If there’s one thing Alanis Morissette has learned after more than 3 decades in the biz is that you are “either a road dog or you’re not.” The singer who has criss-crossed the globe for her entire adult life sat down with Kelly Clarkson on Thursday (May 19) for a chat in which the host said that when she first heard Olivia Rodrigo‘s music she immediately thought, “I’m 40 and I’m really into this!”
One of the reasons, Kelly said, is because it struck her as a “different version” of Morissette’s music. “I fell like y’all are very similar… you’re different, but I thought, ‘man, she had to have been, like, influenced by you a bit,” said Clarkson, who dubbed Rodrigo the Alanis of her youthful generation.
Which begged the question of whether Alanis, as she’d promised last year, had given Rodrigo a “road survival kit” to keep her younger charge safe as she schleps across the country on a tour bus. “She mentioned she was going on the road and hadn’t done that a lot and I just thought [Clarkson interjects “your voice is gonna die”]… you’re either kind of a road dog or you’re not,” Alanis explained. “And I think that those of us who are road dogs we have little tricks up our sleeve of what to bring to survive for self-care.”
And while she didn’t unpack the contents of her road dog kit, Morissette said for her it’s the equivalent of bringing her “blankie” everywhere she goes. That could mean something as simple a a favorite pillow or other comforts of home.
Back in Oct. as part of Rolling Stone‘s “Musicians on Musicians” series, Alanis and Olivia had a heart-to-heart in which Rodrigo asked for some advice about growing up in the industry. To begin with, Alanis said, if there was anything she’d do differently it would be to, “have had a few more friends around me, period. Just a little bit more emotional support, someone where you could vent with them and process with them.”
Is she could go back in time, though, Morissette said she would have liked to conjure a “few really deeply loving, unconditionally caring people around me to just check in with me.” Asked if she had that, Olivia said she hoped so, at which point Morissette first promised to send Rodrigo a “survive-on-the-road kit for the sensitive soul.”
Realizing that she hasn’t done it yet, Morissette told Clarkson, “I really should get on that!”
Watch the chat below.
