Olivia Rodrigo struggled to write music for her new album Guts at first because she was crippled by “anxiety and doubt”.
The Drivers License singer admitted in an interview with The Guardian that the songs didn’t come to her as easily with Guts because she was worried about matching or surpassing the success of her 2021 debut album Sour.
“There were a good few months where I would sit at the piano and all I would think about was how I was never going to make something as good, or all the mean things that people on Twitter would say, or how I wasn’t as good as… whatever,” she shared.
She started writing music with her collaborator Dan Nigro last August and they chose to work in his garage studio once again instead of a new recording environment.
“Adding a new studio to the mix would have meant more anxiety and doubt. Like: ‘Oh my God, we’re spending thousands of dollars and I feel like I’m not writing anything good…’ It’s the antithesis of creativity,” she confessed, revealing that some days she went into Dan’s studio and simply cried.
However, the duo brought in new co-writers to inject fresh ideas into their process and because the 20-year-old wanted to learn from other musicians.
She revealed that receiving advice from Jack White, who told her to write songs that she wanted to hear on the radio, sparked her creativity.
“I was going through such a hard time, but for some reason, reading that, I was like, ‘Oh my God! That’s exactly what I need to do,'” she recalled.
Guts was released on Friday.
