THR: She’s credited as a co-writer on most songs from Born This Way, what percentage of the songwriting would you say she’s responsible for?
Garibay: She doesn't need anyone to write a hit song. A lot of times, it’s 100% her. She's generous enough to give the producers who worked on this album a percentage of the songwriting for the production and whatever contributions we gave in arrangement or a few lyrical suggestions here and there.
THR: What kind of steps were taken to avoid a leak of the record as it was in progress?
Garibay: Extreme steps. We were on the road for a year and two months, so there were so many hack attempts to our email accounts, our Twitter accounts, our Facebook accounts, everything around us. We were targets. So what we did was make sure all our computers were offline all the time -- none of our work computers were online at any time. And we were very careful about where we left our hard drives and storage devices. They pretty much never left our sight.
It's unfair for one of your sketches to be released when it's just a sketch. To do it justice is to release a complete piece of art. So under those guidelines, we were really cautious about how we created this album, like how we couldn't sacrifice creativity, and we wouldn't sacrifice security, either … It's funny because now being off the tour, I should feel lighter because I'm used to carrying all my stuff with me. It’s like carrying a wallet, it became such a part of us.
THR: What was the process of editing all these disparate parts together?
Garibay: For every song, we averaged about 50 versions on the high side, because she was that much of a perfectionist. She wanted to give the best product possible to her fans. I would compare it to working on five albums at once. It was so much work, I didn’t sleep for a month, I would just take naps. And when she wasn't happy with any of the versions and she wanted to start over, I had to be the one to do it. It happened quite a few times -- it had to go through all those versions to evolve into the final product. Because in her head, it's like, "I want to hear the full rock version, I want to hear the full dance version, I want to hear the full techno version, I want to hear the full New Wave version." And once she hears and sees all the colors that she's working with, she can finally help paint that final picture. That's how it works. You can't get to the final point in her head without sketching each individual painting or trying each individual color. That way you know what the possibilities are.
THR: A lot has been written of the mobile recording units you used while Gaga was on the road, how many set-ups did you have and how did you maintain consistency?
Fernando Garibay: Basically, she's constantly working, so we have to keep up. If she has an idea, we need to be there to capture those moments, so we had every setup possible — we had laptops where we could go backstage and record something on the spot and we had a bigger set up in the studio bus. When we needed to isolate vocals, we’d record in there, it felt more quiet. Then eventually when we actually made a stop somewhere for several days, we'd go into a real studio and flesh out these ideas. It reminded me of those documentaries with mega bands from the '70s like Pink Floyd, who would record in these big studio sessions. It felt like that. It felt like we were creating something really special.
THR: Vocals in echo-prone rooms backstage hardly seems like an ideal recording situation…
Garibay: Her voice is so powerful, you can pretty much capture it with anything, whether a laptop or a mic. It's funny, even vocals recorded off her laptop with the GarageBand mic we ended up using on the album. Sometimes we sacrifice quality for performance because there's a magic moment where the vocal sounds just right. We worked very hard at repairing anything that needed to be repaired sonically.
THR: Can you tell us a bit about how Mutt Lange got involved in the ballad “You and I?”
Garibay: It was near the end of the album and we were on such a time deadline. But she was so busy starting to promote the album, the concerts, still being on tour, doing press, it was insane, so she literally had to record the vocal with a piano live backstage. We sent whatever parts we had to Mutt Lange and there was no time for her to fly out or anything like that. I remember Mutt writing us back and saying, "The vocal's perfect." Considering Mutt Lange is one of the best vocal producers on the planet…
THR: You hold a staff position at Interscope, how does that work and are you producing other artists?
Garibay: I am in-house at Interscope and she's my priority. It's like this: once you work with someone like Lady Gaga, it's hard to come off that. First of all, I love her so much, but also, what else could I do that would fulfill me as much as working with her? Not much right now. So I want to focus on the DJ aspect of things, and working on some music that I always wanted to do.
THR: And how did you come to take on the title of Gaga’s musical director?
Garibay: She needed someone that could oversee, who was kind of like an A&R but more about implementing exactly what needs to happen -- whether it involved writing a song with her, to produce a record with her, or just to make sure the vocals are done right. She just came up with the whole musical director thing, and I was, like, "Cool, you want to make me responsible for the biggest artist on the planet and turn this record in, right? That's what you're asking me to do?" What an honor. We made it work. We finished.
