When Olivia Rodrigo was doing promotion for her second album, 2023’s GUTS, she cited two ’90s alt. rock bands – Babes In Toyland and Rage In opposition to The Machine – as two key influences on the document.
“I’ve been listening to a lot Rage In opposition to The Machine this yr,” she advised Rolling Stone journal. “That’s my favourite band proper now. I might simply play it time and again on my option to and from the studio.”
In case you noticed any of Rodrigo’s headline set at Glastonbury pageant, or her BST Hyde Park headline present that very same weekend, or certainly the Guts World Tour live performance movie that premiered on Netflix final October, you possibly can’t have helped however discover that the 22-year-old singer/songwriter is backed by an unbelievable, virtuoso band, which at the moment contains drummer Hayley Brownell, bassist Moa Munoz, and guitarists Daisy Spencer and Arianna Powell, guitar heroes inspiring a brand new era.
“All of us get DMs on Instagram from followers which can be stoked and desirous to play,” Powell tells Guitar World in a brand new interview. “And I can solely hope that evokes them, proper? [Olivia] has so many followers who’re younger women and younger ladies. It’s vital to see that.”
Powell performed Rodrigo’s very first look with a band – a efficiency of Drivers License on Saturday Evening Dwell in 2021 – and stayed together with her in the course of the world tour for the singer’s debut album sour, earlier than stepping away from touring to boost her child daughter.
“I left and got here again to a special vibe,” the guitarist tells Guitar World, “as a result of with bitter we have been enjoying a lot smaller venues, like [legendary New York venue] Radio Metropolis. We weren’t doing arenas or these huge festivals. So it was a very totally different vibe. And it’s rather more of a rock present – guts is rather more of a rock album. bitter is a little more singer-songwriter. It appears like two totally different gigs in some methods.”
“She does like to function the guitar, which is absolutely cool,” Powell says of her boss. “Particularly since I’ve been on, she’s prolonged sure solo sections. She’s added guitar solos.“I feel I’ve acquired, like, at the least seven guitar solos all through the set, which is type of insane, and that’s completely from her wanting that. The one notice I’ve ever gotten about method is, ‘Simply be extra virtuosic.’ [Laughs] Like, ‘OK! I’ll be shreddy!’”
The guitarist additionally reveals in her Guitar World profile {that a} sure fast-rising US hardcore band influenced her resolution to play Jackson guitars – a lot liked by Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine within the ’80s and ’90s – onstage.
“When the summer season reveals have been arising, I used to be beginning to get actually impressed by this band Turnstile,” she tells GuitarWorld.com Editor-in-Chief Michael Astley-Brown. “Everybody in Olivia’s band is a large fan – Olivia herself is a large fan of Turnstile. And so I used to be watching their performances from this yr and simply considering, Holy shit, that is so cool. They’re enjoying Jacksons…. I acquired a white one. However folks have been stoked. Everybody was like, ‘Yeah, that’s sick’.”
Powell’s subsequent gig with Olivia Rodrigo might be headlining Lollapalooza pageant in Chicago on August 1.
