Maggie Rogers Shares Mumford & Sons’ “Incredible Advice” on Songwriting

Maggie Rogers is opening up about some of the best songwriting advice she’s received.

Videos by American Songwriter

Since her song “Alaska” was discovered by Pharrell Williams, Rogers has earned critical acclaim for her honest songwriting. She’s become a staple in the indie pop music scene, having released two studio albums, her debut Heard It in a Past Life in 2019 and sophomore endeavor Surrender in 2022.

Rogers’ musical prowess has also earned her opening slots on tours by superstar acts Haim, Kacey Musgraves, and Mumford & Sons. While opening for Mumford & Sons on their 2018 Delta Tour, Rogers got to connect offstage with frontman Marcus Mumford and keyboardist Ben Lovett. That same year Rogers was in a studio in London working on a song with Mumford and Lovett when they offered her a valuable piece of songwriting advice.

“I wrote a verse or something and showed it to them and they said, ‘Nothing bitter,'” Rogers recalls in a season two episode of Spotify’s Best Advice Podcast. “Their advice to me was, ‘Don’t write anything bitter because you’re going to move past it, that emotion, and you’re not going to want to keep that bitterness in your mouth for the next however many years you’re going to tour this song, or it’ll stay on a set list’…It was incredible advice and I really remembered it.”

Rogers goes on to share how Mumford and Lovett’s wisdom impacted her outlook as a songwriter. “I think there’s so much more to say and there’s so many more emotions that are deeper than bitterness,” she observes. “Because bitterness is really just covering up anger, and anger’s really just covering up hurt, sadness or heartache. And that to me is so much more interesting musically.”

Rogers concludes the U.S. leg of The Feral Joy Tour at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on Sunday (March 5).

Photo by Denise Truscello/Getty Images for iHeartRadio

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