I used to work in radio. I learned to read by asking my father to transcribe the lyrics to early Eagles, Traffic, and Chicago albums; I listened to them, the handwritten lyric sheet in front of me, with giant white headphones while the albums spun.  I heard all those metaphors, like And they said you were gonna put me on the shelf, from "Already Gone" by the Eagles.  It took me a while to figure that one out: I couldn't understand why anyone would put someone in a kitchen cabinet. And as fate would have it, I ended up interviewing the man who wrote that song.

I get requests and pitches daily for the site.  With four young kids and a job that has me traveling over 100 nights a year, I have to be selective. Over time, the site has become a resource for songwriters, both amateur and professional. It's no longer a site for discovering new artists; instead, it showcases the songwriting process of established songwriters so that others can learn.  That's the first criterion. The second is that it has to be someone I like, because it's a pretty awesome thrill to talk to the person who created a piece of art that has moved me so much. Sometimes, though, I interview people that I don't really listen to but that have a backstory or a process so compelling that I want to learn more about it.