Grammy nominee Tranter’s hits begin with conversation
Sit down and talk to Justin Tranter for just a while and likely a hit song will emerge.
The Grammy-nominated songwriter credited with some of the biggest bangers of the past decade — “Sorry” by Justin Bieber and “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, among them — usually begins a writing session with a friendly chat.
“I just start having a conversation with the artist,” Tranter says. “When they say something that I think is either already the song title or is at least the song topic, then it becomes a secret or not-so-secret interview. And I just keep going in on that topic.”
It is a process that has yielded smashes for such artists as Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Halsey, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, DNCE, Gwen Stefani and Fall Out Boy, triggering 50 million single sales and 50 billion streams.
“I want the artist to leave feeling like this is exactly what I needed — maybe not always wanted to say — what I needed to say today. And that can be really fun,” Tranter says.
Tranter is up for a songwriting Grammy at the
Feb. 4 ceremony for an astonishing range of songs, testament to an ability to talk to everyone: There’s Italian heavy metal, a rap banger, crystalline pop, introspective rock and a soaring Broadway number.
The songs are Miley Cyrus’ “River,” Baby Tate’s “Jersey,” Måneskin’s “Honey (Are U Coming?),” Talk’s “A Little Bit Happy,” “I Want More” from the TV series “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” and Reneé Rapp’s “Gemini Moon” and “Pretty Girls.”
None seem to have any connection to the others except Tranter, who fronted the glam-punk band Semi Precious Weapons and vowed to make the songwriting business humane after experiencing homophobia and bad record deals.
“The through line is my passion for helping other people tell their stories. This has nothing to do with me. I’m not singing these songs. These are not about me.”
Tranter, who uses the pronoun they, wanted 2023 to be more than a list of hit songs. They chased different projects to push themselves as a writer and lyricist.
“I am very grateful for my hits. My hits have changed my life. I’ve been able to have my parents retire early. I am so grateful for the hits. But I really wanted to take this year to find projects where I could not be proud of the money the songs are generating, I could be proud of my skill and my craft.”
Tranter, 43, spent just one session with Rapp as she charted a course away from TV and musical theater and into confessional pop, making her debut album, “Snow Angel.”
“She just came in and was talking about her relationship. And I started writing what she was saying and just put exact quotes into the song and then surround those quotes with poetry,” Tranter says.
Out of that came “Gemini Moon” and “Pretty Girls,” which captured both artists’ frustration about straight people flirting with bicurious flings.
“If you just listen to ‘Pretty Girls’ passively, you think, ‘Oh, fun song.’ But actually there’s layers on top of layers,” Tranter says. “It was just a really great year for me as a songwriter to help artists tell stories that I haven’t helped anyone tell before.”
Tranter’s personable and empathetic approach to making music proved crucial in 2023 for helping Broadway and TV star Billy Porter pivot to dance with the album, “Black Mona Lisa.”
“It’s not easy to find a voice that resonates with huge portions of the public and is authentic at the same time to who you are,” says Porter. “Justin is a master of that.”
For the songwriter of the year Grammy, Tranter is up against Edgar Barrera, Jessie Jo Dillon, Shane McAnally and Theron Thomas — rivals Tranter calls “literal geniuses.”