INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SHEVON GREENE ☆
BEFORE THE INTERVIEW WITH BLOND IN CAR EVEN OFFICIALLY BEGAN—Robin Schorr and I were already gushing about our shared love of Clairo. That quickly set the tone for the rest of our conversation. Schorr is incredibly charming, funny and easy to talk to, bouncing between stories about music, relationships and the unexpected places her career continues to take her.
That distinct openness has interwoven into her songwriting, where inspiration sparks from just a passing thought. On her album GLIDER, out today, those stories stretch across decades of Schorr’s life. You can find a story within pretty much every title and song—the streets she grew up on, her recent divorce, her younger college years and even wondering about her eventual funeral.
GLIDER itself became something bigger than Schorr initially expected, too. What started with reaching out to Melina Duterte of Jay Som about producing a song turned into an EP, then an entire 10-track album full of star-studded collaborations with artists like Missy Dabice of Mannequin Pussy, BEL and even Jay Som herself.
By the end of our conversation, we’d gone from bonding over Clairo to both getting a little emotional as Schorr talked about how she never expected music to bring her here. She’s now preparing to headline three album release shows in LA, New York City and San Francisco where she’ll play GLIDER front-to-back—something she called “the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
After talking with Schorr, it’s hard not to be just as excited for her as she is. Read below for more and check out GLIDER, on streaming platforms now.
LUNA: Why did you choose the title GLIDER and how did you decide on that?
BLOND IN CAR: When I was trying to figure out a name for my last record, I was brainstorming with my sister, and somehow we decided on this idea about ALTAVAN because that was the first house I lived in. It was the house I lived in before my parents got divorced. It was the happy house when I was a little girl.
I thought, “Maybe I’ll name all my records [after houses],” because it’s always so hard to come up with names for records. GLIDER was the next house. It’s also funny because we lived in Westchester, which is by the airport. It’s a weird little pocket of Los Angeles that people forget about. My biological dad, who I unfortunately have a song about on the record, was a very grumpy person and would say, “It’s always overcast here.” He always complained about it. I was there from first to fifth grade. It was a very vivid time in my life. All the streets in that area are named after airport-themed things. There’s Kitty Hawk and Westport Heights and all the things that pertain to flying, and I was on Glider.
LUNA: That is so funny! I didn’t know you named your albums after street names but I love it.
BLOND IN CAR: I’m so glad you love it. It’s funny too because these experiences turn us into who we are. I just went through a bad divorce during the GLIDER era, and a lot of the songs on the record are, in a veiled way, about that. Me trying to figure out why I couldn’t make my marriage work. Trying to understand men, which I don’t.
LUNA: Me neither.
BLOND IN CAR: I never really thought I was the master of it, but when my husband surprised me on New Year’s Day with wanting to break up out of the blue, I realized I really didn’t know what was going on with me and men.
LUNA: I’ve been listening to your music for a few years now, and something that I’ve always loved is how specific your songs are. You’ll take a memory from your life or something that has shaped you and your lyrics are very specific. On GLIDER specifically, you’re writing about everything from wishing you had a brother to your own funeral. How do you decide on writing topics like those?
BLOND IN CAR: That’s a really good question. The hardest thing about writing songs is deciding if a subject is worthy of a song. I don’t like to write about love that much because I think there’s so much of it, and I also feel like that’s not what I’m for.
When I started [my music career], I wrote a lot of country music, and there are a lot of reasons why that was a great place to start. The songwriting is the absolute best, so the bar is very high. There’s a lot about writing to the hook in country and coming up with one that’s good enough. Finding a great hook is really tricky, but if you do it enough, you have this inner barometer of just knowing what could be a song. I have ideas all the time, and every once in a while, I go, “That one is going to be enough for a song.” I remember the day I wrote “My High GummyGirl,” and I knew I was going to call it that. I just knew it in my bones, like I know my name is Robin.
Then there are certain songs where I rarely start with melody first, but sometimes I do. I’ll have a subject and scribble a lot of stuff on the page, and sometimes it has a built-in rhythm. Then I start singing it to some melody that feels like it’s a match.
I’m tough on myself about what’s worthy of a song because I have the highest regard for songs and songwriting. Other than being a novelist, I do think it’s the highest thing you could do, creating music. I have an exalted idea about it, and I feel like the subject should be worthy of the song.
Also, maybe because I’m old, I have a lot of perspective on what I think is an important thing to say that hasn’t been said a lot. I don’t know if there’s ever been a song like “Bad Dad.”
LUNA: Not much that I’ve heard of, and it’s something I know a lot of your listeners like myself can relate to.
BLOND IN CAR: I’m so glad. That makes me really happy. It means something to a lot of people, and it makes me so happy because we’ve got to stick together as people with the bad dads.
LUNA: Exactly, we have to band together. “Come True” is a really important track on the album. It was written while you were hoping to work with Melina Duterte [Jay Som] and that collaboration became the whole album. Tell me more about that.
BLOND IN CAR: It did become the whole album. We did everything together. We found each other on social media. I had studied her music, and I thought it was so beautiful. Someone said to me, “Just listen to Jay Som” while I was trying to figure out my genre. I think she’s super gifted and amazing.
I followed her, and we started DMing, as happens with everyone. Everyone I know in music, practically, I know through social media. It’s like my little town. It’s my town hall. She said, “I might have some time to do some stuff,” and I was like, “Oh my god, it would be my dream to work with you on music or have you produce [my work].”
We had a phone call, and, to be honest, I didn’t know if I could afford her, and I didn’t know if it was really a yes. But she seemed to want to do it. While I was waiting for the yes, this idea popped into my head.
I thought, “I’m having that thing where I think something amazing is about to happen, and I’m carrying it around. I don’t want to put too much pressure on it because I want it to grow into a yes.” It’s like a beautiful little secret that you’re walking around with, like when you feel like you’ve fallen in love or you feel like you just got touched by the good luck fairy.
I wrote to her immediately and said, “I know exactly what I want to write about.” That was the first song we did. And you should hear the demo. It’s awful (laughs). I make some really cheesy demos. We reduced the song a lot and had this amazing day where we worked on it, and we both loved it. Then she was like, “I think we have to do more. I think this has to be an EP.” Then it turned into an album.
I was afraid to play her “Bad Dad” because I thought she was going to hate it. I thought maybe it was stupid or something. She loved the song so much, and she made it so much better. Everything about the record was so much about me spending time with her. It was a really beautiful time. I love that person.
LUNA: You talked a little bit about the friendships you’ve made on social media with so many different artists. How did you decide on the collaborations?
BLOND IN CAR: Someone said, “You know what a smart thing to do is? Get features.” It was almost like inviting people to a party. I had “Bad Dad,” and I had become friends with Missy [Dabice] from Mannequin Pussy, and I adore her. She was a fan—she wrote to me on social media—and I covered her because I love her. I worship them. I just thought she would be amazing on “Bad Dad.”
I sent it to her with me doing all the vocals, and I suddenly thought, “Oh god, maybe she has a nice father, and she’s not going to relate to this.” I started reading every interview with her that there ever was, and it turns out she did. She loves her parents.
I thought, “Oh shit, she’s going to say no because she doesn’t relate to it.” But she loved the song. She wrote me the most beautiful email that I will never forget, where she said it was equally devastating, beautiful and catchy. I remember the word “devastating,” and it makes me want to cry even just to say that because it is devastating.
I was also in love with this artist named BEL. She’s one of the best writers. She and I followed each other, and we were always saying nice things to each other in DMs. I thought she would be really awesome on “If You Were My Brother,” and she said yes.
The very first people I asked all said yes. It was like casting a little play. I DM’d them all, just like I DM’d Jay Som in the first place. People talk about the good old days of MySpace, and it sounds like that’s how that was. I wasn’t around for any of that, so I’m around for this.
I just did a tour with CMAT and The Two Lips. I got to know both of them from social media. Everybody I know in music is from social media. Every tour I’ve ever gone on, I’ve only gone on tour because I’ve known people from social media and they’ve asked me to come on tour with them. So many cool things I never thought I would do.
LUNA: I wanted to ask about “Eyeshadow Blue” because it’s a look back on college Robin. Is there anything that you know now that you wish you could tell the college version of you?
BLOND IN CAR: Oh my god. They all say it, and it’s true, that when you’re old, you don’t give a fuck. You’ve run out of fucks to give. The earlier you can learn that, the earlier you can decide, “I am the way I look, and I’m not going to decide to hate on myself because I don’t look like Margot Robbie.” Fuck it. Enjoy how beautiful she is and enjoy how beautiful you are.
I just wish I could have loved myself more. I wish I could have not been so hard on myself. That whole thing about caring what people think—how do you learn not to? I really wish I knew because I certainly didn’t know it until now. I have a window of two seconds before it’s all over, and I’m going to make hay with it. I’m going to do as much as I fucking possibly can, and then I’m going to die. I don’t give a fuck because I don’t have the luxury of giving a fuck anymore.
I wish you could somehow get in that mindset when you’re younger. There’s no one else who’s you. Whether you’re flawed or not fitting into this pair of pants or whatever it is, just decide that that’s you. There’s no other you, and you just better believe in that.
LUNA: You were worried that “Come to My Funeral” might be too sad or weird but Melina instead pushed you toward it. Are there other moments on GLIDER where someone pushed you toward an instinct that you might have otherwise talked yourself out of?
BLOND IN CAR: Definitely. One of my favorite songs on the record is “Shaky Day,” and that is an idea I had a long time ago—another song title that rhymes with itself. I had that thought before Blond in Car was even a thought in my head, when I was writing country. I tried to write it a couple of times, and I never thought it was good enough.
I thought it was potentially a very good song because of that feeling when the rug gets pulled out from under you. It’s a normal morning, you get some email or have some terrible thought, and suddenly you feel like you’re a pillar of salt. You’ve got no confidence, and it just leaves you.
I know that feeling all too well. I’m a mood-swing kind of person, and I wanted to write a song for people who go through that so it would comfort them. I wanted it to be this song of maximum kindness.
When the song started coming back, it was big, and I had pictured it being more like “Lost Cause” by Beck. I had recorded these super trembly, emotional vocals, so I thought, “Wait a minute, I thought it was going to be this.” Melina said, “Robin, you wrote an epic song. This should feel like an epic song at the concert. This should be an encore song.” And she was so right.
I’m so grateful to her because it is big and beautiful, and it should be that. It makes it even more a song of maximum kindness because it’s for everyone to experience together. That’s when you know you’re working with the right person—they understand your song better than you did.
She was also the first woman producer I ever worked with, and she pushed back on the right things. She made you feel okay about doing a vocal. You need to have a warm room when you’re singing, and she created that without it ever feeling like yes-man stuff.
LUNA: You’ve gone from making your covers in your kitchen to opening for artists like CMAT, and you’re about to play GLIDER at your album release shows. Has performing more often changed the way that you write? Are there moments where you’re thinking, “I want this to translate well to a live audience?”
BLOND IN CAR: I’m playing with a band for the first time now, and it makes me want to have a bunch more guitar solos that I’m not playing because it’s so fun to have solos in live music. I just did my first show with them, opening for CMAT at the Bellwether, and it was an incredible experience.
There’s an evolution in my writing now that I think GLIDER is partially a part of. I used to write more Audrey Hobert-infused, wordy, thinky songs. I love her. She’s so gifted. But I feel like “Shaky Day” is the direction I aspire to, which is simpler and deeper.
I think there’s just this way I’m evolving. I’m a wordy person, and I’m trying to get back to that point of saying things simply. I’m super proud of some of the lyrics on this record. I think “Soft Touch” has some beautiful lyrics where things that are very deep are said simply, and they hit you hard as a result. That’s a very high goal of mine in music.
LUNA: Before we wrap up, is there anything else coming up that you’re excited about, or anything about GLIDER that we haven’t talked about yet that you want readers to know?
BLOND IN CAR: I really want people to know that I’m going to play the album from start to finish, in order [at the album release shows], and I will never be doing that again. This is the only time I’m ever going to get to do that. It’s going to be beautiful. I’m doing visuals with this amazing person. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
I never, ever thought I’d be doing any of this. I never thought I’d be playing live, I never thought I would open for anyone and I never thought I would be a headliner in my life.
It’s this weird, crazy thing in music where doors, in this funny, weird way, just open. These are going to be special shows. My whole heart and soul is going to be in it.
