Fresh Air - Maggie Rogers (Extended Version)

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

In 2021, burnt out from the intensity of her early career, Maggie Rogers considered quitting music entirely. Instead, she took a detour — to Harvard Divinity School, where she earned a master's degree in religion and public life. Rogers spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Briger about her songwriting process, becoming a star overnight, and being a nostalgic person. Her new album is Don't Forget Me. This episode is a special extended version of the interview that aired on NPR. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. While in college at NYU, getting a degree in music production, singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers met Pharrell Williams. And during his visit to her class, Pharrell heard an early version of Maggie's song, Alaska, and was stunned by it. The interaction from a video went viral and propelled her to fame. She has a new album, her third, called Don't Forget Me. She spoke with our producer Sam Brigger. Here's Sam. I got to see Maggie Rogers perform when she was last here in Philadelphia. She was playing at a theater in a series of smaller shows she was doing called Box Office Week. The day of each show, Rogers would be selling the tickets herself, two per person at the venue,

meeting the fans that lined up early in the morning. Rogers was interested in paring down the concert experience to something more intimate, personal, and less corporate. In the fall, she will be playing arenas, but box office week is the kind of thoughtful concept you might imagine from this singer-songwriter. In 2021, burnout from the road, Maggie Rogers took a break and got a master's degree from Harvard Divinity School, where she explored public gatherings and the ethics of power in pop culture. She's been trying to find a way to make the life of a touring musician more sustainable. Let's hear a track from Maggie Rogers' new album, Don't Forget Me. This is So Sick of Dreaming. It's easy. Walking on the water like they're stepping stones. But when every little thing's up for taking. Oh, it makes me want to sing.

My heart's breaking. Oh, there ain't no diamond ring you could buy me to take me home Cause I'm so sick of dreaming Cause I'm all that I'm needed That's So Sick of Dreaming from Maggie Rogers' new album Don't Forget Me. Maggie Rogers, welcome to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me. So you've said that in this album, this is the first time where some of the material doesn't come from your own life, that you're like playing with a persona. And I was wondering if

that's freeing, because I imagine if you're writing songs about your own life, there'd be this like self-imposed pressure to like get it right, to be precise with the details, to be authentic to the experience. Massively so. I mean, I think in being able to sort of inhabit a character, I was able to weave this tapestry of all of these different memories throughout, really, my 20s. I just turned 30. And I was sort of able to tell

maybe even a more real version of the truth in telling fiction. Over the course of writing this record, this character who's like a 25-ish year old girl who's leaving home and sort of going on this road trip through the American Southwest kind of appeared in my mind. And I was able to write the songs in sequence. The album is sequenced in the order that I wrote the songs in. And I was sort of writing them like scenes in a movie you know that takes place over like 36 hours and has a very like felma and louise-esque uh ride to it and yeah and it was

just helpful structure so without revealing like is it that that uh there are certain songs that are more autobiographical than others or that like this persona and your own life are sort of woven through each of the songs? They're definitely woven through. I have no problem revealing, you know, because I mean, yeah, I've been doing that for a long time. I'm also just sort of like professionally vulnerable and just naturally very comfortable with that. But I think it's the feelings in all of these songs are very real. Do you have a different relationship to these songs if they're not directly about you? Like, when you're performing them, do you feel differently about them?

This thing happens no matter what in performing, where you get to sort of reassign songs to your life. And it's how things stay relevant. Like, in some ways, I feel more connected to Alaska, which is a song that I wrote in early 2016. I feel more connected to it now than I have in a long time. And I think that that is always something that I'm looking for in my songwriting, in writing about real feelings or real events. I have this song called Light On that really was about me struggling with the attention or pace of the music industry or my career in the very early days.

And a lot of people think it's about or have reassigned it in their lives to be about relationships. Or I had a mother and son come up to me and tell me that it was their song for when the son went away to college. And I just thought that that was so, I mean, that's why I'm a big music fan. It's what I love about music is the way that it speaks to everyone's lives in different times. Well, we'll probably hear both of those songs later on in the interview. But when you say you reassigned it, do you reassign the song to a more recent part of your life? Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm always working through something energetically on stage. And I find performing to be like a kind of resonant therapy. Like, you think about your body as this like, big combination of living, breathing organs.

And singing, it's resonant. I mean, you send vibration through your body for two hours straight every day, and you're going to knock some things loose. You've said that you write songs as a way of processing your life. Does that mean that once you've written about something, it helps you come to a resolution, like you don't have to think about that part of your life as much? I think that was really true when I started

writing songs. I started writing songs kind of at the end of middle school and the beginning of high school. And it was very much a like one-to-one diary entry directive where I would write songs as a form of like self-soothing therapy and sort of play the song until I felt a new way. And it was also at this time where I was experiencing so much in my life for the first time. And it was 15 years ago now. And I think now, I think about songwriting a lot as a form of archiving. I mean, obviously, I'm a nostalgic person if my record is called Don't Forget Me. But there is something about just, there's so much beauty in life and so much detail and so much memory.

And I do worry about forgetting it all or being able to get my arms so full of detail that I don't drop anything and putting it into my art feels like one way of being able to just keep holding it well you know you mentioned nostalgia and I wanted to ask you about that when I first listened to the album I was like oh this is this is really nostalgic this is interesting but but you know then I listened to so much over the last like, oh, this is really nostalgic. This is interesting. But, you know, then I listened to so much over the last two weeks, and you've been writing nostalgic songs since you were like 16 or 17 years old. So I was wondering, like, do you think that that's just you're inherently a nostalgic person? Or do you think it's like, this process that you have

of like, making sense of your life is inevitably going to have like a nostalgic aspect to it. I think it's really a part of who I am. Like my dad always tells the story of the night I turned five. He found me sobbing. And I was just like completely overwhelmed at the fact that I would never be four again. Well, you write about that. And is it kids like us? Yeah.

Hey. Yeah, I do. I do write about that. And it is just, I think, this idea of time and the way that it slips through your fingers and not being able to go back i mean i think not to talk more about live performance and why i love it but it kind of is because the thing about being on stage is the second it's awesome and you're like something is really happening here it's gone and you can't hold it you can just be present in it and hope that you remember it and um so anyway yeah i'm a nostalgic person that's a song that's nostalgic about being nostalgic right like

kids like us right and i wrote that by the way when i was 17 yeah this is just who i am nostalgia is such a weird thing because it's like this thing that humans indulge in like this sort of way that we get to enjoy sadness it's a very strange emotion that's my favorite music though like whether it's something like robin which i would classify in my favorite genre which is dancing while crying or um i don't know some of the great like i always think about lucinda williams or jillian welch and that's kind of some of the music that i put on. When it feels good to feel sad, there's such a feeling to that. And even when I think about it in my head, I think about like being in the kitchen in late August and it's humid and my mom's making iced tea on the back porch and like summer's about to be over

because school's starting like that to me is the feeling of that kind of music yeah yeah that's like what sundays are like for me yeah exactly i'm like i want music to feel like a sunday and that actually like when i made don't forget me i wanted to make a record that felt like a sunday afternoon driving record because those to me are like some of my favorite records. Yeah. Well, that's actually my next question because this music has this lightness, this relaxed feeling, but it's a real contrast to the previous album, Surrender, which was like a real COVID album. Like there was a lot of pent up emotions. There was sadness, frustration, anger. Like there was a lot of pent up emotions. There was sadness, frustration, anger.

And you could really feel that in the music. But you end that album with this song called Different Kind of World, where the refrain is when we're riding all together, it's a different kind of world. When we're riding all together, I'm a different kind of girl. But so like your new album, like you wrote the driving music that you were missing back then. Yeah. Well, I always want to make the record that I want to hear. That's just, maybe that's selfish or maybe that's just intuitive.

Or maybe that's the understanding that I'm going to play these songs a million times over the course of my lifetime. But for Surrender, I mean, I was living in Maine during the pandemic in this very isolated area by the water, and all I wanted was to be in a rock club. Like, I wanted someone to spill beer on my shoes. I wanted someone to be, like, too sweaty and touch my arm. I wanted someone that was too tall to stand in front of me. I wanted to feel that like jostle around. And I kept thinking about being in these DIY rock clubs in college in Bushwick and listening to all these great bands who lead with distorted guitar when the drum kit is on the floor like three feet in front of you like that's what I wanted in the pandemic and and that's what I was thinking about with surrender was just this like absolute mouth-watering desire to be around people and be around sound I mean I felt I started

playing around with distortion as a tool and And again, with that resonant therapy thing, distortion felt so therapeutic. And it felt so nice in this deep, deep, deep, quiet space to really make sound. And when I started touring that record, I learned a lot about it. And it was a really, really wild time to be touring because it was the first time coming back from the pandemic. And the energy and the current of those shows was really unstable. Yeah, I bet. It was like people weren't like connecting to each other as a group yet. And at the same time, a lot of people were crying.

A lot of people were coming to shows alone with a lot of heaviness to sort of move through. A lot of people were passing out in a way that I had never seen before. Do you think they had been drinking too much? I think it was a combination of social anxiety and just not being used to standing for that long.

Yeah. Well, you know, even though this new album is sort of lighter than that, there's definitely a lot of themes about moving on and, like, sadness and loss. So it's not entirely an upbeat album. So there's a contrast there between the sound and what you're conveying. Well, let's take a short break here. If you're just joining us, our guest is Maggie Rogers. Her new album is Don't Forget Me.

We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. I'm Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado, and live from Philadelphia, it's Fresh Air Plus.

Listen, I'm Leslie Jones. I'm the heavy hitter walking into the room. Trust and believe, listen, give all respect to those ladies, but none of them was a comic like me. After the season finale of Saturday Night Live, we listened back to a few SNL audition stories from our archive on this week's Fresh Air Plus bonus episode. Learn more and join for yourself at plus.npr.org. So let's hear another song from the album. I wanted to hear Don't Forget Me.

And I kind of want to use this song as a vehicle to talk about your writing. So listeners, if you want, pay attention to the rhythm of these lines and how they're rhyming. So this is Don't forget me. I'm so scared. I'm still trying to clean up my side of the street. I can't imagine what would happen. Cause I'm still acting out of heaven. Hoping dirty words just don't escape my teeth.

Oh, but every time I try just a little Promise that I'll meet in the middle Always find my way back to my feet So close the door and change the channel Give me something I can handle Like a lover or someone that's nice to me Take my money, wreck my Sundays Love me till you're next, somebody

Oh, but promise me that when it's time to leave Don't forget me Don't forget me. Don't forget me. That's the title track from Maggie Rogers' new album, Don't Forget Me. So, Maggie, first, what came first with the song? Was it the melody? Was it the idea? Did you have a rhyme in your head?

Yeah, this was the very last day in the studio at Electric Lady with me and Ian. And I remember we sat at the guitar and I sort of started singing this melody. And Ian was playing chords. And we had sort of sketched the song that way, just melody and chords. And Ian went in and put the guitar down and then recorded some drums to go with it. And then he said, I think I'm going to be sick. I need to lay down.

And I was like, okay, yeah, do your thing. And Ian sat in the live room for the next hour, like feeling really nauseous. And I sat in the control room with a notepad and just worked my way down the melody. And it started with my friend Sally's getting married. And yeah, I mean, songwriting to me, it's like a word puzzle because you understand,

I always have the melody and the layout of a song first, or sometimes certain vowel sounds or certain words will come with the melody. There is a sort of shape to that current, but it is like figuring out, you kind of inherently understand how many syllables and the shape of what should go there so it's like doing building blocks and a crossword puzzle in the same in the same breath well yeah i mean this song particularly seems to have a lot of structure to it because you have like the first line has like this internal rhyme and then that rhymes with the next line but like it's you know i don't want to sort of scan the whole thing but like there's a lot of scaffolding to this. And I also noticed that this song sticks in my head a lot. So I was wondering if those two things are perhaps related. I mean, with this record, a lot of my music momentum is kind of a tool in my creative process where I find the best work happens when I stop

thinking and just make for fun. So I wasn't really overanalyzing in any way. I was just writing what I felt, which is thinking about my friend Sally getting married and realizing that I'm just not ready for that. And that feels like a fairly normal 30-year-old sentiment. But this type of song specifically, my friend Sally, my friend Molly, the way that that structure is built is such a classic folk song structure. It's like deep Americana. That really was the kind of music I was really interested in in high school when I was really interested in in high school when I was

really honing my craft. And so it's funny with Don't Forget Me because I've kind of avoided writing this type of song for a long time because it's the kind of song I can write in my sleep. Like there is such a tradition and a structure to it. So it's just easy. It's like plug and play. You know, because there's format and structure, you know, I could write another song, My Friend Anna, you know, it's just like, it's like Dylan. There's a way to just move through those verses. And part of that just comes from me being such a student and a fan of music and having a real reverence for that kind of structure. And I think that that sort of harkens back, like you say, to sort of folk tradition, which also kind of feels like there's a sing-songiness, there's almost like a nursery rhyme kind of element to the song.

Well, I think in so many ways that's why I've sort of said that this record feels like coming home. You know, I started as a guitar player and a banjo player making folk music very much in the tradition of the like 2012 indie music coming out of Brooklyn and coming out of New York. And that's just what I listened to in high school. And when I got to NYU to study music production engineering, I just started learning a lot and then experimenting with these new tools. And I wanted to think about drum sounds and bass textures and synthesizers. And what would it sound like if I changed the production? I mean, the thing is, is at the core throughout my career, the songwriting has been fairly consistent. And the production is the thing that, you know, I've been...

It's been changing. Yeah, just experimenting with how I dress up the body, but the body stayed the same all the time. And this record was just so easy because my collaboration with Ian was incredibly natural, but also we have so many of those shared references about the music that I made when I was just starting out that it just felt really relaxed. You know, the person in the song is asking for so little from a partner.

Like she's not ready for a big commitment. Like she's skeptical about long term relationships. But like, but she's just like, just be nice to me. Like, love me until you find the next person. Like it's inevitable there'll be a next person. And the exhortation, like, don't forget me. Like, there's pretty low expectations here. Yeah. My friends, I have joked with my friends that this is like my low standard. So a good lover and someone that's nice to me. Take my money. Wreck my Sundays. But I think that is love, right? Like I think love does,

I don't know, at least I can speak for myself, but, or speak for my friends and those intimate conversations. But I think love does destroy in some wonderful way where both people raise each other up and hurt each other in the same breath. And it still makes everything greater than what it could have been on your own. And that to me feels like something worth having or worth fighting for, even if it's temporary. And I think my ask in the song is just when it's all over, wanting it to be worth it. Some of the song also seems to be just addressing getting older. Like friends are talking about maybe having a family, a marriage. Parents are talking about selling one's childhood homes.

So you just turned 30 a few weeks ago. Happy birthday, first of all. Does that mean something to you? Do you place a lot of importance on leaving your 20s behind you? I mean, as much as any other. My job is to narrate my life. So, of course, there's importance on it. But I felt emotional about it.

Yeah, I didn't expect to. And a couple of days before, I got some birthday blues like before and really saying goodbye to this decade. But the 20s are hard. Yeah, they are. That's true. 20s are rough. And I woke up on the first day of my 30s and was shocked that I felt different. And maybe it's placebo. But I really woke up and was like oh I'm awesome like I had this moment that's a nice affirmation well I have this mantra with my best friends where sort of in any difficult

moment we go I'm awesome my friends are awesome my life is awesome like just a reminder and I woke up on the first day of my 30s and was like I think just knowing my self worth and just being like oh it, it's all good. Like, I got it. And I did feel a sense of that, like, clean slate.

That's what actually happens to everyone when they turn 30. It's just wiped away. It's just universal, yeah. Good. Okay, it's not placebo. Good. Well, let's take a short break here.

If you're just joining us, our guest is Maggie Rogers. Her new album is Don't Forget Me. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. So Maggie, you know, you're just one of a handful of pop stars who've gotten their master's degree from Harvard Divinity School. So can you tell us a little bit about what led to that decision? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I just really love school. I mean, there's just so much to learn about in the world.

And I always used to threaten, like when I was on tour, I'd always say to my band, like, one day we're going to stop touring and I'm going to go to grad school. And there's so much fantasy to school of like, you know, the blazer and the briefcase and the pencils. But I think, honestly, I had such a big first ride. The first, like, four or five years of my career.

And when the pandemic came, I just was really burnt out. And it was creating this situation where I just I love music more than anything else in the entire world and I realized that the structure around music that really protected it and kept it sacred wasn't working for me like I was thinking about quitting and just saying you know this is making me not love making music. And I sort of was like, how is that possible? How could that have happened? And, you know, part of this is age appropriate. You know, like I turned 27 and was like, maybe I want to go to grad school or maybe I need to ask more questions. And then obviously part of it is really unique to what I do. But I needed, I think the biggest thing with being an artist is there is no structure. You know, it's up for every person to decide how long they do this and what it looks like over the scope of their life.

And I want to have a really long, fruitful, inspiring, sustainable career doing this because it's what I love more than anything else in the entire world. And so, yeah, I applied to grad school and just I wanted to spend the time while the pandemic was happening really thinking about what I believe and what does it mean to be an artist and what are the boundaries that I want to hold around that and how do I create sustainable structure around that for me to be able to do it for a really long time. And so what was it that you were hoping to get from this program? I mean, it's not a theology school at this point. Yeah, that's important to sort of note that I didn't go to any kind of seminary. I didn't train to be a priest. But clearly it has to do with some sort of element of spirituality. And that seems tethered to your understanding of what music is like and performance. So what were you hoping to sort of figure out when you were writing your thesis?

So my master's degree is in religion and public life. So this program that I went to was specifically for people who don't work in religion, who want a greater understanding of religion and the way it works in the world, to be able to inform their sort of non-religious life. And I found as I was performing and on stage that people were asking me for answers to questions I felt really unqualified to answer. Like I found myself in this unconventional ministerial position without undergoing any of the training. Like people were asking me for my perspective on politics, suicide. People were asking me to perform marriages, depression.

And I was like, I'm 24. Like, I have no idea. Like, I was in no way any more qualified than anybody else to have an answer on these things. The thing that I really spent time learning about and being an expert in was music. But people didn't even really ask me about music much. And even that I was still early in learning and still am. And so the program, it was just really nice to have some quiet time to think about what I believed. And really thinking about, you know, in this time that is more divisive than it's ever been, how do people come together? And how do people create meaning? And I think at its core, music has always been the most sacred and most spiritual thing that I've ever been a

part of. Whether it's being in the crowd at a show at an early age or being on stage with my band when we're all jamming or playing music together and we just hit that right thing all at the same time like something was telepathically communicated that to me it's just it's the closest thing I've ever felt to something divine and so a lot of what I did was study religious theory and study the sort of like technical philosophical ways that people think about and talk about religion and the structure of religion. And then I applied it to music and to touring and to festivals and used all of that to sort of create this system for myself to navigate some of these bigger questions I was having about ethics of having a public

platform and sustainability within my career. And how do I use the work that I love to do the most amount of good in the world? Well, you know, I mean, I saw you live when you were here in Philadelphia, and I can see, based on your fans, why you might think about this stuff so much because you have a very engaged fan base. It might have been a bit of a sample bias because these were, as I said, people who got up early in the morning and waited in line

and didn't get tickets in a traditional way. But the show took place three days after your album had been released. I mean, a couple of the singles have been out for a little bit, but like so many people knew all the lyrics to the new songs and were like singing them back to you. Like people, it did have a sort of festival spirit, like actually a woman proposed to her girlfriend during the performance. And that was a successful proposal. So, like, I mean, I can see why you're thinking about the ethics of performing,

because you wield a lot of power on stage. Well, I think, like any kind of power dynamic, it's worth investigating and being really conscious of. And to me, art is a form of caring. It's a form of taking care of people and taking care of yourself. And it's also a form of connecting. And studying this stuff has been a way for me to really take care of this community of people who allow me to do the thing that I love doing more than anything.

And that will always feel like time well spent because in a way that's also taking care of me. That connection, that sense of purpose, I'm so just like bowled over by it anytime I touch it. And I think that that actually was what was so special about doing these in-person ticketing events is that, you know, you see the numbers on an email or you see them on social media and they're kind of arbitrary, but I'd wake up in the morning and at these

ticketing events and go say hello to the 3,000 people waiting in line to buy a ticket to my show. And it's so surreal. I mean, I'm in New York City as we're recording this. And when I can't sleep when I'm here, I go walk by the apartment that I lived in when I first moved to New York when I was 19. And I lived there for three years in the East Village. And I walked by that apartment last night and on my way home past Irving Plaza, which is where we did the in-person ticketing event here in New York. And I just, you know, here's the nostalgic part of me, but I just wish I could tell that girl writing songs in her bedroom about those people who met me with such kindness

and whose hands I got to shake and thank for wanting to come see me play. You know, I played every dumb, perfect, tiny club in New York City. And I found a photo of me playing piano. It was this, like, amazing Lower East Side bar last night. And it just, it never ceases to blow my mind you know at the show you also interacted a lot with the crowd like oh yeah i've been asking for gossip yeah you told people that if they gave you a piece of gossip then they get to choose a song yeah play but like so you know because you went to grad school specifically to think about like these issues like you there must be some intent or

some thought behind the way you're you're interacting so like how do you think that functions in your performance and i'll say in part because um you know i always heard that jerry garcia would never talk from stage because he was so concerned about god voice yeah exactly and so your approach is like almost the opposite like you're coming down like as much as you can and interacting well i think like i was saying earlier like i don't feel like i know any more than anybody else and that's why songwriting is so powerful to me because like if you hit if you can make yourself like vulnerable as humanly possible, you hit universal truth. You get to the center, and once you're at the center, you can stay there forever.

And the simplest songs are always the most profound. I think about I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beatles. What a simple, simple lyric, but it's kind of the most profound. When did you start feeling comfortable on stage, like dancing around, like using the mic stand as a prop? Like when did that happen? The dancing has always been the case,

for better or for worse, because I've definitely looked like I've been electrocuted more times than I could count. You used to have a more Martha Graham approach to your performance. Yeah, we'll call it Martha Graham. Sure, sure, sure. I still do, by the way. I mean, I remember in the pandemic watching all these videos of Oasis playing when my mouth was like watering and hungry for rock clubs and just watching the Gallaghers stand still and being like, damn, they're really in control.

That looks sick. And I always step on stage and I'm like, I'm going to hold the center. And then I hear a kick drum and I'm like, ooh, that's fun. I mean, I love the sort of heady research, academic stuff. That's such a part of who I am. But also, performing is really body-based. I get on stage and I'm not thinking. There's no conscious thought once I'm on stage.

I'm just present. And I'm feeling and I'm moving. And the studio feels like a really beautiful place where the brain and the body get to overlap. Because I do move a ton in the studio feels like a really beautiful place where the brain and the body get to overlap because I do move a ton in the studio and it is very fast in process and I am kind of like riding some current. But when I'm on stage, it's part of why I love doing it so much because you can't really think about anything else than what's directly in front of you. Is it hard to scale that up? Like when you come back to Philadelphia, you're going to be playing at a big arena. I think it's actually harder or more terrifying to play for a small group of people.

Because you're dealing with, you can really see the whites in everyone's eyes. And when you're in an arena, you're moving sort of a much larger current. That said, people really think that you can't see them in a crowd. Like, I can see everybody. Like, I can see those people in the top section in the third row who are checking their phone. And I can see, like, I really. Sorry about that. I'm always in it.

They're usually checking on someone they love. Or I can see the guy that brought someone as a date and, like, he's not really into the show, but, like, she really is. Or I can see that they don't know each other that well. That's funny. Or I can see this group of friends who are together. And even, you know, I've been lucky to play Arena's opening

for some wonderful artists or joining artists on stage. And you can see everybody. That's wild. That's Maggie Rogers speaking with Sam Brigger. She has a new album called Don't Forget Me. We'll be back with more from Maggie Rogers after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. So Maggie, you know, the moment of your discovery was filmed and went viral. You were a student at NYU majoring in music production. Your class was visited by Pharrell Williams. He came to sort of listen and give you some notes about what you guys were doing. You played him an early version

of your song, Alaska, and he was blown away by it. When was the last time you saw that video? I've seen the thumbnail of it quite a bit, but I don't know the last time I actually watched the video. It's sweet because you both look kind of nervous and shy, and you're not sure whether you should be seeing what he's thinking about your music right like obviously that's such an important moment in your career um and partly fomented your success but like is there a part of you that sometimes wishes that that video hadn't gone viral that that was more yours than everyone else's? I mean, it was really, really scary when it happened.

Like, I was incredibly overwhelmed. But it was also, it was complicated because I got the job that I had trained for and that I'd always wanted. Right. Exactly in the moment when I needed a job. And yet it was so deeply and wildly out of my control. Like it felt like something that was happening to me.

Mm-hmm. Even though it was something I had prepared for for like a decade at that point. Right, because you've been performing for a long time. You've been writing music for a long time. I've been making records. Yeah, exactly. And then there was this moment where the door just opened. And also, I think what's really special about that video

is how unguarded I am and Pharrell is. Yeah. And part of me wishes that I got to upload that song and present my artistic statement. But also what's beautiful about the video is how unguarded it is. So if it happened any other way, it wouldn't be what it is. And I feel actually really lucky that the version of me that got introduced to the world is and was the most authentic version of myself. Because that's the kind of art that I love and I've always been made and I've always been drawn towards making. And so, like, do I wish that I, like, brushed my hair and, like, put on a real outfit?

Would you still be wearing that necklace that's made of elk? Elk vertebrae. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the thing that's sort of wild and funny about it. When I suddenly overnight became a pop star, I needed a lot of clothes. And all of the clothes I had were for like, I lived in the studio. I was a studio rat. And suddenly I needed like colorful glittery outfits and I was like what do you mean I can't wear like my jeans and boots let's hear a little bit of Alaska I was walking through icy streams that took my breath away

Moving slowly through westward water over glacial plains And I walked off you And I walked off an old me Old me, oh my I thought it was a dream So it seemed And now breathe deep, I'm inhaling You and others there in between Leave me be, I'm exhaling You and others there in between

You and others there in between Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, or there's cold winds blowing. And I don't know if it's related to this, but you've said that you have synesthesia and that music has a color to you. And so you often, when you're writing, you create these color mood boards for your songs. Could you describe that? Yeah, I mean, well, I think that the coldness that you're talking about in that song comes from the synthesizers and how smooth they are.

And sparse too, kind of. Exactly. There is space to it. But even in those background vocals that sort of come to help transition from the pre-chorus to the chorus, there is a sort of, it's a plate reverb. You know, there's a lot of different kinds of reverb, but a plate reverb is quite metallic in the way that it's designed. And I think that some of that smoothness of the synth and the way that the sonic palette of that song is designed does sort of represent the landscape I was talking about. And that, to me, is something I'm always trying to do.

You know, make the music try and echo or tell the story of the emotion that it's soundtracking. And that comes from, I grew up really loving classical music and playing the harp in orchestras. And I remember my mom really early telling me to listen to orchestral music because they were telling a story without words. And I was just so, so taken with that idea. As far as these color mood boards go, I think it goes back to how fast everything was because I've always had a very strong connection to color and sound. But also as I got sort of like thrown into the like big dogs of the music industry and was suddenly working with all of these different collaborators

after really just working alone for a really long time, putting down my thoughts and feelings of the sonic palette or texture that I was trying to create into a couple different one sheets were really helpful to walk into different people's studios with because I could show them in a couple different terms, whether it was just blocks of color on a page or images I had pulled off of the internet about how I wanted the record to feel. It was something that helped me communicate my artistic vision, but also keep things really coherent, even as I was sort of navigating all of these wonderful new people

that were coming into my life because of all of this new attention. Did that also help in order to sort of assert yourself in those situations? Like if would people try to get you to record things in different ways, but you had like all these different ways of sort of showing that you were really in command of these songs and that these were your creations and you knew what was best for them? I mean, I think I was lucky to work with a lot of really wonderful people who were true artists and really... And listened to you. Well, and the work of a co-producer is to serve the artist or to serve the art.

I think that's also part of the reason that I was drawn to music production or to education in the first place. Because in so many ways, knowledge is power. And I got into music production because I was writing songs in high school and I couldn't get the guys to play my arrangements. So I learned how to program. I learned how to play the songs by myself and create the arrangements for drums and bass and synth and all these things on the computer because it was like a gender problem. And when I got to school and I could learn about engineering and software and production and microphones and drum technique, it became something that allowed me to protect my vision. They were just tools that allowed me to get the thing that I heard in my head down onto paper.

I think ultimately, the thing that I love, you were asking about people trying to change my ideas. The thing that I love about the music industry the most is its kind of like Wild West nature. It also makes it complicated. And I would be remiss to mention that. But it's this place where a 16-year-old girl in her bedroom can change the way that everybody does everything overnight. And that to me feels really special. The democratization of music software and the way that the internet has changed the power that gatekeepers within the industry have is something that is really inspiring to me.

When did you start writing songs? I started writing songs this summer. I was 14. And so many important creative moments in my life have come out of a sense of boredom. Like I taught myself to play guitar when I was in the eighth grade because I got the flu. And I was just homesick for a really long time and had asked for a guitar for a couple years previous for Christmas and started teaching myself chords or tabs from the internet. And inevitably, I was sitting around and it was really rainy and I was with some girlfriends just hanging out that summer and I started making up this joke song on my guitar about how it was raining.

And then when everyone went home, I kept working on it. And I wrote a second verse that was emotional and personal. And in hindsight, nostalgic. And yeah, I just remember feeling like something had happened. Like I had plugged my socket into the wall. Or like I had a new beam of light between my fingers and just sort of kept returning to that feeling. And before that, you would learn patient parents, because I just decided. You know, when I was a kid, I had Gustav Holst's The Planets. That was like one of my favorite records. And I just became obsessed with the harp.

And I just wouldn't let it go. And my mom would bless her. We had this like tiny rental harp because there's different kinds of sizes of harps. It was important because if you picture a seven-year-old in front of a massive harp, it's really scary. Yeah, so we rented a folk harp

and my mom would strap it to the back of her car and we would drive like 40 minutes to the University of Salisbury. Is there like an Irish harp kind of? Is that the same thing? Exactly. So there's like levers to it instead of foot pedals.

And she would play me all this great neo-soul when we were in the car. So we were listening to like Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill and Indiari and Macy Gray and Outkast. And then I would go play classical music for a while. And I played in the orchestra until I was

18. I want to end with the song um light on uh which is at one point you called the most vulnerable song you've ever written why why is that it might not be the case anymore but no it's funny to be reminded of that it it was uh light on was written about when i almost quit music the first time. I mean, I joke about that, but it was written in this time where that first ride after the thrill video was really scary. There's lyrics in this song that says, like, crying in the bathroom while everyone around you is saying, you must be so happy now. And I think that that's the sort of wild thing about fame or success, is that it lifts you up, but also it is incredibly lonely. And I was having this experience that was everything I'd ever wished for,

and yet felt kind of uncreative, I really missed my friends and missed my life and I just didn't know how to handle all of it and again incredibly specific experience and also kind of age appropriate I do think that is what happens in those first years after college when you have your first job and you're just like I I don't know what's going on. Yeah. You have to make new friends and learn how to do a new job. And that's exactly what I was doing. It just looked really different. And it felt really vulnerable to sort of, I had this Cinderella story, felt really vulnerable to sort of say, I'm struggling with this. It doesn't feel as amazing as it looks. And that doesn't change how much I'm grateful for it. That there is a complicated nuance in the middle. And I think this song was me ultimately connecting with my audience and choosing to do it. That

if you keep reaching out, then I'll keep coming back, was me sort of saying, okay, I'm going to commit to this, and I'm going to do it. And it was also a thank you to all the really kind and wonderful people who had been there, the ones that I knew and the ones I'll never meet, who had just seen me as a full person and really had my back through it and it's funny it's funny hearing you now say that like remind me that it was so vulnerable at the time because when I hear this song now or when I perform it live I don't remember the or like the memory that comes to mind is not that moment crying in the bathroom. What I feel in an overwhelming way is the many, many moments I've had on stage playing this and how connected I've felt to that audience or how much joy there's been. Well, that's what's really interesting because the way you perform it now,

like it's sort of like anthemic. And when I've seen videos of you sing it, like it's clearly there's a lot of joy on your face and it's an enjoyable thing that you're experiencing. It was really scary when I had to say all these things for the first time, but now it doesn't, what's been erased has been replaced. Now it's been replaced by all of the joy that i've felt as a result of that decision to stay in it and to find a way to make this thing

feel like me and when i think about playing that song i just have a massive smile on my face because it's just, it's just really special. When the lyric, you know, if you leave the light on, I'll leave the light on. Like it's a small gesture. It's like, you know, I'm coming home, leave the light on for me, but it sort of stands for, it can stand for so much. Yeah. And I think in my life now, you know, I've spent most of my adult life on tour. So it speaks as much to this audience I feel so grateful to be in conversation with and to have as it is for the friends whose birthdays and special moments I've missed because I've been out on the road. And I think finding a balance between those two parts of my life, it's getting way easier the older I get, but it is still the thing that I think about more than anything. And what an amazing thing to spend my days dreaming about. Well, Maggie Rogers, thanks so much for coming on Fresh Air. This has been such a dream. I have to just tell you, I'm a big, big Fresh Air NPR girl,

and this has been really special. Thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you. Would you believe me now If I told you I got caught up in a wave Almost gave it away Would you hear me out If I told you i was terrified for days thought i was gonna break

oh i couldn't stop it tried to slow it all down crying in the bathroom had to figure it out with everyone around me saying you must be so happy now oh if you keep preaching and i'll keep coming back if you're gone for good then i'm okay with that if you leave the light on I'll leave the light on I am finding out There's a snow of the way And I'm still dancing

To the end of the day If you leave the light on I'll leave the light on