{"id":37483,"date":"2025-09-10T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/?p=37483"},"modified":"2025-09-10T18:18:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T22:18:30","slug":"julian-bunetta-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/julian-bunetta-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Bunetta talks songwriting, One Direction, and the &#8220;Espresso&#8221; loop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Few songwriters have made a mark on the world of pop music like Julian Bunetta.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>From Sabrina Carpenter&#8217;s &#8220;Espresso&#8221; to One Direction&#8217;s &#8220;Story of My Life,&#8221; Julian Bunetta has played a role in writing many of pop music&#8217;s biggest hits over the last 20 years, with his songs amassing around 30 billion streams and multiple GRAMMY nominations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/37i9dQZF1EFKDE82IhbdrZ?si=ca139ea539e6418e\" width=\"100%\" height=\"80\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Bunetta shares with us that the key to reaching his caliber as a songwriter isn&#8217;t about ego or even technical ability, but rather an unyielding commitment to doing what&#8217;s best for the song at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My personal ethos is that you just serve the song and serve the artist; I\u2019m not trying to serve my brand,&#8221; he tells us. &#8220;Whatever your brand is, it\u2019s probably going to be dead in 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, because you will be too. But, what <em>does<\/em> live on is a song. A song lives so far beyond the creator\u2019s life, and so far beyond the brand of the person. In a hundred years, &#8216;I Will Always Love You&#8217; will still be here. In a thousand years, it&#8217;ll still be here. Even when people don\u2019t know who Dolly or Whitney are, they\u2019ll know the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The only thing that matters is a great song, and whatever means it takes to get there. If it&#8217;s you taking a month and crafting it note by note, word by word, or putting ideas for lyrics into ChatGPT, it doesn\u2019t matter. You just make the best possible song, and that will live on and cut through time and space\u2014and everything else, to me, personally, is irrelevant. That&#8217;s it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Join us for our full interview with Bunetta above, where we discuss everything from how he learned <a href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/how-to-write-a-song\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">how to write songs<\/a> and the stories behind his most memorable sessions to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w8zGxOpoytI&amp;t=1362s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">his athletic talents as a producer.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What was your favorite moment from the conversation? Who would you like to see featured on our next episode? Start a conversation with us and an ever-growing community of music creators via <a href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Splice Discord,<\/a> and subscribe to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@splice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Splice YouTube channel<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/tag\/ctrlb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more installments of <em>Ctrl+B<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Explore royalty-free sounds from leading artists, producers, and sound designers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button aligncenter\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/sounds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Join Splice today<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GRAMMY-nominated songwriter Julian Bunetta (One Direction, Teddy Swims) discusses how he got started, the stories behind his biggest hits, and more. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":37486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1694,1692,49],"tags":[1882,1307,524,918],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Julian Bunetta Talks Songwriting, One Direction, and More - Blog | Splice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Julian Bunetta (One Direction, Teddy Swims) discusses how he got started, the stories behind his biggest hits, and more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/julian-bunetta-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Julian Bunetta Talks Songwriting, One Direction, and More - Blog | Splice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Julian Bunetta (One Direction, Teddy Swims) discusses how he got started, the stories behind his biggest hits, and more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/julian-bunetta-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blog | Splice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Splice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-10T21:32:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-10T22:18:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0825-CTRLB-Julian-Blog_BlogPost-1024x640.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harrison Shimazu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/bitly.com\/namaboku-twt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@splice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Harrison Shimazu\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/julian-bunetta-interview\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/julian-bunetta-interview\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Harrison Shimazu\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1ed73f890efad66c4808440680e9e50d\"},\"headline\":\"Julian Bunetta talks songwriting, One Direction, and the &#8220;Espresso&#8221; 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