Will Shaw
One of the best debuts of 2026 belongs to a 23-year-old from Texas who grew up listening to hip-hop and studying theater in high school. Emma Ogier is the rising and rising singer and songwriter behind the hotly-tipped Fly 1111 that’s been cosigned by Dominic Fike, Kevin Abstract, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, Clairo, Ethel Cain, Gracie Abrams — the list goes on. If that isn’t enough to impress you, then the music definitely will. Out today, November 11, the 12 songs of indie rock, singer-songwriter-y folk, and country traverse love and growing up with a heart-aching specificity. Standouts like “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” and “Believing” showcase a young but confident songwriter with that rare ability of making the personal feel universal that comes just a few times in a generation.
Over a video call Ogier is disarmingly normal, smiley, and very chill about her career that’s gone turbo mode. It probably started in earnest in March when she released the single “Baby Don’t Hurt Me.” She opened Hovvdy on tour, and then Whitney. And then in September, Dominic Fike uploaded a video called “This is Emma Ogier” to his YouTube channel, repeating what Brockhampton did for him seven years ago, opening the floodgates to an exponential wave of attention. Millions more people are listening to her music than ever before. “It's been a crazy year,” Ogier reflects. “[But] I don't feel super changed, weirdly. I kind of feel the same because it's just really what I've always wanted to do.”
Ahead, read our conversation with the rising songwriter about growing up in Houston, loving country music, learning from Conor Oberst, and why she never wants to go viral.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The FADER: What was it like growing up in Houston?
Emma Ogier: I really loved it. I grew up in this area that seems to have held onto being kind of close-knit. Like most of the friends I still see in Houston are my elementary school friends when we all went to the same public elementary school. But Houston was really cool. We always had good food, and I love the big city thing. It was weird going to college and people being like, "Well, there's one school in my town." I was like, "Oh, there's 50 schools in a 10-mile radius of me." There's a lot of different people and different backgrounds. But I definitely didn't find a ton of musician friends, so my brothers and I really just had each other for that.
Did you find it to be inspiring in terms of music?
I love hip-hop music and I feel like Houston bred a lot of that and been a big hub for that sort of scene. Growing up around people doing that and SoundCloud rappers and shit was really cool. But I didn't find any other songwriters, and I went to an arts high school. I was a theater major, an acting major there. There was no program for making music, I didn't really figure out I wanted to do that till I was a sophomore [in high school].
Will Shaw
What happened sophomore year?
Well, I guess it was a little earlier than that, but my older brother had gotten grounded one day, and my brothers are pretty incredible musicians. My brother always played piano, and then he learned guitar. At some point, my older brother, Aidan, started writing songs, and I remember I didn't know what that was. I've always been a journaler and writing poetry, but I didn’t know [songwriting] was a thing. But he started doing it, and I was like, “Oh, I want to do that.” And so I learned guitar and started writing and immediately could understand how to make a song. My first songs were very structured, like, “Yep, and that's the song, and it tells that story.” They weren’t originally about me or anything, but they definitely grew into that at some point.
I read that your brother had originally suggested that you make a country record, but that you pushed for the sound to be more expansive. Is that true?
Bro, that was so funny. We both read that and we were like, “What is David [Baron, the producer of Fly 1111] talking about?” That was not what happened. In the recording process and when we played as a band, it became more like rock songs, or alt, indie-rock sort of thing, but they're also songs I can do acoustic. And that was the original idea we had about it, which was like, let's make a Gillian Welch sort of record. Something pretty acoustic and just like a beautiful album. And then we started working on it [and] were like, “No, let’s make it dangerous, and fucked up, and cool.”
I learned guitar and started writing and immediately could understand how to make a song.
I feel like some of the songs, especially in the second half, do feel very country. Do you vibe with having your music described like that?
I mean, I love country music. I feel like growing up in Texas... I was never super into pop country, but I do love it. I just have a pretty diverse taste in music and I listen to anything, so when I write, I don't like to try and write a certain genre or style of song. I just write whatever is coming out. Sometimes that is “Baby Don't Hurt Me,” and sometimes it’s “West and Down.”
The album is called Fly 1111. Is that related to the “make a wish at 11:11” superstition?
Sure. It does make sense like that. When I finished the demo of that song, it must have been 11:11 p.m., or it was November 11th. I’m pretty sure it was the time, though. I don't know why I put the time in, but I just called it “Fly 1111.” And then [I thought] “Oh, it's kind of a cool title,” because the song talks about angels and it's angel time, and whatever. It's a song about hope, and wishing, and wanting stuff. So I feel like it does actually make sense, but calling it that was not really intentional, actually.
Do you feel like your poetry background still influences your songwriting? Or has it evolved?
I feel like poetry was sort of… I don't know if I was a [poet]. I journaled a lot, like writing about today I did this and that, but I would write poetry in a different way. I just love language. I have a very hard time understanding most poetry. Like if you're in a class and they're like, “We're going to analyze this poem,” and it has a bunch of words I don't understand, or phrases that I just don't know what it's talking about, but I love to dissect it and figure out what someone's saying. So I think that's gone into my music. But since working with Conor Oberst, I've really been more thoughtful about writing in a way. Just way more words, and way more hard-to-understand phrases, but trying to really say something that's poignant.
One of the biggest looks for you this year was Dominic Fike bringing you out at a show and dropping the “This is Emma Ogier” video. Were you aware of the backstory behind that video concept?
I had no idea. I was working with Ian, or Kevin Abstract, and I had recorded some songs with him, and then he sent me the Dominic [Fike] song “Smalltown,” and was like, “Yo, can you put some vocals on this?” I was like, “For sure!” And then they were like, “Okay, come out and sing it on the tour, and help us write for a few days.” And I went and did it. The video was my last night with them, and I was like, “Dang, y'all are so fast making videos. I wish we had made one.” And they were like, “Okay, let's do it right now,” like 20 minutes before Dominic’s show.
We literally were like, “Okay, cool. We'll direct it. You're gonna go out there, and there's gonna be a basketball, and the rowboat will be out there, and that'll be the video.” And I was like, "Okay, cool. Awesome. Whatever." And then I got offstage and they were like, “We should drop it tonight.” They asked if they could put it on Dom's YouTube, and I was like, “Okay.” It just shows that those guys are cool leaders in the industry and want to bring people up. Ian, I remember, was really stoked about the response to it, where people were like, "Yeah, this is passing the torch," or whatever, you know? I didn't even realize it was that deep, but it’s so cool to be that person who got it.
It just shows that those guys are cool leaders in the industry and want to bring people up.
Do you have any expectations for this album? Not necessarily in how it’s going to perform metrically, but in what you hope people learn about you?
I hope people take whatever they need from it. I don’t want someone to hear my songs and think about me, actually. I feel like with the record, I don't want to go viral. I really don't want to go viral for a song, or a clip of a song, and [have] people be obsessed with that and not really care about the rest of it, because I think all the songs are important and are there for a reason.
The music on this album, it literally will have a rock song, and then the slowest country ballad you've ever heard. I think overall, it does show my palette. I really feel like a big part of my ethos is proving to myself I can do something. So if I want to write a rap song, I'll figure it out. I'll write a rap song, and make it me at the same time. It's not trying to be anyone else. I like growing and building. Putting this out is great so I can start working on the next thing.
Is there an Emma Ogier rap album coming?
I don't know. One day! The reason I wouldn’t want a song to go viral is because I’m not gonna write “Baby Don't Hurt Me” in five years, you know? I might be writing completely different music. I might be on a hyperpop kick. I don't want to box myself in anywhere. The box is endless, you know? It's infinite.
