ALDAE (Gregory Aldae Hein): The Songwriter Behind 'Flowers' — Biography, Credits and Vocal Chain

Songwriter biography · ALDAE

Gregory Aldae Hein, known as ALDAE, co-wrote Miley Cyrus's "Flowers," the best-selling global single of 2023, along with five songs on Justin Bieber's Justice, Jessie Murph and Jelly Roll's "Wild Ones" and three songs on BTS's Arirang. He lost a major-label artist deal and rebuilt himself as one of pop's most trusted topliners. He has since started his own company, and in 2026 he relaunched his own music.

The stories behind these songs come from interviews with ALDAE and the people he made them with.

Early life in North Arlington, Texas

ALDAE was born in Texas and grew up in North Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth, in a household he has described as built around sports and religion. No reliable source gives his date of birth. His grandmother played Ray Charles around the house. He grew up on pop radio, and the first song he remembers hearing there was Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply." He got his first guitar at around eight or nine, and he also learned by copying his sister and borrowing her guitar when she was not looking. His first song, at about ten, was for a girl he liked; as he told IvanFromRnD, a friend sleeping over held the house phone while he sang it to her (American Songwriter; Flaunt). He never planned on a music career: he was a Texas kid riding bikes and playing sports.

Recording hooked him at about fifteen, when his father, a photographer who was teaching photography at the time, brought home a laptop with GarageBand. He recorded himself for the first time, fell in love with the process and started writing songs through recording. By high school he was burning his own CDs and selling them, with merch, because the only route he knew was being an artist. Money came from work. From twelve he picked up trash in his uncle's warehouse, then cleaned screens at a screen-printing shop, delivered pizza, and at sixteen drove a forklift in the same warehouse, rotating those jobs until he left for Los Angeles. After about a year and a half of community college, he told his mother, who was raising him on her own at the time, that he wanted to make music instead. If he was not going to college, she told him, he had to leave. He left, saved his warehouse and pizza money to record in a professional studio, learned engineering from Texas producer Jeff Mount, and put out a new song on SoundCloud every Thursday. His Columbia-era bio adds that he spent a year living with friends in an abandoned house near Arlington and left for California with a few hundred dollars (Aldae Long bio).

In a 2016 interview he gave his real name as Gregory Eric Hein (Acoustic Silk); his songwriting credits read Gregory Aldae Hein. The stage name came from Los Angeles. He has explained it as a phonetic "all day," from a time when he was, in his words, a wide-eyed and literally hungry musician spending all day in the studio (Ones to Watch). In the same 2016 Acoustic Silk interview, he said a producer called Bongo started calling him that.

Los Angeles and the Aldae Long years (2014–2017)

He moved to California around 2014 or early 2015, following, as he puts it, a voice that told him to go. The one person he knew in Los Angeles was singer-songwriter Dylan Chambers. After a few visits writing together, Chambers offered his couch, and Hein drove out from Texas with almost no money. The first years were lean. He worked restaurant shifts as a porter, polishing glasses and cutlery next to the dishwashers, which is where his line about being a couch-surfing dishwasher comes from. Then a call came from Texas: someone had found one of his burned CDs and wanted to introduce him to a manager. That call opened up a circle of producers, among them Bongo, the source of the "All Day" nickname. By 2016 it had also led to management with Stat Quo, the former Shady/Aftermath rapper, and an introduction to The Game. In the same 2016 interviews he talked about recording in The Game's former studio and meeting Kendrick Lamar (Acoustic Silk).

Columbia Records signed him as a solo artist in September 2016, under the name Aldae Long. In 2017 he released the single "Words," the mixtape No Chaser and a video for "Sink or Swim" (The Urban Influencer). An album, Love Over the Counter, was announced and never came out. He was 22 or 23 when he signed, and he has said he had no identity as an artist yet and mostly did what the people around him suggested. Looking back, he told IvanFromRnD, the bullet points of a deal mean little without the right team: it was the wrong deal, so he got out of it and parted ways with his management. By his own summary he went from couch-surfing dishwasher to signed artist, lost it all, and worked to get it back. Performing, he later told Genius, had turned out to be more anxiety-inducing than exhilarating for him, and he had already started writing songs for other people while still a Columbia artist (Genius).

One of those demos reached Maria Egan at Pulse Music Group, who sent it to Marshmello. It became "OK Not to Be OK" with Demi Lovato, released in September 2020 with the suicide-prevention nonprofit Hope for the Day, and it reached No. 36 on the Hot 100. Genius calls it his first proof of concept as a writer.

Pulse, Max Martin's house and the rebuild (2018–2020)

His publishing home is Pulse Music Group, through Beka Tischker's Wide Eyed Entertainment, which formed a joint venture with Pulse in January 2018. He was signed by 2019, and Pulse says he renewed the deal in 2021 (Pulse). The route there, as he told IvanFromRnD, started in a friend's back house, where he was recording in a converted pantry. An acquaintance from his GOOD Music days recognized him there, kept asking for new songs and passed them to publishing contacts. Those contacts led to Beka Tischker, a veteran publisher and longtime manager of Julia Michaels, who told him after one listen that she knew exactly what he was. For that first negotiation he brought in Jake, a New Jersey hustler he trusted, who has managed him ever since. While he waited for cuts he also worked as a production assistant on music video shoots.

Two mentors shaped the rebuild. Rami Yacoub, the writer-producer behind "...Baby One More Time," brought him into Max Martin's MXM house, where he worked with Yacoub for a year and learned to keep working a song because it is rarely right the first time. And a chain of introductions, from engineer Josh Gudwin to Skrillex to Justin Bieber's DJ Tay James, put his songs in front of Bieber himself. Gudwin, who heard a softness and emotion in his demos that suited Bieber, promised him nothing beyond help landing a couple of cuts over the years. When Tay sent "2 Much" while Hein was with him, Bieber called within minutes, asked where they were and came over. That is how they met (American Songwriter).

The verified cuts started arriving in 2020: Lukas Graham's "Scars" (co-writer and co-producer), Machine Gun Kelly's "All I Know" on the No. 1 album Tickets to My Downfall, and "OK Not to Be OK." In January 2021 Celeste's Not Your Muse, with his co-write "Some Goodbyes Come with Hellos," went to No. 1 in the UK.

Justice: five songs for Justin Bieber (2021)

The breakthrough was Bieber's Justice (March 19, 2021), a Billboard 200 No. 1 certified 2× Platinum. Four of his songs made the standard edition and a fifth arrived on the Triple Chucks Deluxe a week later (credits). Each has a documented origin:

• "2 Much" started over Zoom with Gian Stone. ALDAE sang placeholder melodies, and that melody take is the one on the record. They spent eight hours on it, Skrillex rebuilt it around new chords, and Bieber cut it two days later.
• "As I Am" (feat. Khalid) took two years. It began as a gibberish vocal over piano in the basement studio of his New York apartment, picked up lyrics with Ido Zmishlany, sat for a year, and became an arena-sized record once The Monsters & Strangerz rebuilt the beat. Khalid joined, and the final version was delivered a week before the album.
• "Unstable" (feat. The Kid LAROI) started the day co-writer Delacey arrived saying everything in her life felt unstable. She had fired her manager that morning, and Jimmie Gutch had three chords and a loop. ALDAE held the demo for well over a year before Rami Yacoub reworked the pre-chorus at Max Martin's house. He is credited as additional producer.
• "Somebody", written with Skrillex, HARV, Ryan Tedder and Rami Yacoub among others.
• "There She Go" (feat. Lil Uzi Vert) was written in about 40 minutes on the first day of a Rodney Jerkins writing camp in Orlando (Clash).

Justice earned him his first Grammy nomination, for Album of the Year at the 2022 Grammys. The year it came out was crowded: Shawn Mendes and Tainy's "Summer of Love," which he started as a ballad in a Brooklyn basement and sent to Tainy himself; Selena Gomez's "Vicio"; Yungblud's "Fleabag," where he suggested the title line; Demi Lovato's "15 Minutes"; and "Don't Go" with Skrillex, Bieber and Don Toliver, which began at Skrillex's house with a bassline he hummed.

How "Flowers" was written

Columbia executives Rani Hancock and Ron Perry set up his first sessions with Miley Cyrus, who wanted to perfect the songs before thinking about production. On their first day together they wrote "Used to Be Young" in under an hour (Billboard). "Flowers" came in January 2022, during a week of sessions at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, with Cyrus, ALDAE and Michael Pollack around the piano. They started from the chorus, and ALDAE has said the song came together within an hour (Genius).

It began as a sad song. Cyrus has described the original version as a slow, 1950s-style ballad, the saddest song, and the early chorus said the opposite of the final one. Pollack credits Cyrus and ALDAE with deciding to flip the script and make it positive, which he calls one of the biggest moments of the writing process (Billboard). The demo was just Cyrus singing over Pollack's Rhodes. Producers Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson then jammed it into an uptempo record at Harpoon's Laurel Canyon studio, adding the lounge-style bassline, drums and cowbell. Rob Moose recorded strings, and Spike Stent mixed it (Music Week). ALDAE did not produce the record. Almost a year later, he says, Cyrus texted him to tell him it would be her first single.

"Flowers" was released on January 12, 2023 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, his first No. 1. The numbers that followed are among the biggest of the decade (Wikipedia):

• Eight weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, and a record 57 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart.
• No. 1 for 10 weeks in the UK, 15 in Canada and 12 in Australia.
• IFPI's best-selling global single of 2023.
• Certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA in March 2025.
• One billion Spotify streams in 112 days, after breaking Spotify's weekly streaming record (Spotify).

At the 2024 Grammys "Flowers" won Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, awards that go to the artist and the record's production team. ALDAE was nominated with Cyrus and Pollack for Song of the Year, which went to Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?," and for Album of the Year for Endless Summer Vacation. In June 2024 the song won Song of the Year at the BMI Pop Awards, shared by its three writers. A stripped "Flowers (Demo)" also appears on the album.

Asked what changed after "Flowers," he told IvanFromRnD that it opened doors: more calls, better deals and eventually the means to buy a home. He still hears it abroad, with people singing every word. He describes it as catching lightning in a bottle, a song that sounds classic and modern at once, and he wants his catalog to go in that timeless direction, with nothing gimmicky or tied to a moment.

The Miley Cyrus partnership, BTS and more (2023–2026)

"Flowers" was the start of a long partnership with Cyrus and Pollack. On Endless Summer Vacation he also co-wrote "Muddy Feet" (feat. Sia) and "Wonder Woman." "Used to Be Young" reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 and went Platinum (Wikipedia). He co-wrote four songs on Something Beautiful (2025), including "End of the World," where he is credited as lyricist. "Younger You," the 2026 Hannah Montana anniversary song, is another co-write, and on Bass Persuades (September 2026, a Billboard 200 No. 1) he co-wrote the title track, "Snow" and "Smile," plus "Let's Get Married," which he also co-produced (credits).

Around that partnership his catalog kept widening:

• Jessie Murph and Jelly Roll, "Wild Ones" (2023): Hot 100 No. 35 and RIAA 4× Platinum, his second-biggest certification after "Flowers" (Wikipedia).
• Jonas Brothers, five songs on The Album (2023), including "Waffle House"; Maroon 5, "Middle Ground"; Leigh-Anne, "Don't Say Love" (UK No. 11).
• blink-182, "One More Time" (2023), plus bonus tracks he co-produced.
• Jung Kook, "Closer to You" and "Shot Glass of Tears" on Golden (2023).
• Trippie Redd, "Left 4 Dead" (2023), co-written and produced by ALDAE (credits). For how Trippie's own vocals are processed, see Trippie Redd's vocal chain.
• Shakira, "Nassau" (2024); David Guetta and OneRepublic, "I Don't Wanna Wait" (2024); Halsey, "Ego"; Rosé, "two years" and "gameboy"; Jelly Roll, "Little Light" on the No. 1 album Beautifully Broken.
• Lisa, "Rapunzel" (2025).
• BTS, "Fya," "Merry Go Round" (also vocal producer) and "Come Over" on Arirang (2026), a Billboard 200 No. 1 with 641,000 first-week units; "Fya" reached No. 4 on the Billboard Global 200 (Wikipedia).

By late 2026 albums carrying his songs had topped the Billboard 200 seven times, and his Spotify songwriter page listed more than 180 songs. "Used to Be Young" and "Waffle House" both won at the 2025 BMI Pop Awards.

ALDAE the producer

He is a writer first, but his production credits are growing. Verified examples: co-producer on Lukas Graham's "Scars" (2020), additional producer on Bieber's "Unstable" (2021), producer and engineer on Ali Gatie's "Crying in the Rain" (2022), producer on Trippie Redd's "Left 4 Dead" and Quavo's "Hold Me" (2023) and co-producer on blink-182's "See You," "Can't Go Back" and "Every Other Weekend." In 2025 he produced Nardo Wick's "Have All Of Me" and BigXthaPlug and Jelly Roll's "Box Me Up." In 2026 he produced "Two Car Garage" by Jon Bellion, Swae Lee and FANDOM and YEONJUN's "No More Disco," was vocal producer on BTS's "Merry Go Round" and co-produced Cyrus's "Let's Get Married."

Legends Only and the ALDAE artist project

He has used his standing as a writer to build a company of his own. Legends Only describes itself as an LA/NYC management, publishing and record company founded by Gregory "Aldae" Hein. Pulse dates its joint venture with the company to 2021 (Pulse). In 2025 Variety reported that his lawyers renegotiated his Pulse deal to include a joint venture that lets him sign other writers.

His own music has come in three waves, each billed as a beginning. After the 2017 Aldae Long releases on Columbia came "Long Way From Texas" (February 2022), written in a friend's guest house in Arizona at the start of the pandemic and released on Legends Only with a video he shot on film and made in house (Office Magazine). It was followed by the seven-track EP Aldae – Vol. 1 (April 8, 2022), an unconventional, judgment-day-themed record he said he would never have pitched to anyone. He also sang on dance records: David Guetta and MORTEN's "Together" (2022) and Armin van Buuren and David Guetta's "In the Dark" (2024).

The third wave started on September 11, 2026 with "Blur," which also appears on the Practical Magic 2 soundtrack and is released through Artist House, with management by 100 Management (BroadwayWorld). His 2026 bio calls him a husband, a father, a Christian and a film obsessive. His own father is a photographer, and he has posted that his daughter approved the pre-chorus melody of "Blur" on the spot. The official video:

How ALDAE writes: gibberish first, chords stripped bare

ALDAE is a melody and topline writer and a singer, not a beatmaker. He describes the same method across interviews:

“Basically, I go in and sing gibberish.”ALDAE on writing "2 Much," American Songwriter

• Chords, not beats. He likes to write to stripped-down chords so he can hear the song, because a finished beat can trick you into thinking a weak idea is strong (Pensado's Place).
• Melody before words. He freestyles melodies in placeholder syllables first and writes lyrics around them; on "2 Much" that first melody take is the one on the record.
• He sings every demo. Songs meant for other artists get his voice first, with room left for them to make the song their own, which is why he has background-vocal credits on records by Bieber, Shawn Mendes, the Jonas Brothers and BTS.
• Let it marinate. The writing can be fast ("Flowers" and "Used to Be Young" each came together in about an hour), but placement is slow. "As I Am" took two years, and "Unstable" sat for well over a year before the right people reshaped them. He agreed on Pensado's Place that one major-label placement in about fifty songs is a normal hit rate.
• Small rooms, no ego. As few people as possible, water, a La Croix and the song first. To avoid absorbing other writers' melodies, he listens to jazz before sessions instead of the charts.
• Mindset. He calls himself a vessel and credits faith and prayer for where his career has gone. He admits to moments of impostor syndrome next to great topliners but says he never lets them turn into self-loathing: admire other writers, never compare yourself to them. His practical advice, from his conversation with IvanFromRnD: real sleep, no drinking or smoking, food, exercise, and a community of relationships that are not transactional. In 2025 he had just become a father.
• Train like an athlete. He treats his body like an Olympian, with rest and morning workouts. He also talks about songs as children that need the right parents, and his stated goal is a classic catalog.

His favorites from the rapid-fire round on Pensado's Place: a tempo of 105 BPM, minor chords, a Moog synth and an acoustic guitar. If you write the same way, the free browser tools in our music production tools hub cover the basics, from tempo to vocal level checks.

ALDAE's vocal chain

In public he has named only favorites. On Pensado's Place #510 he picked the Sony C800 as his vocal mic and the one piece of gear he would save from a studio fire, and the Neve 1073 as his favorite outboard. Both are studio classics. The Sony C-800G is a tube condenser known for its bright, airy top end on pop vocals, and the Neve 1073 is the preamp behind countless hit vocals.

His actual chain, as he walks through it in the source clip, is Chain 087 in the Vocal Chain eBible. It starts with that Sony and a 1073-style preamp, adds an opto compressor on the way in and finishes in the box, covering the Autotune speed he runs, how he cleans up a muddy mic, his limiter and channel strip, and his delay and reverb sends. The tuning in his chain is Antares Auto-Tune, and the eBible lists paid and free alternatives for every stage, such as the Softube Tube-Tech CL 1B plugin for the compressor. For the general order behind chains like his, see the most common vocal chain in 88 hit records.

ALDAE's Grammy nominations and awards

Nominations as listed in the Recording Academy's artist database. "Flowers" won Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2024 Grammys for Miley Cyrus and the record's producers and engineers. Outside the Grammys, he shared BMI's 2024 Pop Song of the Year for "Flowers" with Cyrus and Pollack, and "Used to Be Young" and "Waffle House" won at the 2025 BMI Pop Awards. In the week "Flowers" debuted, he entered Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters chart at No. 4, tied with Cyrus.

Charts and certifications

Peaks and certifications as listed on each song's Wikipedia page and the RIAA database, October 2026. Albums carrying his songs that reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200: Tickets to My Downfall, Justice, Mainstream Sellout, One More Time…, Beautifully Broken, Arirang and Bass Persuades.

ALDAE selected discography

Interviews and official channels

His longest interview is his 2021 episode of Pensado's Place, which covers his method, the "Unstable" story and his gear favorites:

• American Songwriter (2021): his origins, Pulse and the Justice songs.
• Vulture (2021) and Clash (2021): the stories behind Justice.
• Ones to Watch (2022) and Office Magazine (2022): the name, the Columbia years and "Long Way From Texas."
• Genius (2023): co-writing "Flowers" and his formula for a pop song.
• Billboard (2024): the Endless Summer Vacation sessions.
• BroadwayWorld (2026): the "Blur" relaunch.

Official channels: aldae.com · Instagram @aldae · YouTube @OfficialAldae · TikTok @aldaeofficial · Spotify · Legends Only.

FAQ

Who is ALDAE?

ALDAE (Gregory Aldae Hein) is a Texas-raised songwriter, producer and recording artist based in Los Angeles and New York. He co-wrote Miley Cyrus's "Flowers," five songs on Justin Bieber's Justice, Jessie Murph and Jelly Roll's "Wild Ones" and three songs on BTS's Arirang, and runs his own company, Legends Only.

How did ALDAE get into music?

He wrote songs as a kid in Texas, fell in love with recording at about 15 when his father brought home a laptop with GarageBand, sold his own CDs in high school, and moved to Los Angeles in the mid-2010s, where Columbia signed him as an artist before he rebuilt his career as a songwriter.

What is ALDAE's real name?

He is credited as Gregory Aldae Hein. In a 2016 interview he gave his real name as Gregory Eric Hein. "Aldae" is a play on "all day," from the hours he spent in the studio after moving to Los Angeles.

Did ALDAE write "Flowers"?

Yes. "Flowers" was written by Miley Cyrus, Gregory Aldae Hein and Michael Pollack in January 2022 during a week of sessions at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. It was produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson.

Is ALDAE a Grammy winner?

He is a three-time Grammy nominee: Song of the Year and Album of the Year at the 2024 Grammys, for "Flowers" and Endless Summer Vacation, and Album of the Year at the 2022 Grammys for Justice. "Flowers" itself won Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, awards that went to Miley Cyrus and the record's production team.

Did ALDAE produce "Flowers"?

No. He co-wrote it. The record was produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson and mixed by Spike Stent. ALDAE does produce selected records, including Trippie Redd's "Left 4 Dead," Quavo's "Hold Me" and YEONJUN's "No More Disco."

What songs has ALDAE written?

Highlights include Miley Cyrus's "Flowers" and "Used to Be Young," Justin Bieber's "2 Much," "As I Am," "Unstable," "Somebody" and "There She Go," Shawn Mendes and Tainy's "Summer of Love," Marshmello and Demi Lovato's "OK Not to Be OK," Jessie Murph and Jelly Roll's "Wild Ones," the Jonas Brothers' "Waffle House," blink-182's "One More Time" and BTS's "Fya."

What microphone does ALDAE use?

On Pensado's Place in 2021 he named the Sony C800 as his vocal mic and the piece of gear he would save from a studio fire, and the Neve 1073 as his favorite outboard.

Where can I find ALDAE's vocal chain?

His full vocal chain, from the mic and preamp through his in-the-box processing and effect sends, is Chain 087 in the Vocal Chain eBible, with paid and free plugin alternatives.

Sources

Recording Academy: Gregory Aldae Hein · 66th Grammy Awards · American Songwriter (2021) · Genius (2023) · Flaunt · Pensado's Place #510 · Ones to Watch (2022) · Office Magazine (2022) · Vulture (2021) · Clash (2021) · Billboard (2024) · Billboard: Michael Pollack on Flowers · Variety: the making of Flowers · Music Week: Kid Harpoon · BMI Pop Awards 2024 · Pulse: BMI Pop Awards 2025 · RIAA database · Spotify Newsroom · Pulse Music Group · Variety Legal Elite 2025 · Acoustic Silk interview (2016) · The Urban Influencer (2017) · BroadwayWorld (2026) · Flowers · Justice credits · Wild Ones · Arirang · Bass Persuades