Speaker 1: Pushkin, Maggie Rogers has never been one demns words. Aside
Speaker 1: from her powerhouse voice, one of Maggie's superpowers is her
Speaker 1: ability to write pop songs fueled by radical emotional transparency.
Speaker 1: And while it's thrilling when an artist bears their soul,
Speaker 1: that level of constant vulnerability can be unsustainable. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: after releasing her Grammy nominated debut Heard It in a
Speaker 1: Past Life and then touring the album relentlessly, Maggie was
Speaker 1: desperately in need of time away from the spotlight. Just
Speaker 1: before the pandemic, She retreated to her parents' home in
Speaker 1: coastal Maine. There she began writing and recording her follow
Speaker 1: up album, Surrender. Maggie also started to think deeply about
Speaker 1: her role as a pop star and the relationship between
Speaker 1: herself and her audience. In twenty twenty one, she enrolled
Speaker 1: in a master's program of Religion and Public Life at
Speaker 1: Harvard Divinity School. There, her studies focused on the spirituality
Speaker 1: of public gatherings and the ethics of power and pop culture.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, producer Leah Rose talks to Maggie Rogers
Speaker 1: about how comforting it was for her to become a
Speaker 1: student again. Maggie also recalls the time she took motorcycle
Speaker 1: lessons to rechannel the massive amounts of adrenaline she experienced
Speaker 1: on her first tour. And We'll hear the song from
Speaker 1: Maggie's new album that she says is the perfect distillation
Speaker 1: of where she is now as an artist. This is
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Here's Leah Rose with Maggie Rogers. What's going on. How
Speaker 1: are you feeling. I'm good. I'm so excited to be
Speaker 1: back in the flow again. I took August and September
Speaker 1: to sort of more in the release and sort of
Speaker 1: recover from a big summer, and things are feeling really
Speaker 1: exciting again. And work two weeks from going back on
Speaker 1: tour when I've only really played three or four shows
Speaker 1: since the pandemic started. So I'm just so excited for that.
Speaker 1: And in the heat of all of the planning and
Speaker 1: fun goodness, band practice starts next week, so I'm feeling
Speaker 1: really excited about it. All excellent. So the show is
Speaker 1: called the Farrell Joy Tour, and that for me personally,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's like a high bar to hit
Speaker 1: every single night. So how do you muster up Farrell
Speaker 1: Joy night after night? How do you get to that
Speaker 1: place where you're just able to give that on stage
Speaker 1: Farrell Joy? To me, it's not just pure happiness, So
Speaker 1: you're asking about how do I conjure that on stage?
Speaker 1: It's not like going on stage and being the happiest
Speaker 1: girl you've ever seen, although playing music often makes me
Speaker 1: that person. It's about being present, and so much of
Speaker 1: playing shows, I really think is a practice of presence
Speaker 1: and you let the show unfold. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I love about shows is that it's really is uncontrollable
Speaker 1: and it's something that you can't repeat because each setting,
Speaker 1: each crowd, each single person in that room makes a
Speaker 1: real difference for what that show feels like and how
Speaker 1: that show unfolds. So the pressure of conjuring something each
Speaker 1: night doesn't feel so high because on stage is the
Speaker 1: place where I feel the most like myself and the
Speaker 1: most free, and I really am able to just let go,
Speaker 1: and I often have very little memory of being on
Speaker 1: stage because I am in such a flow other state. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it really is just about letting the music come
Speaker 1: through and really enjoying it after not getting to do
Speaker 1: it for the last three years. When did you discover
Speaker 1: that that on stage is the place where you feel
Speaker 1: most like yourself? How old were you, like, when did
Speaker 1: that realization come to you? I think it's more that
Speaker 1: when I'm singing, I feel really present, because this idea
Speaker 1: of performing or entertaining never really felt right to me,
Speaker 1: and I always felt really shy from it because it
Speaker 1: has this sort of connotation of putting something on. And
Speaker 1: when I'm singing, I just feel so connected. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you tell someone how you feel, you can use
Speaker 1: words to explain it, but to me, when you sing
Speaker 1: and you have that real resonant frequency, you can physically
Speaker 1: show someone how you're feeling. For me, I'm just a
Speaker 1: person that feels a lot of things a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, and when I sing or when I'm on stage,
Speaker 1: it's a real space of expression. It's a space where
Speaker 1: I can let it out somewhere in a real constructive
Speaker 1: way and like connective way, because I think when you
Speaker 1: feel that much, it can often be kind of isolating.
Speaker 1: But the thing that music does is it it brings
Speaker 1: people together and reminds people of their central human qualities.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows what it's like to feel sad or happy,
Speaker 1: you know both, or have a crush or fall in
Speaker 1: love maybe, or have that like first Butterfly. So I
Speaker 1: think when I write down my innermost feelings and put
Speaker 1: them out there for the world, it also means a
Speaker 1: lot live when other people sort of say that it
Speaker 1: resonates with them too, because it makes me also feel
Speaker 1: like a part of a community. What happens after the shows,
Speaker 1: like where does that adrenaline go? And when you're not
Speaker 1: performing regularly, is there a way that you can replicate
Speaker 1: that feeling off the road. No, there's nothing like the
Speaker 1: adrenaline from a show, but I think that there are
Speaker 1: things that can touch it. After my first tour in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen for my EP now that the Light is fading,
Speaker 1: I went to motorcycle school and was using motorcycles as
Speaker 1: a way to moderate my adrenaline when I was off
Speaker 1: the road, because I found that if I fully crashed
Speaker 1: like you're when you're getting an input of adrenaline every night,
Speaker 1: you start just living on this sort of other plane.
Speaker 1: And if you can normalize that, it can be somehow sustainable.
Speaker 1: But the second you come down, your body starts to crash,
Speaker 1: and because you're exhausted, your adrenals are shot, adrenaline burns
Speaker 1: through everything you've eaten that day. It's essentially a panic response.
Speaker 1: And so it would be really really hard if I
Speaker 1: had like a week off of tour, if I came
Speaker 1: all the way down and then had to push all
Speaker 1: the way back up. So I started looking for ways
Speaker 1: that I could in some sort of healthy or safe way.
Speaker 1: When I'm talking about motorcycles, I'm writing like with full gear,
Speaker 1: helmet pads and like thirty miles an hour on a
Speaker 1: back road with no one on it. Like I'm not
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles on a motorcycle, but like full leather,
Speaker 1: like had to doe motorcycle gadding. Yeah, I will protect
Speaker 1: it here, and I will say, like it's not really
Speaker 1: a part of my life anymore. But when I was
Speaker 1: learning to tour, when I was like twenty two to
Speaker 1: twenty five, it certainly was Wow, we'll see what happened.
Speaker 1: I guess. I haven't really been on the road since then, though,
Speaker 1: so we'll see what happens in this chapter. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's just really nice to go do something else,
Speaker 1: to put myself in a new situation, or go learn
Speaker 1: about something or be around a group of people that
Speaker 1: have absolutely nothing to do with music. It makes it
Speaker 1: like really gratifying when I come back to music and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I actually really know what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about here, or like this is the space where I've
Speaker 1: worked really hard over a lot of years to know
Speaker 1: this stuff. It makes me appreciate my skill set, I think.
Speaker 1: But it also reminds me that there is a world
Speaker 1: outside of music, because I think for the people that
Speaker 1: sort of treat it like a religion and eat, sleep,
Speaker 1: breathe it every day, there is quite a bubble. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the best things about grad school
Speaker 1: was like realizing that most of my best friends at
Speaker 1: school listen to music like in the background when they
Speaker 1: were cooking, and they didn't think about who wrote or
Speaker 1: produced it, And I think, I can, I'm so insular,
Speaker 1: like who played that guitar and what preempt did it
Speaker 1: run through? And like it was really nice to remember
Speaker 1: that the way that other people listen to music, and
Speaker 1: there's no like good or bad or hierarchy out of it.
Speaker 1: I think that for better or for worse, there is
Speaker 1: a bubble, and there's a lot more happening in the
Speaker 1: world than just who produced that record? Or what's the
Speaker 1: top song on Spotify, Like it's nice to sort of
Speaker 1: zoom out a little bit. I read an interview with
Speaker 1: you on the Harvard Divinity site and it said that
Speaker 1: you want to be in school forever, which is something
Speaker 1: I totally agree with. I want to be in school
Speaker 1: forever too. There's so much to learn about, Like the
Speaker 1: world is crazy and humans have existed for a long time.
Speaker 1: The earth has existed for even longer. It's also worth saying,
Speaker 1: like I don't think that going to school is the
Speaker 1: only way to learn, you know, there are so many
Speaker 1: other ways to access information or to do that kind
Speaker 1: of study. I also really thrive in environments with the structure,
Speaker 1: and I am a little bit type A and like
Speaker 1: do really well with homework when somethings do you know,
Speaker 1: even on like a major label system, like the record
Speaker 1: is still do at a certain time, and art deadlines
Speaker 1: have the sort of like necessary push and pull. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I just I love school, and it was
Speaker 1: really nice, Like I think at the end of that
Speaker 1: past life cycle, you know, I really went to school
Speaker 1: to think about touring and to think about my career
Speaker 1: and think about what it means to be an artist
Speaker 1: and to put some structure to that and really spend
Speaker 1: some like deep deep thinking time really figuring out what
Speaker 1: I believe about music and what it means to be
Speaker 1: an artist and what does a great show look like
Speaker 1: and what is the quality of that connection and how
Speaker 1: do you bring that to people. But it was also like,
Speaker 1: at the end of that heard it of past life cycle,
Speaker 1: my life felt really public and it was really nice.
Speaker 1: You know, the first day of class, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: why are you here. I'd be like, well, I made
Speaker 1: a record about reincarnation and that would be like an
Speaker 1: interesting fun fact for like four minutes. And then the
Speaker 1: lack of knowledge that everybody collectively had about the subject
Speaker 1: we were there to learn was this amazing equalizer and
Speaker 1: I got to be just part of class. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it's safe to say that most people, you know,
Speaker 1: you finished, you've put out your first album or your
Speaker 1: first major label album, you've done your first tour cycle,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, all the promo or the press marketing.
Speaker 1: Most people to learn more about the business if they
Speaker 1: were so inclined to do that. Most people might study
Speaker 1: old concert footage of you know, artists that they really
Speaker 1: admire or watch a bunch of documentaries. How did you
Speaker 1: get the idea to go to Harvard Divinity School? Like
Speaker 1: why go the scholarly route? That school in particular was
Speaker 1: there's like one program in the world, and I was
Speaker 1: in its first class, which was a Masters of Religion
Speaker 1: in Public Life, And it's for specifically people who don't
Speaker 1: work in religion and don't intend to, with this idea
Speaker 1: that a greater understanding of religion is a pathway to
Speaker 1: just peace in the world. And so it was like
Speaker 1: a peace and justice program in that I applied to
Speaker 1: the summer after Black Lives Matter, like it doesn't like
Speaker 1: the pieces line up fairly easily, and like it existed
Speaker 1: in one place in the world, and like I was
Speaker 1: really lucky they accepted me. There is an inherent power
Speaker 1: dynamic when you're on stage, like you're on a like
Speaker 1: elevated platform with a microphone, Like it's like and no
Speaker 1: one else has a microphone, so you're in charge. And
Speaker 1: I found that like I naturally have always cared about
Speaker 1: human issues because I'm a human, and those human issues
Speaker 1: to me are no gun violence or reproductive rights, or equality,
Speaker 1: clean drinking water, really basic, making sure everyone has food
Speaker 1: and shelter and access to rest. But I also find
Speaker 1: sometimes that that like platform, being on stage, people were
Speaker 1: asking me these sort of like unconventional questions about what
Speaker 1: I believed, like what did I believe about immigration policy?
Speaker 1: Or what did I believe was the right way to
Speaker 1: like break up with someone, or like these questions that
Speaker 1: you would like ask a religious figure or a political figure.
Speaker 1: And I studied like music engineering and production, so I
Speaker 1: sort of realized that I, like, like we do often
Speaker 1: look to musicians culturally as mystics sometimes for having these
Speaker 1: these answers to these bigger questions, And I think you
Speaker 1: can really only answer for yourself, because that's what I
Speaker 1: specialize in. Like maybe it's a little narcissistic, but I
Speaker 1: really specialize in being able to notice and communicate how
Speaker 1: I'm feeling, with the idea that like the most personal
Speaker 1: is often the most universal if you can really be
Speaker 1: honest about it. And I think it's cool too. That
Speaker 1: was the thing that I really realized being around these
Speaker 1: classmates who are just so stunning and brilliant and all
Speaker 1: very different. I realized the thing that I'm good at
Speaker 1: is really talking about how something feels. And luckily I
Speaker 1: get to do that professionally. I read part of your
Speaker 1: program was to do a live performance component, and then
Speaker 1: that was your Coachella performance. No, the record was nearly
Speaker 1: finished except for one song before I went to school.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So school didn't impact the creation of the
Speaker 1: record at all, got it? Because the record making feels
Speaker 1: really private and really personal and really introspective. Lot of
Speaker 1: what I was doing was taking time to investigate the
Speaker 1: more public sides of my life or career, which are
Speaker 1: putting music out into the world and then touring it.
Speaker 1: And so I'm in this phase right now where I'm
Speaker 1: starting to integrate everything I learned in school and bring
Speaker 1: it into this tour that I'm on right now. And
Speaker 1: then I'm just like so excited for the next record
Speaker 1: I make because it will be you know, that personal
Speaker 1: component will be influenced by all of that growth from
Speaker 1: that year. But now school like became a really it's interesting,
Speaker 1: It became a really like fun headline for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. But it was a very quiet personal process
Speaker 1: as thinking about what you believe often is right, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a ton to do with the record directly.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, Although I will say I will say, actually,
Speaker 1: maybe the thing that it does have to do with
Speaker 1: the record is while I was making Surrender, I sort
Speaker 1: of knew I was applying to grad school and knew
Speaker 1: I was going to do it. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of Surrender I made really feeling divorced from any
Speaker 1: form of career goal. It was really about the artistic
Speaker 1: practice and my artistic goals. And like I'm realizing as
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this that like there's definitely a part
Speaker 1: of that knowing that I was about to go spend
Speaker 1: a year outside of music that I think maybe even
Speaker 1: could have empowered my creative process a little bit more
Speaker 1: to stay outside of any sort of commercial or success goals.
Speaker 1: Like I knew I was on my way out, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know if i'd come back. You know, that
Speaker 1: wasn't like set in Stone. I knew i'd put the
Speaker 1: record out, but I don't know. I find a lot
Speaker 1: of this business to be really disheartening. And I love
Speaker 1: making music, but in thinking about what I believe and
Speaker 1: what makes me happen, it's also thinking about the structures
Speaker 1: around these things that I love and whether or not
Speaker 1: it's necessary to do it commercially or not. As far
Speaker 1: as like what's going to make me the happiest in
Speaker 1: the long run. What's your favorite part of your job?
Speaker 1: Considering everything you have to do as an artist as
Speaker 1: a public person, what's your absolute favorite part of it.
Speaker 1: I love making stuff, Like it's my favorite thing in
Speaker 1: the whole world, whether it's writing songs, being in the studio,
Speaker 1: getting to play shows. I love playing other people's shows.
Speaker 1: Like my favorite part of performing is guesting what other
Speaker 1: people shows because it's so much fun and so much
Speaker 1: less pressure. But I'd say my favorite part is probably
Speaker 1: being in the studio. It's probably the part I get
Speaker 1: to do the least. Yeah, we have to take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll be back with more from
Speaker 1: Maggie Rodgers and Leah Rose. We're back with more from
Speaker 1: Leah Rose and Maggie Rodgers. When it came to starting Surrender,
Speaker 1: what was the world that you envisioned in your mind
Speaker 1: that started to come together and you started to realize, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the direction I want to go in, this
Speaker 1: is the world I want to create. How did that
Speaker 1: all start to come together for you? So I started
Speaker 1: this record like I have started all the records, which
Speaker 1: is with the mood board. It was really visceral feeling
Speaker 1: like there's a smudgy red lipstick and a lot of
Speaker 1: leather and silver, and but also a lot of images
Speaker 1: of people sort of like in the middle of some
Speaker 1: form of ecstasy or release. And that's sort of common
Speaker 1: to other, you know, mood boards or records I've had,
Speaker 1: but heard it in a past life. Was a lot
Speaker 1: of like people in motion. There's a lot of like
Speaker 1: dancers in motion. I like, whoever's listening to this, I
Speaker 1: keep making this movement like I'm like, I keep sort
Speaker 1: of overzoom, like reaching out my right hand and sort
Speaker 1: of like looking up to the sky as I'm saying
Speaker 1: in motion, which is a little bit ridiculous I heard
Speaker 1: in the past. I've also felt very like airy and
Speaker 1: deserty and through California, and I'm glad I was spending
Speaker 1: my first time in La and Surrender. It feels far
Speaker 1: earthier and maybe even a bit of fire, And it
Speaker 1: was certainly grounded in New York and in the foggy
Speaker 1: landscapes of Maine, and in the UK at Peter Gabriel's
Speaker 1: Real World studios, where I made a lot of this record.
Speaker 1: Too Cool. It wants to be really clear about what
Speaker 1: I wanted to make before I got anyone else involved,
Speaker 1: so I spent a lot of time gathering images and
Speaker 1: then also doing like research on my own, making demos,
Speaker 1: writing a bunch of songs. I wrote maybe a hundred
Speaker 1: songs for this record, and even like I basically made
Speaker 1: a sort of shittier second record that'll probably never come out,
Speaker 1: like I made like light On Part two, like fully produced,
Speaker 1: and then was like, okay, what else if that's the
Speaker 1: first step forward, what's the next step? And was able
Speaker 1: to sort of take that next artistically, if I think,
Speaker 1: because I had spent all that time sort of cleaning
Speaker 1: out what was ever in my brain. And then in
Speaker 1: Maine still I where I lived for a lot of
Speaker 1: the pandemic that summer, so it would have been summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, the first song started to come that
Speaker 1: really felt like the mood board and really felt like
Speaker 1: the world. And that first song was Anywhere with You,
Speaker 1: And it was also like probably the last song we finished, too,
Speaker 1: because it's a long technical ride from a production standpoint,
Speaker 1: since so many of your songs feel so confessional, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you I wonder this like I wonder this with comedians,
Speaker 1: like do you have moments in your life where you're
Speaker 1: in maybe like a passionate moment, an intense moment with
Speaker 1: another person, and you're like, this is a song, this
Speaker 1: is a pre chorus, Like this is all getting recorded
Speaker 1: tonight when I'm home. I don't, And I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: that because that I think if I was in like
Speaker 1: a fight with a friend and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to make such a good song, I
Speaker 1: would be a psycho. Well, it's like Jerry Seinfeld. He's
Speaker 1: like always working on material, Like every conversation is material,
Speaker 1: Like nothing is personal. It's all material. When I get
Speaker 1: to really feel like an artist, I am that way,
Speaker 1: but like feeling like an artist feels like a certain
Speaker 1: type of sunglasses I get to put on, where like
Speaker 1: I'm noticing the light or the detail, or like the
Speaker 1: way something taste. Sensuality is a big part of this record,
Speaker 1: and for me, it's a big part of being an
Speaker 1: artist because it's just really being tapped into the senses
Speaker 1: and the way things feel. But a lot of my
Speaker 1: job I'm also like, like I don't know a business
Speaker 1: person or like an email intern or like you know,
Speaker 1: when you make your art your career, there's other stuff
Speaker 1: to just do. Yeah, But also what I would say
Speaker 1: is a lot of my music is also looking back.
Speaker 1: It's quite reflective, and I find like all art is reflective,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it actually physically is in the
Speaker 1: past tense, and I find when I look back, like
Speaker 1: I wrote the last song for a Surrender and Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: during school and I haven't written since then. It's been
Speaker 1: almost a year. And when I go to write again,
Speaker 1: I'll sort of like look back on that empty time
Speaker 1: and pick out there are just like natural moments that
Speaker 1: stick out in your memory from the last year if
Speaker 1: you can think about them. And I really think about
Speaker 1: making records as a form of archiving or cataloging. So
Speaker 1: great to have that and to have a slice of
Speaker 1: yourself preserved so you can look back and yeah, see
Speaker 1: yourself and you have it going back since when you're
Speaker 1: in high school. It's incredible. Yeah, I mean, it really
Speaker 1: feels like going and visiting an old version of myself,
Speaker 1: or like a childhood photo, where like you're looking at
Speaker 1: this photo and you conceptually know it's you, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a completely different person and it doesn't look
Speaker 1: or feel anything like you. Yeah, it's really bizarre. It
Speaker 1: feels like a snake shedding a skin, Like it feels
Speaker 1: like that, that sort of shell in a way you
Speaker 1: mentioned writing light on Part two. Yeah, do you remember
Speaker 1: anything from that? I would love to hear where that
Speaker 1: song went now that you have more experience in your
Speaker 1: career has progressed. I remember it like it exists. It's
Speaker 1: fully produced. I made it that summer of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: like I made a whole record oh of like songs
Speaker 1: sort of like that, And then I was like, this
Speaker 1: is so boring, Like I'm going to die if I
Speaker 1: have to go tour this for another year. Was it
Speaker 1: just because it was sort of like melancholy or it
Speaker 1: wasn't reaching any new ground or what was boring about it?
Speaker 1: It didn't feel new, it didn't feel challenging. It felt
Speaker 1: like strong songwriting, but it sort of like it was
Speaker 1: a little sweeter, like I don't know. It felt very
Speaker 1: much like the character of Maggie Rogers in Hurt It
Speaker 1: in a past life, but it didn't actually feel like
Speaker 1: the person Maggie in the current moment I was in,
Speaker 1: and I sort of had to like outgrow and kill
Speaker 1: that character in order to like move forward and feel
Speaker 1: like myself again, so it didn't have the teeth, didn't
Speaker 1: have the smudge. Well it's not even about the teeth
Speaker 1: or the smudge. It just wasn't honest, Like it was
Speaker 1: what everybody wanted to hear from me, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: how I actually felt. And that's the thing that I've
Speaker 1: always sought to do, and my music is tell the truth,
Speaker 1: and that's something I just like, I'm a very direct
Speaker 1: person that can't hide a lot of motions for the
Speaker 1: better or the worst. But I also think that the
Speaker 1: second record is hard because people do have a real
Speaker 1: conceptual notion and of who you are, and you're not
Speaker 1: a product, You're a person, and you grow up and
Speaker 1: you change, and sort of being true to who I
Speaker 1: am or who I was when I was making this record,
Speaker 1: I knew would also alienate some of the people that
Speaker 1: fell in love with the artist I was on the
Speaker 1: last record, and I had to just sort of like
Speaker 1: let that go and really commit to making something that
Speaker 1: I love and I'm really proud of, and that's what
Speaker 1: I've always done, but it was it was a different
Speaker 1: thing this round, or it just took a couple weeks
Speaker 1: to sort of put myself in that headspace in a
Speaker 1: different way because I had to really like it was
Speaker 1: a bigger skin to shed because more people were holding
Speaker 1: onto that skin. It wasn't just me anymore. What's your
Speaker 1: relationship with your perceived audience in your mind? When you're
Speaker 1: writing songs, they don't really exist because music is really
Speaker 1: for me to process my life. When I get into
Speaker 1: recording were when I'm writing with someone else, maybe that's it.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of music are at alone, and a
Speaker 1: lot of this record I got to write with Kid Arpoon,
Speaker 1: which I just I love him so much. And it's
Speaker 1: really a different thing to write with someone else because
Speaker 1: it becomes social in the same way that playing music
Speaker 1: is social. And even though I'm still writing all the
Speaker 1: lyrics in the corner, I have a friend to push me,
Speaker 1: or there's a friend to dream with, and suddenly you
Speaker 1: get to the bridge and you're like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: such a good thing to yell at with the crowd,
Speaker 1: or like on stage, it'll sound like this on the record,
Speaker 1: but on stage we can do this whole lot other
Speaker 1: thing and it can open up, like you sort of
Speaker 1: get to plant these doorways in the record that you know,
Speaker 1: like in six to eight months, you're going to get
Speaker 1: to open and the whole song is going to blast
Speaker 1: open in this other way. Now that you've experienced more success,
Speaker 1: you're a little further along in your career. How are
Speaker 1: you feeling about the relationship between success and happiness. I
Speaker 1: think it really depends on how you define success. For
Speaker 1: me these days, is success is happiness on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. I mean, I think in light on,
Speaker 1: like you're talking about, that song is really about something
Speaker 1: I referenced earlier in the conversation, which is the sort
Speaker 1: of like strange thing that happens when when you commodify
Speaker 1: your own human emotions, which is what it means to
Speaker 1: be a professional artist. And it's a really really bizarre thing.
Speaker 1: Even though I'm like so grateful to do it or
Speaker 1: to have the opportunity to do it, it's a it
Speaker 1: made me feel really bad a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: It was really dehumanizing, and I think now I just
Speaker 1: have different boundaries with it, and if my success is
Speaker 1: my own happiness, like I feel like, specifically in a
Speaker 1: lot of times in the communities that I exist in,
Speaker 1: which often our New York in LA in the music world,
Speaker 1: there's this like insatiable feeling that nothing is ever enough.
Speaker 1: You know. It's this very like capitalistic, forward looking tendency
Speaker 1: if everything needs to be bigger, better, and like if
Speaker 1: you sold this many tickets, it needs to be that
Speaker 1: many next time. And I think the thing that I
Speaker 1: really felt so grateful to feel a lot during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which was such a time of pain and also reflection
Speaker 1: and grief and all this other stuff, is that I
Speaker 1: really have enough. I think you feel successful when you
Speaker 1: feel like you have enough, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: have more than enough all the time. And so once
Speaker 1: I could really define success for myself and feel like
Speaker 1: I had enough, I got a lot better at saying
Speaker 1: no to stuff I don't like to do. And that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really awesome. It means I might not like be
Speaker 1: the biggest pop star in all the land, but I'm
Speaker 1: so much happier and my life Mammy is certainly better
Speaker 1: for it, and that looks like success to me. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with the rest of Leah Roses conversation
Speaker 1: with Maggie Rogers after a quick break. Before we jump
Speaker 1: back into Leah Roses conversation with Maggie Rogers, let's hear
Speaker 1: Maggie's first single off her latest album, Surrender. Here's that's
Speaker 1: where I am. I find reason cuff cut start on days,
Speaker 1: could do this for mistakes that we made you we
Speaker 1: were just friends. You could be waiting and I hated you.
Speaker 1: That gave it a few years. You sat on your dance.
Speaker 1: But I never gone over secrets. I gain all out
Speaker 1: in the Wherever you Go, That's where I am. Boulders
Speaker 1: turned into sever you go, that's you do, Coven Flowers.
Speaker 1: I think, m then you want to see really show first.
Speaker 1: She shea to Guessten, go shriek little food, signing that
Speaker 1: me moders to see you. That's okay. Let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the first song you released off the
Speaker 1: album That's where I Am. Where did that song come
Speaker 1: from and why was that the first song that you
Speaker 1: wanted to put out in the world. I think in
Speaker 1: every record there is a song that feels like it
Speaker 1: is the like perfect distillation, the like bulls eye of
Speaker 1: everything you're shooting for esthetically, and that song is that
Speaker 1: for me. When I listened to that song, it just
Speaker 1: sounds the most like me I've ever been able to
Speaker 1: distill into a recording. And I wrote and produced that
Speaker 1: song with Kid Harpoon at Real World. It was the
Speaker 1: first song we did in our second day and it
Speaker 1: was fast. I mean it was. It reminded me of
Speaker 1: writing Alaska that like ten minutes start to finish, like
Speaker 1: the words just like in chronological order themselves down. It
Speaker 1: has every bit of my like little bit of edge,
Speaker 1: has that like twelve string guitar nostalgia for all of
Speaker 1: the like sixties seventies music I love. It's got these
Speaker 1: big synths and sort of like wink to dance music
Speaker 1: that is also such a part of the music that
Speaker 1: I love and my musical DNA. Yeah, it just sounds
Speaker 1: like the sort of adult version of who I am
Speaker 1: and what I sound like on paper. And the song
Speaker 1: is like every other song I've ever wrote, like a
Speaker 1: story about some form of like love in my past,
Speaker 1: but it also is about a lot of things at once.
Speaker 1: Those are my favorite songs that like are more about
Speaker 1: a feeling than they are about one thing in particular,
Speaker 1: and they sort of that feeling is like this big
Speaker 1: magnet that draws in all these smaller moments in my
Speaker 1: life that to coalesce into one thing. And the thing
Speaker 1: that I'll say about that song is. It's crazy. The
Speaker 1: first time we played it live, not even with the crowd,
Speaker 1: just the first time we as a band got to
Speaker 1: put it together. It felt like such a testament to
Speaker 1: how much I've grown as a songwriter, and also with
Speaker 1: Tom too. I mean, I can't really talk about this
Speaker 1: song without talking about our partnership. We wrote light On
Speaker 1: together too, and I think watching us grow as a
Speaker 1: songwriting and production duo also is a part of it.
Speaker 1: The song just drives better. It's like if I was
Speaker 1: making a pickup truck before. This is like a sports car,
Speaker 1: like it's crazy with a band, it just drives really,
Speaker 1: really well. And that's a thing when you bring a
Speaker 1: song to a band, you really find that out. Because
Speaker 1: I remember bringing There's a song on my EP called
Speaker 1: Better and it was sort of like a last track
Speaker 1: at the beginning of my career that sort of like
Speaker 1: rounded off that EP. And it has always been really
Speaker 1: hard to play with the band, and it's because it
Speaker 1: was like a bedroom pop song and it wasn't really
Speaker 1: made for a lot. It was made for headphones, it
Speaker 1: wasn't made for the stage, and so much of this
Speaker 1: record I specifically made to play live, and that has
Speaker 1: been the whole other like best part of it. It's
Speaker 1: such an exhilarating song. It does something crazy to me,
Speaker 1: Like I listened, I was taking a walk the other
Speaker 1: day and I was listening to that song and it
Speaker 1: just like I have such an emotional response to it
Speaker 1: because I can so deeply feel what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a raw nerve. It hits a
Speaker 1: raw nerve. It was pretty raw when I was making
Speaker 1: this whole record. I actually wrote Tom a thank you
Speaker 1: note just to be like, yo, I know, I was
Speaker 1: very intense we were making this record and whatever needed
Speaker 1: to come out of me, Like I'm a different person now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's great that you have someone you can
Speaker 1: be that open with. Yeah, totally. He's the best with
Speaker 1: the song, Like that's where I am? Is that? Do
Speaker 1: you get closure by writing that song from that situation
Speaker 1: because that has to be a real situation. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: get closure from writing always. It's like once I can
Speaker 1: externalize it, it doesn't need to live inside of me anymore,
Speaker 1: and that feels really powerful. Do you need the person
Speaker 1: to hear it and then do you need to know
Speaker 1: the person's reaction to the song? Oh? No, no, no, no, no, no, okay,
Speaker 1: it's not about anyone else. I mean, I've always used
Speaker 1: the pronoun you because I always found gender and songs
Speaker 1: to be limiting. I don't use a lot of he
Speaker 1: or she because I find gender really limiting and songs.
Speaker 1: But no, I don't care if people hear it or not.
Speaker 1: It's not really for that. If I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: someone something, I would just call them. This is not
Speaker 1: for like some sort of very mature Yeah. I told
Speaker 1: you at the beginning. I'm a really direct communicator. That's
Speaker 1: someone to know something, i'd call them. I wouldn't like
Speaker 1: weird confess it in the song. Oh, I would be like,
Speaker 1: this is the easiest way to get this off my chest.
Speaker 1: And I hope that persons Oh man, well, hey I
Speaker 1: have some work to do. Yeah we all. Would you
Speaker 1: ever consider doing like a dance album, like an electronic
Speaker 1: music album. Yeah, I'm really hungry for it right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm sort of actively seeking it out because there
Speaker 1: was a lot of electronic music at the beginning of
Speaker 1: my career, and it feels like now what I'm really
Speaker 1: hungry for. I guess we'll see how it all turns out,
Speaker 1: and it ends up being about how much time I
Speaker 1: have off the road. It takes me a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks to come down from the road and get my
Speaker 1: brain back. And because it's touring is so body heavy,
Speaker 1: whereas recording is so brain heavy and also very like
Speaker 1: spiritual to be completely honest, so it takes a little
Speaker 1: bit while to like come back down to earth and integrate.
Speaker 1: So again it depends on sort of like how much
Speaker 1: time I'm left with to get to be in the studio.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that is sort of where my brain is at. Actually,
Speaker 1: how would you say your taste has evolved over the
Speaker 1: course of your career. My taste has evolved largely with
Speaker 1: the way technology is evolved, I think because when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, like I grew up with tapes and
Speaker 1: then CDs and then like illegal streaming and streaming, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the way my taste has
Speaker 1: changed has had to do with the way technology has
Speaker 1: allowed access to music to shift. Other than that, I've
Speaker 1: always listened to a ton of music. I mean, especially
Speaker 1: in college or growing up, I listened to a ton
Speaker 1: of R and B, listened to a ton of dance music. Yea. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the last two years I really just listened to ambient music.
Speaker 1: I think that's a sign of the times more than anything.
Speaker 1: A lot of like Daniel Lanoir instrumentals, or Andrew Wassilik
Speaker 1: or h Hunt or John Carol Kirby or there's this
Speaker 1: organ record I love by this coming Callie Malone but
Speaker 1: nice yeah, or the Eno Brothers. But I'm like, I
Speaker 1: really just sort of do that. How did you first
Speaker 1: come to music? Was the banjo your first instrument? No,
Speaker 1: my first instrumance was harp, and then I played piano
Speaker 1: and guitar. But I like got really scary obsessed with
Speaker 1: classical music as a kid. Music was the only thing
Speaker 1: I ever thought about ever, Like I guess I was
Speaker 1: when I was When I was a kid, I also
Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer, and I wrote a lot
Speaker 1: of short stories, but that sort of like checks out,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, I don't know. I was always really
Speaker 1: into music. My mom told me that classical music was
Speaker 1: telling stories and then I had to listen for them,
Speaker 1: and that sort of really piqued my interest. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd listen to makeup stories. And this idea that you
Speaker 1: could illustrate emotion without saying anything was so fascinating to me,
Speaker 1: and I still do that like a lot of this record,
Speaker 1: the arrangements, you know, I think about a song like Symphony,
Speaker 1: where my vocal is the like steady center to all
Speaker 1: of this swirling sort of more dance influenced instrumental that
Speaker 1: just keeps growing and growing and growing and getting more chaotic.
Speaker 1: And that song is about trying to like be the
Speaker 1: steady person for a friend who's sort of going through it.
Speaker 1: So I try and like mirror that sensibility in my
Speaker 1: work as much as possible. I'm curious about this. I
Speaker 1: have a four and a half year old who just
Speaker 1: started playing the violin. Oh my god, are you okay?
Speaker 1: It's the smallest violin, and oh my gosh, it's incredible.
Speaker 1: But how old were you when you start playing the harp?
Speaker 1: Like that's a huge instrument. How does that happen? No,
Speaker 1: there's a folk harp, So there's a small harp. Regular
Speaker 1: harps are fucking huge and you have all these pedals
Speaker 1: you move by your feet to change the sharps and flats,
Speaker 1: and like I played that in New Orchestra in high school,
Speaker 1: but when I was growing up, I played It's called
Speaker 1: a folk harp. Which is about three feet tall, and
Speaker 1: there are smaller levers on each string, so you change
Speaker 1: the sharps and flats individually, okay, rather than by your feet,
Speaker 1: so you sort of prepare the instrument. It's like a
Speaker 1: prepared piano in a way. You prepared the instrument before
Speaker 1: you sit down. But I mean, I haven't played harp
Speaker 1: since I was eighteen, So ten years, do you think
Speaker 1: you'd still be able to play it? I mean, I
Speaker 1: understand how it works, but like, I also like the
Speaker 1: craziest thing about becoming a professional musician is since I
Speaker 1: have done that, nobody has asked me to read a
Speaker 1: piece of music. So maybe I could play maybe not
Speaker 1: Like I would probably say no, so nobody asks me
Speaker 1: and puts me on the spot. Yeah. Was there anybody
Speaker 1: in your family who was musical? No? My mom played
Speaker 1: piano after we went to bed sometimes, and I think
Speaker 1: she played growing up. But she loved music and what
Speaker 1: always she was the one that like, she'd play me
Speaker 1: Alanis Morrisett or Lauren Hill or Eric bad Or. She
Speaker 1: loved outcast. Yeah, yeah, very sick. Shout out to Alice.
Speaker 1: She had great taste. She still does, she really does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But yeah, other than that, Like nobody really liked played
Speaker 1: or work to music in my family. And when you
Speaker 1: say all you thought about was music as a little kid,
Speaker 1: like were you thinking about it technically or are you
Speaker 1: thinking about like how it made you thinking about it
Speaker 1: all that time? I was thinking about it all the time.
Speaker 1: Like when I got to high school, I used to
Speaker 1: DJ middle school recess and I was like obsessed with
Speaker 1: being able to hear a song on the radio and
Speaker 1: be able to tell you like all of the producer, songwriters,
Speaker 1: record label, what year came out like. It was really
Speaker 1: like a sense of identity also, but I was like
Speaker 1: just a I was the same that as I am now.
Speaker 1: It's just a big nerd. I was just really into it,
Speaker 1: and it was really all I thought about, like playing music,
Speaker 1: who was playing music? Thinking about music? But I was
Speaker 1: also really interested in like the business or what was happening,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I'd watch d H one Top twenty
Speaker 1: Countdown every week or yes, and then later I got
Speaker 1: Spin or Rolling Stone and would read that cover to
Speaker 1: cover and would look at all the charts and sort
Speaker 1: of then go do my homework about you know, what
Speaker 1: was on the college radio charts, and oh, I haven't
Speaker 1: heard of that record, so I'd go look it up
Speaker 1: or you know, nerds stuff. Yeah, I mean it seems
Speaker 1: like such a blessing to know exactly what you want
Speaker 1: to do so early. Yeah, I'm sure it was fucking
Speaker 1: annoying to be around. Shout out to my siblings or
Speaker 1: like anyone that was my friend during most days. Are
Speaker 1: they all just like, yeah, of course she is who
Speaker 1: she is now. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: remember when I went to college too. I was studying
Speaker 1: music production but also a lot of the music business,
Speaker 1: and really, you know, like so many people have at
Speaker 1: that time, being like, oh, these people are all all
Speaker 1: the version, the nerd versions of me, you know, from
Speaker 1: their high schools. That was special to start to find
Speaker 1: community around that. I was at a wedding this left
Speaker 1: past weekend and I saw some of my oldest friends
Speaker 1: from when I was like eight or nine, and they
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, dude, this is the least surprising thing
Speaker 1: and that has happened, Like this is a big duh. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you discovered your voice and
Speaker 1: your vocal range the power of your voice. I have
Speaker 1: a very concrete early memory of being my sister and
Speaker 1: I shared a bathroom, but it had two sinks. I
Speaker 1: have no idea how old I was, somewhere in between
Speaker 1: three and five maybe, And I remember suddenly singing and
Speaker 1: it sounding different like I had sang, you know, as
Speaker 1: a kid whatever, and something happened this one time I
Speaker 1: sang and I was like, Oh, that sounds really different,
Speaker 1: and oh, this is a thing I can do. And
Speaker 1: I remember my sister and I like having a conversation
Speaker 1: about it about like both of us being like WHOA,
Speaker 1: what was that like? And suddenly I could sing. And
Speaker 1: I didn't really figure out that I had like a
Speaker 1: big voice. I mean there were moments like I got
Speaker 1: asked to sing Aretha Franklin with the jazz band in
Speaker 1: high school and I pulled it off. But I still
Speaker 1: didn't like really figure out that I or like have
Speaker 1: the confidence to say that I was like a singer
Speaker 1: honestly until touring heard it in a past life. I mean,
Speaker 1: that song Falling Water was such a massive moment for me.
Speaker 1: Understanding my vocal range, but also then having to perform
Speaker 1: that song every night really changed the way I learned
Speaker 1: or knew my voice because it really spans like my
Speaker 1: entire vocal range, and oftentimes we'd start the show with it,
Speaker 1: so it would just be like I would have to
Speaker 1: really be ready for it. And I think you can
Speaker 1: hear that vocal shift in this record. I mean when
Speaker 1: I listened back to Surrender, my voice just sounds big,
Speaker 1: and I really like, I know how to sing now
Speaker 1: and I know my voice better and it's really fun
Speaker 1: to use that instrument. How do you think about manipulating
Speaker 1: your voice while you're singing? Is that something that just
Speaker 1: is instantaneous. Yeah, It's not something I think about anymore.
Speaker 1: It's so much more about just trying to communicate emotion effectively.
Speaker 1: So cool, It's just like another yet another thing in
Speaker 1: your toolbox. It's it's my favorite thing. But it's also
Speaker 1: funny thing because singing, Like, at this point, I've spent
Speaker 1: so much time, you know, I took vocal lessons as
Speaker 1: a kid. I sang in choirs, I arranged for a
Speaker 1: cappella groups, I like, sang with the jazz band. I
Speaker 1: have played in punk bands and folk bands and rock
Speaker 1: bands and college and DJ and I've done all this
Speaker 1: stuff and now it's just like a thing can do.
Speaker 1: Like it feels almost like a party trick, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't take a lot of like, you know, I can sing,
Speaker 1: like in the same way that some people are double jointed.
Speaker 1: Like it's just a thing I can do. And you
Speaker 1: have no reservations about singing in front of people. You
Speaker 1: don't have any nerves or anything like that. No, I think,
Speaker 1: like you know, I have played like Radio City and
Speaker 1: the Sydney Opera House, and from there I know that, like,
Speaker 1: this is a thing that I'm good at, like not
Speaker 1: in like a cocky way, just like a I can sing,
Speaker 1: I'm a good singer. I know that I am a
Speaker 1: good singer, and it's really nice to do something that
Speaker 1: you know that you can excel at. I also think
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in places where I
Speaker 1: was new at things or you know, wasn't great at things.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I know there's a lot of things in
Speaker 1: my life I'm still working on. But I know that
Speaker 1: singing is something I can do, and so I don't
Speaker 1: really stress about it. So you talked about New York
Speaker 1: City influencing in part Surrender. Do you see yourself ever
Speaker 1: going back and living in a rural place Since you
Speaker 1: originally grew up in a more rural area in Easton,
Speaker 1: do you ever see yourself going back to a rural
Speaker 1: place to live full time? These days, I sort of
Speaker 1: lived between LA and Maine, and my heart lives not
Speaker 1: in a city, even though I like love city energy,
Speaker 1: But honestly, I don't get to be home very much.
Speaker 1: And if I can be in a place that it
Speaker 1: feels like quote unquote home while I'm working and pick
Speaker 1: up a couple more days in a comfortable, familiar spot,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. So like La does not in any
Speaker 1: way and probably never will feel like home. It's never
Speaker 1: a place side in the map I would have chosen
Speaker 1: to be, even though I've come to like love things
Speaker 1: about it or have great friends or community here, But
Speaker 1: I have felt way more at home in New York City.
Speaker 1: Like New York, I'm an East Coaster, Like I just
Speaker 1: lived in Boston free year and I loved it, and
Speaker 1: I have. I always am like curious about like resonant
Speaker 1: places where people have resonance, not residents, but resonance, Like
Speaker 1: the places that really like resonate with you, like the
Speaker 1: way that the earth speaks. I think honestly because I
Speaker 1: grew up in the marshland at like one hundred percent humidity,
Speaker 1: LA's just really dry for me, Like I just like
Speaker 1: I'm not a desert girl. It's just a different vibe too.
Speaker 1: The people are different, it's a different culturally, it's very different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing too, and it brings different things out
Speaker 1: of me. But I'm also not thinking so much about
Speaker 1: where I live because I'm so excited to be on
Speaker 1: tour that that has been the most interesting thing to feel.
Speaker 1: Is that like being back on a tour bus or
Speaker 1: being on tour like that is the place I feel
Speaker 1: the most at home. It's the place that I had
Speaker 1: spent collectively the most amount of time in my adult life.
Speaker 1: And it has this magic thing where your sense of
Speaker 1: purpose on tour is so clear, Like you're with all
Speaker 1: these people who have all committed to this real, strange,
Speaker 1: alternative way of life in this real practice, and you
Speaker 1: form a community and every bit of your day is
Speaker 1: goes towards this moment that is about being present that
Speaker 1: you're creating with the audience and bringing people together and
Speaker 1: also being a part of something bigger than yourself. And
Speaker 1: that to me is I feel so lucky to call home. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I could sit and talk to
Speaker 1: you all day, I know you have to go. No,
Speaker 1: thank you. I really appreciate really thoughtful questions. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and it's such a joy to be on
Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm just a really big fan. Thank you,
Speaker 1: best of luck on tour. I hope that you find
Speaker 1: home wherever you are and can't wait to see you play. Oh,
Speaker 1: can't wait, can't wait. Thanks again to Maggie Rodgers. You
Speaker 1: can hear a new album, Surrender, along with all of
Speaker 1: our favorite Maggie Rodgers songs on a playlist at broken
Speaker 1: Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast.
Speaker 1: We can find all of our new episodes. You can
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
Speaker 1: produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Holliday,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez, our editor Sophie Crane. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Mia LaBelle. Broken Record is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin,
Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
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Speaker 1: podcast at our theme musics by Kenny beats On Just
Speaker 1: Richman