Blond in Car Is in the Driver’s Seat

It’s never too late to start a music career. Youth does have its obvious advantages in the music industry– marketability, mass appeal, and relatability, to name a few– but at the end of the day, whether you’re 18 or 58, good music is good music. Butch Vig of Garbage was 40 when the band released their first album, and blues musician Seasick Steve was 65 before he released any work. LA native Robin Schorr, better known as Blond In Car, has once again proven that success is never unattainable for passionate musicians. Her quirky, vibrant TikTok covers have amassed her a wide audience of admiring fans that have affectionately deemed her their “internet mom.” From Charli XCX to Imogen Heap, Schorr’s covers are as diverse as they are addictive– no genre is off limits to the indie pop artist. Through her dazzling videos and synthy sound, Schorr has found a unique way to connect with the younger TikTok user base. Last December, I got to sit down with the internet's newest mother and talk all things Blond in Car.

Sean Perry: I found Blond in Car because of my friend EJ, who sent me your TikTok videos. He was like, you have to listen to this right now, because he knew I would love it. And he was right!

Blond in Car: The funny thing about TikTok is that, you know, I put out a lot of music, and when you start making music, people say the way to get the algorithm on Spotify to like you is if you release a song every month. So I was releasing a song a month from the minute I started in May of 2020, COVID year of our Lord, and I just could not get anyone. I got on some very cool radio stations which was very neat, like prestigious, but none of that moved the needle at all. And I still don't have very good streaming numbers. And so when I had ALTAVAN coming out, and it was an album, because I used to work in film, you know, the way we did things then was … you kind of splurge for a publicist. I interviewed all these publicists that I had worked with, that I knew from film, and they were like, we're not going to touch you. Your socials are in the nowhere. You don't need us. You need to get your socials up.

SP: Well, your socials definitely blew up. I think your style is super fun. I was surprised that your music was so synth heavy.

BIC: I never grew up playing guitar, I played classical piano, and I never learned a pop song on piano or guitar or anything. My whole life, I was always a music fan. I loved music so much, but I never created any. And so I never even learned how to bang out like an Elton John song on piano. I kept trying to learn, when I was starting to make my own music, I was trying to learn guitar, and I just suck. I think that it's notorious that if you're a keyboard person, you tend to have a really hard time learning guitar. I could not, and I worked hard at it. I would practice a tower every day. I can't make a clean G chord to save my life! I don't know if you play guitar, but it's painful. It's one of those things like skiing that I think if you are raised, you know, from the time you're 11 playing, your hand, your wrist, all of it, kind of knows how to do it, but if you don't, it's really brutal. So I discovered the omnichord, and I thought, oh, this is a way that I could be more Blond in Car-ish, because I'm a synthy girl, and I could play this and that would be a better instrument for me, because it's a weird instrument.

Robin’s unique and infectious style has amassed her over 120,000 followers on both. Instagram and TikTok. As she explained, “They call me a niche internet micro celebrity.”

SP: Is it weird being recognized by such famous people when you feel like you're such a niche internet micro celebrity

BIC: It makes me so proud, you know, because it's funny. Musicians want to be heard. I mean, when you write songs you want them to be heard, and I'm not really into me, like, being a celebrity. I don't care about that. I worked in film, I know what's good and bad about it, and I'm not egotistical in that way, but I do want my songs to get heard. I always felt like I was making really good songs and that if people could hear them, they would care about them. I think they're kind, I think they're relatable. I think they have a lot of humanity, and they're pretty– they're super pretty. I love melody, and I always felt that there would be people that would really like this music if they could ever find a way to hear it. So I'm super glad that people hear it, and I'm super flattered that musicians that I really admire, like Daffo, I'm so proud that they like my music.

Schorr had fears about her age attracting negative attention following the release of her self-titled album in 2021. Since joining TikTok and building a community around her music, Schorr says that her age is now something that empowers her.

BIC: I'm also really happy about the fact that I'm really old and that everyone is nice about it, I was so ashamed about that for a really long time. I felt like … I couldn't even tell what people were thinking. I was like, hiding in plain sight and wondering if anyone even noticed … I don't think old is an ugly word anymore, and I'm totally a champion for old, a new kind of old, like old can be cool and fun, and not all the things we associate with old as a drag. 

SP: Do you get a lot of musical inspiration from younger artists?

BIC: I just, I love the music of now. It's funny, because a lot of people my age like music that's older, and they only look at guitar, like rock and stuff. I don't really want to make music that isn't, doesn't feel sort of somehow modern. I wouldn't want to, it wouldn't interest me that much. I like Beach House and I love The Carpenters, so I love melody, but I'm in love with synthesizers.

Los Angeles is a big inspiration for Schorr when it comes to making music. Growing up, however, she had a complicated relationship with her home city. 

SP: Would you also say that being from California informs your sound?

BIC: LA is a tough cookie, and growing up here, I hated Los Angeles, and you know, you're just made to feel bad about yourself a lot. And now I love Los Angeles, and when I say that out loud, I feel like someone's about to, like, a foot from the heavens is gonna stomp me and squish me down. But I really do love it, because there's so much music here, and music people are so sweet. You know, I worked in film for my whole adult life, and that was a brutal version of LA, but because I grew up in LA, and I got all of that snooty, conformist, hierarchical, you're as nice as someone as you need to be. It's all transactional, all that shit.

SP: I’m curious about where the Blond in Car name comes from.

BIC: It was a movie I did. I produced a fairly crappy movie, Peaceful Warrior, based on this self help book that my boss loved. The funny thing about that project is that the self helpiness of it kind of did penetrate me eventually, because you watch these people saying these lines over and over again about “it's the journey, not the destination,” and stuff like that, and it eventually did sort of have a positive impact on me, even though I'm cynical about it. But I was an extra in that movie, and I ended up on the cutting room floor, but my credit, because they gave me a credit even though I wasn't in the movie, was “blond woman in car.” And I thought, Blond in Car, that's so LA, that's sort of a great, impersonal kind of LA, kind of name.

SP: So what exactly caused the switch from film to music?

BIC: It's uncanny, because seriously, in film, I never got anything I wanted. In music, I get miraculous things all the time, and I work my butt off, but it's not work. It's so fun. I just, I'm the luckiest little critter. I finally found this thing. I went through this whole crisis when I was in film, a feeling that I'd never found my purpose in life. I always felt like in film, I was kind of a B plus, and I didn't want to go to my death knowing I never found my thing. And I was tortured about it. And then all of a sudden, one day, I had this light bulb moment. I was driving on Olympic Boulevard in LA listening to country radio, and I said, “Holy shit, these people don't write their own songs.” I could write songs for country artists. And I came home and I said, I know what I'm doing with the rest of my life.

SP: What was that like writing for other artists? Did anything about that experience make you want to start writing your own music?

BIC: I never intended to make my own music. You know, when I first started, I thought I was going to write songs for Country artists. Really, I was writing in Country, and I never thought I would open my mouth and sing anything. And then I started writing for Sync, which is for film, TV, commercials, trailers. And I did really well at that was awesome, because I could stay in LA and make a living. I did really well at Sync. And then I started getting frustrated by the singers that I was working with, particularly the girls– I didn't like the way they were singing. They were singing all this fake drama. It just didn't appeal to me. I started having ideas for weirder songs, and I met a guy who had the same taste in music as me, and I said, maybe next time I have a session with you, I'll just bring a song. And I did, and that song was the first Blond in Car song, “Who’s Gonna Love That Girl.” Wow. And then we just started doing a song a month. 

SP: Just like that!

BIC: Just like that. I was supposed to be a shrink or something. My mother's a shrink. Never thought I'd work in film, never thought I would work in music in a million years.

Blond in Car continues to forge her own path in the music industry, one TikTok at a time. From an unfulfilling life in the film industry to a flourishing music career, Schorr proves to artists young and old that passion is worth taking a chance on. She is currently maintaining her weekly omnichord releases and began touring in early February. You can find her at blond.in.car on TikTok and blondincar on Instagram.