The first Grammy Award for Dave Hamelin was a big one. On Feb. 2, 2025, in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, he was named in the Album of the Year category, arguably the most prestigious Grammy. That was for his major contributions as a songwriter, producer, recording engineer, and musician on Beyoncé’s triumphant and groundbreaking album, Cowboy Carter – for which Hamelin co-produced six tracks and co-wrote five, including the gold-selling single “16 Carriages,” plus “Just for Fun” (with Willie Jones); “II Hands II Heaven”; “Amen”; and “Tyrant.”
The Grammy is serious validation of all the work Hamelin has put in since re-locating to L.A. in 2018. Interviewed just days before the big night, he denies any nerves. “I’ll leave it up to the gods and see what happens; it’s beyond my control,” he says.
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Beyoncé song “16 Carriages,” co-written by Dave Hamelin
Hamelin’s career journey is an unconventional one. In the early 2000s, he made a major mark as a member of acclaimed Montréal rock band The Stills, first as a drummer, and then as vocalist, guitarist, and a principal songwriter. That group was considered part of the Canadian indie-rock explosion of the first decade of the millennium, alongside the likes of Broken Social Scene, Metric, Stars, and The Dears. In 2009, The Stills won two JUNO Awards, for Best New Group and Best Alternative Album, the latter honouring their third and final album, Oceans Will Rise.
When the band split in 2011, Hamelin re-located to Toronto, unsure of his future path in music. “I was kind of tired after The Stills broke up,” he recalls. “After touring for 10 years, I thought I’d just stay home for a bit. I certainly didn’t have any plans of moving to the U.S. at that point.”
Hamelin formed the group Eight and a Half with Stills’ keyboardist Liam O’Neil and Broken Social Scene drummer Justin Peroff in 2009, and a 2012 self-titled debut release was well-received. Hamelin then increasingly focused upon production work, prompted by Broken Social Scene co-founder Kevin Drew. “I first started working with Kevin [by] mixing a song for his solo project Darlings,” he says. “He then rather forced me into producing with the Andy Kim album [2015’s It’s Decided] and we ended up having a great time.”
That led to Hamelin collaborating with Drew in co-producing and mixing two notable albums in 2016, The Tragically Hip’s final record, Man Machine Poem, and Gord Downie’s solo project, Secret Path. Both releases won JUNO Awards the following year. Hamelin played on and mixed Downie’s final album, 2017’s Introduce Yerself, and also worked on records by the Sam Roberts Band and The Belle Game.
This period proved crucial to Hamelin’s development as a producer and mixer, setting him up for his subsequent L.A. success. “Working with Kevin, and legends like Andy, and then Gord, really helped me develop a method for being around this kind of mentality,” he says. “Learning what they’re expecting, and how to navigate personalities like that. It’s about helping them fulfill their creative vision, and I also have to have my own. You have to find that balance, and that’s what I’ve been doing over the years.”
“Dave was so in it to win it. He was so ambitious.” – Neville Quinlan of peermusic
Hamelin’s work on Secret Path caught the ear of Neville Quinlan, Managing Director of Publishing for the Canadian arm of global, independent music publisher peermusic. At Drew’s urging, Quinlan met with Hamelin in 2016, marking another pivotal industry connection.
Says Quinlan, “When Dave came into my office and started talking, I knew immediately I wanted to work with him. This became a major project for us. It’s a hell of a thing to turn an artist and a producer into a professional songwriter. It’s a different mindset, skill set, social set, but Dave was so in it to win it. He was so ambitious. Whatever we were doing, he was going to go all the way. I saw magic from the beginning.”
A publishing deal was inked in 2017, and peermusic kept expanding it. Hamelin admits that, while he was in L.A. again, “I was very skeptical that this would amount to anything. All the previous times I’d been in L.A., it seemed people were trying to shoehorn me into a context I didn’t quite fit.”
This time, things would go more smoothly. Hamelin worked extensively at the famed No Name Studios, while the publisher covered expenses. Valuable industry connections were quickly made. As Hamelin recalls, “I had a meeting with [Grammy-winning producer] Che Pope, who was formerly President of Kanye West’s GOOD Music label, and that led me to being invited to basically work out of their studio. I was then energized to just go for it.”
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Gord Downie song “The Stranger,” co-produced by Dave Hamelin
A next key step saw Hamelin begin work with fast-rising female rap/art-pop artist 070 Shake, and he’s since co-written, co-produced, and played on her three albums to date: Modus Vivendi, You Can’t Kill Me, and Petrichor, which features Courtney Love on a cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren.” “Our collaboration has led to everything else that’s come my way,” says Hamelin. “Shake and I did a song on Beyoncé’s The Lion King: The Gift album [“SCAR,” also featuring Jessie Reyez], and that’s where I got introduced to their camp. I then started working with them more, and that’s what led to the work appearing on Cowboy Carter.”
Hamelin has now moved on to Sony Music Publishing, but peermusic has retained a stake in “16 Carriages.” His contributions to Cowboy Carter actually started before the pandemic, but after a long wait, that project has now catapulted Hamelin’s profile to the next level. “It has definitely opened many doors, and changed how I’m perceived within the industry, in a very positive way,” he says.
In Beyoncé, he found a kindred creative spirit. “Beyoncé picks from a lot of different genres, and has a very wide spectrum of taste,” he says. “She’s up to challenging herself and trying new things, so I think it was a good pairing. I’m always trying to bring a fresh perspective to whoever I’m working with. This is what excites me about music… I’d say my production style is very fusion-oriented. I like to bring elements from everything I do like, and re-construct them in a way that suits what I’m doing.”
Other artists Hamelin has worked with in L.A. include rappers Leikeli47 and Clyde Guevara, veteran R&B songwriter Howard Lilly (Alicia Keys, Zayn), Amber Mark, and May.
Hamelin views his background in alt-rock as an influence on this approach. “Being a teenager in the ‘90s, the kind of music that was on the radio then was very different,” he says. “It was edgy, with artists like Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Björk, Smashing Pumpkins, and Soundgarden all over MTV. That may be where I get the mindset that anything’s possible.”