Feature: Do you believe in MAGIC?

“We are a band. We live and eat together. Songwriting is definitely a big part of my life, but it was only to get me to a point where I could get on stage.”

Nasri Atweh, frontman of Canadian reggae-tinged pop group Magic! – who shot to prominence when their summery single Rude lit up Australian airwaves before an official US release – is keen to establish the four-piece as a bona fide band, and not merely a songwriting vehicle. It seems like a needless differentiation for a group with just over three minutes of released music to their name to make, but considering the vocalist has penned tracks for the likes of Justin Bieber, David Guetta, Jason Derulo, Akon and Cheryl Cole, it’s not surprising that some have viewed this latest venture as yet another vehicle to affix his songwriting smarts. We sat down with the frontman in Sony’s Sydney offices to discuss songwriting and quick-fire success.

How did you arrive at this sound? It sits rather apart from everything else on radio at the moment.

It’s very influenced by the Police and The Wailers. We try to cultivate our sound organically. I mean, all music is somewhat derivative, and those are our main influences, but we also wanted to set it apart from anything. We want it to sound fresh, so hopefully it sounds like it’s coming from there, but it’s not a sound-alike.

What’s ahead for 2014? Is there an album to speak of yet?

The album is finished. It’s going to be like a traditional band rollout. The difference between us and other acts is, because we came from a songwriting background, we wrote songs first, and then we started playing shows. Probably by March, the album will be out globally, and then we will start doing all the festivals and just touring, touring, touring – ‘til we’re 90.

Is it obvious when a song belongs with Magic!, as opposed to with another artist. Is that how you write?

As a songwriter, I am able to separate myself personally when writing or people. With some songs I wrote them from a place, and later sold them, and others I would be with an artist and help complement what they wanted – just be there to help with their idea. But with the band, well, we are like a proper band – we sit there in our underwear writing songs, we live and eat together. We just created a band.

Obviously your experience will be a great help in establishing the band, but are you worried some of the more pop connections might be detrimental?

I think nobody knew who I was as a songwriter when this single came out – they just liked the song. In my experience, as a music-maker, it just matters about the music. It doesn’t matter if I was a big songwriter, or a teacher the day before [it came out]. There are so many big songwriters that then try to be recording artists, and it doesn’t work – either because they don’t write the right song, or they’re just not artists. We found an artistic place together as four people, and people seem to be able to separate this. They might not like a Justin Bieber song, but people get it, they’re smart. We weren’t even sure whether we would mention those songs, but you can’t shy away from your achievements. It’s only been positive. People, deep down, love Justin Bieber.

Were the songs for the album written over a number of years?

One of them is about four years old, which was a hook idea, but all the rest were written in the past year.

We’ve only heard Rude so far. Does the album swing far from that track, stylistically speaking?

I’d say it’s a forest of about four trees [laughs]. There’s a cohesive element that brings it all together, not every song sounds like Rude obviously, but I think people who fall in love with the first song will hear that same thing in the other songs, too.

Were you expecting the single to hit so quickly?

Yes. We were hoping and projecting, but actually having that success… We’re confident, we knew Rude was a hit, because the people we worked with were really great, and we worked really hard on it, and it had that feeling: ‘This could be a hit song.” Are we surprised it happened so fast? Yes. I mean, four days and it’s everywhere – that’s nuts. But are we surprised it’s working? No. We made it to work.

 This article (and numerous others) feature in the Australian Music Industry Quarterly – out now. To get a copy delivered to you for $9.95, click here.