As one of the most prolific songwriters in the music scene, Toby Gad has written some of the world’s biggest hits for artists such as John Legend, Beyoncé, Madonna and countless more. Aside from writing within the commercial world, he has also penned hits for the likes of Armin van Buuren, ILLENIUM and more.

Now, Toby Gad is releasing a collection of remixes for his recent Donna Summer collaboration ‘Run’, and we talked to him all about the creative process, as well as his wider career moments and highlights so far.

Hi Toby, thanks for joining us. You’ve obviously had a very illustrious career so far, but what was it that led you to pursuing a career in music in the first place? 

My parents had a jazz band, and my mother played the piano. My mother even performed whilst I was in her womb, I learned the entire repertoire of their 40 songs. Early on, I had the urge to create new music because my parents’ music was based on the same 40 songs over and over and over. Full stop. My brother and I were joking that we could even predict every note of my dad’s improvised clarinet solos when I was around six years old. 

You’ve worked with some of the biggest dance music artists – what was it that made you want to release a dance music version of your collaboration ‘Run’ with Donna Summer?

In 2007 I had the privilege and honor to work with disco soul legend Donna Summer on her last studio album. We wrote four songs, and one of them did not make the album, but was always dear to my heart, and now after all this time, I finally found a way to release it. We started with a piano diaries version which was accompanied by a music video featuring a 13 year old dancer from London with choreography by Hollywood, reinterpreting Donna Summer in a Los Angeles theater, with a projection of family footage of Donna Summer and me on the piano. The video is on YouTube, and I’m very proud of it. 

From that piano diaries version, we derived four distinctly different remixes. The first being the trance/techno leaning Tomorrowland remix (14 July), then the EDM leaning Lollapalooza remix (29 July), the British fast hard house leaning Ibiza mix (11 August) and the retro disco funk leaning disco remix (Mid-August). 

What was the creation process like – remixing one of your own productions?

Thanks to splice these days, it’s very easy to create remixes and try a number of different ssounds and find magical combinations that can inspire an original creation. Often it is just a road map, and sometimes it inspires to an entirely new audio signature. I spent several weeks wrapping my head around the idea of remixing the piano diaries version of ‘Run’ with Donna Summer and I tried many, many different directions until I decided on the current four remixes.

How does it feel to step back into the dance music world with this ‘Tomorrowland’ mix?

I have always been present in the dance world, and with ties to versions of my John Legend song ‘All Of Me’ we had a solid number one record, but also almost all of my other close to 500 released songs have remixes. I recently tried to put together a Spotify playlist of just my own songs remixed, and have been counting more than 200 remixes that I really like. 

So while I have not been a DJ yet, I have written and produced dance songs for a while, and who knows? Maybe one day I would love to DJ as well.

What have been some of your biggest highlights in your career so far?

Certainly my Grammy moments. When Beyonce performed my song ‘If I Were A Boy’ at the Grammys, in a five minute rendition that included Alanis Morissette songs, that was one of my career highlights, as well as John Legend performing my song ‘All Of Me’ at the Grammys, or Madonna performing my single ‘Living For Love’ at the Grammys. Those were real career highlights for me.

What’s next for you for the rest of 2025 and beyond?

We are continuing to release original music, and I am almost done with a Christmas album that will come out in November featuring a plethora of incredible singers with all original music in the style of Norah Jones. I love to write on the piano and create songs that work with just a piano and vocal, and then from those, derive remixes.