Lady Gaga<\/a>\u2019s lauded 2025 album, MAYHEM. \u201cLike, \u2018Wow, I helped produce a Gaga album.\u2019 It\u2019s really cool and I\u2019m really proud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tThe feeling is mutual. Gaga, who co-produced the project alongside Walter, Andrew Watt and her fianc\u00e9, Michael Polansky, says she was astounded by Walter\u2019s skill in the studio. \u201cHe has this incredibly positive energy that makes a beautiful space for songwriting and production,\u201d she tells \u00adBillboard. \u201cOn the musical side, it was his intuition about production that struck me the most. Cirkut is incredibly gifted as a programmer. His technical proficiency is astonishing but also extremely musical \u2014 his musicianship is so well-\u00adrounded and rich.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBut the electropop gems he crafts now are a far cry from his humble origins. Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia \u2014 which he affectionately describes as \u201cnot exactly a mecca of music\u201d \u2014 Walter\u2019s friends were hip-hop heads. Some were DJs who would invite a 14-year-old Walter over to watch them spin and scratch their records on Technic 1200 turntables. \u201cI saw that and I was like, \u2018I need whatever that is. I need to do that,\u2019\u00a0\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn his adolescence, Walter became fascinated with \u201cdeconstructing songs and learning what makes them tick,\u201d listening to as many CDs as he could and trying his hand at minor DJ gigs for school pep rallies, dances and a small school radio show. When he turned 18, Walter moved to Toronto, seeking out a career as a hip-hop DJ and discovering other sonic worlds in the process. \u201cYou\u2019d go out for the night and you\u2019d hear dancehall, soca, reggae, hip-hop and just all this incredible dance music,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Cirkut](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tCirkut and Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason\u00a0Jr. at the Grammys in February.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEmma McIntyre\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Toronto club scene helped cement Walter\u2019s fascination with electronic music. By 2008, he formed indie electronic trio Let\u2019s Go to War, and on the suggestion of fellow dance duo MSTRKRFT, he met with music attorney and record executive Chris Taylor, who subsequently signed the act to his label, Last Gang Records. As the group began to work on its album Karmageddon, Walter and his bandmates also started making production packages on the side. Taylor compiled the threesome\u2019s beats onto CDs and sent them to songwriters in his orbit \u2014 among them Nicole Morier, who decided to write a song to one of their beats during a session with Britney Spears.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe result was Spears\u2019 \u201cMmm Papi\u201d off her No.\u00a01 album Circus. It earned Walter, through Let\u2019s Go to War, his first production credit for a mainstream pop star. While he remains awed by the \u201cluck\u201d that got his name in Circus\u2019 liner notes, he also cringes as he reflects on the song. \u201cI kind of just hear a person who didn\u2019t know what he was doing,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cIn all honesty, I didn\u2019t know how to produce songs back then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStill, his work caught the attention of hit-maker Dr.\u00a0Luke, who reached out within a year of Circus\u2019 release to sign Walter to his burgeoning publishing label, Prescription Songs. At first, Walter worked remotely from Toronto, where he opened Dream House Studios with producer Alex Bonenfant and his former bandmate Adrien Gough, whom he worked with on the song \u201cHigh for This\u201d for an up-and-coming R&B artist called The Weeknd. After a few years of operating as Cirkut, Walter left Toronto for Los Angeles and, under the tutelage of Luke and the other songwriters on the prestigious label, began creating a career for himself. \u201cI was given the opportunity to work with a ton of writers and artists who I wouldn\u2019t have had access to previously,\u201d Walter says. \u201cIt\u2019s where I really cut my teeth and learned to produce pop and not just make beats.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOver the next few years, Walter helped pen seminal No.\u00a01 hits like Miley Cyrus\u2019 \u201cWrecking Ball,\u201d Katy Perry\u2019s \u201cRoar\u201d and Maroon\u00a05 and Cardi\u00a0B\u2019s \u201cGirls Like You,\u201d \u00addeveloping his reputation in tandem with his production philosophy: to steer the ship without taking up too much space for himself. \u201cI want to be able to lead the room and lead it to a good place,\u201d he explains. \u201cMy duty as a producer is to see through the song and make sure it gets to the best place possible while also not making it about me. It\u2019s about the artist and the song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe philosophy has stuck with his artist collaborators. Petras fondly remembers not just the \u201cfun\u201d atmosphere Walter creates in the studio, but the skills he employs to perfect the final product. \u201cHe has an amazing brain for melody and production, of course, but he\u2019s also probably the best and fastest vocal producer I\u2019ve ever worked with,\u201d she says. \u201cHe just has an incredible ear for pop vocals and pop melodies, and I\u2019ve learned so much working with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter leaving Prescription Songs in 2018 to strike out on his own, Walter leaned on his industry contacts for new work. He collaborated with Watt on Spears and Elton John\u2019s 2022 single, \u201cHold Me Closer,\u201d and when Watt subsequently asked if he would be interested in working on a new Gaga project, Walter leaped at the opportunity. \u201cI tried not to go in with any expectations because I hadn\u2019t met her before,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s always an initial phase of feeling each other out, figuring out if you vibe with them. Either you have chemistry with someone or you don\u2019t, and I\u2019m glad that we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tLady Gaga onstage at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden in August.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Mazur\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to Gaga, that studio chemistry with Walter came quickly. \u201cThe first song we worked on together was \u2018Vanish Into You,\u2019 which started out as just an analog synth Moog bassline, and as the song took form, his sonic choices for the drums struck me \u00adinstantly,\u201d she says. \u201cWe hadn\u2019t spent a lot of time together, but he was naturally drawing upon all our musical influences\u00a0\u2026 right away, I heard the Justice influence, the Franz Ferdinand coolness, The Cure\u2019s vulnerability and softness. We were just an instant match.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWalter credits Gaga\u2019s singular vision for MAYHEM \u2014 which she describes as a mix of \u201cwell-written pop songs\u201d and creating \u201cfree space to try different sounds\u201d \u2014 as the driving force behind the final product. \u201cShe\u2019s intentional about everything while also being humble in the sense that she\u2019s willing to say, \u2018OK, we tried that, it didn\u2019t work,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Walter says. \u201cHer musical taste is broad, and she would know the exact reference to help us unlock something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat collaborative spirit let Walter leave his mark on MAYHEM while still making an album that is unquestionably Gaga\u2019s \u2014 something they both say its single \u201cAbracadabra\u201d exemplifies. The songwriting process for the album\u2019s breakout hit started with the track\u2019s grinding post-\u00adchorus breakdown, which Walter had created on a whim. \u201cThat was just a 30-second, very incomplete beat I had made, but when Gaga heard it, she was like, \u2018Wait, what was that?\u2019\u00a0\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n
\n\tGaga recalls that same moment with a sense of awe at how Walter didn\u2019t just create the song\u2019s sound but also specifically tailored it to her. \u201cThat moment that he played [the post-chorus] was powerful, sort of like a dare, as if he were secretly saying, \u2018You know what you need to do,\u2019\u00a0\u201d she says. \u201cThat is a beautiful feeling with a producer, when you know they\u2019re excited to hear what story you will tell together and you feel an urge to rise to the occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s not to say that creating MAYHEM was all business. Walter recalls creating \u201cKillah,\u201d the \u00adelectro-funk standout featuring fellow producer Gesaffelstein, in a session where Gaga let loose in a way he wasn\u2019t expecting. \u201cThere\u2019s that part in the bridge where she lets out this long scream, and we were all sitting there like, \u2018Holy s\u2013t!\u2019\u00a0\u201d he says. \u201cWe even put a track in the song where we just put up a mic in the room while we were all yelling and laughing because that vibe was infectious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s easy to see why, even with only about a decade-and-a-half spent actively working in the music industry, Cirkut ranked No.\u00a04 on Billboard\u2019s Top Producers of the 21st\u00a0Century on the Hot\u00a0100<\/a> chart, only behind veteran hit-makers Max Martin, Luke and Stargate and outpacing world-famous production stars like Jack Antonoff and Benny Blanco.<\/p>\n\n\tYet when asked if he would be interested in receiving the same kind of household recognition as someone like Antonoff, Walter hesitates. \u201cIt\u2019s a balancing act. Of course we all want recognition for what we do, but I also value my privacy,\u201d he says. After a beat, he gestures to the well-appointed walls of his workspace. \u201cHonestly, I just feel like my place is in the studio,\u201d he says, smiling. \u201cI like being here and making things that people love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThis story appears in the Oct. 4, 2025, issue of Billboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Henry Walter may be seated in a spacious Los Angeles recording studio, but he\u2019s still having audio trouble.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,93016,75,23827,93017,14851,4419,341],"class_list":["post-184859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cirkut","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-pop","tag-grammy-preview","tag-lady-gaga","tag-magazine","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}