FEATURE: Spotlight: UPSAHL — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

UPSAHL

_________

PERHAPS one of the most striking…

and impressive emerging artists this year, UPSAHL has already made a huge impression. International touring, a 2021 album (Lady Jesus), and a new E.P., Sagittarius, UPSAHL also released a live album. She is one of the most original artists around. I have heard no other artist like her. The Arizona native is someone that you need to follow. There are so many interesting and revealing interviews with her, so I am bringing a few in here. Before then, I think UPSAHL is another artist who has this captivating and hugely magnetic screen presence. Musicians do translate to film and T.V., but I think there are big roles in the future of the Taylor Cameron Upsahl. She is someone who can easily translate to acting as her musical and lyrical range is extraordinary. I am fascinated to see how her career blossoms and evolves. Her music suggests she is going to be a gigantic artist very soon. There are interviews I am keen to source. I am going to start by going back to 2021.

A year when she was breaking through and released a tremendous album, Songwriter Universe discussed her brilliant work so far. Including co-writes for Dua Lipa, UPSAHL was also establishing herself as an incredibly impressive solo artist with a unique lyrical voice:

“Young singer/songwriter UPSAHL, 22, is emerging as a talented artist to watch and a successful songwriter. Combining pop music with a punk/alternative edge, she has released an array of excellent singles plus two EPs (Hindsignt 20/20 and Young Life Crisis). Impressively, she is attracting millions of views on YouTube, and she is signed to a label deal with Arista Records.

In the past two years, UPSAHL (whose full name is Taylor Upsahl) has released over a dozen singles that demonstrate that she’s a unique artist who is full of creativity and energy. She has an uninhibited attitude, and she’s not afraid to write & release songs with titles such as “Drugs,”

“12345SEX,” “People I Don’t Like,” “STOP!” and “Stressed.” In addition, she’s a strong singer and her songs are produced with a fresh, cutting-edge sound.

Besides building her career as an artist, UPSAHL is developing her skills as a pro songwriter who can write for other artists. Notably, she co-wrote with Dua Lipa the song “Good in Bed,” which is on Lipa’s platinum album, Future Nostalgia. She also co-wrote the single “Boyshit” for rising pop artist Madison Beer.

Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, UPSAHL grew up in a musical family. Her father, Mike Upsahl, is a veteran musician who has played in several punk bands. Early on, she learned to play piano and guitar, and she attended the Arizona School for the Arts. It was during her high school years that she also wrote & recorded songs, and posted videos on YouTube.

Soon after graduating from the School for the Arts, UPSAHL moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career. She impressed David Massey (President & CEO) of Arista Records, who signed her to a label deal. Her early single “Can You Hear Me Now” created a viral buzz, and then her single “Drugs” (from her first EP, Hindsight 20/20) had a major impact. The video for “Drugs” has attracted over six million views, and the song has been used in nearly two million TikTok videos.

Last year (2020), UPSAHL released her second EP, Young Life Crisis, which featured the songs “Young Life Crisis,” “People I Don’t Like” and “Sad Sorry After Party.’

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with UPSAHL. She tells how she got started in the music business, and discusses her songs “Drugs,” “STOP!” and ‘Happy Endings” (with Mike Shinoda & Iann Dior). She also tells how she co-wrote “Good in Bed” for Dua Lipa.

DK: I read that you’re from Phoenix, and your dad is a musician. So how did you get started with music and writing songs?

UPSAHL: Growing up I watched my dad, who was in punk bands, so I was obsessed with that culture and community. When I was six, I would wake up and have breakfast, and there would be bands in my living room because they had come to Phoenix and crashed at our house. So I would have breakfast with all these punk rockers (laughs) and touring musicians. And I was obsessed with the vibe of it all and I was like, “I need to be a part of this.”

Because my dad was in music, we had a bunch of instruments, and I picked up the guitar and piano at a young age. Ever since I can remember, music has always been the only option for me…I’ve enjoyed it since I was a kid.

DK: I read that you attended the Arizona School for the Arts, and you started releasing your own songs and videos. Can you talk about that period of your life?

UPSAHL: The Arizona School for the Arts is from 5th grade to 12th grade, so I was there from the time I was 10 until I graduated from high school. It literally felt like High School Musical—I would wake up, go to my academic classes, and in the afternoon it would be arts classes and singing & playing piano. So I was around a bunch of other creatives and people who were into performing arts.

When I was growing up, I was always writing songs, but it wasn’t until I did a talent show at school, that I was approached by one of my teachers who had a recording studio. She was like, “Oh you’re kind of good—do you want to roll through our recording studio and record this song?” And I was like, “Sure.” So that was my first glimpse into being in a studio. From there, I ended up recording three albums in high school, and I would play around the Phoenix venues. It was really fun”.

I am going to move into 2022. After lockdown and a hard time for all artists, ENFNTS TERRIBLES caught up with her as she toured Brussels. An interview in a great location, you can tell how much it meant for UPSAHL to be on the road and meeting her international fans. In addition to her huge U.S. fanbase, she has followers and admirers all around the globe:

“We’ve been stuck inside for such a long time. How is it to finally perform at all these places you’ve never been to before and meet all these new people?

It’s a trip for sure. When you’re opening for someone, you don’t expect anyone to know you because they’re waiting for the headliner. Every night has been very special, though, with people in the audience who know the words to my songs. I’m always like, “Wait, I’ve never met you, we’re from a different country, and you know the same words that I know.” It’s such a cool way to connect to people, and my favorite part of touring is definitely meeting people and hanging out to get to know everyone.

You released Lady Jesus, a very personal album, last year. Do you find it easy to share your stories with the world, especially, because they have been yours for so long?

Lady Jesus is obviously a very autobiographical road through my breakup and healing process. I was very unapologetic throughout the writing process. There’s a song on it called “Lunatic” where I sing: “I’ll punch you in the tiny dick”. That is a lyric I would never write down, but I had in mind that these songs would never come out, and it would be fine. Then it came out, and I was thinking that I was maybe a bit too unapologetic on this. It was a fun process for me to realize that as an artist, the point of dropping songs and releasing music is that you should be a little scared to share it with the world. T

What makes music exciting for the listener too. Once I got over that fear and dropped Lady Jesus, it was no longer mine but everyone else’s. It’s been super cool to see other people connect to certain songs, and I feel like the whole idea of Lady Jesus has taken on a life of its own because of my fans

Is the person you are now very different from the person you were, for example, two years ago?

I hope so. It’s funny to start out young in a job; I was eighteen and graduated high school, and to look back on some of the music I dropped … It’s so embarrassing, but it’s part of the growing process. Also, my outfits or how I wore my hair … like, “Girl, what the fuck were you doing?” But it’s nice because I have my whole catalog of music to narrate my life. When I’m old, I can listen to the songs and remind myself how I was feeling when I was eighteen.

This new generation of artists has new tools to promote music, like, for example, TikTok. How is it to use TikTok to promote music?

It’s a trip. I’ve been talking to my other friends who are artists too, and we were all agreeing that we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. TikTok is a thing now, and the way of marketing songs now has been flipped on its head. It’s completely different now, and it’s so freeing, in a sense. The music industry and what songs are becoming hits … it’s not being run by old white guys in an A&R office anymore. It’s literally run by the people on TikTok you connect with, and that’s what’s so cool about it all. It’s a free focus group once you post a new song because people will let you know if they like your song or not. It eliminated the middlemen to put out music; you can get in touch with fans and literally see what they want from you.

We’re almost halfway through 2022. What are you planning for the upcoming months?

Touring Europe has always been a massive goal of mine, so the fact that I’m even here every day and wake up in different cities every day is so cool. I’m going to put out an EP in Fall that I’ve been working on. Further, we’re doing a headline tour in the States, and we’re announcing a European tour soon. This year will be busy with a lot of new music coming out and putting out my album. I’m a completely different person, and I’m super hyped”.

Keeping things on the road, NME spoke with URSAHL as she was playing Berlin. This was back in November. A busy and itinerant year for the U.S. artist, I think that she is going to be visiting a lot of new places through this year. The fact UPSAHL is already commanding stages around the world so early in her career shows how people have embraced her – and how powerful and amazing her music is:

“After finding online success during the pandemic on TikTok with viral tracks like ‘Drugs’ – a grunge-flecked smash that’s racked up almost a million videos using the sound on the app – UPSAHL has built an impressive fanbase who are now able to rock out with her IRL. For UPSAHL, being able to perform live has also made her internet fame feel tangible. “There’s something about being locked in your room and you’re [wondering], ‘Okay, these numbers are here, but do these people exist?’ So now [being] in fucking Berlin and having people buy tickets to a show, it makes it all feel like, ‘Oh, cool. No one’s playing a practical joke on me. This is actually real!’” she says.

PHOTO CREDIT: Aubree Estrella

From the moment the lights go down in Lido and UPSAHL bounds on-stage flanked by her guitarist and drummer, the energy is kicked up a notch. As she performs, she bears resemblance to No Doubt-era Gwen Stefani, commanding the crowd as the ringleader of her alt-rock circus while demanding the Berlin audience to raise their middle fingers up. Every song is bellowed back at her, in a physical testament to the community that UPSAHL’s created. By the time she reaches ‘Into My Body’ the room transforms into a sweaty, moshing dance party – the audience are clearly thrilled to let loose and join the rave.

This tour feels like a true breakout moment. After several years of UPSAHL building this fanbase online, now they can live in these songs together. “Every single one of these shows is making me so emotional,” she concludes. “I’m just trying to soak it all up as much as I can.”

How do you think your new EP ‘Sagittarius’ differs from your debut album?

“‘Lady Jesus’ was very much therapy in an album for me. I went through this breakup that was my first lost love or whatever you want to call it, and I lost my mind. I thought the world was ending as everyone does when they go through their first heartbreak. I start the album in a very dark place, and then end in a really great place and you can see the work that I put in on myself throughout the album.

“‘Sagittarius’ is building on top of the great place that I ended ‘Lady Jesus’ in and now going into self-discovery, and working through my own personal shit, and figuring myself out rather than figuring other people out. I’m in a very healthy, selfish time in my life, which is fun.”

You’ve been doing meet and greets on tour. What do these sessions mean to you?

“The show is very interactive with my fans, which is really fun; but obviously during the show I can’t just sit down and talk to them for the whole set. Getting to do meet and greets before the show is always so fun. It’s the calm before the storm, everyone’s excited, but also we’re just chilling in the venue. It’s so low key and getting to hear people’s stories, and some people come in and have my lyrics tattooed and just getting to have that basic human connection is the coolest thing ever.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Aubree Estrella

Did his fanbase take you under their wing?

“They did. They’re amazing. It’s really fun on this headlining tour having so many people pull up to my shows and saying: ‘I found you because you opened for Yungblud’. They are just fans of music, and they love live music. Those are the type of fans I want, [they] are people who are down to go to shows and rage, and that’s what Yungblud fans are. It’s been cool to have them now join our little community.”

Looking to the future, what milestones do you want to achieve?

“I mean, obviously the GRAMMYs, that’d be sick. But in the past year or two I’ve found so much inner peace in finding the success in the day-to-day. The fact I’m sitting with you right now and we’re in Berlin, and we get to go play a show later, to me that’s a moment in itself. I’m taking as much as I can of all of this in, as everything is fleeting and I’m just trying to enjoy the fact I can do this headlining tour and who knows what’s next. Every day is a success to me right now”.

Before getting to a review of the remarkable Sagittarius E.P., Rolling Stone spoke with UPSAHL and got a breakdown of the phenomenal tracks. It is an honest and open E.P. that embraces the good and bad sides of her. If you have not heard this gem of an E.P., then you really do need to do so right now! It proves what an unbelievable talent UPSAHL is:

“If somebody asked me to explain myself at my core as a human being, I would tell them to listen to Sagittarius,” she tells Rolling Stone. “This is the first time in my life that I dove fully into myself throughout the writing process, and the songs definitely reflect that self-discovery. Each song represents a different part of me that makes me who I am.”

If the project was her Tarot card reader, this is what they would say: “I crave change, I live for intensity, I’m extremely passionate (sometimes to a fault), I exert power in as many aspects of my life as I can, and I’m unbothered as fuck,” Upsahl says.

The project follows her debut LP Lady Jesus, which she released last year, and she says was really about “very specific” instances in her life and the issues she was facing at the time. This time, there was no situations: “I just had myself,” she says. “Finding a healthy level of selfishness for this EP, and learning to embrace the self-discovery aspect of songwriting is what made this process so freeing.

As she wraps the year and celebrates her 24th birthday, Upsahl says she’s excited for the honest-filled future that’s in store for her in 2023. “I genuinely feel like I found the happiest version of myself this year, so I can’t wait to build off of that in the next year,” she says.

Kickflip

Upsahl: The day I wrote “Kickflip,” I was nearing the end of the writing process for the EP, and I realized that I had covered so many pieces of myself but was missing the part of me that is unbothered as fuck. Kickflip pinpoints that part of the night where you are feeling on top of the world. You feel hot, you want to stir the pot up a bit, you want to entertain, be entertained, be spontaneous, and you feel like nothing in the world can get you out of that mood. I don’t even know how to do a “kickflip,” but that’s the unbothered energy I wanted to harness!

Into My Body

Being such an intense person, I feel all of my feelings to the extreme, so when I started to feel out of my body and not like myself, I felt it HARD. I could have written a sad song about dissociating and called it a day, but I think the day I wrote it, I needed something empowering to pull me out of that space. The combination of sad and sexy and vulnerable and fun that we put into the song felt the most “me” that day, and that intense energy is a big part of who I am.

Skin Crawl

“Skin Crawl” is about taking your power back. It’s about when you get caught up in the stress of life and realize that sometimes it’s okay to want to feel nothing or, in this case, want to just feel without overthinking. I want people to let go of that mundane feeling and find power in its simplest form. Our feelings. It’s also about rolling and that magnetic energy you get, so take what you will from that.

Antsy

I wrote Antsy during a time in my life when I was quite the shitshow – which is most of the time. I remember having this ongoing list in my head of things about my life that I wanted to change. Things about myself, my career, my personal life, my relationships, etc. All of these things were completely within my control, and I was craving change in my life so badly. But sometimes, those lists that we all have get so overwhelming that it’s easier to just ignore the whole thing and stay antsy…”

Toast

I realized how passionate I am while writing “Toast.” Being such a fiery person, it’s second nature to dive into things head first, and even when I try not to, that’s what my heart and mind always do. Toast is me leaning into that passion and accepting it. Sometimes when things are coming to an end, whether it’s relationships or periods of our lives, we prolong the inevitable and avoid that ending at all costs in order to protect our feelings. Writing this song felt very reflective and almost empowering in a way”.

I am going to round up now. Broadway World had their say about the tremendous Sagittarius. It is an E.P. that offers up new layers, insights and rewards each time you pass through it. I have no doubt that the stunning UPSAHL is going to go from strength to strength through this year. There is so much love behind her already. An artist who has a great affection for her fans:

“Pop iconoclast UPSAHL has released her new EP Sagittarius via Arista Records.

On Sagittarius, UPSAHL offers listeners an introspective glimpse into her dynamic personality and explores the multifaceted experience of being a Sagittarius. A purveyor of self-love and confidence, UPSAHL's EP revolves around themes of acceptance, tapping into inner strength, and resilience. Each song on the project taps into a different trait intrinsic to the fire sign.

The project is accompanied by brief VFX vignettes giving listeners a visual for each song, further immersing them in the world of being a Sagittarius. Each clip illustrates UPSAHL physically transforming into the traits her lyrics allude to with theatrical costumes and dramatically edited backdrops.

A highlight off the EP "Toast," co-written by Tove Lo, takes viewers on a musical journey in the bed of a truck as city lights whirl around her, while focus track "Kickflip" showcases an all-powerful UPSAHL in a regal red gown with a slithering snake growing from it.

Sagittarius notably features previously released singles "Into My Body," a reclamation of confidence set to a syncopated pop beat, and "Antsy" which tackles the sign's frenetic and intense train of thought. They earned praise from outlets including, V Magazine which said to expect more, "funny anecdotes, brutally honest confessions, and deep, existential revelations from UPSAHL." See full tracklisting below.

On the inspiration behind the EP, UPSAHL shares, "If somebody asked me to explain myself at my core as a human being, I would tell them to listen to Sagittarius. This is the first time in my life where I dove fully into myself throughout the writing process, and the songs definitely reflect that self discovery. Each song represents a different part of me that makes me who I am... I crave change, I live for intensity, I'm extremely passionate (sometimes to a fault), I exert power in as many aspects of my life as I can, and I'm unbothered as f."

She continues, "This EP is about owning all parts of myself, even the not so great ones. I think no matter who you are (or what sign you are), there's a piece of everyone in these songs. Sagittarius is about letting go of all the outside bulls and amplifying the simplest parts of who you are. It feels really good to own that. When people listen to this EP, I hope they feel inspired to own every aspect of themselves and scream about it at the top of their lungs, because that's what I got to do while writing these songs."

In just a few short years, UPSAHL has carved out a niche in the songwriting world as she has lent her pen to numerous hits spanning various genres such as Dua Lipa's GRAMMY Award-winning "Good in Bed," Madison Beer's fiery single "BOYs," and "Happy Endings'' with Mike Shinoda and iann dior which went Top 10 at Alt Radio.

UPSAHL collaborated with Anne-Marie and Little Mix and co-wrote "Kiss My (Uh Oh)" a Top 10 single in the UK. Most recently, UPSAHL joined forces with GAYLE on her track "e-z," was featured on the star-studded film Bullet Train soundtrack, with the song "My Time to Shine," co-wrote three songs on Renee Rapp's latest EP Everything To Everyone, and was featured on NGHTMRE's single "ATMOSPHERE" from debut DRMVRSE.

Her latest collaboration with Alan Walker on the single "Shut Up," which UPSAHL co-wrote and is featured on, steadily climbs various charts around the world. She also recently partnered with video game company Dislyte on a new song "Ritual" and music video for the brand. To date, UPSAHL has amassed over 520 million streams on her music.

Sagittarius follows on the heels of UPSAHL's highly successful debut headline tour, where she sold out venues across the US, and then continued on an expansive international tour, which included Australia, the UK and Europe”.

This year is going to be a hugely successful one for the Arizona artist. UPSAHL has all the components and ammunition for long-lasting success. Such a passionate and inspirational artist, her army of fans is growing ever larger. If you are looking to see which artist is going to make a massive impact this year, then look no further than…