Cali Rodi is bringing fresh energy to pop music, sharing songs with the world that you can easily sing along to at the top of your lungs. The LA-based singer/songwriter just released her new single “blink-182 + u,” and we had a chat about it! Grab your favorite cup, because the tea has been served.
Let’s just start out by giving everyone an introduction to you – for the people who might be tuning in for the first time!
I’m Cali Rodi, an alt-pop singer and songwriter, I live in LA and I’m just starting to release music for the first time in a while so if you’re just hearing of me, hi! I hope you like it.
I know you kinda got discovered by Keith Urban. How was that like?
That was crazy. I grew up with my mom always listening to country music like Shania Twain, Dixie Chicks, and stuff like that. When I was in high school, I started going to Nashville a lot to write songs and ended up moving there after high school to go to college there at Belmont University.
I was going to be like, did you go to Belmont?!
Like how did you know!
There’s so many people I’ve talked to and they’re like “Belmont. Belmont.” And I’m like, sooo you were in Nashville, did you go to Belmont? Hahaha!
I went for a year, I knew I was only going to go for a year and just try and learn as much as I could at one time. But before that, when I was living in Arizona, that’s where I grew up, I was kinda in between Nashville and writing trips and I wrote this song about military families. It was very Nashville of me because I haven’t experienced being in a military family or anything like that. It ended up being a theme song for this organization called Operation Shower and Birdies for the Brave with the PGA Tour, so I was traveling to all these different golf tournaments and playing this one song. In certain cities they would try and get me gigs on the side, because I’d travel all this way to play just one song. So there was a night in Jacksonville, FL and I was playing… I think it was called Parking Lot Party or something. I was opening for Jason Isbell, which was crazy and I was like the opener of the opener of the opener. There was like no one there, but you know… gotta perform into the hundred thousand people!
Then this guy came up to me afterwards and he was like “you know, my best friend is in the record business” and I was like okay. Sure. Aren’t we all?
Mhmmmmm.
And I like shrugged it off a little bit. Then I ended up sitting next to that same guy on the plane back home to Nashville. We started talking and I realized pretty soon that his friend was legit and worked at Universal. He set me up with a meeting with this guy named Jeff who ended up signing me to his publishing company that he had with Keith Urban. So I was there for three years, and learned so much. I got to write with the best of the best in Nashville and it was so much fun. He would crash our shows every once in a while and play songs in between. It was so crazy, but those were like the Nashville years. I feel very lucky to have had that support and that groundwork to build me into the artist I am now.
Dang. Life is so crazy isn’t it? Like you never know what to expect. You never know what tomorrow might bring and you’re just… wow.
It’s so crazy. Everything is so random, so spontaneous, and I could’ve been super upset that no one was there. It taught me to treat every performance like everyone’s watching.
Right, because you never know what one thing could lead into, and also this is such a small world. It’s insane.
Especially with social media and you never know who’s video-ing you and just randomly putting you on the internet. Like that yodel kid, I love him.
Oh I know, he’s amazing. Mason…. we love you Mason!
We love you! Shout out!
We love you! Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. So you’ve got your new single “blink-182 + u.” Would you mind spilling about how that came to life?
Yes! So I know this is going to sound bad, but when I was in high school and on, I don’t know what it was. Even earlier than that, every single guy that I was dating had some weird obsession with blink-182. Being a girl, I was trying so hard to listen to their music so I could impress them with my knowledge of songs that I knew. But then it just kept happening – any time I would start dating someone, they would always be such a big deal to them. I ended up actually loving the band and becoming a fan myself. I was just really upset when the lead singer Tom DeLonge left the band. I was heartbroken, and he was also my first crush.
The song, we wrote it literally in 2016, so it’s insane that now in 2020 it’s finally coming out. My friend Emily and I were sitting on a porch one night, we were taking a writing trip to LA from Nashville, and we had our guitar. We were kinda talking about life and guys we dated, and I was talking about blink-182 and this weird connection and also just the feeling of missing sneaking out and going to like a party or whatever. Just missing the feeling of that nostalgic… blasting punk songs in your basement type of feeling. We were kinda just talking about that, and the song literally just fell out of the sky. It was one of those where we just wrote it down. Usually I’ll start with the chorus and try to get the hook right and really just craft a song. This one was like…
It just came. It just came to you.
It just came in a dream. Yeah so I started posting some snippets of it to Instagram and I’ve never gotten that kind of reaction from a song ever, and playing it at my live shows, people just always remembered that song. I thought it was about time it came to life. For real.
Yeah and like… yay we get to celebrate it!
I know! It has been like the longest time coming and so I’m going like all out.
But I know it hasn’t been toooo long since you last released music, because you dropped “God Save The Queen” in August. That was such an empowering song. Soooo empowering. But like, how have you stayed up during this time because I know it’s like rocks are being thrown everywhere. But they’re not just rocks, they’re like boulders on fire and it’s like WHAAAT.
I know! This year has been a lot for everyone and we can all agree with that. Staying positive… we wrote that song during… well started it at the top of the year and finished it during quarantine over Zoom like completely virtually finished it. I watched a lot of Disney movies and bad tv and just tried to stay positive and I’m like okaaaay! There’s just so much going on but I think also, it’s been nice to trying to finish my EP, and I’ve had all the time in the world to finish it. It’s actually been kind of nice. So it’s kind of like, built in positivity because there’s nothing I’d rather do than create stuff. As long as I’m creating and not getting too depressed… I just can’t watch the news a lot.
No no noooo that’s never healthy! Like I’ve had to tell some people and even myself, it’s not good to just watch the news allllllll day long. You want to stay informed, but at the same time you can always come back to it. So I’ve kind of been teaching myself to put the phone down, put the computer down, read a book or something. Do anything!
Yeah I’ve been reading a lot too, which is nice because I never felt like I “had time” before this time. And it’s like, you make time. You find out what’s really important, you know?
That’s true. I haven’t read a book in like… how long has it been since high school? What wait what?
1984 that book and I’m like what did we read in high school?
Literally and I’m like oh yeah what wait that was a thing?
I know well, they always made us read the worst books. They actually let us pick stuff to read.
THE CRUCIBLE. OH GOD. NOOOO.
Oh God. You know the Facebook time hop or whatever? That’s so funny because my best friend from first grade and on texted me the other day and it was just like… we were dying because our school put on a performance of The Crucible, and her status was like “going to see The Crucible :)” and we were just like WHYYY!
NOOOOOO Nooo. We had to read Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet obviously, obviously but The Crucible was like….
The worst.
I remember being in class and my eyes would be like bloodshot red and I’d have big black bags and I’d be like WHY. Why. How is this going to help me in ten years. What why?! No shade but like… why.
I know. I know. My mom is an English teacher and she’s going to watch this and be like “BECAUSE IT’S THE BEST.”
And like, I don’t even remember having a Sparknotes for it.
Oh yeah, Sparknotes was the life saver. That was the best.
Yeah that was a different kind of writing, but… you know. But other than just doing that, what else have you done like during this time?
I started off quarantine in March when everyone thought it was just gonna be a few weeks. Oh well. My parents still live in Arizona, so I drove home as soon as they were like “LA is on lockdown” and I was like peace out! Bye! So I drove to Arizona, hung out with my parents for like six weeks, and then there was no end in sight so I was like I gotta go back to LA. When I was there, it was very peak quarantine where everyone was making banana bread, trying new hobbies for like a day and then failing, trying weird workouts, and taking a lot of walks. But now… I don’t know, it’s just been a lot of music stuff and kind of the same things. I have a few select friends I will see. Luckily it’s really easy to get tested in LA, like I have four people that are in my bubble and we’re all pretty responsible. But I don’t know, there’s people going out and I’m like… I go to Target and I’m like oh NO, there’s people.
And it’s so strange watching movies with a party scene or a crowded space. There’s a little part of me that’s like *gasp* they don’t have masks on. Like it’s so strange!
Literally! I feel like if I were to watch Project X I’d be like WHY are you guys standing so close? Don’t do that!
Literally like, you want to shout at the TV. It’s like one of those things where I’m looking back and we’re almost going to come up on a year of this. Like, what have I done? What have I been doing?
Exactly like I’m just thinking… okay, December, I’ll blast Christmas music in the car and I’m like… we’re almost there. Almost there! I already see people talking about New Years Eve live streams and whatnot.
Really?
Because I was like, honestly I wonder if people can actually be stopped from going to Times Square.
Oh yeah. That’s a good point.
How are they going to do that? I don’t know. (*Disclaimer: I am not encouraging ANYONE. Please do not.) There’s people talking about New Years Eve and I’m like you know what? Two more months or three, we’re gonna be back to where we started and I’m like…
But you know what? We made it!
We’re here!
We might be hanging on by a string, but like we made it.
We’re doing alright!
And we get to enjoy your music so *claps*
I know, also with the election stuff happening I was like… oh my god, because obviously I didn’t release around the election on purpose. I waited because it’s like “listen to my song!” it’s like no shut up, we can only talk about this. Anyone who’s trying to promote their own music, I was like nah. Nah sis. Not the time, read the room!
I noticed back in June that was a big thing.
Really?
Yeah. Definitely like, when everything exploded in June, there were a lot of people moving releases back. And then there were some who couldn’t because of their distro or whatever but like, I saw pretty much everybody from big labels just moving stuff back and back. Then they were like “you know what? It’s still not time yet. Let’s keep moving it back.” And I’m like… music is a way to express yourself. I think there’s a way that you can tie it into activism, but I’m like, we need you out here!
There’s a good purpose, and you want to spread light to people. Music is also escapism. But I was like oh no, if the cheeto wins I cannot put out this song. It’s going to be like the worst mood that the country is in. So yeah, for my own selfish…
For like everything.
For everything, for our planet.
For humanity. Future generations.
We’re gonna be okay. I hope. There’s a lot of hope in the air.
Stream “blink-182 + u” now!
