Right from the jump, Adam Friedman has something in common with a number of other acts who have received significant radio airplay over the past five years: Karmin, American Authors, Charlie Puth and Imagine Dragons.
All of the aforementioned artists attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Friedman and Puth were classmates.
“He’s a very sweet guy,” Friedman said of the “One Call Away” singer. “I have some of his samples. I was with my boy Pete Nappi and we were at Charlie’s house. I think this was four, maybe five years ago, and he hooked us up with some sweet samples. I still use those samples today, so thank you Charlie.”
Friedman grew up in Arizona, went to school in Boston, and now resides in Los Angeles when he’s not on the road. It was there where the singer befriended another songwriter who got his start in college: Duke University alumnus Mike Posner.
“We just hit it off,” Friedman recalled of the first time he met Posner, which happened about two years ago. “We were working on his album a lot. He liked my production style so I started working with him on production and then we started writing.”
Matter-of-fact, Posner’s follow-up to the hit “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” is Friedman co-written and co-produced “Be As You Are.” Posner returned the favor with a co-write and feature for Friedman’s debut single, “Lemonade.”
“A lot of times, songs either come in like, 18 years, or they come in like, a minute,” Friedman said of his experience in writing songs. “Lemonade” fell between that timeframe. “So that one, it came in like, 30 minutes.”
Meeting Friedman and listening to the track helped me make sense of how he and Posner work so well together. “Lemonade” starts off as a modest, mellow song with a guitar, cool drum beat and Friedman’s smooth vocals. But by the time you get to the chorus and Posner’s verse, the song builds in to something much grander. If it seems unassuming, well, that might just be a reflection of the guys behind it.
“I’m a weird dude and he’s a weird dude too, in a good way,” explained Friedman. “Like we could just be in a room and not talk for 30 minutes and it’s totally cool. And I love that, because it just gives you space.
“You know, we’ll be working together and I’ll put some chords together and maybe hum a melody,” Friedman said. Posner “would sit there and get quiet for like 20 minutes. And you know there’s some gears spinning up there. And then he just spits out super-dope words.”
Now Friedman hopes that those words translate to spins on radio stations across the country.
