Dear Young Rocker

A podcast memoir about finding a home in rock music and learning to flourish in your own weird way. Created and narrated by Chelsea Ursin, executive produced by Jake Brennan (Disgraceland). Season one features twelve …

In this first episode, we travel back to the early 2000’s, get to know young Chelsea and experience first hand her struggles with anxiety, problems with being a girl, and why music is so important.

Young Chelsea brings us back to the strange landscape of middle school and recounts how she discovered and fell in love with her favorite band and …

In this installment of the story young Chelsea goes to her first big show (Green Day), attends a band practice for the first time, although not in the way she anticipated, and searches the internet for people who feel …

Chelsea's long held dream comes true as she experiences the rush of joining her first band and playing her first live rock show. Everything seems to finally be lining up. Even a surprise appearance by the cop's can't …

A trip to the local fair for young Chelsea and her band ends up a little more eventful than she had planned for. Like with any group of high school …

Tensions in the band have been high. Young Chelsea makes some mistakes and tries to do her best to hold things together to keep the music going. …

Junior year of high school is usually the time when kids have hit their stride and have found their crew. But things are still pretty complicated for …

Senior year and graduation is cracked up to be the pinnacle of high school, but Chelsea isn't feeling much school spirit. She just wants out, and is …

Chelsea presses pause on her own story and passes the mic to five other rockers. Members of the bands Palehound (Ellen Kempner and Larz Brogan), Summer Cannibals (Jess Boudreaux and Cassi Blum) and Worriers (Lauren …

Young Chelsea's first semester of college is an adjustment and she isn't sure about being a biology major. She finds one person who "gets it" though …

College is a time to try out different for yourself and Chelsea does just that with a 180 degree major switch from Biology to Music and Sound …

In this final episode of season one, young Chelsea starts coming up against some obstacles in her new chosen major of music and sound recording. She is feeling inadequate in her musical ability once again and it hinders …

Dear Young Rocker Season 2 launches August 26th, 2020. Tune in for a raw, honest, and strange story about finding yourself in your early 20's and a life-long relationship with music, along with some heartfelt advice …

In the Season 2 premiere of Dear Young Rocker, we find young Chelsea where we left her - in college as a sound recording technology major. She falls …

Choosing a major, or sticking with one, can be pretty stressful. Chelsea decides to take a break from thinking about it and joins a new yoga class …

With no music in her life for the foreseeable future, Chelsea has found a way to fill the hole in her life by getting more deeply involved with the …

A teacher takes an interest in Chelsea and gives her some feedback that rocks her world. She also does some jamming: by herself, with a new potential band, and with her friend at the world headquarters of noodling - …

Chelsea meets a friend in German class and struggles to live up to her new self-imposed expectations as a writer. She lets music fall by the wayside but uses her creativity to instead plan an escape from a lingering …

Sometimes running away from your problems is actually the right thing to do. Chelsea spends a summer living on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard in a cottage with no TV, internet, or cell service. She gets an inside look …

Chelsea experiences what feels like destiny when she runs into a crush in the most romantic way possible. An intense relationship develops between the pair, who happen to have a large age difference between them. The …

In this installment, Chelsea deals with a lot of change at once. The confusion and pain of her first major heartbreak is followed by an ambivalent …

Chelsea has a transformative experience as a mentor and music teacher at a week of Girls Rock Camp. Her band of high schoolers causes her to feel …

The story of the young band at rock camp continues. Chelsea helps them finish their new song and get ready to perform. In the process she realizes she might actually be what’s blocking their progress. The concert goes …

This episode of Dear Young Rocker finds our heroine in Scandinavia for the summer to volunteer at another rock camp. Being so far from home is …

In the season two finale of Dear Young Rocker, Chelsea feels an intense desire to make noise and tell stories. For the first time she fronts her own band. By writing her own songs and stepping up to the microphone, she …

Dear Young Rocker Season 3 launches April 7th, 2021. Tune in for a music-themed audio memoir podcast where musicians tell the stories of their teenage struggles and triumphs and how they became the artists and people …

Chelsea tells us the origin story of Dear Young Rocker and makes the case for creating the work you want to, rather than waiting for someone else to hand you the keys to the life you dream of. This will be the last …

Amy Hoffman of the band Future Teens has a transformative high school summer at an academic camp in Missouri. When a teacher encourages the students …

Michelle Zauner joins Chelsea to read a selection from and discuss her new book Crying in H Mart (Knopf). Chelsea asks Michelle about her writing process, her teenage relationship with her mother who passed away when …

Mia Berrin, frontwoman of Pom Pom Squad, tells the story of a difficult freshman year of high school in Florida. She endured racially-motivated …

Lira Mondal of the band Sweeping Promises shares her story of growing up in Arkansas as a nerdy choir kid longing to fit into an alternative rock …

Katie Lau takes the mic on this episode and tells her story of adolescent self-discovery as a kid that withdrew after some harsh bullying but came …

Elise Okusami of the band Oceanator started playing guitar and listening to Green Day pretty young at nine years old, and her first band wasn't long …

Wendy Eisenberg went through a best friend transition in middle school that led to playing in their first band and some insight about what it means …

LG of the band Thelma and the Sleaze brings us all the way back to her early adolescence in Kankakee Illinois. Surviving a childhood marked by head …

While Anjimile Chithambo was growing up in Richardson Texas, he found himself drawn more and more to music. After trying different genres on for …

Claire Gohst releases her music under the name Paper Citizen. She grew up in a restrictive and abusive conservative Christian household in Singapore. …

Shannon Shaw of Shannon and the Clams didn't start playing bass and writing songs until she was 25. It's hard to believe listening to her songs …

Dear Young Rocker is a scripted non-fiction storytelling and audio memoir podcast featuring stories from women and trans musicians. In Season 4, launching September 14, 2022, series creator Chelsea Ursin hands the baton …

Dear Young Rockers: This season is going to be different. To introduce a new season-length story, DYR creator Chelsea Ursin interviews Atlanta-based musician and artist Nadia Marie, who will tell her own incredible …

“I was born and born again at the age of 23.” In the Season 4 premiere of Dear Young Rocker, Atlanta’s Nadia Marie shares her life story and the disorientation one feels when starting completely over after a bicycle …

Just days after a bike accident leaves her with a concussion, Nadia experiences memory loss as she attempts to play a solo gig with her beloved harp. …

Dear Young Rocker: Starting over is not always what you think it will be. In this episode, Nadia uses music to help her keep track of what’s around her, recording music on her iPad to help exercise her recovering brain. …

Dear Young Rocker: Is anyone ever really an adult? Nadia reflects on the sounds and feelings of childhood freedom. She brings us back to growing up …

Dear Young Rocker: The restlessness you feel in amnesia is similar to the restlessness you felt in youth—stuck, begging time to pass as quickly as possible. There will be moments that will feel new and fun, and other …

Dear Young Rocker: No matter how many places you move to, your closest friends are always in the exact same place—right on your computer screen. In this episode, we flashback to LiveJournal and the dawn of the …

Dear Young Rocker: Sometimes, when you least expect it, you meet someone who changes everything, who shifts your life's path forever. Finding herself …

Dear Young Rocker: It's okay to feel restless. You'll bounce around a lot and feel that no one knows you, except your new friends on the internet and the people who watch you sing — the ones you think you'll never meet …

Dear Young Rocker: Make a note — keep a diary that you share with your friends, the ones you love and random people you meet.

Nadia spends time looking back on the moments that shaped her most...
Sometimes the things in …

Dear Young Rocker: there will be things that you will spend the rest of your life trying to piece together and figure out. Certain things you just never get over.

And you don’t have to!

It’s ok... to not be ok. 

Nadia …

Dear Young Rocker: the most challenging times can also be the most beautiful times. Someday you’ll look back and realize it all passed so quickly, …

Dear Young Rocker: you can spend your whole life wondering, obsessing over the “what if’s” -- but no matter the circumstances, it’s still your life.

…

Anna Nicole Smith transcended the laws of celebrity. She was a blond sexpot who was famous for being famous, and that was reason enough for pop …

Homemade bombs, bricks of weed, deranged stalkers, an old family curse, an attempted presidential assassination, and one of the most violent murder …