The New Yorker Radio Hour - Olivia Rodrigo Talks with David Remnick

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Being called the voice of a generation might seem a little off to someone born after the millennium. But Olivia Rodrigo’s songs clearly hit home for Gen Z. She turned twenty this year, and has already been one of the biggest stars since 2021, when “Drivers License” became the No. 1 song on the planet. She won three Grammy Awards that year, including Best New Artist. One of her first public performances was on “Saturday Night Live.” Rodrigo’s second album, “Guts,” came out this month, and she remains proud to channel the frustrations of young people. “My favorite songs to sing are the really angry ones,” she told David Remnick. “Especially on tour, I’ll look out at the audience and sometimes see these very young girls, seven or eight, screaming these angry songs, so hyped and so enraged . . . . That’s not something you see on the street, but it’s just so cool that people get to express all those emotions through music.”  Rodrigo talked with David Remnick about the lineage of singer-songwriters like Carole King, and dealing with social media as a young celebrity. Share your thoughts on The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Hi. Oh, there we go. Wow. This is so high tech. I can hear everyone so well. Isn't that unbelievable? This is amazing. We're in the big times now. Wow. I've got my driver's license last week, just like we always talk.

Olivia Rodriguez is one of the biggest stars now in music. her star rose incredibly quickly. In 2021, when she was just 17, she released a song called Driver's License that became the number one song on the planet. On the planet, her debut album, Sauer, won three Grammys, including Best New Artist. And her second album, Guts, came out earlier this month. I caught up with her recently for a conversation about music, writing, social media, and fame. So I talked to Gia Tolentino this morning who was great and on our staff. She's amazing.

And she wrote about you for Vogue. And she said that you're kind of new to New York. Yeah, I am. I just got this apartment a few months ago. I'm still exploring. You know, but I love it. It's the greatest city ever. It's just so much inspiration constantly.

So you've left Los Angeles behind forever? I don't think so. I mean, L.A. always be my first home, I think. But I love coming here as often as I can. It's the greatest. Is New York more musically, I don't know, fertile for you in some way? Yeah, I actually think it is in a weird way. I remember people always used to tell that to me, like songwriters that I did. They're like, oh, you have to go to New York. It's so inspiring. And I would like roll my eyes. And I'm like, okay, sure. Like, I get it. But we actually made half of this album guts at Electric Lady

Studios in Greenwich Village. So you're recording in the same room as Jimmy Hendon? Yeah, exactly. All these incredible records were made in those rooms, and it's just, I don't know, you definitely, like, feel that magic in the walls. So let's start from the beginning a little bit. You grew up performing on Disney. You were on the show, Bizard Vark and on a high school musical. And you already had a big TV career as a kid, if you don't mind me saying. Did you also harbor right away that ambition, that desire, that passion to be a solo singer, to be a songwriter. Completely. I always loved songwriting. That was my first love, my first passion when I was so young. I remember being like four years old or something

and making up all these crazy songs about like my four-year-old problems. Do you remember any? Oh, my gosh. My mom has a video of me singing about losing my parents in the supermarket, which is a very traumatic experience when you're four years old. I can imagine why I was so moved to write a song about it. But I think when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, I was acting, but I started like playing songs on piano and learning how to write songs to chords. And that's when everything kind of took off. I fell in love with it. And, you know, that's just been my life ever since. It's just my favorite part of the job.

And you seem to have, even much younger than you are now, a really wide sense of listening. That a lot of things were going into your ears. What were they? and why were you listening to what you were listening to? Yeah, I mean, I give my parents a lot of credit for my music taste. My parents love 90s alternative rock. I grew up listening to, you know, smashing pumpkins and hole and the white stripes. And also, from a very early age, I kind of fell in love with a lot of female singer-songwriters, and I kind of realized that that was, you know, the kind of lineage that I wanted to follow.

I remember going to the thrift store with my mom when I was probably 13 years old. and getting tapestry by Carol King for the first time and just playing it to death. I'd play it over and over and over and over. And get all these Pat Benatar records and play them over and over and over. And Joni Mitchell and I don't know, I just remember something clicking in my head

when I was really young and being like, wow, those are the girls that I want to emulate, you know? Looking back, what was the first song that you wrote that you thought, now this is something. This isn't just kidding around. this could bring me somewhere. I mean, I wrote many songs when I was, you know, just putzing around in my living room when I was young.

But I actually remember writing driver's license. I remember that exact feeling. Which became a huge hit. Which, yeah, I mean, I owe so much of that song. It, you know, skyrocketed my career in ways completely unimaginable to me at the time. But I just remember writing that and feeling like, I really expressed something and feeling like I felt like there was so, so much of myself in that song.

And I remember feeling properly represented, and that's just a really beautiful feeling. I remember coming into the studio to show my producer the song and saying to him, like, verbatim, I think I just wrote my favorite song that I've ever written. And he was like, okay, sit down and play it. Well, tell me about the experience of writing. And how did it work? Because one of the things that I love about it is it begins so directly. Yeah.

It sets the age, it sets the mood, it sets where you are right with the first line. Yeah. How did this happen? It's very specific, yeah. I mean, I quite literally got my driver's license a few days before I wrote the song. And I was, you know, loving my newfound freedom. So I was driving around in my neighborhood and listening to sad songs and crying and thinking about this relationship. And I just sat down at the piano.

And I'm as very emotional girl as I am now. cried at the piano and I wrote that song and um what made you feel that sad in the car when you just had your license it's you're i'm a jersey kid you're a california kid something about driving i don't know what it is it unleashes something it really does you know i thought about this a lot when i first got my driver's license um i think driving is one of the only times you're like truly alone especially as a teenager yeah um when you're living at home with your parents but um i love it to this day you know you can do anything in the car you listen to what i'm whatever you want, you can literally scream your head off and no one will hear you.

You know, your neighbors won't be banging on the walls telling you to shut up. So I think, you know, it's that isolation that brings out those feelings in you maybe. So you perform that on Saturday Night Live. How much after the release? Oh, my gosh. Really soon after. I mean, Saturday Night Live was one of my first performances. I think I released that song and I performed at the Brits in London and S&L. Those are my first two performances in my, like, singer-songwriter career, which is pretty wild looking back.

Ladies and gentlemen, Olivia Rodriguez. So that's when I first heard since last week, just like we always were so to finally drive up to your house. But today I drove through the showers crying. So that's when I first heard about you as I was watching Saturday Night Live. And I looked at the tape again today. And I asked myself, what was going through your mind when you were about to step on stage and what you had to know was an audience of untold millions with this song? Are you shaking?

How are you feeling? What's in your head? I was terrified. I'm not even going to put up a front like I was being brave. I was so terrified. I remember being in the dressing room. And the dressing room in S&L is like the coolest place ever. There's like all these pictures of all of your heroes on the wall.

you know, that performed on the same stage that you're performing on. And I just, like, fully had a breakdown. I was so nervous and so scared. What do you mean by a breakdown? Because you didn't make it out on stage. I did make it out. I was crying. My producer was there, thankfully, who I love and trust so much.

And I was just, like, crying to him. I'm like, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it. I'm so scared. He's like, you got it. I love you. You can do it. And, you know, so his support meant a lot to me in that moment.

The first album struck me as, as many things. But unless I'm wrong and tell me I'm crazy if I am, that pandemic is something that if that album is to live on in history, and I think it will in pop music history, it's attached to the pandemic in some way, isn't it? Yeah.

I actually wrote most of it during the pandemic. And I credit a lot of the songs to that isolation like we were talking about earlier. I actually forced myself during the pandemic. I had a challenge. challenge with myself where I told myself I'd write a song every day as long as a pandemic glasses because you know we thought that the pandemic was going to be two weeks I'm like I can do it turned out to be like you know forever 14 songs but yeah but uh I did that for like maybe five or six

months and um it really helped me hone in my songwriting craft and um and um you know have discipline with my writing and also I think that people maybe wanted to hear all those sad songs in the pandemic because I think we were all just as a collective facing emotions that maybe we hadn't processed because of our new, you know, surroundings where we couldn't distract ourselves. So, yeah, I think that the pandemic definitely is a big part of that album. I want to ask another question about feeling. What does it feel like physically? When you're on stage in front of a huge crowd and you're singing a ballad like driver's license

in front of an immense audience, a big live audience. Yeah, it's really crazy. I mean, I think that feeling would probably never get old. My favorite songs actually to sing are the really, like, angry ones, especially on tour. I love, like, looking out in the audience. Sometimes I'll see these girls, and they're so young. They're, like, seven or eight, and they're, like, screaming these angry songs.

I'm, like, getting so, like, hyped up, and, you know, they're so enraged. And I just think that's the coolest thing ever, you know? It's just, that's not something you'd see on the street, but it's just so cool that people get to express all those emotions for music. If you had to think of one moment or one image from your last tour that's seared into your memory, into your brain, what might it be? Glass and Burry. Performing at Glass and Bray was incredible. This is the big festival, outdoor festival in Britain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually the first music festival I'd ever been to, and I got to play it. It's just awesome. And it was most people I ever played for. How many people were there? Oh, I think it was like $60,000 or something. like that. Yeah.

You know, pretty crazy to think about. But yeah, that was a really great moment of my career. And the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade the day before I went on stage and Lily Allen and I dedicated fuck you to the Supreme Court that day. And I just remember feeling so angry and, you know, being around somebody and my friends who were so angry and didn't know, you know, what to do or what to say.

And in that moment really. Feeling work music was such an outlet for us and looking onto the crowd and seeing everyone who felt the same way. I think it just reminded me what the true purpose of music is, you know. You mean as something of release and emotional force? Yeah, of everything, of, you know, of protest and of release and togetherness. You know, seeing an entire crowd, sing that and share that emotion in that moment. It's just so transcendent, you know. I'm talking with a singer and songwriter,

Olivia Rodriguez. Her new album, Guts, came out this month, and we'll continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. Hi, I'm Adam Howard, a senior producer for the radio hour, and I have a quick favorite ask of you. This program has been nominated for a relatively new award in our industry, the Signal Award, which recognizes the best podcasts in the country. So if you enjoy this program, show your love by logging on to vote. org.org.com. You'll have to click a few times to get to the news and politics category, and where you'll find us. The window to vote is closing,

so do it now at vote. Dot Signal Award.com. Okay, we really appreciate it. Now, back to the show. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I'm talking today with Olivia Rodriguez, who turned 20 this year.

She's already been one of the most prominent artists in pop music since the gigantic success of driver's license in 2021. Rodrigo's new album is called Guts, a follow-up to Sour. And she told me that she's

sees herself working in the lineage of pop singer-songwriters like Carol King. We spoke the other day over Zoom. Let's talk about your new album. When you wrote your first album, Sour, you had so much that you wanted to express and, you know, and get off your chest and get off your mind as a young person. How was the Olivia Rodriguez of now different than the one who sat down to write Sauer? Oh, my gosh. World's different.

But you know, the craziest thing is I've changed so much just from the ages of 17 to 20. Like, in, you know, in that time period, people are just, you know, you grow, I feel like I grow 20, 25 years and three years, you know. So, yeah, I mean, she's vastly different. But I remember definitely that fear of sitting down and trying to write the second album and thinking, my God, I'm not a, you know, 17-year-old girl going through her first heartbreak anymore. You know, that's such a universally relatable experience, you know, how am I? going to make something that feels, you know, like people can get behind it. But I don't know.

I guess it's just... What is the pressure? In other words, is it creative or is it that your life has gotten 200% weirder because of, you know, all that comes with stardom and all the rest? What was the conversation like in your head? Yeah, I think a mix of both. It's definitely like, you know how people always are like, oh, your only competition. is your past self. And I was like, well, I don't know if that necessarily worked me. I don't know how I could

ever like, you know, follow up such crazy, you know, unexpected success. And so I put that pressure on myself for a long time. And I remember, actually, Jack White is a big hero of mine. And I met him for the first time, maybe a year ago. And he wrote me this letter. And it had like a few bullet points of like advice. And one of the pieces of advice was that your only job is to write me. And you that you would like to hear on the radio. And I remember I was really struggling with, you know, all this pressure and, you know, are people on Twitter going to like like what this song sounds like and all of this, you know, gunk in my head.

And I remember reading that and it just really, like, igniting something in me. And so I think that really helped. So Jack White of the White Stripes writes you this kind of bullet point, you know, advice column. Yeah, and we were able to take his advice? Yeah, I think that keeping that in mind and reframing the songwriting process into just trying to write songs that you enjoy and songs that you like is just the only thing you can do. Also, that being said, making songs that you like is also terribly hard sometimes. It's a lot easier said than done.

That's a feat in and of itself. But yeah, I don't know. I think reframing that really, really helps me. I think on this album, Guts, I think I really learned how to look at it. a song and, you know, look at songwriting as a sort of a craft and not just this, you know, pouring my heart out at the piano like I was doing when I was 17. So I think these songs definitely took longer to write. And I think we just sat with them for a little longer. Livy, you took a poetry class at USC.

Yeah. Uh-huh. When was that, and why did you do that? That was last year. I mean, I was homeschooled my whole life. There's a song on the album called Ballard of a Homestchooled Girl. It's about me. It's dealing with the consequences of that. But, yeah, I was homeschooled my whole life, and I always wanted to go to college, and I always was very curious.

And I'm a very curious person. There's so much that I want to know in this world. And I really enjoyed taking that class. And I've always been super interested in poetry, and I've always been writing it for a long time. But, yeah, it was really informative, and I feel very grateful that I got that opportunity. We actually turned one of the poems that I wrote as an assignment in the poetry class into a song on the album called Lacey. So it was pretty productive, I suppose. Lacey, oh Lacey, it's like you're out to get me.

You poison every little thing that I do. Oh, Lacey, I just loathe you lately, and I despise my just love you lately. And I despise my jealous eyes And how hard they fell for you Olivia, were there any poems that you read by poets Or poets that you read that are helpful to you as a, not just as a human being, but as an artist? Yeah, I mean, Leonard Cohen,

I read lots of his poetry while I was making guts. I think he's incredible. That's just an endless well of inspiration, all of his writings and, you know, drawings and drawings and I just, it's so inspiring. Yeah, I wrote the poem Lacey inspired by the poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath, too. So, you know, lots of inspiration. Inspiration comes from everywhere.

So you grab it out where you can. I don't know if you watch girls. I haven't watched it yet. Everyone's been recommending it to me, though. I really need to. So Lena Dunham is, you know, the story runner, and she's also the star of the show, and she's a kind of searching young woman. And at a certain point, she announces to her parents,

because she wants to be a writer. She says, I think I'm the voice, I'm not the voice of my generation. I think I might be getting this right, but the A voice of a generation. And now you're being branded, I hate to tell you, whether you like it or not, the voice of a generation,

the voice of Generation Z, Gen Z. What do you make of all that? Yeah, you know, I tend to not think about it just because I think that's kind of a scary thought. I don't think of myself that way. I just try to be as much myself as I possibly can and try to make the best work I can but I mean it's obviously super flattering

when people say that but yeah I don't know I love my generation I'm proud to be a part of it so you know you have a song for example where we've all been living with social media for quite a long time you grew it was already there when you you yeah I never didn't have it

which is a strange way to grow up yeah and it makes its presence known in your songs. Do you also look at social media to see how people are perceiving you, which seems like a lot of burden? Yeah, that's an understatement. It's definitely a burden. Yeah, I think that I've gotten better at it, the more that I've, you know, been on it. It's just, you know, it's a part of this job that I think is unnecessary evil. And there's some things on social media that are awesome and I love connecting with people that I normally wouldn't have gotten the chance to. But it is weird. And in my life, I feel like I'm growing in front of

people, which is really strange. You know, I've been in front of people for a really long time. And sometimes it can feel kind of stifling or claustrophobic to feel like you're always being seen. But I don't know. I feel like I have a good relationship with it these days. I think I have a good Well, tell me about that burden. Yeah, I mean, I think for a long time I felt like I maybe couldn't make mistakes or I always felt this pressure to be a good role model. And, you know, I grew up on these kids shows where, you know, that's being a good role model is very, you know, important as it should be. And I think I always felt like I couldn't be a normal kid and go out and do stupid things and make mistakes and learn, which is, you know, At the end of the day, making mistakes is the only way you do learn.

But I feel like in this album in particular, I feel like that was kind of me grappling with those feelings and talking about the mistakes that I did end up making and being open and honest about them. And I think that was kind of cathartic for me. Like what? An example. I mean, there's a song Making the Bed that I really love.

And the lyrics are, sometimes I feel like I don't want to be where I am getting drunk at a club with my fair weather. friends that's the chorus. And I was kind of nervous to say, I'm, you know, I'm 20 years old, which is, you know, not of age yet, I guess. And I don't know, I was nervous to put that one out and I felt like it, you know, I'm always so conscious of people, you know, young kids listening to my music and, you know, people's

parents listening to my music and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, I think that all of my role models and all of my heroes are my heroes because they are unapologetically who they are and they express themselves without fear of, you know, fear of being criticized. So that's just what I try to tell myself. On this album, on guts, you seem to be reaching back even further in history, the opening track, which is about all the impossible standards of being a woman in America starts out kind of Joni Mitchell, but then turns abruptly midway into a song that sounds like the riot girl scene. How do you position your music in this longer tradition of rebellion?

It's a great question. I love that question. I mean, I think female rebellion music, for lack of better word, is my favorite music ever. And I've been obsessed with the riot girl punk scene for a while. And I think that song was my stab at trying to write a song like that. But, yeah, I feel a lot of, like, kinship towards women. And, you know, I love writing songs about these, you know, female feelings of anger and resentment that maybe aren't so, you know, so easily expressible in an everyday life. How do you look at your now reasonably distant past?

A lot of times you'll read about the early careers, particularly of women who were in TV as kids, and they look back on it and they feel sad about it, exploited, something, something maybe not terribly pleasant. Do you feel that you got through that decently treated and it was a healthy experience or there was downsides to it as well? I do. I can certainly see how people. wouldn't have that experience. I think it's a very strange way to grow up. I feel really lucky that I was surrounded by wonderful people. My parents are so wonderful and so grounded and always looking out for me and I just owe everything to them. I don't think that I would have that attitude towards it if it wasn't for them. But yeah, it is really strange and you sacrifice a lot. And I didn't have a normal childhood

in order to have that career. And I'm really grateful for everything that happened. But It's definitely a give and take. What did you miss most? I think I actually realized it this year how much I missed or I feel like I missed out on, like going to high school and being around people my own age and how important that camaraderie felt like to me. I grew up on sets where I was just around 45-year-old guys all the time. And so I think that I sort of feel like I had a relatively lonely childhood, which is okay. I mean, that's why I turned to writing songs and making music and all of that. But, yeah, that's definitely one of the pitfalls.

And fame is at the level that you're experiencing it now, which is pretty rare. Is it lonely or is it something else? I don't know what it is. Gosh, I feel incredibly. lucky to have great people around me, but it certainly is trickier, you know, navigating social life and relationships of any kind. You know, it's definitely something that I have to put more thought into, I guess, but, you know, social life and relationships are hard regardless of what your career is. So. Now, are we going to see you act again, or is, is music the rest of

your career in a dominant way? I don't know. I mean, I'm open to whatever. I love telling telling stories and you know if there's a story that's in a script someday that I would love to tell then I would be really honored to be able to do that I don't really know though I mean I love music I think music will always be my my biggest passion right writing songs is where I feel most like myself Olivia Rodriguez thank you so much thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it I hate to give the satisfaction asking how you're doing now how's the castle built off people you I pretend to care about just what you want it. Olivia Rodriguez's new album is called Guts.

At New Yorker.com, you can find a review of the album by staff writer Carrie Batten and an essay about Dad's Listening to Olivia Rodriguez by Jay Caspian Kang. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus, of tune yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell.

This episode was produced by Max Walton, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, and Gophane in Putabuele, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Mike Cutchman, Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandro Decker. And thanks also to Alana Casanova Burgess. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.