Melo Nada on the Music Industry, Shy Collaborators, and Why the Alesis 3630 Still Wins

Chances are you've already heard Melo Nada’s work, just under someone else's name. He spent years writing and producing songs that you’ve heard on radio, festival stages, and in clubs, and a long list of TikTok tracks you'd recognize from your For You page. In 2024, he walked away from all of it. Now he’s free to write a song on Monday and upload it on Thursday if he feels like it. No management, no marketing meetings, no PR campaign pretending an influencer wrote it. Last summer, his single "bambam" turned into one of the most-used sounds on Instagram, and he hasn't slowed down since. In July, he'll play Ministry of Sound alongside San Holo and DROELOE.

We caught up with him to talk about the ghost-producing industry, why the shyest people make the best collaborators, and his new single "Stop Me Now", featuring k8 Smurf. It's out on bitbird, an independent label for a producer who's done playing the music industry's game.

Q: Melo Nada is a relatively new project, started in 2024, but you've been in the music industry for a while now, ghost-producing for some of the biggest names in the industry (Lana Del Rey, A$AP Rocky, Interplanetary Criminal, and more). What was that world actually like?

A: Hi! I'm Cian, 27 y/o Irish producer/DJ ninja, but you can call me Melo. Yup, I used to ghost produce for some big names in the US and UK, and ghost-produced a lot of lesser-known TikTok influencers (and even a famous actor or two, haha). It was fun, for the most part. I think audiences are used to assuming that most artists, big and small, wrote and produced their own music, but that's rarely the case. Even some artists (cough) who are famous for writing and producing themselves… don't. That's usually the result of a PR campaign to make people think so. It's a craaazy world in 2026.

Nowadays, influencers who want to become singers or DJs employ ghost producers to kickstart their career. How do I feel about it? It's a weird one. When I started, I was a little uncomfortable with it, then worked my way up the ladder a bit, then decided: YUP, THIS IS STILL WEIRD!

Maybe it was my morals kicking in. Or maybe it was the fact that you don't actually make a lot of cash ghost-writing, hahaha. Anyway, fuggg it, it is what it is. It was kinda boring, honestly, because you're making music for other people's tastes. I'm having waaay more fun just releasing my own tunes and not having to fake it all the time.

Q: What was the actual tipping point that made you decide to step out from behind the scenes?

A: I realised how fake the music biz was. Conspiracy alert blehhh! There's what the audience believes, and then there's the truth. I think a lot of producers should stop producing for fake artists and start being the artists themselves. The ghost musicians are the real talent a lot of the time. Shy. Honest. Reluctant. Real ones, take your equal percentages! Equal royalties and equal credits. Make that project a collab! We need a better workers' union, like SAG for actors. Ghost producer strike, haha.

Q: Your first two releases "bambam" and "London i love u but ur bringing me down" went viral almost immediately. Does it feel different when it's your name on the work rather than someone else's?

A: Feels goooood! I can make and release songs way faster without having to go through an artist's management and label and marketing team. It's just: make a tune on Monday, upload it on Thursday kinda situation. Free flow state. How it should be. And my bank account feels better too, teehee.

Q: Can you walk us through the original idea for "Stop Me Now" and how it evolved into the version we hear now?

A: I wrote it with my voice and synth, like I usually do. Sent it to my friend back home, Katie Murphy; she sang it into her phone (shout out iPhone compression), sent it back, lickity split, done in one day. Spent around two days mixing and mastering, though. I wanted it to shlappp.

Q: How did you and k8 Smurf first connect, and what made her the right person for this track?

A: She just gets it. Friends since college (or "uni," as they say in England). She's a G. Ireland is comin' up, huh? I send her all my music first. Anyone who is camera shy and doesn't want to be famous, THAT's the person to sing on your songs. Shy homies unite!

Q: You recorded the track on an analog desk using the Alesis 3630 compressor famously used by Daft Punk. What were you going for? Let's chat gear.

A: The 3630 just has this amazing snap right after the initial transient, once the signal goes through its threshold. Plugin developers have been trying to mimic that vibe for years and none have succeeded. People call it ducking, but in a way it's more of a midrange bump: like you're automating the gain for a millisecond into the red. I'd also like to shout out the Fairchild 670 (the UAD version). That shit is sooo good for slappy-happy smackin'.

Q: Since stepping into your own project, what have you learned about yourself that you didn't know when you were working from behind the scenes? Where do you see Melo Nada going?

A: I quit my job, so I just make tunes all day now. I didn't know I could make four songs a day, but there ya have it. Gonna be DJ'ing live a lot soon too. I'd like to release so much more music, but DSP upload times really slow that down.

Where do I see Melo going? More collabs. More DJ gigs. I'm a massssssive pop music obsessive, so you can definitely expect more of my pop songs coming out soon, but good ones, not whack ones. I don't believe in making just one genre. That's dumb. That's so "self-aware" branding, lame imo. Those days of the music biz are over. There's way more freedom now, no rules. After all, life is more than just one genre or one emotion. Life is more than one look. Get the London look. Get the wet look. Get lucky. Get outta town. Ok, bye.

Get it on Beatport