About

Songwriter, producer, engineer and drummer Marti Frederiksen has had his fingers in some of the best hits of the last decade, co-writing “Jaded” by Aerosmith, “Undo It” by Carrie Underwood, “Sorry” by Buckcherry, and “Love Remains the Same” by Gavin Rossdale. You wouldn’t guess it from those rough-edge tracks, but Marti was a 10th grade choir boy. It didn’t last.

“The teacher was assigning parts and handing parts out, and I was waiting for the others to pick it up.” As usual, Marti was restless, and that drives his ideas. He could hear the big picture, pick out the possibilities, and create new harmonies. “So I started making up new parts and singing them.” The teacher caught on, and she didn’t have much patience for a childhood prodigy rearranging the score. “It got me kicked out of choir.”

But that was OK. Marti had other things going on, playing drums in a garage band and writing originals when he was only 15. “I thought we were the next big thing.”

Three of Marti’s LA-area bands landed record deals, and that led Marti to producing. Soon he was with Virgin Records co-writing and producing for the Southern rock-tinged Brother Cane, including two songs that reached No. 1 in the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts.