Paper PlanesAlice Merton may have “No Roots,” but she’s making quite the home for herself at the top of the Billboard charts. The Canadian/German/British musician’s breakthrough single now sits at number one on the magazine’s Rock Airplay tally.
In fact, Merton is just the second lead female artist to top Billboard‘s Rock Airplay chart since it began in 2009. Lorde was the first, having led the tally with “Royals” in 2013 and “Team” in 2014.
While writing “No Roots,” Merton leaned a lot on her knowledge of classical music, but the 24-year-old also channeled a number of modern rock influences.
“The Killers were probably the most influential band I’ve ever listened to when it comes to making my own music,” Merton tells ABC Radio. “Regina Spektor, I love her music, she was probably one of the reasons I got into songwriting. Who else did I listen to? A lot of bands like Kaiser Chiefs. I listened to Green Day as well when I was, like, 14.”
But surprisingly, one band that almost influenced “No Roots” a little too much was Maroon 5. When Merton was first writing the track with her producer, she realized some of her “oohs” sounded a lot like the ones in the pop group’s hit “Moves Like Jagger.”
“The first draft of it was a different ‘ooh,’ it was actually a different melody, but then we were like, ‘Oh, that sounds too similar to Maroon 5, we can’t take that,'” Merton remembers.
She adds, “So we sat for an hour and just kind of contemplated on what kind of ‘oohs’ felt right.”
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
