Bruno Mars wrote and produced nearly all of his smash 2010 debut with the Smeezingtons, his tightknit studio crew. But when it came time to cut a follow-up, he decided to mix things up. “We took some master chefs into the kitchen with no master plan,” says the singer, 27. “It was either going to be a disaster, or we were going to come out with something incredible.”
Starting last fall, Mars recruited a team of A-list producers including Jeff Bhasker, who has crafted megahits for Kanye West, BeyoncĂ© and fun.; Paul Epworth, the man behind Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”; and Amy Winehouse collaborator Mark Ronson. “I was in Zanzibar on my honeymoon when I got this call: ‘Do you want to meet Bruno?'” says Ronson. “I was only kind of familiar with his music, but we met up in London a month later and he won me over. I found out what a phenomenal talent he is.”
As of mid-October, Mars and his team were still making final tweaks to Unorthodox Jukebox, due out December 11th. At Levcon Studios, located in a rough corner of Hollywood, the Smeezingtons’ Ari Levine cues up a few new tracks as he hurriedly e-mails a batch of final mixes for the album to Mars, who is still hanging out in Manhattan after hosting Saturday Night Live. “Bruno’s a perfectionist,” Levine says. READ MORE
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