American singer-songwriter UPSAHL has just released her new EP Sagittarius.
With each song on the five-track record representing a different quality found in Sagittarians, Arizona-born UPSAHL didn’t go into the writing process with that theme in mind. Instead, she began to write songs and soon realised, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t writing about relationships or others but herself. The fun, electronic, beat-driven body of work traverses themes of self-love, friendship, and self-discovery. Tracks such as Kickflip and Into My Body would feel at home on the dancefloor with their punchy beats and catchy melodies while previous single Antsy, speaks of her inward reflection and provides a slower-paced, more intimate feel, beginning with just guitar and vocals. The whole EP takes you on a journey into who UPSAHL is as a person and artist within the five tracks and follows suit with her previous unapologetic releases. UPSAHL’s track Drugs was a viral hit on TikTok with nearly a million videos using the song. With UPSAHL herself having over a million followers, the artist regularly posts videos to the video-sharing app documenting her life and recent tour whilst also promoting new music.
Growing up in a very musical household, Taylor Upsahl’s father spent much of her childhood in punk bands inspiring Taylor and helping shape her into the artist she is today. Before adopting the moniker UPSAHL, Taylor released music under her full name during high school so is no stranger to the creative process.UPSAHL’s parents told her not to go to college but move to LA to create music and that’s exactly what she did and began her career as a songwriter.
In 2021 UPSAHL released her debut album entitled Lady Jesus. The unapologetic album took an autobiographical route and was a very personal body of work. Taylor mentions that writing it was like free therapy during COVID after she found herself going through a breakup. Fresh off her first-ever headline tour, 1883 Magazine caught up with the fast-rising artist to speak about the new EP, how TikTok has helped her grow as an artist, and how she found touring.
Hi Taylor AKA UPSAHL, congratulations on your new EP Sagittarius. The record features five tracks which each represent a different quality found in Sagittarians. Can you tell us a bit about your creative process behind the EP, please? What do you hope fans can take from it?
When I started writing the EP I had just gotten off a tour at the beginning of this past summer and I just threw myself into the studio immediately. I didn’t really have a vision of “This is what the project is going to be like, let me write songs for it.” It was more “Let me just start writing songs and then see what happens”. So I began writing all of the songs and very quickly realised that for the first time in my life I wasn’t writing about relationships or other people, I was writing about myself, my own experiences, and the thoughts I was having all summer.
Once I had decided on a few of the songs I was like “These are so representative of who I am, how do I sum up who I am in like, one word?”. I’ve always been into astrology, especially since moving to LA–once you go to LA you get the astrology bug and become obsessed–so I was like “How do I sum myself up?” And it literally was like a textbook Sagittarius, textbook fire sign and I feel like, each song represents a character trait or personality trait or part of me that makes me who I am. I think everyone will be able to find a piece of themselves in each of those different moods or character traits. Even though it is about being a Sagittarius, I think it can relate to anyone which is fun.
Are you into star signs and astrology?
Yeah, I got into it when I moved to LA and it’s so classic, everyone there loves it and I have always identified so hard with being a fire sign. I’m a very intense, passionate person but I didn’t know much about it until the past couple of years when started reading into it more. For me, it helps. I blame a lot of my issues on it, it’s amazing. It just helps explain a lot of who I am and how I go about my day-to-day and my relationships with people. I’m a Pisces moon which I relate to really hard as well and I just think it’s cool whether you believe in astrology or not. It’s a catalyst for you to dive into yourself in the same way that therapy is. It’s a way to reflect, I guess.
For anyone who may not have heard of you yet, how would you describe yourself as an artist and your sound?
I think my sound is always going to be changing because I’m changing and the music I’m inspired by is always changing. I think the one thing that stays consistent throughout my music and my career as an artist is wanting to be as unapologetic as possible. I want to do whatever the fuck I want production-wise and say whatever I want. I hope to carry that on as a continue to make music but I think the music I make, I make for myself to help me feel better when I don’t feel so great, so I hope it does that for other people too.
At the time of this interview, you are about to play the last show on your UK tour here in London. How have you found the tour so far? I’m sure tonight is going to be amazing but have there been any other stand-out moments from this string of shows?
I’m very, very sad this tour is over. I woke up this morning and cried in the shower for 20 minutes. It’s been crazy because even though it’s the end of our UK run, really it’s the end of two months of my first headlining tour. We did the US, Australia, and Europe then ended in the UK so this London show is a really big deal. I’m very excited.
I think my favourite show of the UK run was in Glasgow, it was so much fun. It was a Friday night and everyone was drunk. The energy was so unmatched and it was just a lot of fun. I have a feeling tonight is going to be a pinch me amount because it’s tying the bow on the tour for me which is cool, but it’s going to be emotional.
I saw on TikTok that you haven’t washed your stage outfit for 26 shows which is pretty epic!
I made it to 10 shows and I was like “I need to fucking wash this” but then I was like, “what if I wash it and I lose the good juju? I can’t be fucking with that energy”. So I just have to go with it now. Whenever I get dressed for the show I tell my band to stay away from me but it’s worth it. I’ve made it now, I only have one more show to play in it [laughs].
I know a few of your songs have been born from somewhat of a joke. With Drugs, for example, you were in a songwriting session with Sean Kennedy and mentioned how you were finding it hard to make friends in LA and found a lot of people were quite fake to which Sean said he only goes to parties if there are drugs there and thus the track was born. Aside from that song, how does your creative process typically go? Do you find songs are more often forged from a lyric or do you sit down with a guitar first and foremost?
I think it just depends on the day. When I’m in LA, I’m writing every day in sessions with new people but when I’m with my crew of people that I make all my projects with, it very much just starts as a conversation. We’ll just be talking about our lives, I’ll be bitching about whatever the fuck is going on in my life and somewhere along the line, someone will say something or a phrase that’s cool and you’ll watch the light bulb go off in everyone’s heads. We’re like “Oh, that’s the song we’re gonna write today”.
I like to start with lyrics or the content of what we’re going to be talking about like, “What’s the feeling?”. We will build the track from there and then pick up a bass or start a drum loop. I like starting my sessions with a conversation, most of my favourite sessions start with what feels like me just catching up with my friends and then somehow, we end the day with a song, which is cool.
Speaking of your track Drugs, we have to talk a bit about TikTok. You’re pretty active over there posting regular videos. The song that people may know you from the most is your track Drugs which went viral on the video-sharing app. Artists promoting music on TikTok is commonplace now as the exposure you can get from posting a single 30-second video is almost unmatched. How do you feel about promoting yourself and your music on the app? Do you feel any pressure to keep people engaged when there is such a vast amount of content to consume and literally new videos every minute?
Totally. I think it’s crazy–and any artist would say this–our attention spans as homing beings are now so much shorter because of social media and being fed short-form contact all fucking day. I think it’s made us as artists have to really sit and think about our music and be like “If I only heard seven seconds of this song, is the energy powerful enough to make somebody want to hear more?”. It’s changed the way I go about writing songs because not a second is wasted anymore, you want all of it to feel like something you wouldn’t just scroll past on an app or whatever. But I think there are both sides to it, it’s a whole new part of my job and other artists’ jobs to promote themselves on the app. You could sit and complain about it but at the end of the day, the power it gives artists to directly communicate with fans, in a split second all over the world, is unmatched. I feel so grateful to be an artist during this time. I was an artist before TikTok was a thing, I’m an artist now that it’s a thing and I’m just trying to figure out ways to use it and connect with people. I feel lucky, it gives us a lot of power as artists.
Do you think TikTok has helped a lot in terms of getting yourself noticed as a musician and gaining fans? Do you think you would be where you are now if it weren’t for the video-sharing app?
No, I’m so grateful for it. When Drugs popped off it was two years after the song had been released, I don’t think it had even reached a million streams yet but then TikTok blew it up. From there, I feel really lucky because I found that as Drugs was blowing up and I was gaining TikTok followers, people were going to my Spotify and streaming my other songs. In some cases, you’ll have one song pop off and as long as you harness that energy, you can actually make fans who are then going to come to your shows–even if they found you because of TikTok.
I feel like people who are in the music from the app are then down to dive into the artist and I’m so grateful for those people because those are who have made my career. I think it’s great.
It definitely allows fans a more personal relationship with the artist, they’re not just listening to someone’s music, they’re consuming everything they put out and finding out about the artist as a person as well.
It also takes away the mystery of an artist or a celebrity now and with it popping off during COVID too, it’s humanised all of us. We all get depressed about the same shit. I think as a fan of other artists and getting to see them experience the same day I’m experiencing makes me like their music even more. I feel like it had levelled the playing field for everyone.
Growing up you lived in a very musical household and your father was in punk bands throughout your childhood which inspired you and helped shape you into the artist you are today. I love the fact your parents told you not to go to college but to move to LA and find a way to make music. Obviously, you’re no stranger to releasing music having already put out music while you were in High School under your full name before deciding to go by the moniker UPSAHL. When you first moved to LA, did you find it difficult in the beginning or did becoming an artist and releasing music come quite naturally to you?
Making and releasing music was natural for me. Before I moved to LA I had a very different process than what I have now. I would be writing songs in my bedroom and then booking a week out in the studio with my band to record it all which is obviously not the process I use now. It’s sessions every day, I’m collaborating all the time. I was so used to that other process that when I got to LA I had no idea what a session was like, I had no idea what the job of a songwriter was and when I started doing it every day I was terrified. I was 19 with no idea what the fuck was going on in my personal life and then I was being thrown into rooms with people way cooler than me and would just be trying to keep up all day.
Also, being a young woman in music, you fight extra hard just to be taken seriously in a room full of male producers so it was a journey. It was emotionally taking but it definitely shaped who I am and I learned so much from everyone I got to work with, in those first few years.
I just remember my publisher would tell me “Even if you feel like you don’t belong, just learn from those people.” I think that was the best advice I have ever gotten, to just take it onboard as much as I can.
Your debut album Lady Jesus which was released in 2021 was a very personal and autobiographical body of work that you said sort of acted as free therapy during COVID when you found yourself going through a breakup. With the record being so unapologetic, you must have had some level of fear whilst gearing up for its release. How did you overcome any nervous feelings and decide that although the album was personal and unapologetic, that’s what it needed to be for people to be able to relate to it? (Which they very much have).
I think the first time I ever felt fear of putting a song out what when I released Drugs and I was like “I don’t know if it’s gonna piss people off” and I had this moment of “Do I even want to put this song out? I’m a little scared to” but putting that song out, years ago, made me realise that literally the whole fucking point of music is to be scared to say something and say it anyway. I think moving forward after that and going into Lady Jesus, I would go to the studio and just say whatever was on my mind that day. If I was really fucking angry I would write a really angry song, if I was sad, I would make a sad song. There was always this voice in the back of my mind when we would write certain lines where I would be like “Oh, if this ever makes the album then we’ll change it before it ends up there because this is ridiculous”. All of those things still ended up on the album and I think that sort of unapologetic, in-the-moment, say-whatever-you-want attitude is what makes putting out music so fun for me. It’s so vulnerable and so real that you’re like “fuck, are people going to judge me and think I’m weird for saying this?” But I think that’s what’s fun about music. These days I get worried if I’m not scared to put out a song.
You have co-written some great songs for some big artists including Good In Bed (Dua Lipa), Boyshit (Madison Beer), and Kiss My (Uh Oh) (Anne Marie & Little Mix). Hypothetically, if you could write a song for any artist, who do you think you would pick and why?
Probably Gwen Stefani. No Doubt was my shit throughout my childhood. I looked up to her so much so I think her and Avril Lavigne. They’re both still releasing music now so they’ve always been at the top of the list of people I would love to work with. It would be crazy.
Collaboratively you have had features on songs such as Happy Endings (Mike Shinoda & Iann Dior), Palm Readers (Dreamers & Big Boi), and Let There Be Drums (Feder). How do you find collaboration? Are there any artists you are dying to work with in the near future?
I am always writing songs on my own and those are just for my soul but for my job, I love leaning on other creators. If you’re in a room with five other people then that’s four other opinions that you wouldn’t have any ideas you wouldn’t be coming up with on your own. I just live for collaborating when it comes to songs and getting to do features with other artists that I love. Especially the Mike Shinoda shit, it was such a pinch-me moment as I grew up with Linkin Park so that was fucking wild. Someone I would love to collaborate with–I’ve said it for years and I’ll say it until it happens–is Doja Cat. I’ll be manifesting it until I die I fucking love her.
Finally, following on from your near sold-out North American tour and more recently your headline UK tour, what’s next for UPSAHL?
It’s funny, I was on the phone with my manager this morning just reflecting and getting sappy about the tour being done and I was like “What am I going to do when I get home?” But I think my plan is to just go back into writing whatever my next project is and hopefully I’ll be back here on tour again very fucking soon. My goal for next year is just more shows, more music, and more of what I’m doing right now.
Sagittarius is out now. Follow UPSAHL @upsahlmusic
Interview by Gabi Oates
Photography by Aubree Estrella
