'Firework' was a collaborative effort between Sandy Vee and the Stargate team. When Vee met Mikkel Eriksen and Tor Hermansen in their studio at Jay-Z's Roc‑The-Mic studios in New York, the three Europeans immediately sensed an affinity. One meeting proved as significant as running into Guetta, when his manager introduced him to the prolific and successful Norwegian production duo Stargate (who were interviewed in SOS May 2010: /sos/may10/articles/stargate.htm). With 'Sexy-Bitch' ('Sexy-Chick' in a censored version) and 'Gettin' Over You' having spent quite a lot of time near the top of the US charts, Vee signed a deal a year ago with a manager in New York, who introduced him to many of the important players in the US music industry: A&R managers, record company presidents, artists, producers, and so on. It was very natural for us to collaborate, and one thing that helped is that I work extremely fast in the studio, as does David. I ended up being involved in eight songs on his One Love album. So I went back to my studio in Paris, and David did call me and came to the studio with sketches for some songs. I love making music, and I want to be excited about what I do every day and have fun. I said to myself: 'Sandy, your place is in the studio.' You can make a lot of money from DJ'ing, but that has never been my motivation.
After half a year of DJ'ing, I had started to realise that it wasn't really what I wanted to do. Vee: "I didn't take that very seriously - people say so many things during parties. It was 'Bleep' and DJ'ing that led to Vee meeting David Guetta on Ibiza, where Guetta asked if they could work together. In 2008, Vee scored a club hit with a track called 'Bleep', which featured a sample of Robert Plant's wail at the beginning of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'. The letters 'W' and 'V' sound alike in Swedish, the nickname stuck, and Sandy Wilhelm became Sandy Vee. During a visit to Sweden, when he worked with Swedish House Mafia, some found his name so hard to pronounce that they called him 'Sandy W'. To try to advance his career, he worked under a lot of different pseudonyms, and moved to Paris in 2005.
Within a year of getting into production, I had a number one hit in France called 'King Of House', which was a club cover of Michael Jackson's 'Billy Jean' - when I listen to it now I think: 'Oh, that was bad!' After this, I built my own studio, with a couple of Yamaha 02R desks, a Prophet 5, a Juno 106 and a Korg Polysix.” I also realised that if I wanted to do production by myself, I would need to understand sound and engineering, so I spent a lot of time learning about compression and limiters and EQ and so on. I enjoyed the fact that I could do everything myself, that was really cool. "At some stage I bought a computer and a synth, and started doing production and club tunes.
"I come from Toulouse in the south of France,” Vee replied, "where I studied double bass and classical music and harmony at the Conservatoire, and also played lots of different kinds of music in many bands, from rock to funk to jazz. The 35-year old has lived in New York since last August, but developed his career in his native France. Is this partly because of the influence of these Vee-(co-)produced tracks, or is he simply riding a wave? Discuss… Flying Vee The above-mentioned songs are characterised by an uptempo, four‑to‑the‑floor aesthetic that is strongly influenced by house music, and indeed, the US and UK charts of today do appear to be a bit more dance-orientated than those of a few years ago. The last of these earned Vee his first Grammy nomination, and 'Only Girl' his first actual Grammy Award.
Having risen to international prominence through his work on David Guetta's smash hit singles 'Sexy-Bitch' and 'Gettin' Over You', he has since been involved in the writing, playing, recording, mixing and production of five more major hits: Taio Cruz's 'Higher', Pitbull's 'Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor)', Rihanna's 'S&M' and 'Only Girl (In The World)' and Katy Perry's 'Fireworks'. Was the president of a major American record company who recently told Sandy Vee that the Frenchman had changed American music exaggerating? Vee is certainly the new kid on the block. Through his work with David Guetta, Rihanna and now Katy Perry, Sandy Vee has taken the French house sound to the top of the US charts.