RS: It's a great line. Do you think that's what got it managed to get out of clubland into the mainstream, a really hooky line like that?
Ray Roc: Very much, the idea of anything is to always have a nice hook. I've learned that from listening to Babyface all my life. He and Stevie Wonder are two of my inspirations and from them I learned that the hook is everything. I wanted the song to kind of have an eerie feeling because it was a heartbreaking yet uplifting song. The trick was I didn't think about it, it just came naturally. I didn't say wow, this is what I need to write, the record just came to my head, I wrote it down, the melody came straight and I didn't think twice.
RS: Speaking about hooks, I'm a bit confused because on the single it says the sample is from Fused, a song called "Terror," but the album says the sample is from "Twisted."
Ray Roc: The sample is from "Twisted", that's just a big typo on Sony's behalf. When they were doing all the licensing they got it wrong, because "Terror" was the current record that Fused had out.
RS: Did you hear the sample and write the song around it or did the sample come after the song was written?
Ray Roc: The sample was an accidental situation, I had actually remixed "Twisted." It was in my hard drive and one day I was just looking for sounds and I heard this element which was a one or two-bar loop, and I basically did music around it which inspired me to write the song. But it was let's say five years ago when I had done the mix for them as opposed to two years ago when I actually did the "Never" song, so I didn't actually do it around the sample, I was just inspired by it. Normally when I'm writing I just start going through different sounds in my computer and there happened to be one that, because the mix never got accepted, I just completely forgot what I had done and started from scratch with it. But it happened to be a main element on the song, so I had to give up publishing for it because that two-bar loop was the main element of the original song.
RS: When you wrote the song did you have a vocalist in mind, did you think this is for Tina Arena or how did she become part of the project?
Ray Roc: When I wrote the song I had demoed it up with a female who didn't work out for me, we were trying to get her signed and it didn't work out. Then Gary Salzman and I were talking around and said that this record would be amazing if let's say a Britney Spears was singing it. It would be a huge, successful record as opposed to if a nobody was singing it. Then came Tina Arena, and we played her the song and she loved it and she was willing to do it.
RS: Were you with her in the studio or did you send her the track and she recorded over in Australia?
Ray Roc: No, we actually went to London and recorded it in London. I was with her in the studio.
RS: It would be hard to do a live show with four different singers on stage, it just wouldn't be possible.
Ray Roc: Yes, and to have one person cover everybody else's records but that person wouldn't be the one singing it on the album, it would just be ridiculous. So we decided to find one person who could commit to doing the whole album and be able to actually sing her ass off on "Never" as well. This way we could redo the "Never" song with her as well and have it on the album just so they can tell that it's not like I just came up with this girl and decided to put her on.
RS: Tina definitely has a great pop sensibility in her voice, I hear a young Mariah Carey in her.
Ray Roc: Yes, she's amazing! She was signed to Arista and I had worked with her in the past when she had her single over there and unfortunately it didn't work out. Working with her on The Roc Project was very fortunate as she is incredible to work with.
RS: Going back to your DJing a little bit, I've spoke to DJs like Armin Van Buuren and Scumfrog, and when they DJ out they'll test their new tracks they're working on in the studio with their crowd. Did you do any of that with this album or was it a totally separate pop project away from your DJ sets?
Ray Roc: In doing the album, I did a lot of records that don't have club versions to them - they were actually three and a half minutes to four minutes so I couldn't really test them, but I would throw the acapellas on top of some tracks and just see the reaction on the song from the crowd. There are certain records that are playable and there are certain remixes that I already have that I play from the records that totally work for the crowd. As for the actual single that's on the album, I truly didn't get an opportunity of testing those just because it was more commercial based and I was trying to keep it as such. I wasn't trying to produce a twelve inch, I was trying to produce the album cut for it. But since this is my pet project, I had all the acapellas so I was able to throw in acapellas whenever the time fits.
