Interview/Song Premiere: The Ready Set on "Give Me Your Hand (Best Song Ever)"

Although many in the scene already consider him a star, THE READY SET a.k.a. Jordan Witzigreuter is primed to become a household name in the mainstream as well. With a new album expected out later this year on Warner Bros., the 22 year-old artist will be pumping out inspired party anthems regardless of the instrumentation—and as you’ll read, Witzigreuter isn’t even sure whether the finished product will be a full-on dance album, a rock album or some amalgamation of the two. The first single, “Give Me Your Hand (Best Song Ever),” is decidedly the former, however, having the makings of a future Top 40 hit. Witzigreuter spoke to AP about the new single (exclusively streaming below) and the nebulous nature of his new album.

INTERVIEW: Bryne Yancey

How far along are you with this new record? It seems like the process thus far has been sporadic.
JORDAN WITZIGREUTER: I would say it’s probably a third of the way done, it’s hard to really judge at this point. I have about 25 songs written and a bunch more I’ve been working on this week, but I’m just gonna keep writing for the majority of the summer, then narrow it down to the best 12 to 15 songs. It has been sporadic; there’s been a lot of flying out to California on off time and writing new tracks, and doing new tracks on the bus or in airports so it’s never really been like a set amount of time to just go into the studio and work on the album—just a day here and a day there. It’s kind of fun that way, but definitely busy.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of recording in that fashion as opposed to a more traditional approach?
I think an advantage would be you get a day or two to work on a song then weeks to think about it, come back to it, then maybe have a whole new perspective on it. Whereas if you’re in the studio every day doing things over and over again, you can kind of trick yourself into thinking things are bad or good. You hear something so many times and you start to get used to it. The cool thing about the way I do stuff is if something inspires me, I can just sit down at my computer and this little keyboard I travel with and do a really quick demo to get the idea across.

So I’m guessing there’s no title or release date yet for the album.
I’m gonna guess early fall, but those kinds of things always get moved. I usually make plans and find out that three weeks before something gets changed. I’m hoping for fall, but we’ll see how long until I’m happy with the end result.

What sort of instrumentation are you using this time around? Is there anything different about it, or is it more of the same, just better?
I would hope that it’s better. I feel like I’ve gotten better, and I’ve been practicing doing programming and stuff in the past year. With electronic music, a lot of it is just learning to incorporate different sounds you might not normally think of. That alone gets you to include a little more organic stuff, maybe some live drums, some live guitar to give it a rawer feel. But for the most part, it’s just a lot of electronic stuff. If a song lends itself to something different—like live instruments—then that’d be the way to go, and I’m definitely for keeping things as open as possible. For all I know, there could end up being a complete rock song on the album.

Are there gonna be any special guests on the album? Anything you can reveal?
I’m working on that; I really want some and there’s a few I have in mind. It’s just a matter of getting the wheels in motion after you have an idea, what with the other person and their team and finding the time for them to do it, going back and forth with sounds and stuff. Everyone’s always so busy that it’s hard to do. But I think there’s a couple cool options out there, and if I could, I’d like to have two features on the album, maybe like a cool singer or a rap part or something.

How long has “Give Me Your Hand (Best Song Ever)” been in the works?
I finished the song probably four months ago, in January. I think we’ve gone back and forth with the mixes; we’ve had about 20 mixes of the song that have gone back and forth between me and my friend Andrew Goldstein who produced it with me, plus my management and label and everything. But I think we’re finally happy with the outcome and I’m excited about it. We started playing it on the last tour with Breathe Carolina and it was probably the most fun, energetic song I’ve done in that setting. It’s a blast live. I’m excited to get it out there, have people hear the actual recording and see where it goes. alt