Along with with former Evanescence member David Hodges, hip-hop producer Salaam Remi (Amy Winehouse), and Claude Kelly (Leona Lewis, Akon), Idol winner, Kris Allen is collaborating with songwriter and guitarist, Joe King from The Fray on his upcoming post-Idol debut album.
Last weekend, Kris flew to Virginia Beach, VA to work in the studio for a few days with King where they demoed a song. All it took for the two to get together was an email from Kris to King, who immediately answered yes.
King spoke with MTV about what it was like to work with Kris.
“I’m literally in the studio mixing the rough demo right now, ” King said via telephone from Toronto (the Fray just began the first leg of their North American tour). “It doesn’t have a title yet. It doesn’t even have lyrics ‘ but there is a lot of gibberish.”
King said there wasn’t any romance to how they got together ‘ he simply responded “Yes” to Allen’s e-mail. “I didn’t even see most of the show because we were on tour in Europe and Australia, ” he explained. “But I found out he won when we got back and I saw he did ‘Heartless, ‘ so I was aware of him when he contacted me.”
“It was a very good vibe in the studio. There was no pressure ‘ we just had breakfast, got to know each other, ” King said. “It was all very organic after that.” Though they recorded in Timbaland’s studio, the super-producer wasn’t present during the sessions. “But Timbaland’s brother was there along with his crew, and it added this great energy to the session. When the boys heard the track, they started hanging around.” King was happy to get some feedback from an outside source, as well as receiving a killer compliment. “Timbaland’s brother said if Timbaland was upstairs and he heard this melody, he’d walk in the studio and say, ‘That’s a melody.’ ”
Above all, it was fun. “At the end of the session, we cranked up ‘Bounce’ in the studio and got down, ” he said. “They’re following Kris’ progress on film, so there’s video of us white boys shaking it to Timbaland songs in his studio, which I hope doesn’t get out there.”
