David Jost (born August 12, 1972) is a German music producer, singer-songwriter, and DJ born in Hamburg. His career has a track record of 74 platinum, 108 gold records, and 14 No. 1 hits. He's worked with artists like

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her image reinventions and versatility across the entertainment industry, she is an influ ...

Chris Brown Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. A Pop music, pop and hip-hop-influenced contemporary R&B, R&B musician who works in a variety of genres, he has been called the "Honorific nic ...

, Tokio Hotel,

Limp Bizkit Limp Bizkit is an American nu metal band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of lead vocalist Fred Durst, drummer John Otto (drummer), John Otto, guitarist Wes Borland, turntablist DJ Lethal and bassist Sam Rivers (bassist), Sam ...

Selena Gomez Selena Marie Gomez ( ; born July 22, 1992) is an American actress, singer, songwriter, producer, and businesswoman. Gomez began her career as a child actress, appearing on the children's television series ''Barney & Friends'' (2002–2004), a ...

Nelly Furtado Nelly Kim Furtado ( , ; born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She has sold over 45 million records, including 35 million in album sales worldwide, making her one of the most successful Canadian artists. Critics have noted ...

Keri Hilson Keri Lynn Hilson (born December 5, 1982) is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Decatur, Georgia, she began her musical career as a songwriter and backing vocalist for other artists under the wing of record producer Anthony De ...

, Aura Dione, and

Adam Lambert Adam Mitchel Lambert (born January 29, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter and actor. He is known for his dynamic vocal performances that combine his theatrical training with modern and classic genres. Lambert rose to fame in 2009 after ...

. For his work as a songwriter, Jost was named

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

's best songwriter (Rock & Pop) by the GEMA (the German equivalent to the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

/ BMI). For Tokio Hotel, Jost has composed, produced, and mixed six No. 1 singles and three No. 1 albums. Even though Jost managed several careers as a big media artist, he rarely answers interviews for the press and is known for principally never giving TV interviews. Jost is working in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

as of 2012.

Early life

At the age of 12, Jost started

breakdancing Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying (when performed by men) or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Nuyorican, Puerto Ricans in The Bronx borough of New York City. Breakdancing consist ...

, DJing, and painting graffiti. In the 1990s, he worked in collaboration with several German musicians, such as Franz Plasa, Michel Van Dyke, Stefan Knoess, and Andreas Herbig, on several projects like Neil Hickethier's Glass, Bed and Breakfast, and Ian O'Brien-Docker's (Totally Alright). Together with Dave Roth, Jost produced remixes for

Faith Hill Audrey Faith McGraw (; born September 21, 1967), known professionally as Faith Hill, is an American Country music, country singer. She is one of the most successful country music artists of all time, having sold almost 50 million albums worldwide ...

The Doors The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, comprising vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts ...

The Corrs The Corrs are an Irish family band consisting of siblings Andrea (lead vocals, tin whistle, mandolin, ukulele), Sharon (violin, keyboards, vocals), Caroline (drums, percussion, piano, bodhrán, vocals) and Jim (guitar, piano, keyboards, v ...

Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe is an American Heavy metal music, heavy metal band formed in Hollywood, California, in 1981 by bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, with guitarist Mick Mars and lead vocalist Vince Neil joining right after. The band has sol ...

, and Jewel. Furthermore, Jost and Roth wrote the song "Undone" performed by Swiss singer Patrick Nuo, as well as the song "Joyride" used for a TV commercial of the German beer brand Veltins.

Career

Songwriter, producer and remixer

Jost wrote

's song " Love Will Remember", which reached No. 1 of the American

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

charts in August 2013. Jost wrote the song together with his production partners

Rock Mafia Rock Mafia is an American record production team, consisting of Tim James and Antonina Armato who have been active since the early 2000s. They have written and produced 38 top ten singles, and have sold over 50 million records worldwide. They ...

and Gomez herself. Jost continued collaborating with Rock Mafia, co-writing Gomez's song "Love Will Remember" for her 2013 release ''

Stars Dance ''Stars Dance'' is the debut solo studio album by American singer Selena Gomez. It was released on July 19, 2013, by Hollywood Records. Gomez began planning the project in 2012, at which time she announced that her band Selena Gomez & the Scene ...

''. For

, Jost wrote and co-produced the song "Nobody's Perfect" which is featured on Brown's album ''X''. He co-wrote and co-produced the song "Summertrain" from Greyson Chance's album Hold On 'til the Night. Together with

Neue Deutsche Welle Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW, , "New German Wave") is a genre of West German rock music originally derived from post-punk and new wave music with electronic influences. The term was first coined by Dutch radio DJ Frits Ritmeester on the popular na ...

artists Inga Humpe and Tommi Eckart, Jost wrote and produced "Bei dir bin ich schön", which became the lead single of indie-electro band 2Raumwohnung's following album. Jost also co-wrote two more songs off their ''Achtung fertig'' album ("Ein neues Gefuhl" and "Bye Bye Bye"). Jost co-wrote "Wenn du liebst" for

Adel Tawil Adel Salah Mahmoud Eid El-Tawil (born 15 August 1978) is a German singer, songwriter and producer. Besides his solo career, he is part of the popular German duo Ich + Ich and a former member of the boy band The Boyz (German band), The Boyz. Ear ...

's first solo album ''

Lieder In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

'', released in 2013. Jost is credited co-writer on

Marlon Roudette Marlon Roudette (born 5 January 1982) is an English singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is the former front man for the duo Mattafix who had their first number 1, "Big City Life", in 2006. After the group split, Roudette embarked on a s ...

's song "Hearts Pull" from Roudette's 2014 album '' Electric Soul''. For

, Jost composed and produced the hit single " I Like", which became Hilson's first No. 1 hit in Germany. For

, he produced the "Born This Way (Jost & Naaf Remix)", which was included as the only remix on the international version of Gaga's album '' Born This Way''. In 2011, Jost produced a radio mix of Lady Gaga's single "Marry the Night (David Jost Twin Radio Mix)". Shortly after, he produced a remix for

's single "

Shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...

". He composed, produced and mixed the hit single "

Geronimo Gerónimo (, ; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a military leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Central Apache bands the Tchihen ...

" with Aura Dione and Joacim Persson; the song reached the No. 1 in the radio charts for several weeks. Dione's second single "Friends" from her album '' Before the Dinosaurs'' was written by Jost and Dione, and produced by Jost and

; the single reached the official German radio charts No. 1.

Heidi Klum Heidi Klum (; born 1 June 1973) is a German and American model, television personality, producer, and businesswoman. She appeared on the cover of the ''Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue'' in 1998 and was the first German model to become a Vict ...

selected Jost's composition "Girls Beautiful" as the title song for the sixth season of '' Germany's Next Topmodel''. Together with Tokio Hotel's lead singer Bill Kaulitz, Jost composed the single "

Monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

", as well as producing and mixing it. "Monsoon" was awarded multiple times worldwide, including winning "Best Song of the Year" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards Latinoamérica. Jost produced five more No. 1 singles by Tokio Hotel, as well as Tokio Hotel's No. 1 album ''Scream'', and two more No. 1 platinum-awarded international albums for the band.

Soundtracks

Jost also contributed songs for film soundtracks. The song "Strange", co-written by Jost and performed by Tokio Hotel and

Kerli Kerli Kõiv (; born 7 February 1987), better known mononymously as Kerli, is an Estonian singer and songwriter. Born in Elva, Estonia, Elva, Kerli entered multiple singing competitions before being signed to Island Records in 2006 by LA Reid. In ...

, was included on the album ''

Almost Alice ''Almost Alice: Music Inspired by the Motion Picture'' is a 2010 concept album of various artists' music inspired by Tim Burton's film, ''Alice in Wonderland''. The album is also notable for featuring songs that were inspired from quotes directly ...

'', a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

of various artists' music inspired by

Tim Burton Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer. Known for popularizing Goth subculture, Goth culture in the American film industry, Burton is famous for his Gothic film, gothic horror and dark fantasy films. ...

's film ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

''. He also co-wrote the song "By Your Side" which was featured on the soundtrack of the film '' Prom Night''. The song " I Like", sung by

and co-written by Jost, became the title song of

Til Schweiger Tilman Valentin Schweiger (; born 19 December 1963) is a German actor and filmmaker. He became known in the 1990s for films such as '' Manta, Manta'', '' Der bewegte Mann'' and '' Knockin' on Heaven's Door''. He went on to star in international ...

's feature film ''

Zweiohrküken ''Rabbit Without Ears 2'' (German title: ''Zweiohrküken'', "Two-Eared Chick") is a 2009 German romantic comedy film, written, produced and directed by Til Schweiger. A sequel to 2007's '' Rabbit Without Ears'' (''Keinohrhasen''), it was co-wri ...

''. The song "Half a Dream Away" performed by Blind was used in the soundtrack of the German film ''Gangs'' (2009). For the German film ' by

Matthias Schweighöfer Matthias Schweighöfer (; born 11 March 1981) is a German actor and filmmaker known for his work in several German and American film productions. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Franz Herber in the 2008 film ''Valkyrie''. In 2021, Sch ...

, Jost co-wrote the title song Hurt Lovers for the British band

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

. Jost also composed music for TV campaigns of various brands including

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

, Mercedes, Veltins and

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

. His composition "Human Connect to Human" was selected for

's US campaign to introduce their

Motorola Droid The Motorola Droid (GSM/UMTS version branded as Motorola Milestone) is a smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs on Google's Android operating system. It was released in late 2009 and was an important "comeback" product for Motorola. Feature ...

phone.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jost, David 1972 births Living people American record producers German male songwriters German remixers