Ricky Reed

“I've always thought I haven't ever had much of a lucky break.”

“I'm trying to make pop records for the middle-class, lower-middle-class - pop for the 99 percent.”

“A lot of what we do in the studio on a day-to-day basis is you try to cast a line as far out as you can out into unknown waters and reel it back in, cut out stuff that isn't working, cut out stuff that isn't connecting to people.”

“Who doesn't love classic Destiny's Child or Ace of Base? There's so much amazing music from that time period, so it makes sense that we're starting to hear that pop up in records.”

“I believe that I am one of the greats of this generation.”

“What I ended up learning was that I had to do what I do well, and do it really well and say, 'Maybe there is no pop music that sounds like this now, but I can make it so maybe tomorrow what I like can be what everybody likes.'”

“Don't do anyone else's version of a hit song - it's gonna sound terrible. You just have to do what you do well and crank it up to 11.”

“I studied the Ghanaian drums and bongo drumming.”

“I have a short attention span. And when I'm in the middle of one thing, I'm then drawn to the next thing.”

“I can never think about, 'Is this going to sell? Is this going to work on radio?' I just have to get in the zone where I'm like, 'Do I love this, or do I not love this?' Essentially it all comes down to that.”

“My career has been one long love letter to California as a whole, top to bottom.”

“My music has evolved to reflect that multigendered, multiracial, multigenre music. Whether I realized it before or not, I'm most influenced by that rock and soul hybrid.”

“A lot of people say don't let bad vibes into the studio, but I love to. If you're having a bad day, write a song that feels like that.”

“Regardless of what amount of satire or sarcasm is heard in what I do, the reason it connects with people is because the fun and the wildness in it is sincere.”

“I started off making music that made fun of pop; now I'm nominated for helping produce pop songs that aim to be as honest as possible.”

“This might sound strange, but I've never really been a person who has goals of any sort. I tend to just work in the moment, day-to-day, try to make things and make decisions that feel good, and it tends to guide me where I want to go in the long-term.”

“Collaborating with someone on music is the same way you'd go about hanging out. You have to listen more than you talk.”

“I think, because I didn't think of myself getting into writing and production since I was younger, I could get bored of it if I don't continue to pivot.”

“When I started trying to produce records for other people, one of the first tracks I wrote and produced was sort of a 'Kelly Clarkson circa 2008,' kind of big-brassy, guitar-pop, rock song. I was like, 'I can do this. I can make pop songs.' It was bad.”

“Pitbull is, like, one of the most incredible humans. He's an amazing guy, and when we first connected on 'Fireball,' he said, 'I love it!' He recorded the verse in a day, we mixed it the next day, and it was on the radio in like two weeks after we made the initial track. That's just how he works. He's so hard working, kind, and really appreciative.”