Success and subsequent fame usually come when willingness meets luck. For American singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers, who had been in love with music since childhood and had devoted herself to it with great effort ever since, her lucky day came when pop star Pharell Williams had the opportunity to hear one of her songs entitled “Alaska”, which she had written for a master class at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Williams attended the class as a guest speaker, and a video of him enchanting him with the music immediately made Maggie Rogers famous. Here are facts about Rogers’ background story.
Maggie Rogers – Bio (Age)
The pop star received the full name Margaret Debay Rogers at her birth on April 25, 1994, in Easton, Maryland. Although Easton is not exactly a musical city, Rogers was attracted to music at a very early age. She began playing the harp at the age of 7 and fell in love with classical music. Her mother often drove her to harp lessons, which she took an hour away from home.
Her interest in music grew during her middle school years when she expanded her instrument playing skills to piano and guitar. In the summer she attended a Wohelo camp for girls in Maine where her songwriting skills were developed. The camp also helped Maggie Rogers overcome her fear of singing in front of crowds.
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When it was time for high school, Maggie was sent to Delaware to attend St. Andrew’s Boarding School, where she fell in love with folk music and learned to play the banjo. Rogers decided to spend the summer after her junior year at Berklee College of Music in Boston. There she won a songwriting competition that inspired her to take songwriting more seriously.
When the senior year came, Maggie Rogers decided to make her own music. For her own personalized studio, Rogers converted a broom closet and began recording songs for her self-published album The Echo, which was released in 2012. Two years later, in 2014, she independently released another album, Blood Ballet.
With The Echo, Maggie Rogers was accepted into one of New York University’s most competitive programs – the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. During her studies, Rogers suffered from a two-year writer’s block, which forced her to diversify her studies and take up journalism as a retreat in case the music failed. Fortunately, she got her mojo back, and a song she wrote for only 15 minutes (it was about a National Outdoor Leadership School) would be responsible for her breakthrough.
Rogers with Pharrell Williams the day he heard Alaska
Since her meeting with Pharrell in 2016, Maggie Rogers has been on the rise. She soon got a contract with Capitol Records and released the EP Now That the Light Is Fading in February 2017. Her debut album Heard It in a Past Life, released at number 2 on the Billboard 200, was released in January 2019.
Family
When you first read Maggie Rogers’ background story, you might think she was one of those who came from a musical family, but on the contrary, music is not a family matter for Rogers. Although her parents supported her early interest in music, they were not musicians themselves, but merely music lovers. Her mother, who often listened to songs by Erykah Badu, the Cranberries, and Lauryn Hill, had a job as an oncologist and death companion, while her father ran his own car dealership. Rogers has an older sister who wanted to round up her foreign Fulbright program in Malaysia in 2017. She also has a younger brother who was a college student in 2017.
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Facts About the Musician
– Rogers has her own label, Debay Sounds, which gives her the right to maintain artistic control while licensing her music to Capitol.
– Maggie Rogers suffers from a benign condition called synaesthesia, which allows her to perceive several senses simultaneously. In her case, she is able to perceive color as a reaction to listening to music.
– In college, Maggie Rogers founded the band Del Water Gap together with her colleague Holden Jaffe. Together they performed every weekend throughout Manhattan.
– After visiting Berlin, Rogers developed a passion for dance music.
– During the time she considered journalism a relapse career, Maggie Rogers did an internship with Spin as well as with music journalist Lizzy Goodman of ELLE.
– Maggie Rogers’ sexuality is heterosexual, but many of her fans have come to her after shows to reveal that her music has helped them come out as gay.
– Rogers shot the music video for Alaska at her parents’ house in Easton. The background dancers in the video were all her friends from college, and the clothes she used were all hers.
