Lady Gaga and seven-time Oscar nominee Diane Warren sat down with The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg for a chat about their latest song "Til It Happens to You," which is a favorite to receive an Academy Award nomination next week. Gaga also spoke about the music industry, her past work, the impact of "Born This Way," and so much more during a must-listen hour-long interview.
On hearing a Diane Warren song for the first time:
"I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing." That's how I learned about Diane Warren. I was so blown away by that song at at a really young age and it made me cry every time. That was the song. I mean, what a tremendous song and it was sung so well by Steven Tyler. It's one of those moments that changes your perspective about music forever.
On the impact of "Born This Way":
I watched throngs and throngs of the LGBT community at my shows come together before they were 18 years old and decide that they were going to change things. People don't understand it because they don't know the extent to which I witnessed those kids' lives changing. What that song did, if anything, is forced people and the radio to play the words "gay," "straight," "bi," "transgender," you know? That was the first time that word was ever on the radio ever in the history of America. And I just wanted it to be there, I didn't care how, or why.
On Donald Trump:
Networks are not being held responsible for curating the news, curating how we see things, they're catering to ratings. It scares me because young people and older people in America who maybe haven't thought too long and hard about why Donald Trump is running, they look at this and go "Oh, I've been seeing him everywhere, so he must be important." But the truth is, the reason that so many politicians are on TV is because it makes money, not because it's good for America.
On the music business:
One of the scariest things about this business — and what's crazy — is that the bigger that you get, you start to realize that sometimes, when you shake people's hands, you're making other people money. You know? There's so much business going on around you, and people are in the business of you, and you don't even know. You become a product and then you have to sort of go, "Who's selling me today? Is it you?" And some people never figure it out and what happens is they are rotting in a hole of people that are just taking off the top.
Listen to the full podcast below...
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