Maggie Rogers on her long-form music: “I’ve always loved art that takes time”

In a nondescript building in a small Pennsylvania town, Maggie Rogers was ready for her big moment. Lititz, Pa., is where arena acts come to rehearse their shows before embarking on national tours, and every detail matters. “Sunday Morning” caught up with Rogers there, just weeks away from her concerts at Madison Square Garden.

In a career-defining event, she sold out the venue in New York City. “Twice!” she laughed. “I don’t know how to sort of calculate it in my brain. I basically don’t get it!”

To be clear, this wasn’t Rogers’ first time on a big stage; she had already shared them with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez and an opening for Coldplay. She was also a 2020 Grammy nominee for Best New Artist.

But for Rogers, who studied music at New York University, playing Madison Square Garden was a homecoming of sorts. Walking through Washington Square Park, not far from her former dorm room, she pointed to the benches where she used to write songs. It was at NYU where Rogers got what you might call her big break—or at least -one big break when superstar producer and musician Pharrell Williams visited her class. Rogers played him a song she had been working on called “Alaska”. “What I remember is really just staring at my shoes and kind of holding on,” she said.

Williams’ response: “Wow! Wow! I have zero, zero, zero notes for it, and I’ll tell you why: you do your own thing. It’s unique.”

The video clip of Williams’ master class went viral, but Rogers—who actually started out studying music engineering—still needed to learn the craft of writing and performing, which is exactly what she did. “I’ve played every bar and club on the Lower East Side and every DIY place in Brooklyn that existed during my time here,” she said.

Now, at the age of 30, Rogers has built a close relationship with her fans, many of whom saw her go from small clubs to being an artist that the labels were fighting over.

Remember that demo she played for Pharrell Williams as a college student? So far, the music video of the finished version of “Alaska” has been viewed more than 23 million times.

It’s all been an incredible journey, considering Rogers says she didn’t actually play music in public that much growing up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Her interest was more personal, private and whimsical: “Basically, as soon as I could ask for music lessons, I just wanted to play the harp,” she said. “My first CD purchase was a double purchase of the orchestral score to ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ and Britney’s ‘Baby One More Time’. Which, like, might be all you need to know about me!”

And you hear it in her songs – a pop sensibility with an enormous intellect behind it. Rogers says the whole arena thing is fun, but what she really hopes to do is form a deep, long-term connection with her listeners along the themes of love and heartbreak and the weird, weirdness of just being alive . “I really prefer to work in long form,” Rogers said. “And I really feel a great sense of gratitude for listeners who want to have an active listening practice and who also have the patience to want to spend an hour of their time listening to the way that I, you know, sequence the record, or who has an appreciation for the things I’ve always loved art that takes time.”

Something else that sets Rogers apart from your typical pop star: Back in 2021, she took time away from her music to enroll in a graduate program at Harvard University focusing on religion and public life. “I really needed a moment,” she said. “I needed to reorient my life and I needed to be new to something. I had lived in a world where everything was about me and my career for five years and then apply that to music and concerts and to these really big public gatherings.”

Large public gatherings that have become, for both Rogers and her fans, something almost spiritual: “This couldn’t have happened any other way,” she said. “Like, I get to Madison Square Garden and step on that stage and say, ‘I’m really ready for this.’ And that in itself is such a gift that I’ve tried to avoid contextualizing for myself because as soon as you find out what it is, it changes, you know I’m always in the eye of the storm It’s really quiet where I sit. And I will never ever know what it looks like from the outside. But what I do know is when I’ve really dedicated myself to my art I’m at my best and I like to think I’m doing both of those things as much as possible.”

You can stream Maggie Rogers’ 2024 album “Don’t Forget Me” by clicking the embed below (free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):

For more info:

Story produced by Julie Kracov. Editor: Remington Korper.