2023-10-13 06:54:00
DAVID SLOMO always wanted to be a star. He has to take setback after setback and is about to give up. Today he has nine gold records and knows firsthand the dilemma of songwriting sessions.
Is your song “Papa” A settlement?
David Slomo: I wanted that said. My father left our family before I was born. He moved from one family to the next. When I was 14, I tried to get closer and quickly realized that it wouldn’t work. I received zero support from him, neither financially nor morally. We won’t be friends anymore.
Your mom was already in Vienna when you came along?
David Slomo: My mom wanted to build something here. I grew up with my grandmother in Zagreb and just outside Sarajevo and – because we had nothing left there – came to Vienna around 1997 as a late refugee. I met my mom when I was six or seven years old. On TV, people were rich and famous – and I thought music was the quickest way to make money. Spoiler, it’s not.
Was your family musical?
David Slomo: Not at all, I taught myself everything, made beats with Fruity Loops and thought I was the best. It was really bad. I stuck with it. I was good with Yung Hurn back then, but I wasn’t good with him later. We started with cloud rap, I wanted to make more “valuable” music. Two or three years later, Yung Hurn has escalated.
How was it at the casting show? Heroes of tomorrow?
David Slomo: I was a unfortunately no candidate. The jury really beat me up. That hurt – on site and then again on television. But in my youthful recklessness, that was motivation for me to show everyone. I recorded the album “My Film” completely alone at home in my children’s room. It was terribly mixed, but that didn’t matter. And tried to sell my CDs at gigs and eventually sent out demos. Today they say you have to get up every day Tiktok post, I posted it back then Facebook made with songs about Vienna or the Danube city. A song had 100,000 or 200,000 clicks, Sony approached me and I thought, this is Michael Jackson’s label, now it’s finally here.
Spoiler …
David Slomo: It wasn’t. Every artist has to go through it and understand how the music business works, I think. Later I talked to many other musicians and everyone – even the big ones – said it was the same. At the beginning you are unlucky. And you learn from it.
What have you got with you? Radio Energy learned?
David Slomo: Now I have to get completely naked here. [lacht] Radio Energy played my song “100,000” over and over again. My second single wasn’t even introduced, I thought there must have been a mistake, so I asked nicely, hey, maybe you missed that. They said, no, they didn’t, but they can’t play my song because the old song was so poorly received by the audience. No other song tested so poorly for them. I still have the email.
Sometimes friends hid with you.
Because of “Hardeggasse”, right? There by the school was our little ghetto. I did relatively little nonsense because I had so much respect for my mom, she brought me to Vienna and gave me chances. My friends did a lot of nonsense. If the police were looking for someone or their parents were angry, they could sleep on the floor with me. I was the one who was still talking about how I was going to be a star. At the same time, I have secured myself professionally in case the music doesn’t work out.
When did it become something?
David Slomo: 2019.
“I thought to myself, I’ll write one more song, then I’ll never want to make music again. And that was ‘2x’.”
Mathea?
David Slomo: I thought maybe everyone else was right and I shouldn’t make music. My producer Johannes Herbst and my manager Daniel Rumpel told me to try writing music for other people. And I thought, why should this work if it doesn’t work like this? And if I have a good idea, why should I give it away? They didn’t let up. And then there was a 19-year-old musician who was with The Voice eliminated, in Vienna. I thought to myself, I’ll write this one song, then I’ll never want to make music again. And that was “2x”.
How did that go?
David Slomo: We met in Coffee Europe met, I was demotivated and I can imagine that I was in a pretty bad mood. On the day of the session we went out for kebab – and it was surprisingly expensive. We had no money and thought we had to get it back now. Recently has Mathea wrote to me: I think the kebab has arrived.
The line “we always see each other twice” already existed.
David Slomo: Exactly. Mathea said there was a guy with whom it wasn’t working out and showed us chats. I found that exciting and said, why don’t we write about it? Mathea then showed us her old song, which she and we didn’t particularly like. We took parts of the chats, the trip to Berlin, the Schweighöfer film, that all happened there. We have packaged the story beautifully. A lot of people could identify with that. Shortly afterwards the song went to number one, gold, platinum and shoot me dead.
Then came “Chaos“.
David Slomo: Exactly, we thought “2x” was going to flop when the song was released Tiktok and a few radio stations picked up. The next song had to be a hit. And we’re all like: How do you make a hit? No idea! One day I get a call from Mathea, I have to come to Berlin. But I worked full time in an office. The producer called me afterwards and said if Mathea I want you to fly to Berlin, fly to Berlin, I’ll book the flight for you. So I went to my bosses, they looked at me strangely, but said for once it would work, I had to be back tomorrow. I was in Berlin at lunchtime and returned in the evening.
“Are you the guy she likes to sing about?” And I’m like, what?!”
And there …?
David Slomo: … had me Mathea received. She said the studio is booked, we have to write the song. I didn’t know at all, which song, what is it actually about? She told me that there’s this guy that she’s kind of in love with, but she doesn’t know if he’s in love with her. In between she had to go to the toilet. And Gerard (Gerald Hoffmann aka Gerard, co-songwriter of “Chaos”, note) was also there. And he looks at me and says: Are you the guy she likes to sing about? And I’m like: What?! We got the song halfway down in a few hours. I wasn’t a big fan, but Mathea really wanted to release it. And ultimately she was right.
What makes these two songs different from a hundred other love songs?
David Slomo: Good question. I analyzed them at a few songwriting workshops and ultimately… If I knew why they were so popular, I would do it again and again.
“2x” describes how non-committal love has become through Tinder, right? The protagonist doesn’t care, but she doesn’t care.
David Slomo: That’s exactly how it was. Great if we could get it across that way. It was very important to her that she was not portrayed as a victim. At 19 years old she was already really tough and self-confident. That impressed me a lot. “2x” was one of the first German-language songs with very specific words and images. Before that there were metaphors in, I’ll climb a mountain for you, move a river, something like that. I think that might be why the two songs were so fresh and new.
There was an argument afterwards, right?
David Slomo: I had a big ego and always wanted to be a star. And then I do a session once and it becomes the biggest song in the country. I thought to myself, you’re all kidding me! I have Mathea blamed it and talked some nonsense about how I was the creative one and the song became so big because of me. We really clashed. That took a month or two. Today we are really very close friends.
She returned the favor.
David Slomo: Oh God, yes. I was supposed to play support on her first tour and I got an outfit for each tour stop – Bayern Munich, Union Berlin, etc. Two days before the start she calls and says there’s a problem, the tour bus is too small for me. Everything slipped away from me. I thought wildly about whether I could do the tour myself. I called her back and said I’m not getting any sleep, I just can’t do it, but please, please, I want to play some shows or be a special guest somewhere. And she said she wanted it to be consistent, she was thinking about it. Nothing came for two hours. I’ve already told all my people that the tour won’t work. And then I get a video. Mathea and the band laugh at me and then shout: Prank! I was so angry and hurled all the insults I’ve ever saved at her on the phone. And she just laughed. There will be revenge again. [lacht]
How lucrative is songwriting actually?
David Slomo: Radio is clearly divided between artist and songwriter; Unfortunately not streaming. I got maybe a thousand for the 70 million streams of “2x”. Ultimately, songwriters don’t dare to demand better contracts because others are immediately waiting in line. That’s why you now have the dilemma in sessions that artists write songs for Spotify and Tiktok want to do, while the songwriters want to write for the radio because it’s much more financially worthwhile. However, this is risky for artists because only a few stations play local repertoire.
How many sessions are successful?
David Slomo: A song is created in every session. I get paid, so I guarantee that you can take something home with you. About every fifth or sixth song is actually released. I’ve already written hits, techno, pop songs, dialect and rap. Sometimes I get requests from publishers that they are looking for a song for artist XY that sounds like YZ. I send something through to them and usually say that I can do something else in a week. So something comes together. Between Mathea and of course I’m worlds apart. She has appearances and sponsorships. That’s totally fine too.
How do you write?
David Slomo: I have a lot of general terms in my notes app and write phrases or words in them. And there are tons of hummed tunes in the recording app. When I actually make music, I scan the material. Most of it is bad. But every now and then something stands out. I can now assess this quite well.
Do you have to worry about chats with you ending up in song lyrics?
David Slomo: I once said to my girlfriend, if we break up, you’ll become a song. Which is what happened then. “In Another Life” streamed really well after “Traffic Light on Yellow.” It just happened organically. With Tiktok It’s easy today, I make a video, put myself in a shopping cart or something else and that’s often enough. Classic music videos are a bit dying out, especially among young people.
Your melodies sometimes have a Balkan touch. Is that on purpose?
David Slomo: Mathea asked me about it once in a session. That’s when it clicked for me, and I’ve been trying to use it more specifically ever since. Austria is also Balkan. I would like to combine that. It’s quite possible that we’ll soon hear more on a very big stage.
Last question. Is “Chaos” about you?
David Slomo: I don’t know that. [lacht] The listeners have to answer that. [lacht] Did you really take that long to ask the question? Maybe I’ll answer that when the mic is off.
Stefan Niederwieser
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Link:
David Slomo (Instagram)
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