A couple of weeks ago, I scheduled a Zoom call with Taylor Acorn to discuss everything that went into her excellent sophomore LP, Poster Child, that is out everywhere you stream your music today. In this interview, I asked Taylor about key songs from Poster Child, the inspiration behind some of these songs, and what keeps her motivated in her musical career. Taylor Acorn will be supporting Poster Child with a headlining tour, and tickets are on sale here.
All right. So thank you so much for your time today, TaylorI It’s great to talk with you again, first of all. The last time we chatted, you were gearing up for the Summer School tour with Charlotte Sands, Arrows In Action, and Huddy, all great friends of yours. So what was it like going on tour with so many close musician friends?
Honestly, it was incredible. It was very exhausting. Just all hung out all of the time. And so that was one thing. When I was done, I was like, “Okay, I get a little bit of a break.” But no, it was super fun. What a dream to be able to tour with them, and Charlotte especially, we shared a bus, so it felt like a sleepover literally every single day. I’ve been having withdrawals since! She lives in LA now and she goes back and forth, and I’m in Nashville, so there will be times where I used to be able to just open my bunk and be like, “Hey, Charlotte!” It’s different now. But no, I miss them all a lot. And it was a really, really fun tour for everybody.
That’s awesome and I know that touring is a grueling experience, so I’m glad you made it home safely from everything. So your second record and your first one on a record label of Fearless Records is called Poster Child. It comes out October 24. A lot of hard work went into your self-released debut, Survival In Motion, so what does it mean to you to be as recognized as a signed artist now, but still independent because you’re on an indie label?
I mean, I think what’s cool about it is that I still…obviously, releasing an album on your own, it’s a lot of work, and it took a lot of work to get even to that point. And so I feel like Survival In Motion was an incredible stepping stone for this next project. And it’s just cool that Fearless saw that past record and said, “we want to take a chance on this,” so I look at it in such a positive way of how I’ve gotten so far, and I get this opportunity now. How am I going to take it and use it to be able to have that as another stepping stone for, hopefully, something bigger? And so, I feel so grateful that Fearless is giving me this opportunity, believes in me enough to give me the chance to release another record with them, but also believes in me enough to be like, “Hey, we get that…we’re a part of this, but we’re also a team, and we want you to be able to have creative freedom.” And they’ve been so just supportive of my creative decisions and things like that. So I think that that’s been a really, really cool thing that I’ve been able to have being in this and I think there’s a part of me that is so I’m so proud of being independent. I’m so proud that I’ve gotten myself to this point that for them to allow me to have that independence, and still have it, has been really important to me.
That’s awesome, and it’s great that you maintain creative control. I saw that you were autographing liner notes and stuff like that on Instagram, too.
Yeah! There’s a lot of those here in boxes. I’m in my boyfriend’s place and he’s a racer. He likes to race, and I placed all these boxes in his sim room.
That’s awesome! Poster Child opens with the lyrics of “You’re pissing me off,” which I thought was a cool way to start off a record on that tone and that note. What is the song “People Pleaser” mostly about or in reference to?
I think for so much of my life, I felt like I’ve had to…<pauses> I’m a people pleaser to my core, and I don’t like that. People are upset with me. I don’t like when people don’t like the things that I like. And then I found myself in the past, in relationships and friendships, not necessarily being able to speak my mind and be open about the things that I enjoy. I always felt like I was kind of morphing into this person or this thing that other people wanted and expected of me. And I found myself doing that a lot in my career, too. I think, as artists, we create because it’s something we love to do, right? I create and I tell my own story, and I write from my own perspective and from my feelings, my thoughts, and I put it out into the world, and obviously that’s a super scary thing. When people tell you, this sucks, you know, and it’s your own, it’s coming from your own personal experiences, your own thoughts and feelings, you’re kind of like, “Oh, wait. Well, maybe I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, or maybe people don’t want to hear about that, or maybe people don’t care about that, or….And I found myself in my career, really catering towards that. I mean, even when I was in Country music, I felt like a square trying to fit in a round circle…I just wasn’t fitting, but I wanted these people to accept me, and I wanted them to think that I was a Country artist. I’m like, “Hey, I’m not even Country at all!” My lifestyle, obviously, I love being outside, and I love riding horses and things like that, but in the grand scheme of my life, I am not Country. And so I’m like, why am I trying to convince people to accept me and love me and care about me when it’s just simply not going to happen? And so I think that’s like what I’ve learned over the years as well, especially in my career. You know, not everybody’s gonna love my acoustic cover song. Not everyone’s gonna love my hair, how I look, and there’s always going to be people that feel that they need to comment on it. And so I think that’s kind of where all of that feeling and that song derived from, was just like, you know what? Hell, I’m sick of making everybody like me because it’s just not going to happen!
Yeah, it’s impossible. It’s tough to please everyone, just on a daily basis, and it sounds like you wanted authenticity. That was very important to you as an artist.
Of course, of course. So that’s kind of the way that I’ve always navigated my career…to just be as honest as possible. And again, when people are mean, it’s not fun, and it’s not enjoyable to see comments of yourself, of “she can’t even sing, she’s bad.” There’s so much of me that’s like, I want to literally just shake you. But at the end of the day, people are going to say what they’re going to say, regardless. You’re just putting out into the world where I could literally say, “I don’t use AutoTune live” a billion times, and they’ll be like, “she’s using AutoTune…”
Ugh, yeah, those keyboard warriors, as they say with no profile pictures…
Like, at this point, kill him with kindness, or don’t say anything at all. And that’s kind of where that song stemmed from. “You’re pissing me off,” but I’m not going to say anything, because I’m not going to give you that pleasure of feeling like you’re right.
Did you know that song was gonna open the record?
I didn’t. “People Pleaser” was one of the first songs I started writing. And I actually was in the midst of writing Survival In Motion, which was kind of off, but I started writing it in my bedroom, and I sent it to my co-writers, Emma and Dan, and I was like, “Is this cool at all? I don’t know.” And I wrote the lines like, “You’re pissing me off.” It just was kind of like expressing the way that I was feeling at that time, just feeling like people weren’t being so nice. And they were like, “Yeah.” And so it kind of sat as just the verse and a chorus for a while, and then when we started writing “People Pleaser” for Poster Child, that was one where people were like, “Hey, you should revisit this. This is really cool.” And I was like, “are you sure?” And now it’s one of my favorite tracks on the album. I’m so excited to play that one live.
Amazing! And “Hangman” was also recently released as a single from Poster Child. I absolutely love your vocal performance all over this track. Did you want to do anything different vocally overall for this sophomore effort?
No, honestly, I think we did too many vocals. There was actually a day I think, where Dan and I, we finished recording all of the vocals, and he just was skimming through all of the vocal takes, and we looked at each other, and we’re like, “we’ve never done this before.” Oh, my god, 50 to 100 takes of one thing, and just so many layers. And I’ve really found that on this record, I felt very confident, and I listen back to it literally every day, and I’m like, “There’s nothing I would do differently.” And I’m a perfectionist! There’s parts of me that it’s like, “oh no, that could have been different…” I felt that way with Survival In Motion, where I’d go back and I’d wish I would have done this, or I wish I would have done that <differently>. I felt rushed then. I didn’t feel that way <this time>, I don’t think I would change anything to be honest.
I’m happy for you! And I’ve listened to the advance of Poster Child probably too many times that I care to admit to you today, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it surpasses your songwriting of Survival In Motion. You did a great job!
Thank you!
What lessons did you learn from your time supporting your debut record that you put back into record number two?
I mean, I think one, just taking time was something that I found super valuable. I think there was a part of me with Survival In Motion, where I was scrambling because nowadays, with touring and things, you have to have new music <now>. And I love Survival In Motion, and there’s so many songs on there that I really, really love to this day that I wish would have had an opportunity to have a moment, like “Greener.” And I think with this one, I really took the time to sit with myself and think about the things that I want to say and I want to feel, and I think that is all over Poster Child. I think you can go from “Poster Child”, to “People Pleaser”, to “Sucker Punch,” and see we really took the time to just build the songs and think through the songs. And there would be times where Emma and I and Dan would literally be texting on the side, “oh, I think we should change this, or I think we should fix this.” And I felt so much more confident since when I would say I wrote Country music. I wrote my Country EP all by myself. Poster Child was one where I really just sat and I was like, “Hey, I haven’t done this in a while. Let me see how far I can get, or what I can come up with while I’m home by myself in the quiet with my own thoughts.” So that’s something that I really like.
And again, I think you can feel it. You can see me experimenting with different sounds. I think that one critique that I would hear a lot is that, “Oh, these songs are great, but they all kind of sound or have the same vibe.” And I’m a sucker for cohesion, and I love to hear something and make sure it all fits together, but making sure we were stepping outside of the box. And really, just like focusing on the production, Dan and I took so much time, and nothing was a bad idea. And so we just kind of were throwing darts at the board and just hoping whatever stuck, whatever would stick. And again, I think this record is so cool, and every song is different, but they all feel like they could live in the same world, which I love.
That’s great, and I’m glad it all kind of came together for you. What was the easiest song to write, versus the song that went through the most versions on this new album?
Oh gosh, “Goodbye, Good Riddance”, that one was crazy. So we actually had a lot of really early morning breaks. This record, we would get together at like, 8am and I remember this day, so specifically I wrote it with my friends, Emma and Dan. I wrote all of Survival, and they were on this project, and we brought in this girl, Kendall Goodman, who’s an incredible writer in Nashville. It was like 8am, and she brought coffee, muffins, and stuff. And we’re just snacking on muffins. I was kind of going through it, and I had processed a few things that had happened leading up to when we started writing. And I was going through a really bad, I won’t get into detail…but it was a really upsetting friend breakup, and I had a lot to say. And Kendall came in with the good part, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I’ve been needing to write in that song!” We pumped it out probably in like 30 minutes! That one, and also “Masquerade,” that one was a really quick write too. But yeah, it was crazy. I was literally screaming vocals at 9am, but it was so fun.
And a lot of those of the lead vocals and stuff are, literally from that first take at 9am. I don’t know how I sang this, but yeah, that was a really quick one. And then “Masquerade” also was a really quick one. I think, just situationally, I felt a lot when it came to those and I had a lot to say. And also Emma as well, she was really heavy with the lyrics and stuff like that, which is really cool. But, I want to say the hardest one to write was probably “Cheap Dopamine.” We started it, and I was like, “I just don’t know what direction this song needs to go in.” And also, I think I was kind of like, “I don’t really know if it fits in the record,” and so we just kept bouncing ideas, and couldn’t come up with a second verse, or the direction. And then one day we’re just sitting there after about two and a half hours, just trying to get <going>, we had the first verse of the chorus, and then it was just like, the light bulb <moment>. We finished writing that one, and I love that song too, and while it feels different from everything else, it still feels like it belongs.
Yeah, absolutely. And especially in the sequencing of the whole whole record, it makes a lot of sense where it is.
Yeah, for sure. But that one is probably one of the hardest ones. And “People Pleaser”, that one took a while too, just because we’ve been sitting on it since Survival In Motion-time. So I think getting that one to where it is now took some time.
But, what about “Blood On Your Hands?” It’s a great breakup anthem! How therapeutic was it writing this song?
Yeah, there’s definitely a theme throughout the record. This one was awesome. I think even playing this one live is going to feel like…that little bridge part, and I really try to dial back the cussing, but that just felt necessary.
Oh, absolutely!
Yeah, I remember we were just messing around with vocal takes for the bridge. And I said that, <”You better run motherfucker” line> and all of us were like <wow>. I think that one’s definitely going to be a really, really good one to play live.
Yeah, and your vocal cadence on that line was perfect, the way you did it…
Thank you, I mean, I’m such a sucker for a kind of spooky, eerie feeling. I don’t know if you caught it, but that very beginning part is actually an excerpt from the movie Psycho…
I thought so! Yeah, it sounded familiar. I couldn’t place it, initially.
I mean, it just felt very fitting for the whole thing and that one’s gonna be a fun one. I think that that little bridge part live…people are gonna have a field day with that. Y
Yeah, and Poster Child comes out right before Halloween…So the timing’s gonna be perfect. So your proper headlining tour for Poster Child kicks off this Fall. What did you want to do differently for your fans for this upcoming slate of headlining dates?
We’re definitely going to try to make it a little bit more involved for fans. There’s so many songs on this album that I just want to play the whole thing. I’m like, screw everything else I’ve written, <let’s play this> front to back. And obviously, I want to still, but there’s going to be a lot of people that still want to hear a lot of the old songs like “Psycho” and “Shape Shifting” and some <songs> from previous records and things like that. So trying to formulate a set list has been really difficult. I really want to do something where fans can actually choose what songs <they hear> so every set is a little bit different, right? And so we have this idea. I don’t want to give too much away, but we were kind of teetering at the idea of a game show wheel that has all of these different songs that people have asked for from the previous records, but also from this new record that I feel like I personally really want to play. But Ricky, my guitarist, wants to play and also Connor wants to play. So we’re gonna maybe write them on the spinning wheel, bring somebody up, and they can be the ones to choose what <we play> and so we could have days where we play the same song, or we have days where it’s something completely different.
Or, you could just rig the wheel to say whatever you want to play? <Laughter>
<Laughter> That was my thought process on my end, but I think making a really fun moment out of that, incorporating everyone, will be really cool and just fun and different from something that we’ve done in the past. And, also I think maybe playing a certain song a couple shows, and then we’ll mix that one up so everybody has a different song so it’s the same, but a different <concert> experience. So I think that could be kind of fun, just making sure that the fans are more involved in it, and giving them the option to choose. The fate is in their hands!
There you go! Kinda a “choose your own adventure” thing, from back in the day. So the last question I have for you is whether there is anything else you want to get off your mind, or some other reasons for people to check out the new record?
I’m so proud of this record and I really hope that people take the time to listen to it. Even if they have a couple that they like, just give it a listen through one time. To me, it’s been so cool to listen through and not have a favorite. My favorite song changes every time, and I think that’s really cool, so just take the time to listen to it through. This is my favorite record I’ve ever written, and I’m so proud of it, and I hope it does well. But if it doesn’t, I can hang my hat on this one for sure. So, check out Poster Child!
I think it’s great!
I’m dying to know which one is your favorite?
Probably “Blood On Your Hands,” and also the opening track of “People Pleaser” were the two that I keep coming back to. But like I said, I’ve spun it so many times that it’s almost embarrassing to tell you… <Laughter>
<Laughter> Thank you!
But it was great seeing you again, and I hope to be in touch for album number three, whenever that comes!
I mean, we started writing again, but I need to stop and absorb a little bit.
Hell yeah! Take care, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Have a good one, Adam!