“Having fun with reverbs, delays and compressors is like being in a toy shop. But if you have a shitty song, None of it matters”: Acclaimed producer Howard Benson on the importance of songwriting before productionWe all get caught up in the production tools we use, but according to acclaimed producer Howard Benson, they matter little if you’re working with a sub-par song.
In a new episode of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast, Benson – who has worked with the likes of Kelly Clarkson, My Chemical Romance and Bon Jovi – stresses the importance of the fundamentals of songwriting above obsessing over creative tools.

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“Vocals – top line and melody – those are really what sell records,” he explains. “I mean, the rest of the stuff… You walk in as a kid and you look at all the buttons and switches and knobs and strings and all that, and you just go, ‘Oh, my God, that stuff’s so important,’ but it means absolutely nothing at all.
“What really matters is does this feel good or not? Do I like it or not? We’re selling feelings. That’s what we sell. This has been a problem for a lot of artists that have their own DAWs. They get caught up in that part of it and they forget about the song. It’s the song that really matters.”
He says this principle rings true not only in music, but in film and TV, and anything else creative, too.
“If you think about it, it’s the same in the movie business and the TV business,” he goes on. “You have a shitty script – I don’t care how many Avengers and Marvel movies you make. 
“And by the way, that’s what’s wrong with the franchise. Those franchises are suffering because the scripts suck. So that’s something you learn the hard way, because you go into these sessions and you bring all your guitars and your amps and your effect pedals… 
“It’s kind of like a toy shop: you’re just having great fun with reverbs and delays and compressors and all that. But if you have a shitty song, it doesn’t matter what you just did. None of it matters.”

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