- 25 minutes ago
Carly Rae Jepsen joins us inside the Hard Rock Hotel New York to talk about the making of her new album, ‘Day and Night.’ The “Motivation” singer opens up about navigating new motherhood while releasing a double album, shifting her songwriting philosophy, and the journey of documenting her pregnancy through this project’s process. ‘Day and Night’ is now available everywhere.
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MusicTranscript
00:03this is your odyssey check-in with carly ray jepson we are here at the hard rock hotel new
00:09york i'm so glad to uh to get you that you carved out the time for this thank you my
00:14pleasure i was
00:15watching something you uh an interview you did not long ago and you were talking about books which i
00:20loved um and you were saying like you you commit to them like even when it's not the right book
00:26for you you have to finish so i was curious principal's daughter over here you know finish
00:31the book no matter what even if it's bad but you sometimes you just gotta let it go i'm learning
00:36yes absolutely so do you treat songs the same way great question i'm learning to not okay i think i
00:44used to see a song all the way through bridge details outro everything like really get into
00:49the nitty-gritty and then decide what it was i think i'm better at spotting when i've like caught a
00:53fish
00:53so to speak okay meaning like i have something that i want to i want to take home with me
00:58versus like set it free we're good um and then sometimes i'm wrong and there'll be like a little
01:04floating idea that years later will still be sort of haunting me and then i think okay there's more
01:08exploring to do here but i will very often just begin by um you know running with it for a
01:16while and
01:16letting it go if it doesn't feel special yeah how do you know like when to when to abandon it
01:21and
01:21then do you just like break it down for for parts that you could use on another vehicle or
01:27how do you know actually a lot of my songs are collections of like old ideas that i've kind of
01:33reused or repurposed in some way um i think that because the way i move through life is sort of
01:39just
01:39by i don't know like holding on to a little if we have a conversation and you say something that
01:45i
01:45like i'm like oh that has like a little musical tone to it i might write it down or sing
01:49a little
01:49voice memo of something that like floats into my head and then later on if like a session's kind
01:54of stale i'll be like i've got a couple ideas and i like might pull something in or you know
01:59or if it
01:59like really like fits the the kind of theme of what we're talking about that day but i'll do that
02:04a lot
02:04yeah i know you write from personal experience and also you you incorporate fantasy fiction in there
02:10as well do you think your fans uh can tell which is which or like do songs come out differently
02:17or
02:18i mean i don't know i think that it's hard for me to tell which i feel like i feel
02:24like the reality
02:25is is that i start from a just a feeling more so than like on thursday at six this happened
02:30like
02:30it's more just uh pulling from our life's experiences of just being like oh this this is kind of becoming
02:36this breakup song and i'm gonna pull from every time i've gone through a breakup to like infuse
02:41gotcha you know some magic into this moment does that make sense yeah yeah so there's hints of it
02:46all you're like you know this would be really good for the story here i'm gonna i'm gonna you know
02:50elaborate emphasize maybe maybe yeah i think that um you know i go to music as a place to escape
02:57and
02:57sometimes also connect like it's both things i i do like the feeling that it feels uh like a really
03:04fantastical place and then at the same time i also like that it can be very grounding and there can
03:10be a really hard thing or an exciting thing that you're processing in life and it's a place to really
03:14make sense of those feelings um so i use it for both things and everything in between and and i
03:20i feel
03:20like you know writers do that novelists do that i feel like filmmakers do that i feel like most of
03:26the
03:26arts do that incorporate a little bit of both maybe i think it's really about like i think the word
03:31poetry comes to mind of just like you're kind of trying to make even the sorrowful things kind of
03:36beautiful yeah you know oh that's great that's great so obviously you became a mom this year i did
03:44you have an album this year so i i was wondering is that intentional because i know as a new
03:53parent um
03:54you know you can be taken away from your job and and other things that bring you joy for a
04:01long time
04:02and and you maybe lose that sense of self a little bit so did you do this purposely to maybe
04:09i don't
04:10know center you or bring you back in some way or did it just happen by accident i mean it
04:16feels like
04:16nothing was planned and yet everything took some great deal of thought yeah obviously uh having a child
04:24is such like a miracle and an amazing thing and and we were definitely hoping that we would get to
04:28have that experience and um once my uh pregnancy was sort of a real thing and we were digesting that
04:34it sort of just happened that i was finishing this double album um but you just you don't know when
04:39that's gonna happen and so for us we're like okay how do we make sense of this now and of
04:43course that
04:44took um it took form in in real time where i was all of a sudden i was four months
04:49pregnant when it
04:50became time to shoot the album artwork and we're like okay are we hiding the belly are we keeping
04:54the belly we it was a bit of a choice just like embrace this is what's happening let's do it
04:58and
04:58same for the videos i think i was six months pregnant with on wires and nine months pregnant
05:02for after all and we were just like and it was kind of beautiful there was some poetry to that
05:07and
05:07the fact that after all was written from this place of really trying to almost imagine and almost
05:11manifest a life of like domestic bliss for me what that looked like which felt like a safe and
05:18thrilling combination you know and um and and so then to fast forward and be nine months pregnant
05:24with my husband who i uh you know barely thought of these things as as real possibilities in my life
05:31so it felt like a real celebration to kind of document it um full circle moment so cool uh day
05:36and night
05:37obviously a double album and and you're a notorious overwriter for these albums you write a lot so i mean
05:44like what what was the number for this one of unused songs that you came up with well kind of
05:51like we
05:51mentioned earlier i don't think it was fully like here's the whole number of songs it was more
05:57you know working your way through ideas until you landed on the ones but i don't know if i have
06:01like
06:01an actual count i i just do know that my process is to kind of go exploring i think that's
06:06part of
06:06the fun i think if i knew exactly what i was making before i set out it would take away
06:10some of the
06:10the beautiful discovery that happens along the way with the process so um i knew that i wanted
06:16to make something true i knew i was attracted to these two different flavors and one was kind of
06:20like this acoustic-y more organic pop uh psychedelic folk so to speak and then the other was sort of
06:26more picturing being live and wanting to make everyone sweat and dance and go home with some like
06:31glitter on their body and like that felt exciting to me and i knew i would figure it out and
06:36to my
06:36shock and delight i realized i wanted to do both things at once and so that's sort of how day
06:42and
06:42night was born yeah do you have a favorite lyric on there uh i don't know one that like came
06:50out and
06:50you were like ah i'm so good at this just like a great a great lyric where you kind of
06:55impressed
06:56yourself i don't know if i remember sitting there being like who i impressed myself but i'm just gonna
07:01go with the first thing that came to mind which is from patience power passion um as about
07:06kind of i don't know feeling more self-acceptance through the eyes of your partner and letting
07:12that kind of be the thing that like helps you grow um and it's sort of this line uh i
07:19saw myself today
07:20and i was never one to think i was beautiful but my shadow started dancing in the setting sun and
07:25i
07:25skipped the rocks and i hit the water poetry poetry i love that you know it was a long time
07:31ago when you
07:31were first getting started out but i wonder if you could remember like when you're an aspiring artist
07:37um you're you're saving up money to book these studio sessions you have to be so mindful and
07:43intentional with when you get in the studio there's this uh pressure to produce something
07:48great quickly and now you you kind of have the luxury of you know there's not that pressure are there
07:56never thought that way about it and thank goodness for not because i think that would kill me are there
08:03but now thinking about it now do you feel like there's pros and cons to having that that you know
08:08yeah i think to be honest the the my experience of it has not been that only because i think
08:15i write a
08:16lot from home i write a lot on the road if you look at like what my studio session looks
08:20like it's like
08:20me on the back of a bus with a laptop a lot of the time and then i'll bring the
08:24ideas in later for
08:25future so i'm there there's no thinking oh budget and what are we doing it's more thinking like the
08:30creative process is in the shower the creative process is like over a dinner conversation it's
08:35kind of constantly happening um and then i i do think that though the the the difference between
08:42i think when i first started versus now is these long-term relationships that i've had not only with
08:48my collaborators but with my label and my team and like i've been with the same label since the get
08:53-go
08:53like since i broke out of canada and we just there's so much mutual respect and trust and knowing
08:58that i don't think it's like a big kind of scary conversation anymore of like here's what i want
09:03to do is that okay it's more like i've got an idea and they're like let's help yeah and that
09:07feels
09:08that feels like i'm really landed with the right team and family yeah cool i love that before we wrap
09:13i have to bring this up because i just think it's the coolest thing in the world your your partner
09:16is like bffs with beck and they've won a million grammys together did you meet him through your
09:25yeah or the other way around yeah no beck and i knew each other before oh okay and cole and
09:31him
09:31yeah they i mean cole is so my husband is like annoyingly humble and sweet i think we were dating
09:37for like a year and a half before i finally found out he had like six grammy awards i was
09:42like what
09:42he just doesn't he's just like so unassuming and so talented and um and also just um you know a
09:50big
09:50part of this project as well but we both are mutual friends with beck and it was really really nice
09:54to
09:54kind of see the full circle thing and um yeah i am such a huge fan of him actually we're
10:00going to be
10:00seeing him next week in los angeles that's like our first show that we're bringing our son to with the
10:05your headphones and everything yeah adorable i love that that's a great first show for your child
10:12my gosh you serious where do you go from there oh carly ray jepson we're so happy to have you
10:20here congratulations on everything we're so excited for you thank you so much