“Believe in your passion. Believe in your power. Believe in being stubborn.”
Diane Warren is considered one of the most prolific and successful contemporary songwriters of our time. She has had over a hundred songs on the Top Ten charts and has written for Aerosmith, Elton John, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Eric Clapton, and Mary J. Blige, among many other domestic and international artists. To date, Warren’s songs have been nominated for four Golden Globes, six Academy Awards, and nine Grammys, and she was the recipient of the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard’s inaugural Film and TV Music Career Achievement Award in 2008. She has been named ASCAP’s Songwriter of the Year six times, Billboard’s Songwriter of the Year four times, was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her company, Realsongs Music Publishing, established in 1986, is one of the top five music-publishing corporations and is the most successful female-owned and -operated business in the music industry. She also has created the Diane Warren Foundation to support philanthropic causes dedicated to the support of animal rights and protection, and enriching the lives of the elderly and people suffering from life-threatening illnesses, along with music-related charities. (www.realsongs.com)
The Interview
When I met Diane at a dinner in Los Angeles, I knew she had written almost every romantic ballad that I’d ever loved, and I had been a fan of hers for ages. I actually had no real idea of the scope of her work, though. I realized this later when I experienced her website, which has a unique sampling of her vast repertoire of songs. The range of the artists that have recorded and are recording her songs is truly mind-boggling! Diane is extremely down to earth, with a funny, dry wit and a million great stories. We finally fit our interview in between her recording sessions in Los Angeles a year after we met.
