Carly Rae Jepsen: I Was Waiting Tables When 'Call Me Maybe' Went To #1 | Guy Raz

Key Takeaway

Treat uncertainty as a cue to take the next available shot, not as evidence that you should wait. Today, make a list of three “doors” related to a goal—an application, outreach note, audition, pitch, or small public experiment—and complete one before the day ends. Carly Rae Jepsen’s career moved forward because she kept showing up, tried unconventional opportunities, and stayed open to routes she could not have predicted.

Episode Overview

Carly Rae Jepsen traces her path from childhood sing-alongs in Mission, British Columbia, through musical theater, low-wage jobs, Canadian Idol, and the global success of “Call Me Maybe.” She explains how she protected her identity as a songwriter, learned to collaborate without ego, and used music both to process loneliness and to imagine a more joyful future.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Carly Rae Jepsen: I Was Waiting Tables When 'Call Me Maybe' Went To #1 | Guy Raz from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

tell me a little bit about music that you the kind of music that you would hear in your house when you were growing up oh I mean my parents had really good music taste my my dad was actually a songwriter in his own right he was a principal first but he would love to like listen to um James Taylor Van Morrison um my mom really loved Joni Mitchell Sinead O'Connor Kat Stevens um lots of like folk artists but folk that kind of bled its way into pop sometimes as well I think in subtle ways I mean I don't know if people would call James Taylor pop but I can definitely hear that there's some remnants of that in his music so I grew up with like a wide range of of folk artists mostly I would say and and unlike most kids who sort of rebelled their parents music I I really like loved it I really thought they had fabulous taste I still do when you were a little girl were you always singing all like wherever you were yeah I I don't really remember a time when I didn't kind of Define myself as a singer um uh which sounds wild to think of now but I think because music was just in my house and it was so encouraged um to do these sing-alongs and like I think actually it sort of came out of necessity at first because when my parents first divorced I think I would have been about three or four and I would miss my mom and so my dad would like pull out the guitar and he would be like all right well let's think of three songs that you'd like to sing and he would play them for me and I would apparently like sing along with him and try to learn the words and think of the stories and it really helped settle me before bed so he kept this um this routine going where he would play um three or four songs before bed at night and I would sing along and I can remember at an early age um I don't know six seven kind of really feeling like these stories would really transport me and that I could feel I could try on feelings that felt like grown-up feelings that I hadn't really experienced before and really kind of escaped into them and I can remember actually one night crying listening to a sad song Like A Rod Stewart cover and my father was like are you okay do you want me to stop and I remember being like no keep going wow this is this is sort of the the best part of my day so I really felt um like music was a bridge between my two families um and and I was really looking for any kind of connecting Factor at that age so it was something I clung on too early um I read that it was um nothing compares to you Sinead O'Connor's version of that song that really was like kind of an Awakening moment you were fought probably around four five or six when that song was originally released do you remember that song when that song kind of struck you as something different because it was it was a remarkable cover of that song well isn't it a joyful thing to during your life when I don't know if you as a kid felt this where you would sing for the joy the simple joy of what it felt like to sing out loud and to hear your voice in an empty space and to hear it maybe echo in a bathroom or something like that too and I can remember reaching for songs in the shower or songs and in certain places when I was walking alone to to sort of to go to for the simple joy of singing and Sinead O'Connor's music was always that because it was so soaring it was so these um these Melodies were just beautiful and so I I think it was also the closest thing that my parents had introduced me to like again a bit more pop leaning stuff at being a prince cover especially I kind of something about that really attracted me and um and so yeah I remember I think also in terms of like all time favorite voices I mean Sinead O'Connor Billie Holiday she's in the running of the greats to me so I was really struck by that yeah um Carly when did you start to feel like you wanted to pursue singing or acting or something was there do you remember moments when you were a kid where people would say to you or or your parents like you know she's she's different like there are other good kids they're kids who can sing well here in Mission but she's a bit different there's there's not quite anyone doing what she's doing do you ever remember hearing that as a kid um I mean my parents came from the era of like tell your kids that they can be anything that they want to be right and so I I I I grew up with with like teachers who were very much like if you work hard and if you you know if you care about something so it wasn't that they they didn't see the the um the impossibility of a job like this but they were very much all about the dream and I and I I just kind of um in the same way that my brother loved hockey and I I just loved singing so I think I was doing a lot of it and once they saw um you know that I could maybe like keep a tune and like get through a song without losing my way a bit I think that the I think that it started to become like a little party trick where my dad would bring out the guitar and I would sing for the family or sing in in smaller little events and then um I think the first time we ever thought to kind of go outside the family with it was my father had um uh found out about this talent show that was a local in in Mission BC and they thought you know he asked me would you like to sing in front of people when I was about seven years old and I said yes of course that sounds great and um he was like well we have to practice so we went into like the garage every night we were practicing Beauty and the Beast and Eternal Flame by The Bangles and so we practice and practice and practice and and then I remember the day that we did the show um yeah I I think I was just seven so I don't know if it was great or if it was just that I was seven and I could get through it but it was a pretty big reaction and we won the talent contest and at that time it was like I think they gave me four hundred dollars and I was like I'm rich I quit this is my whole life was said I was so happy um and and I think I left there um feeling quite at home in in that in that light and that kind of energy and sort of excited that um I could hold the attention of a room for a second and try to transport them I think the way that my father transported me in the in the in the sing-alongs before bed at night right after that I started doing these um musicals like these homegrown like Little Orphan Annie and The Wiz and um Greece and just like I don't know High School Musicals basically and I think around the time I was in elementary school um I started performing with the high school of jazz band so I would I would perform with them as well too so I started to get a little bit of opportunity just in my very small town of mission but it was enough Community Support as well as my family support to feel kind of like um I don't know being the dreamer that I was that that that maybe I could keep seeing where this would go you were um you were performing a musical theater and I think that's really what your focus was did you also like when did you start to experiment with writing your own songs or or even learning how to play the guitar well first of all I thought there's one of the greatest songwriters of all time so I had a really good teacher um and I think it all it takes is like seeing somebody show you a skill and then it just doesn't seem as unreachable and so in the same way where he would play like a James Taylor song he'd also like play one of his and I couldn't tell the difference I was just like so blown away that he was capable of of of of of making something that wasn't there before that I could sing along to and and um and so I I didn't really put that fact that I was gonna write a song into my head it actually just kind of came quite naturally um the way that feelings come quite naturally and I think I was in high school and I had um a bit of a crush on some guy and I didn't know how to handle it and I started to write him a letter and my letter started to have like a Cadence to it when I was reading it back to myself and it started to kind of have pause and then all of a sudden these Rhymes and before you knew it I kind of had a melody in mind to it and then now I'd sort of almost like changed focus it was less about the boy but I was almost looking for a guitar to see if I could figure out how to put this thing to life and I remember showing my dad because I had borrowed his guitar but I didn't know any chords so I just found the strings that would help and I showed him like a w on the on the guitar and he's like that's a d and then he showed me the rest of the things to be able to pull off um the making of I think my first song was called dear you and it was a letter to a boy oh wow do you I don't want to put you on a spot but do you remember any of it yeah I'm sure I could send it to you it's pretty bad it's like do you I'm still thinking about you and I can't seem to get you from my mind it was very like a letter and then um it's true I imagine us together and I can't pretend it doesn't feel just fine my dear dear dear you I'm craving to be near you and I just like went on like that did you would you go in your bedroom and write songs like as a kid as a teenager that that I was it says I have to give my credit where credit's due to my to my family because I think a kid can like stumble out of their room with an idea and play it for a couple people on that but like yeah that's okay but they were um they were like kind of um amazed and excited you know that I like at least like yeah I remember them being very encouraging of like oh well maybe you should try that again kind of vibe and um uh and I I I got really excited about this this new sort of um Discovery I was I was falling into and um it was around this time that I went to a performing arts college and so fast forward now like from high school to age 17 I think I went to the Canadian College of Performing Arts and um this was also like to the dismay of my parents like they were excited for me but they were a little bit like weren't you gonna become like a music teacher like you should be going to like the the school for that but this school was much more aimed at almost preparing one for Broadway or something like that it was Muse of singing dancing and acting school basically my dream school and it was a one-year program and I went and I brought my little acoustic guitar um my mom and my stepdad have bought me and that's around the time when um my I really started to take off and in terms of um writing weekly and so I would go to college I would do my lessons and I'd come home and I would lock myself kind of away um and just started to pen these tunes and by the time I had finished that year of school I had this really strong feeling that no I'm I think that musical theater is fun but I want to pursue songwriting and what's the next Road for that and the scary answer when I asked myself what the question was that I didn't I didn't know what the answer was but I thought that I had to probably move back to the city and um and and and figure it out because that year um at the performing arts college in uh in Victoria and Vancouver Island like that as you say that was they were preparing you for a life on in theater like you guys went to New York and saw Broadway shows and you had vocal lessons and dancing and acting and all the things that you would need to do to maybe you know start getting enrolls in in you know in theaters in Vancouver and then maybe Toronto and then maybe New York you know um but you realized that that was not what you want to pursue that actually you want to maybe become a songwriter yeah there was something really wild about being on stage and taking over the role of another character and I loved the escapism of it it was really fun but there was something so thrilling and brave about just emoting something that was secret and wondering if there was somebody else who felt something similar it really tapped into um this type of connection that I was really craving I think um and um and so I do remember coming back to my parents and imagine I've got four teacher parents who are sort of already a little concerned that I've taken a left turn instead of the right turn um and the agreement just so you know for this is that I would go to this one year program and then I would go to UBC or cap college and I would finish my teacher's degree and and my dad was sort of like if you even become a substitute then like on the days off you can like you know play at a couple coffee shops this will be great and I I think what I had to tell them I'm like you've kind of created a monster because you've told me my whole life I couldn't do anything and now I want to go do it so I end up coming home and sort of saying I want to make a go at this I don't know what that looks like but I'm going to move to the city and and they they were very gentle but they were very firm about if you're not going to be going to University then you're kind of on your own and you you know you've got to figure this out so then began the era of my life of many minimum minimum wage jobs and living in Vancouver and starting a Bohemian lifestyle of figuring it out yeah this is I think 2005 and you're in Vancouver trying to figure out how to make a living as a singer-songwriter and as you mentioned just doing whatever you could do like what were some of the jobs that you did in Vancouver just to kind of pay the rent I was so I I got a bartender certificate so I was working at the media Club as a bartender I was working at a coffee shop Barista called trees organic coffee where the pastry chef assistant actually quit so I took over as the Pasty Chef assistant I was there at four in the morning and I would go till one and go home and nap and then I'd go to my bartending gig and then Thursday nights I would play acoustic sets at the ends a club and I also started my own like coffee like singer-songwriter night at the coffee shop that I worked at and I was sleeping on a girl's or still a friend of mine and that's sort of where I stayed and she was like all right on Davey Street in Vancouver and it really was my parents hadn't like x'd me up they were still like deeply concerned on the sidelines being like she'll come home any time now but what they didn't realize is that I was just flourishing in this newfound freedom and I was also I think there was even a couple times where I couldn't make the hydroville and my girlfriend Jay and I would like busk on the street to like cover the extra sixty dollars to like you know get through the month but I never really um I never really felt uh that I knew what the plan was but when I look back at those those years those are so those were the years I was really figuring it out I was figuring out um uh I was learning a lot about songwriting first of all but I also was discovering that I um I was so much happier doing this and not knowing necessarily where it was going to go than anything else um so you're living in Vancouver and that was your life I mean you were but you were I mean uh presumably I mean were you were there like anrs or like label people in Vancouver that you were auditioning in front of or pursuing anything like that at all I was trying basically I was doing that you know the good old-fashioned like like from the movies like in an envelope with your like little demo CD and your resume and your headshot like I was dropping things off at places like I I will say that I I've had a hustle in me from like day one and I do think that um if there was a thing to do or an idea like I remember one time looking for work on the Georgia straight and and that's reason like a newspaper in Vancouver and looking for a job as a singer and I couldn't find anything but I saw a job for like a saxophone player in a jazz band and I called them and I was like so I know you're looking for a saxophone player but would you like a singer instead and I got the gig like there were certain little things that I I was I was doing to try to get by but also looking long term of how to turn this into you know really developing into a proper career was also on my mind and those were two different strategies like one like pay the rent and then one where is this going but it really like when I look back on like big break sort of things none of those things like really bit right away for me I I had like a couple good meetings and like a couple good opportunities like that but it wasn't until Canadian Idol that um I sort of uh and I didn't even know that it was gonna work out for me but I I ended up having a little bit more of a leg up um so let's talk about Canadian Idol this is 2007.

and you went to the I guess the open auditions um to yeah I mean tell me I mean anybody can see your audition video which is so cool it's so cool to see you there what do you remember I mean of course you can see the video and and but what do you remember about that experience I mean there was a lot going on around my time in that life uh that period of my life I I think I had been in the city for a hot minute now and I don't want to say it like chewed me up and spit me up but there was definitely this feeling of like okay where is this going like what's the next plan here because I really did want to build the thing but it was it was also it I wasn't sure what the next step was and I was um remember how I said I was in high school when all those drama Productions I was actually quite close to two teachers in my high school one was at Beverly Homes and one was David fire and they were both teachers who I think when you said was there someone at Mission who kind of believed in you beyond your parents it was those two people and I was still in touch with Bev and and she she was the one that told me about this audition and I was like that's not how it's going to work for me and she's like who do you think you are to know how it's gonna work or if it's gonna work the whole idea of chasing a dream is that you knock on every door you don't know what's gonna open for you Canadian Idol could be the thing or it could not that like you gotta try and I was like oh she's right it's actually been like kind of Life advice of like don't pretend that you know what your destiny is or how things are going to work out for you all your job is to show up and have energy to like be open and so um she drove me that day and um by the time I got to that audition I remember thinking I'm only going to be on TV this one time I might as well make it count so the rule was you weren't supposed to write or sing your own song but I brought a guitar and I was like I'm doing it because I thought if there's a chance it'll air I don't know what I thought but I thought if I'm gonna be there authentically so um it felt rebellious and it felt like I'll be in and I'll be out and it'll be done so the reaction and their feedback of like allowing me through I remember kind of feeling a little like wow wow that's that's not what I expected to happen and I that that shock continued throughout the season so every time that they would keep me around I can remember calling my father or calling my family being like I'm still here isn't that weird like what's going on so it was it was quite a ride yeah I mean as you say you played your own original piece and you you would have end up um placing a third in Canadian Idol but that exposure LED you to get a a manager and um and You released a record I think on the next year in 2008 um your debut record that record tug of war um did quite well in Canada I mean gold certification in Canada but it wasn't I don't think it was released beyond Canada and I think in Japan of all places I don't think it was released originally in the U.S and so I mean on the one hand like you had all this exposure on Canadian Idol and you had a chance to make a record on the other hand that was like not it wasn't like all of a sudden everything changed like no you were still grinding and still had I mean you were you had to wait tables I yeah I remember I remember being in the top 10 of Canadian Idol and thinking the real race begins as soon as this show is done like that's when the real competition's gonna start for all of us of like how do we use this exposure and I was very much thinking what's the plan and I think around the top five when we were looking at the Canadian Idol contract I remember thinking coming second would be perfect because winning you're locked for life and so second would be great I'll take third though and then I was having I was very lucky to be in third or even top 10 at all so um yeah when we got back and uh I started to kind of look at what the next goal was um it wasn't like it there wasn't a you know a one two three step of like this will get success now so I think that the thing that I felt like I had in my corner was um the the songwriting aspect so I I was able to put some songs out get some radio play and then um uh get back to what you're saying I can remember waitressing a couple tables and my songs would be playing in the background well kind of it being kind of uh I remember even having one table that was like strongly like reacting and they didn't they didn't really like the song and I was like trying to hide myself I was like surfing the mind being like Jesus Christ but being at the same time like secretly delighted that they knew who I I quote unquote like was or had any familiarity with it it was like a really like double-edged thing where I was sort of like tickled and delighted that I didn't care that much about the reaction I was just happy that they're that I was getting to kind of make my marks one way or the other and um and then yeah and it was a short time after that um where I was able to sign with an indie label in Canada and um and start to write for this next album and it was in that meeting Josh Ramsey working with tavish Crow who become my lifelong collaborator and guitarist to this day that um Call Me Maybe was born and that's when things started to really change for me um when did you find out that Call Me Maybe was starting to blow up I mean okay so it shot up in Canada first yep and then it shot up just radio place it was just a radio song in Canada and just organically I was walking home from work one day and my sister texted me I was working at Brown social house which was like a little waitressing place kind of you know I don't know anyways I was walking home my sister texted me and she's like it's so funny um did you see this and I was like what and I I watched the video and I call her back and I'm like that's crazy that boy who's who's just singing my song online looks exactly like Justin Bieber and she's like you idiot that is Justin Bieber and that's when um that's when lightning kind of hit this the song from somewhere um unexpected and all of a sudden I was getting hit up left right and center and the song slowly kind of just was getting more attention more attention more attention and I was it was almost like I would watch it on iTunes and it would just like be jumping up the chart it felt like every time we'd refresh it and I felt um I felt really scared I remember feeling scared more than excited because this was not part of the plan and I didn't know what was happening tell me tell me what happened to your to you in the immediate aftermath of that because I mean there's a narrative which is that song became a worldwide hit it became it was like 12 weeks on the U.S number one you know Billboard charts um song of the summer 2012 I mean massive Global hit it was everywhere did it feel like that to you did it was it like all of a sudden it just the world was like at your front doorstep wanting to like I don't know work with you get a piece of of the action I don't know what was it was it crazy all overnight oh I I feel like my experience versus like the world's experience of the song are very different things because I mean I I'm living my one my one little life so I would sometimes get like little pockets of realizing how it's it's sort of affecting other people or exploding in this way but my job was sort of just to work on getting this next album out try to handle for the first time ever new negotiations with management and labels and and just trying to do it all as intelligently as I could considering the very little that I knew very early on my thinking was what comes after this and how do I position myself in a place where I can have an established career beyond the song because the song is becoming its own little bit of a mammoth and and that's wonderful but I want to be able to to have a life of making music so even though it was kind of wild and crazy I was sort of thinking a couple of steps ahead of it with a bit of something resembling Panic yeah yeah I mean um Scooter Braun became your manager Justin Bieber's manager and you know you became famous really internationally famous very quickly because there was a video and you know your face was everywhere and people started recognizing you um at the same time that song was different was a different sound to what you had been doing and what you would eventually do it was it's a great song don't get me wrong but um but I wonder whether you you know the expectation at that point was okay let's do 10 more Colony babies like Let's do let's just write about let's just get you with the right people and just crank out the hits I think that this being one of the first pop songs that I had put out and having it worked to such a degree was was wild and exciting but all the things you can imagine that go along with that like wow what how do I what's the next um move here and I I know that the label probably was was thinking you know do the same thing again twice but I didn't necessarily feel that pressure at the time I felt this excitement this excitement that had been like bubbling in me my whole life that I had this opportunity and these resources now to finally get to put out an album with with some support and so to me it was like I was a bit of a kid in the candy shop thinking Max Martin The Wizard of Oz I get to meet him or some of these people that they were putting before me it was exciting but it was um it wasn't yet daunting I was nervous but I was still more when I once I got my hands over um into the studio I started to feel and I don't know how to say this without sounding a little crazy but it's the I'm a very unsure of myself in other areas of my life but in terms of songwriting I've always had this weird um almost bubble around myself of confidence in this one area and I was determined to go in there and show for lack of a better what I could do in some of these rooms with some of these people which I think was the wrong energy because when you walk into a room with some ego or some desire to prove you're getting in the way of good songwriting you're not really actually facilitating the song in any way but I had a lot of learning to do and I was new and I was fresh and I kind of I think that um I think that the LA way for pop artists around this time and I'm hopeful that it's changed was very much like you're here to sing the song we'll give you some publishing but we're gonna write it and we're gonna tell you what to say and so immediately I was met with this um this challenge to change the dynamic in the room which made me fight even harder to prove wait I got something to say and this is what I want the the session and the day to be focused around well there are a couple things to know that you said that I'd love to explore a little bit um first of all this idea that you went in with in with ego it's hard for me to imagine because you are so you you sort of present in such a humble way and self-effacing and so um there are different degrees of ego and I can't imagine that it was this arrogance but what do you mean like you would go into the studio and you're describing the label would say these are the songs or this is the team we want you to work with and you you resisted that and the label being like here's who you work with and what we're going to do it was it was it was more that in certain rooms I think that it was unusual to be um a pop artist who is so new um who is also wanting to write it was mostly I think um there would be top liners and there would be the pop artists and you'd sort of I think what I what I experienced was a little bit of this idea that my job was to tell them about my boyfriend or my day and then they would write a song and write something and I would feel included and I was like that's not really gonna work for me because the whole point of wanting to be an artist was actually having something that I felt was unique to say or a different spin on on some of these feelings and I didn't really want someone else to emote for me um and so when I say I came in with ego what I meant was I came in with like a cookie jar of ideas just desperate to get my point across like hopeful that someone would would would latch on to it and I remember feeling that it was kind of odd that if the the song that was the biggest in the world right now was working and I had been you know the writer of what why were they pushing other writers into my corner and um and luckily I I started to realize that it was wrong of me to to assume that everybody was going about it against me that there would be some people who would be in line with it and I started to find those people I started to find the people who um could almost make me feel like uh they had something to offer but they understood I had something to offer and our job was to figure out how those things came together that day um and I would say later on in my life I've learned that it's even less about that it's most about both of you getting out of the way while a good song hopefully happens to you but um at that time the the the incremental lesson that I had Learned was that it was good to not show up desperate to get my idea across versus open to facilitate whatever good ideas happened that day in the room do you think it's interesting because I think about I mean there are there's a version of that story that's that's also um that really does work right and and and like we had Ryan Tedder on the show um last season and obviously super successful as the front man of One Republic but also a guy who's written like a bunch of number one singles for other people yeah you know and has and has done exactly what you described go goes into the studio with an artist or you know Diplo we we had on similar process when he works with Madonna and others you know goes in really tries to understand the artist's perspective or point of view and there is an argument to be made right that like Carly Rae Jepsen or Taylor Swift or whoever it is is sort of like the public face of a whole team of people who are all working together for that moment and then you're delivering it and you are and and that's all their work is is sort of transmitted through you and that can I mean that's obviously a very successful no shame in that no no it totally works and and that is but it's a different kind of artist than I am and I I really understand that there's value to both things I think there are some people are just like incredible singers and incredible front people and and I also I mean incredible celebrities I mean I don't check the boxes of of being um an incredible celebrity or an incredible friend person or even an incredible singer the one thing that I feel confident about is my voice in terms of songwriting and so this is what I wanted to fight for this is the thing I wanted to protect and have some space around doesn't mean I didn't want to collaborate doesn't mean I didn't want to like have different ideas go at a structure of sort of like um a spark of something but that I wanted to be a main player and the leader of that spark you felt like the value you brought was was that yes exactly not being a face in a video and you know I think I would do those other things because it went along with the job but they weren't the things that excited me uh by any means yeah your subsequent album emotion really did it do it could do exactly that and show what how you want it to present and how you wanted to be as an artist because it really was a departure really quickly cleaned great you know critics love that record but it was very very different it was um you know you had obviously there was the single I really like you did well but it was uh it was it wasn't designed I think in correction if I'm wrong to produce hit songs necessarily well it was it was around um I would say like I don't know how many months into common maybe being like around the world kind of charting well that I remember seeing articles this is around the time that I stopped reading articles about myself ever but even good or bad I just stay away as much as possible but this one had said something like one hit wonder and I remember thinking how did they already know that like we haven't even put out a second song but I went for this wonderful walk and I think I've I've hinted that tavish is a is a dear friend of mine but this is a moment in New York and he said if you look at this as pressure it's pressure if you look at this as opportunity to have an audience that you've never had before to show them the other stuff that I know about you of the songwriter that you are this is one flavor of what you do but all the other stuff this is your chance to do that and I had just put out kiss like it was in the bag it was like kind of getting ready to go and I knew um um that I didn't know what the answer to the other sides of what I wanted to show was yet but it was going to take some time and that's when I decided to um kind of present to scooter to my team all right I need some time I'm gonna make another album I don't know what that looks like and I I went and did a run as Cinderella on Broadway and started to think about my next album emotion basically so I mean that as a statement that that record and then your subsequent records really um kind of showcased your I think the music that you started to get into um and can you can you talk a little bit about I mean as you you know kind of went from folk early in your career to this pop explosion to I mean and I don't want to like categorize these genres as sort of like you know this unipolar kind of these sort of you know musical approach in each but I do feel like there was a a sort of a transition from kiss to your subsequent records that was more electronic more dance music um there was a um you know a lot of interesting production and can you kind of explain that and maybe you can I don't know but it's kind of your Evolution and how you start to think about what you want it to sound like well yeah um I had like I said I'd kind of thrown a little bit of a curveball to my team by saying I'm taking a break I'm gonna figure it out and in the meantime I'm gonna go do this Broadway musical Cinderella um and we were in New York and it was I think an eight-month run and I was singing Rogers and Hammerstein every single night and if you know are familiar with like 10 minutes ago it's very length it's very sweet and soft and beautiful Melodies and I loved it but I needed a palette cleanser when I would come home of something with some bite and Edge and that's what got me to go on these late night runs listening to Prince albums and I was listening to Prince for relief for some freaking Rhythm and surprise and like punch and the juxtaposition of Rogers and hamster and Prince was a really funny time of my life and I got so excited about I think what they both did though both writers are getting into or all of those writers are getting into um immediate like when I say cut to the feeling and that's but like like hard on your sleeve emotions and that's what I really loved about 80s and I think when I started to look at what it was or ask myself the question what is it that I like about pop because growing up in these folk kind of influenced families and then like common may be working out like I am looking at the genre of pop with such curiosity and I saw it as to me the ultimate love hate genre because I either when I hear a pop song I have an extreme reaction I think we all do I either love a pop song or I hate a pop song and there is very little in between where I'm like I could take it or leave it it's a passionate genre of music which makes it scary to play with because the stakes are very high and I I was really excited about Prince's take on some of these songs I was really excited about seeing what I could do if I were to play in 80s and then In fairness to these like chance meetings with different collaborators like I said I'd been exploring like the menu of La and the different people in there I started to find the people I aligned with where there was mutual respect where we kind of all kind of found places to meet in the middle of the types of music that we were attracted to at the time and and I just would um lean into those collaborations and I think around the time that the song emotion was born I had been experimenting more Indie more kind of like trying to figure out some stuff I'd done some stuff with Tegan and Sarah I kind of made a sort of an album that I wasn't sure where it was going to go but once I landed on that song of motion I felt okay this this was a bit of a key to unlock the album for me and then I was a little bit Off to the Races and the rest sort of came together pretty smoothly after that once I wrapped up Cinderella um I met some more producers in in Stockholm and finished the making of of emotion yeah tell me about um your how you collaborate with with you know some of the people that that you worked with you know like Ryan or or Josh or tavish or even like rostam from Vampire Weekend who you worked with um on a bunch of tracks how do you you when you come together to work with somebody and maybe maybe you can talk about a specific example from from the record emotion or or any of your other records how do you start how do you begin the process there's a blank slate and then what do you do well it's been the great fascination of my life to say that I'm constantly learning um more about the art and craft of songwriting and collaborating and um I I think that's why it's such a cool career is that I don't think you can ever learn at all I think that there's so much to be a sponge about and this is what excited me when I first was in LA is I said yes to every session because even if I didn't have a song that I left with some sort of new Intel or like skill or just like a way to not go at it or a way to go or what worked from that and I was really taking it in like a student who was just like hungry to to learn from some of the greats and I knew I loved lyrics I knew I loved Melodies I knew that I had some sort of stuff but I knew that I didn't know everything and that and that I never would be able to and so I I feel like in those years I I did take in a lot I I would say that it's a hard question to answer completely and summarize because it's there's no there's no one way about it I think to be really adaptable of different rooms to different personalities if it's a day where there's not much coming naturally I will sometimes take an old personal idea that I've had and kind of share it and then kind of Workshop it together in the room so I have like what I call like my cookie jar of ideas if we have a tired day but I my favorite thing to do is to start fresh um I think it's important to have a friend Connection in the room I think these are the ingredients for a good song here here's what I'll say a friend Connection is really good that you check your ego at the door all of you so you're not there to be the winner of the most ideas that day but you're there to kind of just see what happens that you find where you meet in the middle in terms of things that you like so if I'm writing a song that I love that the producer has no interest I don't think we're gonna get anything good so if we both love like that song you mentioned earlier um from the loveliest time the opening track but if we both love the roots and different things that might be a good starting place for us and then I think also when you have friendships that have been built over years the really cool extra thing that gets added to that ingredients list is an understanding of everyone's strength and everyone's weaknesses and I would say that I kind of more dominate top lines would you like more like Melodies and lyrics and I I production is not my forte I can have opinions and throw things out or know when I wanted to stop and start but I will let someone else take over that um I really love I love that we can all challenge an idea but I also love that it feels safe enough to go explore on an adventure in any One Direction and check it out before we turn around and say never mind that was crazy and come back again and so it is a very childlike energy of being able to explore together and play together and then I think um the rest to me I think that there's a great songwriter who said I don't know how songwriting happens and and I really I really second that too because a lot of it if you're in the right space feels sort of like magic and that's why I keep coming back to it as like my favorite thing to do in the whole world I'm curious about this this idea of having a friend in the room because you in 2022 You released You released two albums in a short period of time the loneliest time of the loveliest time I want to ask about the loneliest time first I mean the title says it all that was that was written during the pandemic um and what was going on I mean you you mentioned this idea of right of having a friend in the room collaborating working with people or you were you not a I mean many people are not able to do that or do you were you isolated it was I think I think the loneliest time was um such a downer title in some ways but felt quite powerful to just call it what it was I I sort of played with other things but I was like I think also kind of being thought of as like Call Me Maybe girl and sweet and all these sort of expectations of them as happiness and sunshine around it it felt quite rebellious to just be like well it's been the loneliest time and it has and I think I'm not alone in that but what excited me about the theme of loneliness was that connection could be found in even that that there was a feeling that I was having the loneliest time but maybe the listener was as well and that healing could come from just being honest about the experience and and maybe not so shameful about what that is and I don't look at the um the pandemic as the one time in my life I've been lonely I think that we are all as humans and adults experiencing loneliness even when we're in relationships when even when we're surrounded by people and family and it is something to face in our life because it can be really dangerous if it's not handled with care and I I definitely have learned so much about myself so much about my weaknesses my strengths and and where I can improve in life and this album was very much about the discovery of of facing my loneliness finding the beauty in it and and in the writing of this um to answer your question more more directly I I did a lot of Zoom sessions so I was technically alone but I was alone with another man who was alone in Venice you know and that's Lewis of man who was stuck in a room as well and we would be in our pajamas together and sometimes he would just send me a check and I would alone write to it and then I would send it back to him and it became this tag like love letter of songwriting that went back and forth and hey what do you think if we shorten this part or I added this new part over here and I would thing and I I set up a little Studio during covid in my in my office space with the help of like my father and tavish on Zoom of like putting a mic together and learning how to become my own like very poor vocal engineer and I started writing a lot from home and it was it was a Salvation to me it was like the absolute thing that got me through how much of that record was a reflection of what you were going through because I know that there were members of your family who who you lost during that time I think you had a relationship that ended around that time um so how much of of you and what you were going through was reflected in those songs of a different kind of honesty um to be in isolation and write even I think to to be in the room with alone and to be writing sometimes with people who weren't necessarily there it felt more like writing a journal entry in a way and I think there was also safety in the fact that as I was writing these songs I would sometimes say to myself but don't worry this one's just for me or like no one will hear this like I'm writing this for therapy's sake but like I'll keep it to myself afterwards I know it's not appropriate to share and then I would find myself when the world was opening up and we are thinking about putting out some music again and that time came from my a r from the label to come over and my managers to come over and sort of sit in the patio and take a listen to what I'd been working on I would I started the meeting by playing all of the expected songs and I am kind of classically um known by my my team as an overwriter so I I if I need to have an album of say 12 or 15 I will generally have 200 songs that I've written that could be presented I think there are 13 songs on the record so you would have written 200 songs I think I think that that might be an over exaggerating for this one but I but I would say probably 150 or something yeah quite ridiculous yes I I I I I go I go in I go hard and it's mostly that I I um I really mean that I like love writing I can't not write I find myself doing it for no reason when I nothing is due it's just a part of my my life and so I I had um I I started to show them I guess what I thought were the presentable songs the the more expected songs and um at the very end I was like you know I did do this one and I think it came from a craving of really being seen maybe too but it felt safe in this group in this Dynamic and I started to play Ben's and Ben's is actually a song um we had lost oh I have to be like careful when I talk about weight loss my cousin and um I uh I had written this song almost to process the night we had discovered the news because I was together with my the rest of my cousins in Mexico City and it was um such a shock to all of us uh to to lose him and to kind of know where to put that information he was my age almost identically and we um we grew up together you know tree forts all the kind of stuff and he was like at my next door neighbor for a while too so we had kind of gone out swimming um by the the demand of my uncle who I think had had enough experience with grief to to kind of lead the group of my family that day and demanded that tonight you know to honor uh to honor my cousin we would go into the water as a family and we would just be in the water together and pick out a star and have a moment and so we went and there were all these phosphorescence in the water that night and I was so hit by what it was to be in water which feels quite healing and to be crying and to be looking at other people I loved who were also crying and to just not have just isolated into our rooms in that hurt place it didn't fix everything but it was so necessary to be in it and feel it together and I needed to Doc it was so affected by the choice to do that in that moment to go for the swim to be in water to be close to family to cry publicly all kind of crazy things and I think I think my uncle that day taught us a beautiful lesson about what it was to begin the process of healing yourself or at least feeling what you need to be feeling however hard it is and I wanted to write about it and in this moment at this meeting I play Ben's for them and I I don't tell them what it's about and I just see if they if they can pick it up and I'm almost hopeful that they can't and and they were moved enough to make it feel safe to show others and that's when I started to you know show far away and things like collage which was going to be for the loveliest time and some of my sadder more private songs and I I almost was taught a lesson in that moment that here I am sort of preaching the idea that you can feel everything but not giving myself my my own permission to feel those things too yeah it's it strikes me it's so I I just thinking about the process of writing that record the loneliest time which was written largely during covid and it comes out in 2022 but you were also writing the subsequent album around that time too the loveliest time maybe some of those songs came later so there was this kind of juxtaposition you would have this lonely record and this love you know the lovely songs too was there was there sort of a thematic break like was there a moment we're like okay I've written my lonely songs now I need to write the lovely songs well you've just tapped into the two things that I think music is for for me and for me it's it's permission to feel whatever you're actually feeling in a safe place that's one and that was the loneliest time yeah feel what's actually going on indulge in it allow your sadness to become beautiful even in music and then the other one is the good old-fashioned escapism dream your worries away just go to another place and Let's Escape there together and Imagination is Fantastical and healing too and you can do that and in that lonely time I imagined the loveliest time and what that would look like when the World opened up and when I was newly in love again and when I was all these things that I imagined for myself when I felt excited to be at a festival and to feel big things and you were imagining those things right no I was not there yet no not at all and it has been the trip of my life that since the world has opened up that I have fallen wildly in love that I have got to go and live some wild experiences and it's almost like art happened before life like like life imitates art that I have like imagined these things and then all of a sudden I'm singing them and there's new meaning to the words I'm saying it is just like thrown me for the biggest curveball you can imagine um Carly you like the the story that could have been told about you was that you know the song would have come out and that would have been you know the label would have dropped you and that would have been the end of your career and that's happened to many many artists and here you are um you know more than 12 years after that song came out um really you know 14 years since you really launched 15 years since you launched your career and you are you know critically clearly last records in the top 20 50 albums of the year and so many lists you have built an enduring career and you have a long career ahead of you when you think about how your sound has evolved over time it probably not probably I I think it's just been natural it's been a natural organic evolution of sounds connected to what you've been listening to or what you want to experiment with but when you think about where you're headed like I don't know just off the top of my head I think of Madonna Like every Record She made was different every single record sounded like a different artist which is and some of them were more successful and some of them less successful but it's what makes her so interesting that she really puts herself out there what do you imagine you know just like you imagined the loveliest time when it wasn't the loveliest time what do you imagine you're you sound like in five or ten years from now a little bit more Blended than I did maybe in my 20s and so I see the whole picture as this like interesting and important Balancing Act which I know sounds less um like maybe the answer that you're looking for I I do feel like that's it comes back to that question of success to me and what that really defines and to me it's like I really want to have a happy and joyful life and my career is a part of that but I feel like the two things fuel each other because when I'm really when some people are very melancholy they're right I write the best when I'm happy and feeling healthy and feeling kind of like able to like give and and so I I'm I'm kind of looking at just making sure I have good connections going on in my life that you know absolutely I want to be able to keep learning about this craft of of songwriting I think I I would love to grow the audiences in a way where I can put on the most delightful show that I can but above and beyond that I think the sound I think what I've found the freedom in with experiments like putting out the loneliest time in the loveliest time is that um to my delight and surprise my audience is not expecting one thing from me they've really allowed the grace and the space for me to play and to show all the colors of of the music that I'm interested in and to redefine even what pop is in my own kind of narrow definition of it that it can be a little 90s it can be 70s I can play in a disco and then I can go over here and I can really do something almost experimental and Jazzy and to be able to play like that is I think the gift of all gifts so where that takes me and where that goes and you know whether or not I'll have like a baby on my hip the next time we talk those are all like TBD but I think that I I want to look at the full picture and and think of My Success as sort of that the the songs will be the Legacy hopefully more than anything versus like necessarily how I stand on them but that the the songs will hopefully last longer than I do and that's my goal it's awesome um Carly thank you so much it was nice to talk to you hey it's guy and I hope you enjoyed this conversation for more like it don't forget to subscribe to the channel and for the audio version just open up your favorite podcast app search for the great creators and tap follow