A favorite artist of some of the biggest names in modern music, there’s no doubt that UPSAHL has made her way into your speakers at one point or another. Having opened for artists such as Beck, Olivia Rodrigo, YUNGBLUD and Melanie Martinez, and having written award-winning songs with Demi Lovato, Reneé Rapp and Dua Lipa, UPSAHL has cemented herself as one of today’s most successful and driven pop artists.
Born and raised in Phoenix, Taylor Upsahl released her debut, self-titled EP, at 14 years old. Over the years to follow, she released two more albums as Taylor Upsahl, quickly rising to fame within her local music scene. In 2018, under her new moniker, UPSAHL, she was signed with Arista Records. Shortly after, the singer released her debut EP, Hindsight 20/20.
Now, with a total of four EPs, one album, a wide array of singles and various songwriting credits alongside some of the biggest names in popular music such as Dua Lipa, Madison Beer, Reneé Rapp, on top of handfuls of others, UPSAHL doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon. With a signature popstar musicality to go along with her razor-sharp rockstar edge, UPSAHL has established herself as an artist who walks the line between rebellious and empowering.
UPSAHL is currently on her Melt me down world tour, where she is playing the biggest venues of her career to date. Having just finished the North American leg of the trek, the singer is now gearing up to play her U.K. and European shows. Whether she’s playing in Europe or in the states, she says both audiences bring the same high energy to an UPSAHL show.
“I feel like in Europe everyone likes to dance a lot, which is really fun for me just because I love flailing around stage the whole time, it’s nice when the crowd matches that energy,” she says. “I feel like in the U.S., everybody is screaming every single word back at you which is the coolest, most magical feeling.”
Now a decade into her music career, she admits that this is the most excited she has ever felt for a tour. “I feel like everyone says this about every new thing that they do, but genuinely … I feel so excited about these shows,” she reflects. Bringing back old songs that she hasn’t played in nearly five years, UPSAHL says she is bringing a completely reimagined version of her live show. For seasoned fans who have seen the singer play before, this will be a whole new experience.
When you go to an UPSAHL gig, it will feel like nothing less of a punk show — pure unbridled freedom and intense energy both on and off stage. “That’s my goal for the show,” she says. “I think with the Melt me down tour specifically it’s a little bit more of a story, which I’ve never done. It’s a little bit more of a concept show. I want it to feel more like I’m taking the fans into the world that I’ve been making with my album that comes out next year. Without giving the album title and the album world away yet, I’m giving them little teasers to what it’ll be like.”
Ahead of her upcoming album, UPSAHL has made it clear she has entered a new artistic era, inspired by years of having to build up a thick skin in the music industry, the new record is inspired by a coldness that the artist has developed. “I feel like with this era of my life and with this era of music, I’m really done giving a shit about other people and their perception of [my work],” UPSAHL says. “I’m trying to stay as true to myself as possible throughout this whole process.”
The new record also portrays a sonic change for UPSAHL. Pulling from early 2000s pop icons such as Fergie, Nelly Furtado and Gwen Stefani, she aims to infuse the record with a definitive club music sound and party girl attitude stating that she “grew up in that era.”
“I was listening to punk rock music because of my dad, and I listened to whatever he thought was cool because I thought he was the coolest person ever,” she says. “I didn’t listen to [early 2000s] pop music like that as it was coming out. I got to experience all that music for the first time in the past few years, which has been so special and so inspiring. Not even just the music, but the music videos, the outfits, the visuals, the concepts. I want it to feel like the early 2000s for sure.”
In her music, UPSAHL has continued to harness that signature attitude, defiance and confidence. On her upcoming album, she says that despite a heavy pop-leaning sound, the punk energy can’t be missed, adding that it’s “such a big part of who I am and how I grew up,” and that it will “always sort of sneak its way into my music regardless of what genre I’m doing.”
This year, she’s released two singles: “Summer so hot” and “Tears on the dancefloor.” The latter is a quintessential UPSAHL track in which she juxtaposes a bittersweet vulnerability with intense sonics fit for the club. Paired with a vampiric, club-inspired music video straight out of Blade (1998), you have the perfect recipe for an emotional, sensual and cinematic pop anthem. “I think that’s cool when you can sort of hide a bit of a vulnerable, real message behind a fun song,” she says. “I also think that’s kind of who I am as a person, whether that’s healthy or not. I feel like I deal with a lot of the bad shit, but with humor and having fun with it. I think I try to do that with my music and that’s what we did with ‘Tears on the dancefloor.’ We wanted to write this song about having a mental breakdown at the club. I feel like everyone’s had that moment where they’re out and having a terrible time and thinking about their shit and just wanting to go home.”
When UPSAHL first started writing music, she didn’t feel the hesitation or fear that can often result from detailing such personal topics and feelings. Now, however, when she writes a biting or emotional lyric in a song, she says she’ll often feel those familiar nerves and doubts creep up as the song’s release gets closer. “The night before the song comes out I’m like, ‘this is so embarrassing why would I want to put this into a song? People are going to judge me,’” she says. “But I think that’s sort of the point of music. It’s this timestamp of how you were feeling at the time. I guarantee that if I feel this way, someone else has to have felt that way at some point. So I’ve been learning to get over the nerves of actually releasing the music out into the world. But the writing part normally comes pretty naturally because that’s sort of like my version of therapy and working through however I’m feeling.”
Her first single of the year, “Summer so hot,” was the perfect track for anybody’s summer poolside playlist. Despite evoking images of tan lines, speakers by the pool and ice melting atop burning pavement, the track was — funnily enough — written on a cold, rainy night in London. “It was quite literally the middle of the night and pouring rain, freezing cold,” UPSAHL recalls. “Wayne, the main co-writer on the song, started singing this ‘summer so hot’ thing because we had just been talking about being so excited to be able to go to the beach. I was like, ‘I can’t wait to be in my bikini, running around, enjoying the summer. It’s freezing cold here and I’m miserable in this weather.’ And then he started singing the riff of the chorus and it all just happened from there.”
Despite UPSAHL’s adoration for the song, she admits that she was initially hesitant to release it. “I couldn’t tell if I loved it or hated it, which I thought was kind of a good sign,” she says. “It scared me the first night that we made it, and then I revisited it when I got back to LA and rewrote the verses like a million different times until they were perfect. I’m obsessed with how it turned out. I feel like it feels so nostalgic, which was kind of how we were feeling when we were writing it.”
UPSAHL says the album-making process for her in the past typically involved writing different songs with different artists while she was in LA or on tour. It wasn’t until after all the writing sessions were done that UPSAHL would finally piece the album together. “With this [upcoming] album, every song that we’ve written, even the ones that haven’t made the album, is all very intentional,” she says. “Each song is like a little puzzle piece in this [greater] concept that is the album. I want fans to just be able to immerse themselves in the whole thing. I feel like people — myself included — live in such a singles world and everyone just loves songs. If I have one goal for the album it would be for people to listen to the whole thing, top to bottom.”
Whether she infuses her pop stylings with a punk prowess or a hyperpop radiance, UPSAHL is defined by an artistry that is intense, vulnerable and addicting. Her live shows demonstrate a cathartic sense of freedom, while her music conveys a grounding air of nonconformity.
“It’s so cheesy, but I want to empower people,” she says. “I feel like a lot of my fans are young girls and I just want to empower them to feel confident on days that they don’t or empower them to just not give a fuck and own however they’re feeling at any given time and just live in that.”
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