iHeartRadio On The Verge

iHeartRadio On The Verge

Emerging artists to hear before they hit it big

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Olivia Rodrigo: iHeartRadio On The Verge Artist

For singer/songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, one of the greatest joys in life comes from deliberately tapping into her deepest heartache. ā€œThereā€™s nothing like sitting at the piano in my bedroom and writing a really sad song,ā€ she says. ā€œItā€™s truly my favorite thing in the world.ā€

With that, Oliviaā€™s debut single via Geffen Records, ā€œdrivers license,ā€ is a modern epic and brilliant balance of unfiltered outpouring and graceful specificity. With its radiant harmonies and kinetic percussion, the piano-driven, alt-pop song spins a vivid portrait of driving aimlessly through the suburbs and longing for an ex-love, a sentiment Olivia precisely conveys in her pensive lyrics (ā€œYou said forever, now I drive alone past your streetā€). ā€œWhen I came up with ā€˜drivers licenseā€™ I was going through a heartbreak that was so confusing to me, so multifaceted,ā€ she recalls. ā€œPutting all those feelings into a song made everything seem so much simpler and clearerā€”and at the end of the day, I think thatā€™s really the whole purpose of songwriting.ā€

On ā€œdrivers license,ā€ Olivia showcases the nuanced vocal command sheā€™s honed since taking up singing as a little girl. Growing up in Southern California, Olivia first discovered her love of songwriting at the age of 12, when sheā€™d spend hours sketching lyrics in a notebook sheā€™d won at an arcade. ā€œI was making up songs before I could even form coherent sentences,ā€ she says. ā€œI was always so obsessed with it and sang about the most random things, like getting lost from my parents in the supermarket.ā€ When she was seven Olivia began playing piano, though not completely by choice. ā€œMy dad made me take lessons and I hated every second of itā€”to the point where Iā€™d cry before every lessonā€”but now Iā€™m so thankful,ā€ she notes. After landing a role on the comedy series ā€œBizaardvark,ā€ Olivia added guitar to her repertoire and soon immersed herself in learning the craft of songwriting, in part by studying the lyrics of Taylor Swift (her number-one influence). ā€œOnce I started taking it seriously, Iā€™d just write all the time,ā€ she says. ā€œI have a lot of trouble focusing on schoolwork and in other areas of my life, but when Iā€™m working on a song itā€™s like time stops and I canā€™t think of anything else. Itā€™s magical.ā€

Though Olivia mostly kept her songs to herself at firstā€”occasionally posting snippets on social mediaā€”she experienced a major turning point during her first season as the star of Disney+ā€™s ā€œHigh School Musical: The Musical: The Series.ā€ After showrunner Tim Federle heard a song sheā€™d shared on Instagram, he enlisted Olivia to create a track for the showā€™s fourth episode. ā€œI remember it was the last day of my sophomore year and I was in the middle of finals, and I had to go write a song based on this prompt theyā€™d given me,ā€ she says. The result: a heart-on-sleeve piano ballad called ā€œAll I Want,ā€ a gold-certified hit that cracked the Billboard Hot 100, emerged as the showā€™s top-streamed song, and amassed more than 200 million global streams.

ā€œFor me the goal of all music is to take these complicated feelings and externalize them in a way that makes people feel seenā€”but then when someone tells me that one of my songs resonates with them, it makes me feel seen too,ā€ she says. ā€œItā€™s so inspiring to see my music affect people and maybe help them to feel less alone, and I just want to keep doing that for the rest of my life.ā€

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