Norwegian Pop Producers Stargate

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Mikkel S. Eriksen, left, and Tor Erik Hermansen, a k a Stargate, at Sony Music Studios in Manhattan. The producers of numerous hit records, they prefer to stay out of the spotlight.

NYT
May 6, 2007
Wizards in the Studio, Anonymous on the Street
By BEN SISARIO

THE songwriting session was so fresh that the aroma of the evening’s chicken wings still lingered. Behind the vast mixing board of a dimly lighted Manhattan recording studio, two producers and their co-writer greeted a record executive who had come to hear their work. With the press of a button, the room filled with sound: somber guitar arpeggios over a slow, sleek hip-hop beat, with layers of falsetto harmonies leading to a big, glittery, instantly memorable chorus. It was pure candy — sweetly melodic, but just funky enough to have a dance groove.

“I’m thinking Jennifer,” the executive said. “It’s perfect for Jennifer Hudson.”

As three more songs that had been written in the last 24 hours blared from enormous speakers, the producers sat calmly, waiting to hear which superstars their songs would be pitched to. But they weren’t the Neptunes or Timbaland or Dr. Dre or anyone else ardent followers of the Top 40 would be likely to recognize. They were Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel S. Eriksen, wholesome-looking, milk-complexioned Norwegians who, despite having no public persona, have quickly become two of the most in-demand figures in pop music.

Better known as Stargate, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen have had an enviable string of hits since arriving in the United States two years ago, including Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable,” Rihanna’s “Unfaithful” and “So Sick” by Ne-Yo, a rising 24-year-old singer from Las Vegas who is a frequent co-writer. (Ne-Yo’s new album, “Because of You,” released Tuesday on Def Jam, includes two Stargate songs.) Add to those Lionel Richie’s comeback single, “I Call It Love,” and “Beautiful Liar,” the steamy track by Beyoncé and Shakira, which shot to the top of the iTunes best-seller list when released in March. At a time when the music industry is starved for hits, Stargate has had repeated success with a relatively simple approach: sugary, lilting R&B in the Michael Jackson vein leavened with the kind of melody-rich European pop that paints everything in bright primary colors.

More potential hits are in the works. The executive visiting them, Larry Jackson, senior vice president of A&R (artists and repertory) at J Records, confirmed that Ms. Hudson would be recording their song “Can’t Stop the Rain.” And the Stargate name is attached to many other “priority releases” — projects that record labels, managers and radio programmers are expecting to be the most popular and profitable.

“In the industry, their name recognition is as powerful as Timbaland’s,” said Jeff Rabhan, who manages Elliott Yamin, the “American Idol” alumnus whose self-titled new album has two Stargate tracks.

But in this age of the superstar producer, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen are an exception, and not just for their perky Scandinavian accents and the plain T-shirts and sweats that make them look like refugees from a college soccer team. Like the Brill Building songwriters of the 1950s and ’60s, they are behind-the-scenes workaholics, preferring to spend their time in a cramped studio.

“We have the No. 1 record in the country for 10 weeks, but when we walk down the street no one knows who we are,” said Mr. Hermansen, who like his partner is 34, shiny of scalp and beanstalk thin. “It’s great.”

With no videos to shoot, no tour dates and no solo albums to record, they are able to devote themselves to writing and recording, and they churn out new songs with astonishing speed and regularity. While labels and artists frequently wait weeks or even months for a new song from a top producer, a typical Stargate workday yields two, three, four or more.

“A lot of American producers have a great difficulty with pop,” said Barry Weiss, president of Jive Records, who recently hired Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen to work with Usher, Chris Brown and Joe. “But these guys were raised on pop. They grew up on Abba. They grew up on Boney M. Those influences lend themselves to them making very melodic pop records, with great hooks and choruses. You plug in the right top-line writer and you got one plus one equals three.”

Arriving at noon at their studio on West 25th Street six days a week — “We get Sundays off,” Mr. Eriksen said — the men of Stargate keep the music industry’s equivalent of banker’s hours. Working in a modest room so crowded with recording gear that they spend much of their time toiling inches apart, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen say they usually finish up by midnight or 1 a.m. — around the time many of their competitors might be beginning their own sessions.

Life in a recording studio can be slow and numbingly repetitive, but on a recent afternoon Stargate was a blur of musical multitasking. After tweaking some instrumental tracks, the producers convened with a co-writer over lyrics to a new song, and recorded it a couple of hours later. On and off throughout the day, as one restaurant delivery after another came through the door — eggs and bacon, Chinese, burgers — they sketched out yet another tune and discussed their favorite topic: the pride and constant stimulation of working in the United States.

“We can be in the studio till 1 o’clock in the morning,” Mr. Hermansen said, “and then we walk out on the street and right outside we meet the president of Atlantic Records and the head of A&R over at Def Jam. And we’ll talk about projects — ‘O.K., we’ll come by your office tomorrow.’ Then we’ll be up there at 11 o’clock playing songs.”

Their work carries on a tradition of Scandinavian bubble-gum artistry that stretches from Abba to Max Martin, the Swedish mastermind behind the late-’90s heyday of Britney Spears, ’N Sync et al. But while Mr. Martin has lately been developing a more rock-influenced sound in songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Stargate has followed a lifelong love of the Michael Jackson-Prince school of R&B.

“In Europe we’ve only been hearing the biggest American hits,” said Mr. Eriksen, the quieter of the two, who has a thin, blond goatee and moves in quick, precise jolts at the console, like a video-game virtuoso. “That’s what we’ve been listening to and trying to measure up to.”

Formed a decade ago in Norway as a trio — the third member, Hallgeir Rustan, left two years ago because he did not want to come to America, and remains a producer in Norway — Stargate had its first successes in Britain, with dozens of singles by teen-pop acts like Blue, Atomic Kitten and Hear’Say reaching the Top 10. The three men remixed American hip-hop and R&B songs, sweetening them for European radio with layers of added melody. Soon they began to set their eyes on a studio in New York.

“We knew that to make the records we really wanted to make, we had to go to America,” said Mr. Eriksen.

After some exploratory missions, they settled in New York in the spring of 2005. Work was slow at first until a chance meeting with Ne-Yo (whose real name is Shaffer Smith) in a hallway at Sony Music Studios on West 54th Street. “They told me they did R&B, and honestly I didn’t believe them,” Ne-Yo said.

But he was impressed by their work, and on their first joint songwriting date they knocked out six songs, among them “So Sick,” which was No. 1 for two weeks. Then came Ne-Yo’s next hit, “Sexy Love,” then Rihanna, then Beyoncé. ...

In the usual Stargate M.O. — common in pop and hip-hop production — Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen create an instrumental backing track and then let a collaborator write the lyrics and vocal melody.

For Ne-Yo, Stargate’s strength has as much to do with the music it makes as the music it doesn’t.

“You hear some tracks where the producer is absolutely trying to be the star,” he said, “the way they do so much with the track that it’s almost difficult to write — you can’t find any space to put a song in there. But I never had a problem with these guys. They are the epitome of simple and to the point.”

For their recent writing session with Ne-Yo, in Studio D at Sony Music, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen brought a CD with sketches of 11 songs. Scanning through it, Ne-Yo picked one midtempo track with sharp, resonant acoustic guitar — “That’s nasty!” he said — and sat down with a notepad, playing the track on a loop while Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen sat for an interview a few feet away.

After about 40 minutes, the singer leaped out of his seat. “I got it,” he announced, and sang his brand-new verse and a chorus. Everyone agreed that the song was hot, and once Ne-Yo removed his heavy gold chains — to keep them from clanging while at the microphone — assumed their recording positions.

In about two hours, they had finished a textbook Stargate song. Over a spare beat that would not be out of place in a vintage Run-D.M.C. track, the guitar laid out a palette of bright, bold chords and the weaving melody that remains a focal point throughout the song. Ne-Yo’s vocal — recorded in a couple of takes, with layer upon layer of harmonies added in quick succession — was soft and soulful, climaxing in a chorus that, with a swell of synthesizers behind it, seemed to glow with neon. “No matter what I do,” Ne-Yo sang, “I can’t stop the rain.”

Stargate’s speed is a big attraction to clients. The duo’s unobtrusive production style is another, and cannily plays to the ego dynamics of pop stars: everybody wants a hit, but nobody wants to be upstaged by the producer.

“Most pop, hip-hop and R&B producers,” said Mr. Rabhan, the manager, “are so distinctive that their music becomes instantly recognizable and overshadows the artist. Stargate has really been able to make a footprint without making it all about them.”

But that footprint is often faint. While a song produced by Timbaland or the Neptunes is recognizable no matter who the artist is, the Stargate signature is more difficult to detect, because to some degree the duo’s style is an adaptable method, not a specific sound.

“They’re chameleons,” said Steve Lunt, an A&R executive at Atlantic Records who last worked with Stargate on songs by the teenage singer Gia Farrell. “But if you put a bunch of Stargate songs together you will see the thread running through them.”

Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen dismiss the idea that their remarkable productivity might be helped by songwriting formulaics.

“There’s a craft to any art form,” Mr. Hermansen responded. “You have to master the craft, but at the same time you have to be creative within the format you’re working in. We have a certain ...”

“... musical language, so to speak,” said Mr. Eriksen, finishing his colleague’s sentence as if picking up a verse. “You shouldn’t be afraid of that either. Even though it might remind you of something else you shouldn’t shy away from it. Because it’s our expression.”

In the largely black milieu of R&B, Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen have gotten their share of double takes. More than once, they said, visitors to their studio have misdirected their obeisances to the people they meet at the door: the two black British men who are Stargate’s managers.

But there are a growing number of well-known white R&B producers, including Scott Storch, Mark Ronson and Jonathan Rotem, as well as performers like Justin Timberlake, Amy Winehouse and Robin Thicke (who is also a successful producer).

What sets Stargate apart from producers black or white is its image. Or rather, the lack of one. The two do not stake their reputations on hip-hop authenticity; Mr. Hermansen and Mr. Eriksen, who are both married and have young children, remain deliberately invisible and clean-cut. When a photographer was about to snap their picture, Mr. Eriksen carefully moved an empty beer bottle so it wouldn’t appear in the shot. A laptop computer in their studio is set to Norwegian time, and they make it clear that the biggest draw of living in New York is the work.

“We’re like players who just got off the bench and started scoring,” Mr. Hermansen said.

Beginning their recent studio date with Ne-Yo, they took their places behind the console, unloading discs and various devices from a backpack. A young member of Ne-Yo’s entourage who was surfing the Internet on a studio computer caught Mr. Eriksen’s eye and asked him if they have a MySpace page.

Mr. Eriksen shook his head no.

“Why not?” the young man asked.

“Don’t have time,” Mr. Eriksen said, and began punching buttons at the mixing board.