Inside Track: Bruno Mars 'The Romantic'

Producer and songwriter D’Mile worked with Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak on the Silk Sonic project, and has now co‑produced Mars’ hit album The Romantic.

Producer and songwriter D’Mile helped develop Bruno Mars’ nostalgic soul sound — and Anthony Masino’s work at retro studio Penrose Recorders played a key role in capturing it.

With 16 Grammy Award nominations and six Grammy wins since 2017, Dernst Emile II, aka D’Mile, is one of the most successful American songwriters and producers of the past decade. His credits include Rihanna, Mary J Blige, Janet Jackson, the Carters, HER, Lucky Daye, Silk Sonic and Bruno Mars. Most recently, D’Mile co‑wrote and co‑produced Mars’ collaboration with Lady Gaga, ‘Die With A Smile’, which was the second‑biggest song of 2025, as well as Mars’ fourth solo album, The Romantic, released in February of this year to worldwide success.

Magic Moments

D’Mile and Mars almost always work together at the latter’s Shampoo Press & Curl studio in Los Angeles. It’s named after the songwriting and production trio Bruno Mars formed with Philip Lawrence and Brody Brown, which delivered Mars’ wildly successful third solo album 24K Magic (2016). The studio is full of rare and vintage analogue gear, complemented by the modern tech needed to make sure recordings can hold their own today.

“The way we tend to work is that he comes in with an idea, he’ll get on the piano or guitar, and he’ll ask me what I think of it,” says D’Mile. “He always looks for a yay or nay from me. Very rarely will I come in with an idea. Then we spend a lot of time trying to see what we can turn the idea into. And then we will change our minds, or he’ll say, ‘No, this isn’t right. We need to approach it a different way.’ Over the span of three years we worked on The Romantic, that was happening a lot!

“A lot of the time is also spent working on sounds, trying to see which mics and mic placement work best. Bruno’s incredible engineer, Charles Moniz, is always very helpful when we do this. A regular day in the studio would have seen Bruno, Charles, his assistant Alex Resoagli, and I. Sometimes Brody [Brown], James Fauntleroy and/or Phil Lawrence came in to write or jam. Bruno has all his instruments set up and ready. We go back and forth to see which instrument or drum kit sounds better for which song. I’ll pick up a bass, he’ll pick up a guitar or he’ll hop on the drums, and then we might switch. We could be on any instrument.”

D’Mile: There might be a ’90s version, and then we’d do an ’80s version, or we’d try a completely different musical genre... Sometimes versions were so different that you’d think they were different songs.

During the three‑year gestation period, “The songs themselves were often changed and rewritten, and we spent a lot of time arranging and rearranging every song, so we ended up with huge amounts of versions of each song. Versions could be completely different, or we’d only change one element, like the bass, or the drums. We tried different tempos, different feel, anything. There might be a ’90s version, and then we’d do an ’80s version, or we’d try a completely different musical genre, or change the chord structure, the arrangement, and so on. Sometimes versions were so different that you’d think they were different songs. This process is unique to Bruno. I don’t really have that process with anybody else. It was the case both when working on the Silk Sonic album and on The Romantic.

“At my own studio, GCR, which also has a lot of analogue gear, I’ll start new ideas in Ableton, but I barely used my laptop with Bruno, because we’re performing things live. Sometimes I’d program some fake strings or horns or did some edits in Ableton. Towards the end when we knew what the arrangements were going to be, we had a trumpet player come in and Bruno and I would come up with his parts on the spot. But mostly, Bruno and I just went in and jammed, and Charles recorded. With all those different versions, a lot of credit goes to Charles for being really organised, and knowing where to find everything. Bruno also has a very good memory, and left with a CD or some files every night, so he could listen to what we had done.

“At the time, I didn’t get to leave with anything. I think Bruno didn’t want to run the risk of anything leaking, but also, I don’t want to hear the songs finished until they are close to completion. I just want to forget what happened, so when I come back to the studio, I have a fresher perspective. I like to maintain some objectivity. Especially when I also play many of the instruments, like I did on the Silk Sonic record, it helps that I co‑produce with Bruno. He’s such a great producer. And when working together and feeding off each other, we each know what roles to play. Most of the time he’s more directive, and I’m more like a sounding board.”

Romantic References

The Romantic has a strong retro element, to the point where some listeners have suggested specific ’70s tracks as inspirations for individual songs. According to D’Mile, that doesn’t really reflect the actual writing process. “Bruno wanted the album to be very Chicano soul, but there wasn’t any specific artist or record we were trying to sound like. Bruno just loves the music from that era. We were listening to all types of things, mainly for the sonics, as in, ‘How did they get that snare sound?’ or ‘How did they get the horns to sound like that?’ Sometimes there was something in what we listened to that Bruno wanted to capture, even if that song didn’t sound at all like what we ended up doing. I can’t remember exactly what we listened to. It’s all a blur. But I do remember hearing ‘Low Rider’ [1975] by War, and a song that had a major impact on the album was ‘Can I Call You Rose’ by Thee Sacred Souls. It’s very recent, from 2020, and recorded by [Daptone Records co‑founder] Gabriel Roth. The song sounds like it’s from the ’60s, and Bruno loves it, and how it sounds. So we went to see Gabriel to pick his brain on how he recorded it.”

Mars & Co ended up re‑recording with a band at Roth’s studio, Penrose Recorders in Riverside, near Los Angeles. “There are versions of the songs in the vaults with me playing bass or drums or whatever, but for this album, Bruno in the end decided to do something different and incorporate his band, which I was all for. I almost wish we’d done that with Silk Sonic as well, but because it was recorded during the pandemic, we couldn’t. For me the best part of working on The Romantic was seeing the band play the songs together in one room, like it used to be done back in the day. I always love working with live instrumentation because that’s where I come from.

“Towards the end of the process,...