Singer/songwriters Emma Ogier and Eden Joel give their post-breakup friendship its very own anthem on “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal,” a smoldering, spellbinding, and beautifully combustible duet about letting romance end without letting love disappear. In conversation with Atwood Magazine, Ogier opens up about the intimate bond behind the song, her unapologetically eclectic musical instincts, what she’s learned from Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes, and the widening world of her forthcoming debut album, ‘Fly 1111.’

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“Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” – Emma Ogier ft. Eden Joel

Even when its median shifts, real love is when you still hope for the others success and joy.

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Emma Ogier and Eden Joel have a name for the relationship that comes after the relationship: A PBF – post-breakup friendship.

Spellbinding, smoldering, and gloriously alive, “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” is their achingly evocative ode to choosing the person even after the partnership has changed shape, built around one stubbornly loving promise: I don’t wanna leave you behind. Their voices braid, separate, and rise together over glowing electric guitar, layered acoustics, and drums that keep pressing forward, giving this gentle giant of a song both tenderness and turbulence. Visceral and vulnerable, it stays almost impossibly catchy even as every chorus pulls at the bruise – a hauntingly beautiful portrait of two people learning that love can change its name without losing its meaning.

To fight, to bend, take it as it is
And it’s a long time coming
You’ve never been a good quitter
Killed the transmitter,
but the lights keep running
Running backwards

But I don’t wanna leave you behind
Tread heavy
40 quarters
Got me double blind
No I don’t wanna leave you behind
Rock steady
Heavy metal
Hit the overdrive

Released July 10 via Lost Highway Records, “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” arrives in the middle of a remarkable year for Ogier, a 22-year-old Houston singer/songwriter now working toward her debut album. Her recent singles “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” and “Believing” sit, as she puts it, at opposite ends of her artistic range, while this track slips somewhere fascinating between them – delicate and hard-hitting, intimate yet built to surge. Ogier never conceived these songs as parts of a coordinated set – they were written at different times, without one dictating the sound of another – but together they reveal an artist increasingly comfortable letting her writing roam.

“I take inspiration from a wide range of music and I want to reflect that in my work, while still allowing my voice to piece everything together,” she explains. Recent shows with Bright Eyes found Ogier taking on Emmylou Harris’ harmony role alongside Conor Oberst, an experience she credits with making her write “with a lot more intention”; Austin City Limits and a fall tour supporting Hovvdy are still ahead. All that motion matters here because “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” was born from another young songwriter who has helped shape Ogier’s voice from up close: Nashville artist Eden Joel.

For all that stylistic openness, Ogier’s ambitions begin with the song itself. She writes from personal experience with the hope that a private truth might travel further than the life that produced it – an idea especially resonant in a song about two people learning how to stay connected across changing circumstances.

“I think good songs are a way for people to communicate to each other across time and space,” Ogier tells Atwood Magazine, “and my aim ultimately is to write great songs and make many great records.”

Now the first of those records has a name. Fly 1111 – Ogier’s 12-track debut album – arrives November 11 via Lost Highway Records, with David Baron producing a record about the costs and sacrifices of a creative life and the harder work of trusting oneself through confusion. “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” sits comfortably inside that larger search for self-trust, its post-breakup friendship refusing to treat change as failure. The announcement arrived alongside “Hands Tied,” a giddy plunge into new love that swings the relationship lens in the opposite direction – from learning how to let love change shape to letting yourself fall into it.

The collaboration at the center of “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” is wonderfully literal. Ogier and Joel are singing from inside the very bond the song is trying to understand.

“Our relationship is special and complicated and has always possessed a serious-feeling of depth,” Ogier tells Atwood Magazine. “What started as an undeniable connection and incessant belief in each other, in terms of us both being two young songwriters – vulnerable, on the internet, and trying to make real careers of it – turned romantic, yes, but also taught us something about the weight of love – how even when its median shifts, real love is when you still hope for the others success and joy.”

Tighter, you pull the plug and it’s tattered
I’ve nevеr had a fight like this
Can’t take another hit
So put your money where your mouth is, I

Don’t wanna leave you behind
Tread heavy, forty quarters got me double blind
No, I don’t wanna leave you behind
Rock steady, heavy metal, hit the overdrive

Their personal history is only half of what gives the collaboration its charge. Ogier and Joel challenge each other precisely because their instincts do not always travel the same route.

“Eden has always inspired and challenged me as a writer,” Ogier shares. “We are very different writers who support each other with the same enthusiasm. He always introduces ideas I would’ve never come up with on my own.”

You can hear that shared history – and that creative push and pull – in the recording itself. Produced by David Baron, “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” stacks acoustic, high-strung acoustic, and 12-string guitars beneath bass, drums, synths, and a radiant electric guitar that keeps roaring through the song’s gentler spaces. Ogier and Joel share lead vocals while James Eichman and Aidan Ogier join them in the background-vocal layers, creating a chorus of voices that swells around the central refrain rather than merely decorating it. The arrangement is graceful and gritty in equal measure: The guitars rush, the rhythm section keeps tightening the screws, and those glowing vocal overlays make the relationship audible – two distinct voices moving independently while continually finding their way back into the same frame. Even the song’s construction echoes its subject: Different instincts coexist without flattening each other, tension becomes momentum, and separation keeps resolving into connection. The song’s irresistible charm was there before any of that production arrived.

“When Emma played me the original idea for ‘Rocksteady/HeavyMetal,’ I was immediately hooked,” Joel recalls. “We got straight to work on it, stringing together melodies and words with the sole intention of making each other laugh. It was an effortless process, devoid of self-criticism. I never expected anything more would come of it, so I was surprised (and initially slightly hesitant) when Emma called me about recording it. Our relationship has ebbed and changed through the years, but the bottom line has always remained that our support, love and respect for each other is paramount.”

The bridge puts them on separate flights and finally names the ethic underneath the whole song:

Window seat, separate flights
Love ain’t late, it’s right on time
I’m on your side, just keep on rocking
’Cause you don’t have to leave me behind

“I think ‘keep on rocking’ was the perfect way to surface the entire idea of the song. wanting what’s best for someone you love. Encouraging them to keep going even if that means y’alls relationship might change.”

Separate flights, same side. That is the grace “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” leaves behind: Ogier and Joel do not need the old relationship back in order to keep believing in one another.

Their paths can split while their support keeps traveling between them, carried by those overlapping voices and that luminous guitar charging toward the horizon. By the time they reach the final refrain, I don’t wanna leave you behind has stopped sounding like resistance to change. It sounds like a new definition of staying – letting love move, letting each other move, and sending the other person forward with the simplest blessing this song knows: keep on rocking.

With Fly 1111 now on the horizon, “Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” reads as both a complete story and a doorway – proof that Ogier can let a song follow its own emotional logic while her voice keeps the larger world intact. Atwood Magazine recently spoke with Ogier, catching her in the middle of a year that has kept widening around her – through new songs, new stages, and a growing confidence in where her writing can go.

Read our conversation below, and let Ogier take you deeper into a special kind of love that can change its name without losing its meaning.

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:: stream/purchase Rocksteady/HeavyMetal here ::

:: connect with Emma Ogier here ::

:: stream/purchase Fly 1111 here ::

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“Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” – Emma Ogier ft. Eden Joel

A CONVERSATION WITH EMMA OGIER

Emma Ogier: I am a 22-year-old singer/songwriter from Houston, Texas. I write songs from personal experience, with the hope that they might resonate with others. I think good songs are a way for people to communicate to each other across time and space, and my aim ultimately is to write great songs and make many great records.

Emma Ogier: I think “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” and “Believing” act as the bookends of what I’m doing, both sort of living on either ends of the spectrum of my artistic range. I take inspiration from a wide range of music, and I want to reflect that in my work, while still allowing my voice to piece everything together. These songs are a good representation of where I’m at right now and sort of indicate where I’m going next.

Emma Ogier: My musical north stars are hard to pinpoint and I don’t know if I necessarily make music like these artists, but they always inspire me to make music; I’m thinking about Aretha Franklin, Judee Sill, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Armlock, Elliot Smith, Conor Oberst.

My writing has grown a lot recently. Since touring with Bright Eyes, I have found myself writing with a lot more intention. Conor is such a brilliant writer with so much to say – I’m learning a lot from him.

Emma Ogier: I made a quick demo of what is now the intro of this song, and brought it to one of my favorite collaborators, Eden Joel, to make a song of it. Our relationship is special and complicated and has always possessed a serious feeling of depth. What started as an undeniable connection and incessant belief in each other, in terms of us both being two young songwriters – vulnerable, on the internet, and trying to make real careers of it, – turned romantic, yes, but also taught us something about the weight of love – how even when its median shifts, real love is when you still hope for the others success and joy.

Emma Ogier: Eden has always inspired and challenged me as a writer. We are very different writers who support each other with the same enthusiasm. He always introduces ideas I would’ve never come up with on my own.

Emma Ogier: I think “keep on rocking” was the perfect way to surface the entire idea of the song. wanting what’s best for someone you love. Encouraging them to keep going even if that means y’alls relationship might change.

Emma Ogier: I didn’t really think about it. I wrote them all at different times and never really considered the others when recording or writing them.

Emma Ogier: I’m just so excited.

Emma Ogier: Mali Velasquez, Superhero, and Aidan Ogier!

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:: stream/purchase Rocksteady/HeavyMetal here ::

:: connect with Emma Ogier here ::

:: stream/purchase Fly 1111 here ::

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“Rocksteady/HeavyMetal” – Emma Ogier ft. Eden Joel

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