Joel Little
Joel Little is a GRAMMY Award-winning, Golden Globe-nominated, diamond-certified songwriter, record producer, and musician from Auckland, New Zealand. He has helped redefine the sound of pop music by guiding several waves of era-defining stars, including Lorde, Broods, Gracie Abrams, Niall Horan, Khalid, Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan, and Imagine Dragons.
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Joel Little is a GRAMMY Award-winning, Golden Globe-nominated, diamond-certified songwriter, record producer, and musician from Auckland, New Zealand. Over the past twelve years, he has helped redefine the sound of pop music by guiding several waves of era-defining stars, including Lorde, Broods, Gracie Abrams, Niall Horan, Khalid, Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan, and Imagine Dragons, through the process of transforming their raw emotions and everyday experiences into universal, chart-topping hits.
Raised in Auckland, Little began his musical journey while studying at the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand (MAINZ) and fronting the pop-punk band Goodnight Nurse. After they disbanded in 2009, he stepped into the background, opting to refine his songwriting and production skills working with the electro-pop duo Kids of 88. These early projects offered a taste of mainstream success, but his creative partnership with Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, also known as Lorde, changed everything.
In 2013, Little co-wrote, produced, engineered and mixed Lorde’s breakout single ‘Royals’, a worldwide #1 hit that earned the pair the prestigious APRA Silver Scroll at home and the GRAMMY Award for Song of the Year in the US. He produced, mixed, and co-wrote every track on Lorde’s debut album Pure Heroine, which has since gone platinum or multi-platinum in eight countries, selling over 10 million copies globally to date.
Following this breakout moment, Little split his time between Auckland and Los Angeles, where he co-wrote and produced hits by Broods, Ellie Goulding, Tove Lo, Shawn Mendes, Ruth B., and Taylor Swift during her "Lover" era. In recent years, his cultivated songwriting skills, acute ability to read the room in studio sessions, and minimalist production sensibilities have shaped the work of Maren Morris, Amy Shark, Niall Horan, Vance Joy, Tate McRae, Noah Kahan, and Gracie Abrams.
Little holds two US diamond-certified records, Lorde’s ‘Royals’ and Khalid’s ‘Young, Dumb & Broke’. His songwriting credits have generated over 25 billion streams globally, making him the highest-streaming New Zealand songwriter and producer of all time. At home, his work has earned him ten awards at the Aotearoa Music Awards, including Producer and Engineer of the Year Awards twice and six Single of the Year awards.
Paying it forward, Little and his wife, Gemma, are the founders of BIG FAN, a not-for-profit recording and performance space. Since its establishment in Morningside, Auckland, in 2022, Big Fan has helped support the next generation of New Zealand musicians through a range of residency programs and songwriting camps.
Selected Discography
