Lorde's co-writer Joel Little says he's happy to stay at home while the 16-year-old singing sensation takes their songs around the world.
Last night the duo won the country's most prestigious songwriting prize, the Silver Scroll Award, for their song 'Royals', which has hit number one in New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the US.
But while Lorde – real name Ella Yelich O'Connor – flew out of the country this morning, Little has no desire to join her on the road.
"It's hard work, what they do, and I did it for years in my band back in the day – on a much smaller scale, obviously," Little said on Firstline this morning.
"I kind of got that out of my system, so I'm happy for those guys to be off doing it. Her band's great and it suits me – I just like being in the studio and making songs. That's kind of my favourite thing."
Little says winning the Silver Scroll is a "big deal".
"It's an event that I've been going to for years and years, and have always admired the songs that have won and the songs that have been nominated, so it's huge."
'Royals' began with an incomplete set of lyrics penned by O'Connor.
"We immediately came up with the beginning of the chorus, and then I built a beat pretty quickly," says Little.
"We struggled with it for a day or so, and then just kind of cracked where we wanted to take it, in terms of the melodies and everything, and just put it together, really."
Of the 10 songs on Lorde's debut album Pure Heroine, Little had a hand in writing six. At 30 years of age, the former Goodnight Nurse guitarist is almost twice Lorde's age, but he says that was never an issue.
"The age thing doesn't really come into it because you know, as long as you're good at writing songs, you can do it with anybody."
He's keen to keep working with Lorde, but with her busy schedule it could be a while before we see some new material.
"She was back and now she's gone again – she flew this morning at like seven or something, so she's living in this crazy whirlwind at the moment, and I'm off overseas tomorrow too, so we're going to [need to] find some time."
Pure Heroine debuted at #1 in New Zealand, shipping enough copies to go platinum, and #3 in the US.
3 News
source: newshub archive
