recent hit Disease, the lead-off single from forthcoming new album LG7.
Gaga has been working on LG7 in amongst her recent movie projects and soundtracks, being constructed in many famous studios including Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La.
"Shangri-La is just down the road from where I live so when I have an idea on the piano I can go there and record it,” she explains. “We made LG7 at Shangri-La and I would joke that Rick Rubin produced the album, but he wasn’t there, but like his spirit was there. But I go to Woodshed, I go to Dragonfly, I sometimes go to Henson… The Village… I’ve nested in all these studios.”
While it’s not made clear where the recording is taking place Gaga reveals that she did the bulk of the work on the album at home, with a newly equipped studio. “Micheal [Polansky, her partner] built a home studio for Valentine’s Day. He said ‘I have a surprise for you’ and he turned his office into a music studio. It’s kinda romantic,” she says.
Diving into the track she explains its origins. Operating the computer with Logic playing via an SSL Matrix 2 desk she outlines the backing track of drums and dual basslines supplied by producer Cirkut that inspired the track.
“For Disease the energy of the sound is where I wanted to start the album. It’s like diving headfirst into an ice cold pool of water,” she says. “With electronic music there are lots of interesting ways to manipulate the voice, sometimes using [Antares] Autotune, sometimes using [Celemony] Melodyne, in this case we used [Soundtoys] Microshift. It widened the sound and helped make me and the music one.”
Going in deeper we hear that the track is propped up by plenty of synth squeals and long reverb tails that – without the rhythm track to pin them down – slide around, being unquantised but obviously placed to perfection.
“I thought ‘This is a killer dark pop record. We have to work on this.’ And I knew we needed a big chorus with a chord progression, so for that we went to the piano,” she explains. “Then when we went back to the track we realised we had to build it around the song. There’s no one way of making music that’s ever the same. I have to do what the song is telling me to do.”
“A magical part is this side-chain with the bass,” she demonstrates, playing the throbbing bass of the chorus which pulses in and out with the kick drum. “I wanted it to feel like the human being singing it was about to explode,” she says.
“We probably did about 40 mixes of Disease. Some were warm and softer but it started to lose its unwieldiness. But you know when it sounds right. At some point it just feels right.”
“You can’t push sound and you can’t push music if you're not willing to try new things. Especially with the bass on this song. We took a lot of ‘wrong’ choices.”
Gaga is particularly proud of the track’s chorus-reprising breakdown, being “something that I used to do” on her earlier hits. “Circuit wrote it for the chorus but I played it on the piano to make it really creepy and acoustic,” she says, soloing the dark, haunting piano sound below the song's moody interlude.
And there’s a touching moment when she beams with visible delight while soloing her own ultra-thick “Queen-style” backing vocals. “I guess that’s what I’m known for,” she bashfully admits. “Queen vocals, Bowie guitar… I guess you pull from what you love.”
And all throughout the rhythm is given a human element with gasps and screams. “I did a track for Cirkut where I was screaming and making little noises and he sampled them and added them to the record,” she explains.
All in all it’s a great insight into how she’s making music and the unusual choices and textures at play in crafting one of the year’s most interesting electronic tracks.
Looks like Gaga just can’t stop searching for the next level and pushing the needle into the red.
“I was making music like who I wanted to be. Now I’m making music like who I am now.”
