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Sia dishes on writing sessions with Beyoncé

Klaudia//December 5, 2015
Sia Furler's forthcoming album, This Is Acting (due January 29th), has a novel concept: It's full of songs rejected by A-list artists. Furler has been successfully writing for music's biggest names, from Adele to Beyoncé, since she crossed over to writing pop music around five years ago, after solidifying herself as a Top 40 artist with her hit single "Chandelier." "I feel like they're hits, but nobody wanted them," she says of the tracks on the new LP, which have been written during the last few years. "So I thought, 'Let's see, as an experiment, if I'm right.'"

In anticipation of the album, Furler spoke in depth with Rolling Stone about pop music, her productivity and on becoming her clients' "bitch" in the studio.

What song or songs feel the most Sia to you? Which ones are you most connected with?
"One Million Bullets" is my baby. I had seller's remorse with "Bird Set Free" every time it went away and then came back. First it went to Rihanna and then it was returned. Then it went to Adele, and Adele cut it and sounded amazing on it. Then it was returned. The truth is that we wrote "Bird Set Free" for Pitch Perfect 2. They rejected it and took another song of ours called "Flashlight." That become a big thing through the movie, but I could not believe they rejected "Bird Set Free" because to me it was such a big, anthemic, fun, sing-along-in-the-car song. I felt seller's remorse. I had grief. I feel connected to that song. I feel connected to a song called "Footprints." That was a Beyoncé reject that I wrote in the Hamptons a couple years ago. I feel really connected to one song that I actually decided to leave off the album because I wanted to use it in the movie I'm directing next May. And I really like "Cheap Thrills" because I think it's fun. Those are the ones I actually feel most connected to, but the truth is I can't even remember the track listing because I've taken off songs, picked up another one so many times, I actually don't even know. I like one called "Broken Glass." That's another one, but I think that might only be a bonus track.

Besides Adele and Beyoncé, who else were some of the songs intentionally written for?
Mostly we've been pitching on Rihanna for the last couple years because she's been looking for a couple years. Well, it feels like a couple years. It might be one year. They're always looking for that first single. I didn't send as much to Beyoncé, though I do know she's working on something. One of them is a Shakira reject, which there's no doubt when you hear it. You'll know that it was a Shakira reject because I sound like Shakira.

Oh, yeah! There is a Beyonce reject on there. It's one of my favorite songs, actually. I really like it. We did that in the Hamptons session we did years ago for the most recent album she did. I got "Pretty Hurts" from that album, but originally I wrote 25 songs for it while we were in the Hamptons and one made the record. Isn't that amazing?

Did you write with her?
The process is like a writing camp, essentially. She flies us all in and puts us all up. We all live in a house together — like five producers and five topline writers. She visits each room and will contribute and let us know what she's feeling and what she's not feeling. Lyrically, melodically, anything. She's very Frankenstein when she comes to songs. She'll say, "I like the verse from that. I like the pre-chorus from that. Can you try mixing it with that?" In the end, she had maybe 25 songs of mine on hold, and I was very excited to get a couple of them back. Definitely one is on the album.