After seven years of pumping out European hits, Norway-based team Stargate – Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen – gave an interview to “The Hollywood Reporter” and talked about Rihanna and how “Diamonds” was born. Needless to say, Rihanna has been their biggest success, with nine top-10 hits in five years.
“We’ve seen her grow from wide-eyed girl to a superstar. […] But we had moments when we basically changed our approach and tried something completely different. I could use a current example: when we wrote “Diamonds” with Benny Blanco and we collaborated with him for a couple of weeks trying to come up with material for Rihanna. And we were basically trying to come up with big records, and making big up-tempo pop records and then after a couple weeks of that, we just decided, “Today we’re not trying to make a big hit record. Today we are going to make something that we love and that’s a little bit darker, a little bit slower, and a little bit more emotional, and that’s when we made the track for “Diamonds.” A few days later Sia came in and wrote the lyrics. When we made that song we basically made it for ourselves. We didn’t try to make a hit. The song goes out, and it becomes huge, and that becomes rewarding in a sense that when we feel something, the public feels it as well, and it’s nice to be reminded of that.”
“The Hollywood Reporter” asked them how it was to be working with Rihanna:
“I mean first of all, we’ve seen her grow up, which has been a fascinating experience. We’ve seen her go from this 17-year-old girl, just wide-eyed, to becoming a worldwide superstar and that is the main reward I would say, in addition to just doing decoration of the music. We’ve seen her grow up, and we’ve also seen her grow in her confidence. Basically, she has proven that her instincts are good over time and the level she’s on now … she’s really earned that. She’s earned the right to make her own decisions, and she’s proven to everyone around her that she knows what she’s talking about. She doesn’t necessarily know how to put it in words, so we don’t sit down at the beginning of the record and talk about it. And the few times we have done that, nothing has really come of that. She likes to see herself and react to it emotionally. That’s how a lot of our greatest songs together have come about, off just by playing it to her and she’ll just pick it up right then and there. There’s no point in trying to convince her to do anything because she’s fiercely independent and she knows what she wants, and I like that. She will also never tell us, “Oh, write something for me” or “Try to please me”. She doesn’t want us to please her. She wants us basically to play her our best material and that’s refreshing. You know, a lot of other big name artists they will always, “You have to write something custom made for me.” Rihanna is more like, “What have you got? What’s exciting to you? Let me hear what you got.” So that process is a little bit different, and we prefer it that way and we’ve given up trying to please in our many years together.”
Do you feel like you have an idea of what kind of things she likes or does it constantly change?
“She wants us to keep changing, and she never wants to repeat herself, which sounds great on paper and for a lot of artist that could be a difficult process where you basically always try to keep moving. To her credit, she’s been able to keep moving, but at the same time take her audience with her and that’s what she likes. She always challenges us, and I think we challenge her back.”
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