My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 313 - TAYLOR ACORN

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Taylor Acorn joins Robbie Fox in the Basement today to discuss her new EP, 'Certified Depressant' - and she plays a quick game of pop punk 'This-Or-That' and talks touring! #TaylorAcorn #PopPunk **************************************** Subscribe to My Mom's Basement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIeZ96PqdsJYQ7DFLRx6MHw My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basementYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello and welcome to My Mom's Basement, presented by 3Chi and Barstool Sports, and a very special interview edition of My Mom's Basement. An interview with, I think it's fair to say, one of pop punk's fastest rising stars, Taylor Acorn. She blew up on social media a few years ago with a couple covers, acoustic May Day Parade stuff. She did wedding versions of pop punk songs.

Now she's doing her own stuff. She has a great pop punk EP out now. It's called Certified Depressant. Just came out last month. So she hopped in the basement. We talked all about it. And of course it was presented by 3Chi. Of all the things in life, one of the best has to be getting high wherever you want, whenever you want, without the paranoia of consuming some sketchy black market stuff.

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My mom's basement listeners will get an exclusive 15% off discount on all of 3C's premium THC products by going to 3C.com and using the promo code basement15. Basement 15 to take 15% off your order. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Please use responsibly. Now let's get into this interview with Taylor Acorn. Welcome back to My Mom's Basement. It is Robbie Fox and I am here with Taylor Acorn. You have the certified depressant EP out now. You also have a song called Basement coming out on Friday. I do. Yeah, fitting, right? Yeah, being on this show meant that much to you.

Before we get to all of that, I do want to give you props. You might be the first musician to ever be early for a morning interview. No way. That is shocking. You got into 2 a.m. last night. You were early for a 10 a.m. interview. You tell a singer 10 a.m., they act like it's 6 a.m. Listen, I give it credit to my tour manager because she's very punctual.

If it wasn't for her, I probably might have been a little late, but she keeps me accountable. It's very impressive. When I heard you were here early, I was like, what? No, that can't be right. Nobody's here early. I do want to go back to the beginning for a second. I know that might be annoying, but I feel like you burst onto the scene in pop punk over the past few years. You've been everywhere.

How did this project all start? What is the inception of this project? I think it was really just a long time coming. I mean, I was a country artist for a few years, but I grew up listening to primarily like pop punk and rock music and grew up on like the early like 90s rock. And, you know, I think when I started getting interested in becoming an artist and like started becoming interested in like playing music and writing music, I wanted to write like pop punk music, pop rock music. But at the time, I think like that genre, it just it wasn't like a I don't want to say it was like a dying breed at the time. It wasn't like it is now.

It wasn't like it is now, even though in like, I believed it was, you know? Um, but I just, you know, did the country thing for a while and realized like, I'm not happy doing this. I need to focus on the things that make me feel good, which was like this genre of music. And so, um, you know, we just started writing like piece by piece. Um, we wrote certified depressant and then from then on, we just started writing like piece by piece. We wrote Certified Depressant. And then from then on, we just kind of wrote. Was that the first one? Yeah, that was the first one. And then from then on, we just kind of honed in and finished writing their little record that is now Certified Depressant.

Did you find similarities like going from country to pop punk in the songwriting styles? Because I feel like even some of the like country artists that are popping right now that are at the top of the scene have very like emo vibes. And there's very like similar songwriting styles to me, structures and stuff. Yeah, I really do. I think both genres are very much like based off of the storytelling of it and the emotional side of it too.

And I think a lot of it just has to do with production i really do think that you could probably take any country song and turn it into a pop rock yeah song or like a ballad or something like that um have you seen uh is it alex melton yeah who he does like the y'all the small things covers yeah he does like all the alternative stuff which was really interesting because when i did start doing the tiktoks on um and like you know doing the little covers and everything um i was really shocked to see how many country fans were like oh my gosh i've been waiting for somebody to do this for the longest time but like you know they're it was just not a popular thing you know it's crazy yeah um who were your biggest inspirations when you started doing the pop punk stuff?

Oh, gosh. I have so many. Well, vocally, not necessarily pop punk, but I am super, super inspired or, like, influenced by Amy Lee. Awesome. From Evanescence. Yeah. That's my girlfriend's favorite singer. No way.

She's my favorite. I remember, this is back in the day now, but I would watch her AOL sessions and stuff like that. And I was just so fascinated by her vocals. And so I was like eight years old and I would try to mimic her. And so I do, I do owed my vocal ability to Amy Lee. She doesn't know it at all, but she taught me how to sing. Is that like Evanescence? Is that your go-to karaoke? It's not because mostly, you know, sometimes we'll do, my sister and I will do like Bring Me to Life or something like that. Like she'll do like the

with her the guy part. Yeah, she always does like the hardcore part and I'll sing. But my go-to is usually 1985 by Bowling for Soup oh nice it's always a good one I guess the crowd go in everybody knows it yeah it's fun yeah we have like a fake pop punk band here at Barstool and we tried to rewrite that as 1999 and it was like fun for like a little tiktok or whatever yeah and then we tried to do it live and it confused the shit out of everyone because they were like these aren't the lyrics we know and we didn't give them a heads up for it. That's so funny. It didn't go well.

You've been touring a ton, it seems like. On your Instagram, every post is another tour date going back years. You've toured with so many cool bands in the scene. Any favorite stories from getting into that and being kind of a newbie on the road in this world? Oh, I mean, every single band that we've been with we've been so fortunate they are they're just so cool like they're so nice and they've been so welcoming um gosh and there's just so many things that have happened and now all of a sudden my mind is going

and now you're on a headliner tour yeah and um now we're doing our own headline but I will say just like I mean the biggest thing that stood out for me was just how accepting everybody was. And I mean, being, I mean, for the first tour that we did, it was myself, the home team with Con, it was their last tour, and then real friends. And so I was the only female and it was just like the respect that they gave us and my team and also being new to the scene. Like they just I mean, that's the biggest thing that stood out for me was just the acceptance. And I don't know. It's just it's really awesome. What's something about the road that people don't think about? People don't expect. People don't expect. Gosh, there's so many things. I'd probably say like for me, like it's so hard to get adequate sleep. Like I just I mean, we're even in an RV. No, you're good. No, that's totally fine. But it's it's so hard and like to stay healthy, especially like when you're in an RV or like a van with 10 other people. It's so hard to stay healthy, especially when you're in an RV or a van with 10 other people.

It's so rough. Yeah. And when you're in other people's space that you're not normally in for a month or two at a time. You're on top of each other. You're on top of each other. It becomes a little bit like sibling rivalry, you know? But it's, I mean, that's, that's really it. Like I love being on the road and I love my camp and, um, we have so much fun. So really it's just the lack of sleep,

I think is the hardest for me. What about being in the studio? Do you love being in the studio or do you not like the process? I love it. I think it's so fun. I love watching like, especially songs that I've started on my own come to life. I work a lot with this guy, Dan Swank, and he's just so shout out, Dan. Yeah. But he's just so talented. And him and I, I mean, even back in the country days, he played guitar for me and we've always been working together. So it's just really cool to now both be in the scene that we love and creating the music that we are really passionate about.

And so just like being in the studio with him especially, it's just so fun. I love it. Do you guys just bounce ideas off of each other constantly? Yeah, I mean, if I'm on the road or if I'm at home, I'll usually voice memo, record something, send it to him. He'll start a track. And then once we get together, we'll... And he's so good at lyrics too, not just a great producer.

So him and I, we just have so much fun with it. And we bounce ideas off of each other. And it's just a really easy, fun process. Do you have either a favorite pop punk trope, like a hating your hometown type song or something or one you try to avoid on your stuff uh i don't i don't really know i don't know um hating your hometown i mean um i guess not songs. Cause that's a trope for every genre. I mean, I kind of have an open book, you know what I mean? When it comes to like writing and my writing process. I mean, I write a lot about mental health and I think that's just

because it's something that I know very well. I mean, I don't hate my hometown. I did at one point, but everyone goes through that phase. You know what i mean yeah i mean i don't i don't really have anything that's like out like off limits to write about you that was maybe me trying to just like dig because when we try to write our like fake pop punk songs we just try to lean into all the tropes yeah so we try to like you know see what the tropes are oh gosh yeah i mean if i do it i don't do it intentionally. You got to lean into like stuck at your locker, forgot the combo. Oh, yeah. High school, go back to that kind of stuff. For sure. I would love to go through the EP like track by track and just get a story from recording the process or whatever. Starts with sticking around. It's a great start to the EP.

Did you know when you wrote this that it would be like the start? It feels like the start of the story? Oh, yeah, for sure. It's just one of those songs that just from the get-go is so just like hard-hitting. And it's so fun, too. And I wanted something to start off the record to be, I mean, that's always something that I strive for, too, is to be able to write songs that are sad or meaningful but still have a good vibe to them too so you don't have to be

yeah like you don't have to be like sad and in your feels like you can be but you don't have to be the entire time and so um when we wrote that song i knew like right off the bat i was like this is the first one that we're putting on the record it's gonna be the start to it and then it's like your opener too we actually don't play it oh you don't play this one wow we we decided not to play it this run and i'm regretting it very much because we've had a few fans that were like are you trying to like make me mad by not playing this song um but uh we we decided last minute because our our original drummer um he was not able to come on tour and he let us know two days beforehand so we tried to just like pick songs that a new

drummer would be able to kind of um pick up pretty easily our drummer now is he's phenomenal but yeah it was a little bit chaotic at first so that happened to us our last show our drummer went on his honeymoon oh no way friggin guy so selfish brought his wife on a honeymoon to italy or something yeah so i called up the drummer of my pop punk band in middle school no way i haven't played with in 15 years and he played the biggest show our band's ever played it was really fun that's amazing luckily for him though we just were basically a cover band oh so it was like good charlotte the anthem all the small things like i just sent him those so it was like good charlotte the anthem all

the small things like i just sent him those songs he was like i got this i remember those from middle school yeah i love that um certified depressant you said the first one that was written so fitting that it's the title track um that one i was i mean i'm gonna say this i've been i was going through it when i was writing this record. That song is really just picking apart who I am as a person and the things that I struggle with on a daily basis. I mean, as an artist, and I'm sure you probably understand this too, but I mean, social media can be so brutal sometimes. And when you're an emotional person already and you see people, you know, picking your voice apart or how you look and all these things, it can be like very daunting and kind of traumatic. Oh, yeah. And it's been a really hard thing for me to navigate.

So, you know, I just kind of wanted to talk about that and touch on that and my mental health and those struggles and just, you know, how I am on a daily basis. And I think that that song, it, it really does tell the story of who I am. But at the same time, it still has like a fun, like early 2000s vibe to it. Yeah. Is it hard to write songs like that? Or does it come easy to you? It comes easy to me. I'm like the queen of self deprecation. So it's good that it like, it's your way of getting it out kind of yeah yeah for sure and then I think I'm in love kind of flips it and obviously certified depressant very depressing lyrics I think I'm in love very happy song maybe the happiest on the EP yeah probably it is yeah um that's one of my favorite songs to play live um it's so fun

everybody kind of they love the chorus and I think everybody can kind of get involved in it. And, um, that song, I, uh, I had been in a relationship for very many or a lot of very many, God bless. Uh, it's early for me. I was, um, in a relationship for a few years and it was like not the best um and I'd gotten out of that and I was like gosh I'm I'm never gonna meet anybody I'm gonna be single forever like I'm totally cool with that and then I met my partner now and he's just the coolest like he skates we both skate together he likes the same music that I do we just I like we're on the same wavelength. And I just, I never thought that that would happen. So I wrote that song a little premature before I actually knew that I was in love. And then, you know, it just kind of happened.

And this is really fitting for me right now. And so I felt like it needed to be on the record. Nice. Shout out to the Sk8er Boi King. Yeah, the Sk8er Boi. Good enough. I like this one because it kind of like explodes that chorus. Yeah.

That big, wide, like emotional chorus. That one hits very well. It's like a fourth track too because the first three, you really come out swinging. Yeah. And then that one expands it out emotionally. That one is probably my favorite on the entire record. It is. Are you doing that one live?

We are. Nice. Yeah. And it's been really, really cool. A girl on my street team printed out these little it's like these little paper um squares but it's kind of like a see-through paper okay and they've been sticking it over their cameras and it's red so like the whole crowd is like glowing red the first time they did it. I was like bawling. Um, but I love that song so much. And again, it's just really talking about, um, the insecurities that I have and the struggles

that I have on the daily. And I think, you know, with social media, everybody posts their highlight reel and they don't really understand like what goes on behind the scenes. And, um, yeah, I just, I felt like that was a really powerful thing to put out. And I'm really proud of that one. That's an awesome song and awesome story too. It's cool that your street team did that with the red lights. Yeah, it was so cool. Famous last words.

Very great clapping pattern in this one. You have a couple of clapping patterns on this. Is that you? Is that Dan Swank? I think that's Dan Swank. He's the clapper? He's the clapper. All right.

I know what to get him for Christmas. Clap on, clap off lights. Yeah, one of those little like... Yeah. Unreal. Thank you. Great song, though. Really, really cool verses, really cool chorus, like famous last words.

Shout out Mike Cam a little bit. A little bit, and a little bit of an ode to the starting line, too, in there. Nice. I love the starting line. Yeah, me too. One of the few bass player singers. Yeah always appreciated that. Right. Psycho. I think Psycho might've been the first one I heard from you. Was this an early one as well? This was an early one. This was one that I honestly, like even as a single, I was kind of teetering on whether or

not I wanted to put it out just because, well, I'm a very just like kind of calm, shy person, naturally, so for me to put out a song like that, even though those were feelings, genuine feelings that I had at one point, I was always like, ah, I don't know if this is gonna translate well. Especially in the cancel culture and stuff like that, I'm always like very- You thought this would get you cancel i was you know i'm just always so conscious of that and like being respectful to like people well thank you um but i just i'm people pleaser you know what i mean sometimes

and i'm really glad that i i did and i put that song out because I think that it's definitely like a fan favorite and for the girls I mean I they were just like just over the moon and you know people were telling me how much strength it gave them to like leave toxic relationships and stuff I was like I didn't know that this is how it was gonna be but I'm really happy that it um you know translated the way that it did hell yeah coma I love the guitar tone and the verses of this one kind of has like an underwater vibe and then it obviously comes out in the chorus yeah what do you got on coma um so i wrote that one actually with dan and cassidy pope which was like the coolest thing ever i was such a fan of hey monday back in the day i still am a huge fan of hers and then i got to actually have her on the new version of coma, which, um, I can't unhear it like that. I feel like that's how it was supposed to be. Um, but yeah, I mean,

she was the one who came in with the title of coma and I could relate to it just so heavily. I was like, yeah, this is, this is amazing. Let's write this. Um, we finished it that day. And when Dan sent us the demo i was like yeah this is this is coming out this is me to a t um very early like 2000s like early avril vibes i love like the early 2000s vibe across the whole album was that a conscious decision to have that kind of all connected well i just i'm such a fan of like the nostalgia and music yeah and so to, for me, I think that that's something that's really important. I want people to, when they listen to it, to feel like they've almost felt it before, but in a new light. And so, I mean, I want to say it was conscious, but I think just like myself as a person and as a writer, I'm so drawn to that kind of music in general.

So it probably just like happened that way as well. Some people in the office were like, oh, who are you interviewing this week? And I was telling them, oh, check out this album. And the way I would say kind of sell it to them, I'd say early 2000s pop punk vibes. Yeah. That was like my go to. So I like that. That was a conscious thing where you're like early 2000s.

Yeah, for sure. And then everything sucks. A great way to end it because, you know, Everything Sucks has that nice little flip on it. Yep. Yeah. I love that song. The last tour that we were on, my van broke down. And from then on, I mean, we just had just like a long string of bad luck that tour.

Our trailer opened up. We lost a bunch of merch. We were like running around the highway and like in the middle of like arizona almost to new mexico it was like so desolate over there there's like nothing yeah and um so we're like running all over and trying to get our stuff and then literally two days later my van breaks down and we were in a minivan rocking it out for like a week, which was so humbling. How many people in the minivan? I think there was like six or seven of us. That's rough.

Yeah, it was pretty rough. And then I got home and I got like a flat tire immediately because my car had been sitting for, you know, like a month and a half. When it rains, it pours. Yeah. And I was my when my tire blew when I got home. My partner actually showed up and he helped me put the donut on. And I was just, you know, crying. I was so annoyed. I was so upset. I was like, just everything sucks right now. And he actually was the one who said, well, everything might suck. But like, I don't really good fans. And and the life that you have right now is really amazing.

And I was like, ah, you're right. True. Good song. Yeah, and so literally the next day, I went in the studio with Dan and my best friend Emma, and we wrote Everything Sucks and made it. It was the very last one to make it on the record. Another one, I feel like it's a great narrative ending to the whole EP. Yeah, for sure.

I thought that was really cool. What's your favorite lyric from the EP? Oh, man. I think probably from, I mean, I don't know why it just sticks out to me, but My Reflection's My Worst Critic is my favorite. It's a really good one. I really love that lyric. Well, what about which song goes the

hardest live i think i mean does it change every night it's all kind of different it really just depends i would probably say like shape-shifting yeah um it's not on the record but that one always goes really really hard and um probably i think i'm in love like everybody sings that chorus at the end yeah and like the woes and things like that they're always like there to back me up for those so they really just get into that one and then I got a little pop punk this or that for you okay blink or green day blink okay drum solos or guitar solos oh that's hard probably guitar okay paramour or my chemical romance

oh no i'm glad that these are tough i didn't know what your taste was like going well because i mean i love them both so much for like different reasons yeah i'll say paramore just because like hayley's my girl yeah i love her um ocean ave or cute without the e cute without the e simple plan or some 41 simple plan and then finally all-time lower fallout boy that one is so hard i love dan Dan. I'm going to have to say Fall Out Boy, though, because they're the OG. Fair enough. Yeah, the OG. And then finally, I ask all of the artists I interviewed this question. Noel Gallagher from Oasis once said he summed up everything he ever wanted to say

with Rock and Roll Star, Live Forever, and Cigarettes and Alcohol. Oh, gosh. Do you have three songs that fit that description for you that sum up everything you've ever wanted to say? Jeez. have three songs that fit that description for you that sum up everything you've ever wanted to say um geez I've I've literally never thought about this wow um I'm gonna say um shape-shifting is one um everything sucks and then um oh gosh this is hard probably good enough it's a good one it's good enough good enough it's good um thank you for coming in obviously you're on tour and you just announced a huge tour for 2024 so people could look out for tour dates on that australia and us correct where can they

find you they can find me on instagram taylor acorn music uh twitter taylor acorn tiktok taylor acorn one i think it's that's my handle because if you just type it they wouldn't let me have a minute yeah you'll find me somewhere all right thank you so much for coming thank you so much for having me