Olivia Rodrigo knew that “Vampire” would get fans excited for her sophomore album, Guts — but cowriter Dan Nigro wasn’t so sure.
While it was one of the first songs written for the album, Nigro, 41, revealed on Monday, October 9, that choosing “Vampire” as the lead single was “definitely one of the hardest decisions we had to make together.”
While sitting alongside Rodrigo, 20, at her “An Evening With Olivia Rodrigo” event in Los Angeles, Nigro joked that he “definitely lost a lot of hair” over making the final call.
While he wanted “Bad Idea, Right?” to be released first, everyone else — including Rodrigo — argued that “Vampire” would “work better.” Obviously, the “bloodsucker, fame f—ker” lyric in “Vampire” won out in the end.
“I tortured Dan for so long, for months,” Rodrigo said, noting she wanted to make the song perfect. “Like, ‘No, it’s too fast, it’s too slow, we need to change it by one BPM.’ … We probably have 20 versions of different BPM. And nobody even notices.”
Rodrigo dropped “Vampire” as the first single from her second record in June. Following its immediate success, the former High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star admitted there were some challenges behind the scenes — mainly concerning the song’s “fame f—ker” line.
“It was actually a debate whether or not ‘fame f–ker’ should be in the song,” Rodrigo recalled on Audacy’s “The Julia Show” in July. “Some people said, ‘It kind of isolates you from people, you can’t really say things like that in song, it’s not relatable’ — yada, yada, yada, which I totally get and saw where they were coming from.”
In the end, however, Rodrigo respectfully disagreed.
“I think the song isn’t about fame f–king, I think it’s more about someone being manipulative and sucking you dry, using you for all your worth,” she added. “I think that’s a universal theme, and I also think fame is more easily accessible now than it has ever been. It’s not just people in L.A. and Hollywood that have to deal with that.”
“Vampire” wasn’t the only Guts track that caused issues in the recording studio. During Monday’s event, Rodrigo and Nigro recalled shedding a lot of tears during the 10 months they spent creating the album.
“We cried just because we were frustrated,” she shared. “We were really toiling.”
Rodrgio went on to recall having “a case of the dread” while recording Guts.
“I feel like we definitely had some tricky moments where we were like, ‘How are we gonna do this? Are we good at this?’ We actually coined a term for it when we were in the studio and we were doing really bad, we called it the dread,” she said. “And sometimes Dan would catch it, sometimes I would catch it.”
Their hard work ultimately paid off. When Guts was released on September 8, it was quick to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“I’m grateful all the fucking time💗💗💗” Olivia wrote via Instagram, reacting to the news. “Thank u guys for the most love filled, exciting week.”
