08 September 2023
Newsdesk
Olivia Rodrigo joins Zane Lowe on New Music Daily on Apple Music 1 to discuss her highly anticipated new album ‘GUTS’. She opens up to Apple Music about how this time around differed from her experience releasing her debut album ’SOUR’, what themes she’s exploring on the project, gaining confidence as a songwriter and live performer, and getting to know Phoebe Bridgers. She also shares the stories behind various tracks on the new album, including “all american bitch”, “get him back!”, and “teenage dream” and reveals that she has another album’s worth of songs that didn’t make the final album that could end up seeing the light of day in the future.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music How The Rollout For ‘GUTS' Differs To The Rollout For Her Debut Album ’SOUR’...
I think the first time around I was just filled with so much adrenaline, I was like, "Okay, wow, this is happening. I've never done this before." This time it feels a little more real and it's a scary thing to know that people are going to be curious and they'll maybe have a lot of ears on it.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music The Themes She Explored on New Album ‘GUTS’…
I feel like when you're making the album, you can't really see the forest through the trees a little bit about what's about or what you're trying to get across. Sometimes you just wake up and go into the studio and see what comes out of you. In hindsight, I think that a lot of this album is about the confusion that comes with becoming a young adult and figuring out your place in this world and figuring out who you want to be and who you want to hang out with and all of that stuff. I think that that's probably an experience that everyone has had in their life before, is just that rising from that disillusionment.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About Gaining Confidence as a Songwriter While Making ‘GUTS’…
I think that, in general, making this album has given me a lot of confidence as a songwriter. I think writing the first album, it just felt so spontaneous. I was 17 years old learning how to write songs for the first time and just pouring my heart out. I had so much to say. I think this time I was in a different place and I was having a lot of pressure and a lot of expectations placed on me and I think I really had to try to block out the noise and just focus on the craft of songwriting. I wasn't going through my first 17 year old heartbreak and I think that it forced me to be maybe a little bit more creative in the way that I write.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About Making New Album ‘Guts’ with Live Shows in Mind…
I made SOUR and I had never played a show before. So it was just me on my piano in my bedroom. Going on tour after that album came out, I think was really informative to me as a songwriter, because something that can resonate on a recording is maybe doesn't always resonate in a room full of people. So I think it was really educational and I think I wrote this album with the tour in mind, definitely.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music She Recorded Around 25 Songs While Making ‘Guts’ and That Some That Didn’t Make The Final Track List Could End Up Seeing The Light of Day at a Later Date…
Probably like 25, not anything too crazy. I think some of them will definitely see the light of day. I don't know. In crafting an album track list, there's just intricacies. Like, oh, too many of these songs and I want to save this for later, and stuff like that. So I bet some of them will see the light of day.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About New Song “All American Bitch” and That’s It’s One of Her Favourites She’s Written To Date…
I really love the song "All American Bitch". It's one of my favorite songs I've ever written. I really love the lyrics of it and I think it expresses something that I've been trying to express since I was 15 years old, this repressed pressed anger and feeling of confusion or trying to be put into a box as a girl. So yeah, I think that that's one of my favorite songs on the record.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About The Origin of New Song “get him back!”…
Dan and I were at Electric Lady Studios in New York here and we were writing all day. We wrote a song that I didn't like and I had a total breakdown. I was like, "God, I can't write songs. I'm so bad at this. I don't want to," whatever, being really negative. Then we took a break and we came back and we wrote "get him back", and it's one of my favorite songs. So just goes to show you, just never give up. Yeah, super fun to write. I really like the chorus. It feels sticky to me and it feels like something that I would want a crowd to sing.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About Album Closer “teenage dream”…
that's actually the first song we wrote for the record that made it onto the record. The last line is a line that I really love and it ends the album on a question mark. The line is, "They all say that it gets better. It gets better the more you grow. They all say that it gets better. What if I don't?" I like that it is like an ending, but it's also a question mark and it's leaving it up in the air what this next chapter is going to be. It's still confused, but it feels like a final note to that confusion, a final question.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About Becoming a More Confident Live Performer…
...my first two performances ever were the BRITs and SNL, and so I think I felt definitely not prepared for that. I think going on tour and night after night being surrounded by so much positive, good energy, I think gave me the confidence and also just repetition and practice to be more comfortable. I think I'm definitely more comfortable on stage now than I was a year ago.
Olivia Rodrigo Tells Apple Music About Getting To Know Phoebe Bridgers…
…she’s awesome. It was so much fun talking to her. I think she's so smart and obviously such a brilliant songwriter, but she's just really, really gracious and really down to earth and it's been really nice to have some interactions with her. I think she's just great all around.
