Taylor Acorn first caught my attention with her acoustic cover of Blink 182’s First Date, and she’s held it ever since. Now a few years on from that release, she’s played some of the biggest pop-punk festivals such as When We Were Young, Warped Tour and Good Things, and just last week she released her latest full length record, Poster Child. Signing with Fearless Records just months ago, this marks her first release under a major label after years of being an independent artist. I jumped at the opportunity to sit down with Acorn ahead of the release of Poster Child to chat in depth about the creation of the record and her success.
From being independent for years to now being signed with one of the biggest labels in the scene, the creation of Poster Child was vastly different to Acorn’s previous experiences. Having had full creative control as an independent artist, the thought of stepping into a label-led environment was daunting to Acorn, but her worries were quickly put to rest upon meeting her team. “Every single song that I wanted ended up being on the album, everybody else was so gung-ho about it, so I think that’s what was really exciting about everything so far, but I think now there’s so many possibilities if it does go amazingly and and things start to go in an uphill direction from this opportunity…I’m just so happy that I have a team like Fearless because they want to be involved and that’s the most I could ever ask of a team, right? You want people who are going to go to bat for you and want to be involved and love to be a part of the creative process, too. So I’m just just very excited to see what happens.”
That optimism and excitement carried through to the recording experience, where Acorn and her collaborators- fellow artist Knox, songwriter Emmalynn White and Dan Swank to name a few, found the process to be a breeze and had fun with it. “The experience was so positive. It was like a 9-to-5, we’d wake up at 8am, go to write by 9am- it felt almost like a mini writers retreat. We just had so much fun and I think that’s what made the process so amazing and why I love the songs as much as I do.”
Poster Child packs a punch- it’s a short and sweet pop-punk record with anthemic choruses and heartfelt ballads, and choosing a favourite track proves to be a difficult task- especially for Acorn, who says, “I feel like it changes every other week, but right now, I really really love the title track, “Poster Child”…I started writing that one on my own, I had written the chorus and then I started writing a verse for it. It sounds completely different now because I brought my co-writers in and was like, ‘hey, what do you guys think of this?’ I also really, really love “Cheap Dopamine” and “Sucker Punch”. I don’t know, there’s just a feeling that those two have been giving me recently.”
The opening track and a personal standout is “People Pleaser”, A witty banger that explores the desperation of wanting to be liked. “I’m a middle child, I’m a Virgo” Acorn says, explaining why the track resonates so deeply with her. “I always tried to my best to be on my best behaviour and wanted to make everyone happy- I think that’s been something that has always been there. I think it’s been more of a detriment to my personality than it has been something that has helped it. With projects in the past, going into them I always thought like ‘these people would love this”, but with this project I was like ‘I love this.’”
Putting herself and her music online opened up a whole new world for Acorn- but as instrumental as this was in gaining success and attention, it also opened her up to receiving hate and negative comments, with people calling out her music and style, often comparing her to Avril Lavigne. For Acorn, “People Pleaser” is a way of standing up for herself. “It’s fun to make fun of that side of myself,” she says, “You want me to jump off a bridge? Cool, I’ll do it at this point. What else do you want from me? You wanna run me over with your car? Sure, I’ll lay down for you.” She jokes, saying, “It’s all sticks and stones. At the end of the day, it’s just a funny way of reminding myself of l all of those qualities that I used to have of worrying so much about what everybody else thought of me, but now not really caring as much. You know, I think it comes with age. You just stop caring.”
Earlier this month, Acorn joined the mammoth lineup at When We Were Young in Las Vegas, alongside acts like Blink-182 and Panic! At The Disco, and mid-November she will embarking on her first Vans Warped Tour. “To see my name on the line up, I’m like ‘who is doing this?’” Acorn laughs as she looks around jokingly. “I feel so grateful and supported. This has been a dream of mine that I never thought I’d be able to achieve. The fact that other people are seeing it and wanting to put me on these stages is just a really cool experience to have.”
While the mainstream pop-punk and alternative scenes have long been dominated by male voices, Acorn takes inspiration from the women who helped pave the way and hopes to be able to do the same for a new generation. “I literally learned how to sing to Evanescence- their first record, Fallen. I was eight years old when that came out and remember my mum bought it for me. I was so infatuated with her vocals… And of course Hayley Williams- when it comes to stage presence she is such a force. It’s really inspiring to see an artist who can just be the face and the entertainment without having dancers behind her and all the bells and whistles… I just watched her on Jimmy Fallon and was like, ‘Oh my gosh’. Just her presence and everything about her- that is exactly what I want to be, just such a great inspiration for young girls.”
With the trajectory she’s been on in recent years, that level of success- and the power to inspire others- doesn’t feel far out of reach for Taylor Acorn. In conversation, it’s clear that Poster Child was created from a place of passion and a desire to be unapologetically authentic through her music. It’s a fun, dynamic record, but beyond that it also stands as an important piece of art that will no doubt inspire a new wave of young artists and women within the scene.
Poster Child is out now, stream wherever you listen and keep up to date with tour news HERE
Header image credit: artist supplied
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