Episodes

“It's important to me as a writer to push myself out of my comfort zone in order to grow. That's what excites me now.” With her terrific memoir All I Ever Wanted , bassist Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s loves exploring new g...

For Tomberlin, songwriting is emotional and heavy work. It’s not always pleasant. There’s a lot of emotional prodding and digging. The word “processing” came up a lot in my interview with Sarah Beth Tomberlin (aka Tomberlin) ...

Bank pens and vacuum cleaners: the keys to Emily Scott Robinson's songwriting process. Robinson and I both agree that having a writing ritual is important. Rituals give us confidence and comfort. But they also help us achieve...

“You’ve got to be open, you’ve got to fire the judge, you’ve just got to receive it all.” If you want to be a writer of any genre, says songwriter (and, yes, actor) Jeff Daniels, you also have to keep your radar on 24/7 for w...

"The good songs happen like someone is playing a record in space, and I have an antennae to pick it up. I actually hear it, and write it down as quickly as I can.”—Patterson Hood. "You don’t just get to have the muse all the...

When singer/songwriter Martin Sexton gets in a rut, he turns to chaos. Some songwriters take a break, some take a walk, others plow through until they get a breakthrough. But Sexton needs disruption. He uses two radios at onc...

For George Clarke and Kerry McCoy of Deafheaven, it’s not the ritual of the process itself that’s important as much as the preparation before the process. Both use a meditative and repetitive activity to prepare their mind: f...

Walter Martin’s most efficient writing process involves not sitting down with the intent to create. Also: being hungover helps. Like most songwriters tell me— Britt Daniel of Spoon was the last one—Martin does not sit down to...

Morgan Wade gets more done by 8am than you do. "The more active I am, the more energetic I feel. And that's when I get my best ideas," she told me. If you want to schedule a meeting with Wade, do it early. I mean really earl...

For the uninitiated: Debbie Gibson is still the youngest female to write, produce, and perform a #1 single, with "Foolish Beat" at age 17. I think I was just learning how to make toast at that age. She wrote all the songs on ...

Some artists create because they like the process and the product. They like what they do and they’re good at it, whether they’re amateurs or professionals. But other artists create because they need to create. They have to w...

No matter if she's writing great music or great books, Michelle Zauner goes by one credo: first thought, best thought. It's always garbage before the good stuff. "Raw source material is supposed to be crap,” Zauner says. “You...

Spoon's Britt Daniel finds that success as a songwriter comes when he's not trying to write songs. The less organization, the better. "When I try to write with intention, I come up empty," Daniel says. But if I'm not trying t...

Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches has an impressively organized songwriting process that involves spreadsheets, Pinterest boards, and a jar full of paper. For Mayberry, that organization involves writing every day. She has the jar ...

For Mia Berrin of Pom Pom Squad, how a song looks is as important as how it sounds. And her latest album Death of a Cheerleader looks and sounds red. Pom Pom Squad’s video for “ Head Cheerleader ” is fantastic. (The song its...

For Yola , songwriting is all about the colliculus. And sometimes a good vacuum. There’s a common motion many songwriters make when telling me where their songs come from: they start grasping in the air, mere conduits pulling...

Artists are always searching for the ideal creative state, that perfect time when the songs effortlessly flow. With both Anaïs Mitchell and Charlotte Cornfield , that involves, well, not really being aware of when they’re in ...

“As a songwriter, my job is to figure out how to draw some optimism out of any situation.” Five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ draws that optimism from the “big bubbling river” of creativity. We can all use a little Keb’ Mo’ in ...

Allison Russell & Aoife O'Donovan talk about the songwriting process as full-time moms. Hint: there's not a process. “We’re working moms, so the best undisturbed time is between midnight and 4am.”— Allison Russell “I’m not th...

Ben talks to Ben: Songwriters on Process interviews Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses. Fun fact: this is not the first time I've interviewed Bridwell. The first was in 2015, when the amazing Sera Cahoone hooked us up with each...

An introduction to the Songwriters on Process podcast