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Greg Wells

William Gregory Wells, who goes by Greg Wells, is a Canadian multiple Grammy
Greg Wells
nominated musician, songwriter and record producer[1] based in Los Angeles. Wells
has songs on over 90 million units sold. He has produced and written with Adele,
Dua Lipa, Keith Urban, Twenty One Pilots, Grace VanderWaal, Rufus Wainwright,
Katy Perry, Mayer Hawthorne, Theophilus London, Weezer, Kid Cudi, , Kelsea
Ballerini, OneRepublic, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Pharrell Williams,
Rascal Flatts, Holychild, Ella Eyre, The All American Rejects, Otep, Deftones,
Aerosmith, Burt Bacharach, Celine Dion, Crash Test Dummies,[2][3] Elton John, Jars
of Clay, and the Count Basie Orchestra.

As a musician there are feature articles about Wells as a drummer in Modern Wells in 2011
Drummer,[4] as a pianist in Keyboard Magazine, as a synth programmer in Background information
Electronic Musician, as a songwriter in American Songwriter and Billboard Birth name William Gregory
Magazine, and as a producer, mix engineer, and music maker is featured on the Wells
cover of Mix Magazine with Ryan Tedder in the May 2017 edition.
Origin Peterborough,
Wells has designed a signature series of software plugins with Waves Audio and is a Ontario, Canada
member of the Mix with the Masters program based in France. Genres Rock, pop,
classical, jazz
Occupation(s) Record producer,
songwriter,
Contents musician, mix
Early life engineer
Career Instruments Piano, organ,
Awards keyboard,
Personal life synthesizer, drums,
percussion, guitar,
Selected recording, performance and production credits
bass
References
External links
Website GregWells.net

Early life
Wells grew up in the small city of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, the son of a United Church of Canada minister.[5] At age 11, he
developed Perthes' disease and was unable to walk for two years. Wells attended Adam Scott CVI,[6] learned to play several
instruments,[4] and joined many musical ensembles in his hometown from the local orchestra to club bands to being a church
organist/choir director, as well as DJ-ing dances and running a weekly radio show on Trent University Radio CFFF-FM. He studied
classical piano, drums, pipe organ, orchestral percussion and music theory at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Musicand attended the
Humber College Jazz Music Program in Toronto on drums, piano, and guitar.[4]

Career
After moving to Toronto at age 17, Wells worked as a live and studio musician with some jazz, classical, and pop musicians,
including Rob McConnell and Kim Mitchell.[7] He joined the Kim Mitchell Band at age 19. He recorded keyboards and backing
vocals on Mitchell's, Rockland, toured Canada several times with the band, and won the award for best keyboardist at the Toronto
Music Awards as a result of his work with Mitchell.

Wells was awarded a Canada Council arts grant to study with composer and arranger Clare Fischer in Los Angeles.[4] He moved to
Los Angeles at age 21 with the intention of returning to Canada, but Fischer began recommending Wells for studio work as a pianist.
Wells joined k.d. lang's band soon afterward,[3] performing with her on the 1993 Grammy Awards where she won Best Pop Female
Vocal.

Working with the support of music manager Miles Copeland and music publisher Barbara Vander Linde at Rondor Music, Wells
started producing records and writing songs. His first recorded song as a songwriter was with Aerosmith on Nine Lives, which was
followed by "The Reason" on Celine Dion's album, Let's Talk About Love. Wells continued to branch out, producing Rufus
Wainwright and Otep. Songwriter Kara DioGuardi started collaborating with Wells in 2003 and partnered with him in several pop
projects. Wells then produced, mixed and played most of the instruments onMika's debut album.

In 2007, Wells produced both Timbaland's and OneRepublic's version of the song, "Apologize". Wells began working with Katy
Perry and has written and produced on all of her albums.[8] The two continue to collaborate in 2015 as Perry performed "By the
Grace of God", penned by Perry and Wells, at the 2015 Grammy Awards.

Awards
Wells has received two Grammy nominations for his work with Katy Perry and Mika. Wells received the prestigious Pensado Giant
Award at the 2017 Pensado Awards for achievements in the field of record-making. Wells was nominated as producer of the year at
the 2000 Canadian Juno Awards.[9] In June 2015, Wells was awarded an honorary degree from his alma mater music college, Humber
College in Toronto.

Personal life
Wells is married to Swedish songwriter Nina Woodford. He has five children. He works out of his studio in Los Angeles that he built
called Rocket Carousel Studio.

Selected recording, performance and production credits


Y 21. 35 million units sold.[10]
Adele - "One and Only" on Adele's worldwide No. 1 Grammy winning Album of theear,
Twenty One Pilots - produced and mixedTwenty One Pilots platinum album Vessel[4]
Keith Urban - produced and co-wrote No. 1 smash country hit Wasted
" Time"
Katy Perry - performed By the Grace of God, cowritten and produced by Wells, at the 2015 Grammy Awards;
produced her US Top 10 single "Waking Up in Vegas"; produced/co-wrote with Perry U " r So Gay", and produced/co-
wrote "Not Like The Movies" performed live by Katy and Wells at the 2011 Grammy Awards.
OneRepublic - produced worldwide No. 1 hit A " pologize", both the Timbaland remix released first and the
OneRepublic original version.[11]
Mika - produced, mixed, and played electric guitar
, drums and bass guitar on Mika's chart-topping debut single
"Grace Kelly" from the album Life in Cartoon Motion

References
1. GRAMMY.com (http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/)
2. James H. Marsh (1999).The Canadian Encyclopedia(https://books.google.com/books?id=wR_-aSFyvuYC&pg=P
A5
83). The Canadian Encyclopedia. pp. 583–. ISBN 978-0-7710-2099-5.
3. Larry LeBlanc (27 February 1999)."Dummies Hand In their Latest Set"(https://books.google.com/books?id=AQ4EA
AAAMBAJ&pg=PA21). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.: 18–21.ISSN 0006-2510 (https://www.worldcat.org/is
sn/0006-2510).
4. "Features: Greg Wells" (https://www.moderndrummer.com/article/july-2016-greg-wells/). Modern Drummer, Stephen
Belans, July 2016.
5. "Musician returns to church that seeded career"(http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2016/03/06/musician-ret
urns-to-church-that-seeded-career). Peterborough Examiner, By Jessica Nyznik, March 7, 2016
6. "Peterborough’s music pedigree a secret no more" (https://www.mykawartha.com/news-story/5200191-peterborough
-s-music-pedigree-a-secret-no-more/). My Kawartha, Dec 12, 2014 by Paul Rellinger.
7. Larry LeBlanc (27 February 1999)."Dummies Hand In their Latest Set"(https://books.google.com/books?id=AQ4EA
AAAMBAJ&pg=PA21). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.: 18–21la.ISSN 0006-2510 (https://www.worldcat.org/i
ssn/0006-2510).
8. Jo Berry (31 March 2011).Katy Perry: California Gurl(https://books.google.com/books?id=N-MzAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT
29). Orion Publishing Group. pp. 29–.ISBN 978-1-4091-3362-9.
9. Larry LeBlanc (February 12, 2000)."Morissette leads Canada's Juno nomination list"(https://books.google.com/book
s?id=4Q0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.: 45–.ISSN 0006-2510 (https://www.worl
dcat.org/issn/0006-2510).
10. Belmont and Belcourt Biographies (March 2012).Adele: An Unauthorized Biography(https://books.google.com/book
s?id=Rzbx_Ws1TPAC&pg=PT16). Price World Publishing. pp. 16–.ISBN 978-1-61984-065-2.
11. Billboard.com delivers Music Chart Coverage- Find Digital Music Charts
(http://billboard.com/bbcom/chart_beat/bonu
s.jsp) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20090520053315/http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/chart_beat/bonus.js
p) May 20, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.

External links
Official website
Wells interviewed in Electronic Musician Magazine, Dec 2011
Wells interviewed in American Songwriter, Nov 2011
Wells interviewed in NY Times article
Interview, HitQuarters Feb 2009

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ells&oldid=824915101"

This page was last edited on 10 February 2018, at 09:24.

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