Quick Facts
Biography
Greg Wells is a Canadian musician, record producer and songwriter based in Los Angeles. Wells has songs on over 85 million units sold. He has produced and written with Katy Perry, Grace VanderWaal, Keith Urban, Adele, Mayer Hawthorne, Dua Lipa, Holychild, Ella Eyre, Rufus Wainwright, Twenty One Pilots, OneRepublic, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, Pharrell Williams, Theophilus London, Weezer, Kid Cudi, The All American Rejects, Otep, Deftones, Aerosmith, Burt Bacharach, Celine Dion, Crash Test Dummies, Elton John, Jars of Clay, and the Count Basie Orchestra.
Career highlights
- Adele
- "One and Only" on Adele's worldwide #1 Grammy winning Album of the Year, 21. 35 million units sold.
- Twenty One Pilots
- produced and mixed Twenty One Pilots platinum album Vessel
- Katy Perry
- Perry performed By the Grace of God, cowritten and produced by Wells, on the 2015 Grammy Awards featuring an introduction from U.S. President Barack Obama, targeting domestic violence against women. Wells and Perry are frequent collaborators. Wells produced her US Top 10 single "Waking Up in Vegas", produced/co-wrote with Perry "Ur So Gay", and produced/co-wrote "Not Like The Movies" performed live by Katy and Wells at the 2011 Grammy Awards.
- Keith Urban
- produced and co-wrote #1 smash country hit "Wasted Time"
- OneRepublic
- produced worldwide #1 hit "Apologize". Wells produced both hit versions, the Timbaland remix released first and then the OneRepublic original version, making it one of the most successful selling and charting songs of all time. "Apologize" has sold in excess of 10 million singles worldwide & stayed at #1 for eight consecutive weeks on Billboard's Pop 100. "Apologize" is now the second-highest legally downloaded song in US digital history. "Apologize" is number 50 on the definitive list of the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Songs from the chart's first 50 years, August 1958 through July 2008; achieving this status after spending 25 consecutive weeks in the top 10.
- Mika
- produced, mixed, and played piano, electric guitar, drums and bass guitar on Mika's blockbuster #1 debut single "Grace Kelly" from the album "Life in Cartoon Motion" which sold six million copies. "Life in Cartoon Motion" remained at #1 on the European album charts for two months consecutively.
Biography
Wells grew up in the rural town of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. At age 11, he developed Perthes' disease and was unable to walk for two years. The son of a United Church of Canada minister, the multi-instrumentalist 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 Music and attended the Humber College Jazz Music Program in Toronto on drums, piano, and guitar. After moving to Toronto at age 17, he soon became engrossed in the city's music scene as a live and studio musician working with some of Canada's top jazz, classical, and pop musical talent like Rob McConnell and Kim Mitchell. He joined the Kim Mitchell Band at age 19. He recorded keyboards and backing vocals on Mitchell's double platinum album 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. 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, 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 blockbuster album Let's Talk About Love that sold 31 million albums worldwide. Wells continued to branch out, producing critically acclaimed artists Rufus Wainwright and Otep. Hit songwriter Kara DioGuardi started collaborating with Wells in 2003 and invited him to partner in her mainstream pop projects. This led to label boss Tommy Mottola calling Wells to produce his brand new artist Mika, who went on to sell 6 million albums on his debut record with Wells producing, mixing, and playing most of the instruments. In 2007, Wells produced both Timbaland's and OneRepublic's version of the song Apologize which went on to become one of the biggest hits in the history of radio. Wells began working with Katy Perry and has written and produced on every one of her albums. The two continue to collaborate in 2015 as Perry performed "By the Grace of God" from her hit album Prism on the 2015 Grammy Awards, penned by Perry and Wells.
In June 2015, Wells was awarded an honorary degree from his alma mater music college, Humber College in Toronto.
Wells is married to Swedish songwriter Nina Woodford and has five children. He works out of his studio in Los Angeles that he built called Rocket Carousel Studio.