Writing 'Bittersweet' with Maddie

Today’s guest is one of the most quietly enduring artists in modern pop — a songwriter and performer who’s spent over a decade growing up in public, learning how to separate perception from identity.

She was discovered online as a teenager and quickly thrust into an industry that had already decided who she was.

But behind the headlines, she was doing the real work — writing, refining her sound, and slowly building a career on her own terms.

This is a conversation about perception vs reality, creative control, and what it actually takes to become yourself in an industry that benefits from misunderstanding you.

And The Writer Is… Madison Beer!

What you'll learn:

• What it actually feels like to grow up in the public eye

• The gap between how artists are perceived vs who they really are

• Why longevity in music requires emotional resilience

• How Madison developed her sound and creative identity over time

• The pressure of early success — and rebuilding from it

• Why being misunderstood can either break you or sharpen you

This episode is brought to you by the NMPA — supporting songwriters and protecting the value of music.

And by Splice — the world’s largest library of sounds and samples, built for creators.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro

1:42 Madison’s favorite songs of hers

3:00 Lyrics or melody first?

4:30 Ross meeting Madison at 13

6:00 Madison’s childhood, early memories

7:00 Going through parent’s divorce in early childhood

9:45 Why singing the national anthem is hard

10:00 Her family’s early encouragement

11:00 Madison’s first song

13:00 Starting her career at 10

18:40 Getting discovered overnight from a Justin Bieber tweet.

19:11 Contracts in music industry

19:58 Meeting Justin Bieber

21:46 Why getting dropped is a blessing

24:00 Struggling with early music identity

26:00 Why she felt she couldn’t fight back on creative control early on

28:00 finding her power through social media

31:55 Reclaiming creative control

33:50 writing reckless

35:28 Home with you

36:25 the importance of your collaborators 

39:12 the original demo to Reckless

41:13 being easier to write dark songs than happy songs

41:40 the challenge of writing her new album

41:54 NMPA

42:36 Splice

43:26 Going back into the label system

45:00 her first tour in lockdown

46:50 Madison’s touring non negotiables

52:00 the story of Home to another one

53:41 Writing darker songs while in a happy relationship

55:55 Setting boundaries for mental health

56:55 “Showed Me” as an interpolation

58:37 Her mental health struggles and path to healing

1:01:54 How her album locket Freed her

1:03:25 the unlikely story of bittersweet

1:05:30 what writing a song with strangers is like

1:09:00 loneliness and missing out on a normal childhood

1:12:00 Dealing with constant criticism and how she manages it

1:12:47 Surviving the lowest point of her life

1:16:30 how she currently manages her mental health

Hosted by Ross Golan

Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad

Edited by Jad Saad

Post Production VFX by Pratik Karki

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.