Episodes

"I'm realizing how neurotic my process is as I'm talking to you," Jade Bird said, laughing, during our conversation. Indeed, Bird is pretty particular about her writing ritual, which can be intense: she usually takes a walk after writing to relieve back stiffness that comes from hunching over her notebook. And while many songwriters boost their creativity through movement, Bird says that there's nothing like a good nap! Bird's latest album is Who Wants to Talk About Love on Glassnote Records.

At some point I told Megan James and Corin Roddick, who compose Purity Ring, that this was the bizarro episode: I'd mention something that a lot of songwriters do, and they told me that they actually did the opposite. But that's why I love this band because the music they create is so incredibly unique. Their latest album is the self-titled Purity Ring. *photo by yuniVERSE

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová of The Swell Season feel no need to write every day. They both wait patiently for a spark. "I have no worries if I don't write anything. I'm available 24/7," Hansard says. "I never noodle, never rehearse, never just play around." For Irglová, she feels a current. "There's something calling me to the piano. There's a feeling. I plant the seed, then let it ruminate by doing something else like taking a walk," she says. Both can write most anywhere. Hansard wrote...

"I'm always chasing that ADHD thing: whatever it tells me to do, I just do it," John Gourley of Portugal. The Man told me. This episode hit hard. I used to be a middle school special education teacher. I taught kids with severe learning disabilities, and most also had severe ADHD. A big misconception is that people with ADHD can't focus on anything, when in fact the opposite is true: they focus on everything. "ADHD is a driver of my process," Gourley says, and as you'll hear he harnesse...

Laura Stevenson returns to the pod! This was an easy decision to have her on again (the first time was 2011) because I love her music and she's one of the funniest songwriters I've ever interviewed. I don't know how Stevenson has time to make music. We might imagine artists creating their art free of life's responsibilities, but Stevenson has responsibilities and then some: she's a mother, she's a music therapist, and she's getting her graduate degree. (She took Zoom calls with her thesis adv...

Cautious Clay and I spent the first ten minutes of this episode talking about the role that painting plays in his creative process. Then a few minutes later, the topic turned to the through line between basketball and songwriting. And later he mentioned that planks and stretching are a part of his writing ritual. He also plays seven (at least) instruments: drums, bass, guitar, piano, sax, flute, and vocals. Cautious Clay is a true Renaissance Man--who was also sampled by Taylor Swift. Cautiou...

This episode with Shura marks a first: we managed to draw a through line between Marcella Hazan's bolognese sauce and the songwriting process. We also talk about why peeing brings great ideas. (To be sure, Shura is not the first songwriter to tell me that.) Lest you think her inspiration is confined to those indoor pastimes, Shura told me that few things beat a hike in the mountains. This was one fun conversation! Shura's latest album I Got Too Sad For My Friends is out now on Play It Again S...

"The more I do this, the less I want to understand where it comes from," Orla Gartland says on the pod. Like most songwriters, Gartland likes to walk as a part of her songwriting process. She'll usually listen to music on these walks, and she walks to the tempo of the music she's listening to. So if you see her on the streets of London walking briskly one day and slowly the next, you now know why. Gartland's latest album Everybody Needs a Hero is out now.

It's the return of Nick Kivlen and Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean ! We had so much fun in 2022 that we had to do it again. Kivlen says, "One of things I'm realizing as Julia I talk is that our processes are totally different." And as you'll hear, differences can actually streamline the process. Sunflower Bean's latest album Mortal Primetime is out now on Lucky Number Records .

"Without the labor, channeling can't happen," Matt Gervais of The Head and the Heart told me. He has stacks upon stacks of Mead notebooks to prove it, all the way back to when he was a kid. Gervais finds art galleries to be particularly inspiring; they were a rich source when he worked in the Seattle Art Museum The latest album by The Head and the Heart is Aperture , out now.

When a band has seven GRAMMY wins and thirty-one GRAMMY nominations among them, they're a supergroup. So let's be clear: I'm With Her is a supergroup. The trio of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan, and Sara Watkins are close friends who say that great songs can come from a good trip to the grocery store. I've had all three on the pod before, but never together. The latest album by I'm With Her is Wild and Clear Blue on Rounder Records . NOTE: here are my past interviews with Jarosz , O'Donovan , ...

"I need to have times of being fully in bloom, then fully hibernating. That's how I get my best, most genuine work," Samantha Crain says. She's a seasonal songwriter who actively takes time not to write, and those times are the hibernation stages. Some of Crain's songs hibernate too: the title track off her new album took twenty years to write. Crain's writing process is like a wide-angle lens. She likes to write at the dining room table in a chair that gives her a view of the entire room. "I...

ED NOTE : here's my episode with Hood's bandmate Ashton Irwin. It's about time a songwriter referenced the movie Lost in Translation, as 5 Seconds of Summer bassist Calum Hood did in our conversation. It's part of Hood's process: he finds inspiration everywhere. And he likes to create every day, but that doesn't always happen. "I'm an anxious person anyway, so if I go a few days without writing, I start to wonder what's going on," Hood says. "That's when I practice mindfulness." Calum Hood...

Suzanne Vega usually heads straight to the compost heap for song ideas. "I have a compost heap of at least 50 notebooks dating back many years, and I pull from those notebooks when writing a new album," Vega says. She starts the process with a theme in mind then heads straight to that pile of notebooks to look for ideas to fit the theme. Some of her songs take years to emerge: "Lucinda" started as an idea more than 25 years ago. It's a pretty rich compost heap that can produce "Tom's Diner" a...

"I assign too much personal value to my creative output. Too much of my self-worth is wrapped up in that process in a way that is unhealthy," Stefan Babcock of PUP told me. It's natural for an artist to attach self-worth to what they create, but Babcock says he's working on loosening that attachment. "Trying to write and not have every song be everything has been a big weight off my shoulders," he says. PUP's latest album is Who Will Look After the Dogs? *Photo by Vanessa Heins

It's not easy being a songwriter. It's also not easy being a PhD student. I don't know how Uwade is able to do both simultaneously. Uwade is in the first year of her PhD program in Classics at Stanford University, and in this episode we explore how these two lives intersect. We also go deep into her songwriting process, which must involve a .38mm Muji black ink pen. It has to be black ink because "blue is too whimsical. Black ink is me telling myself, You have get real. No more fun and games. Bl...

Ed note: my new permanent intro and outro music is the Tennis song "Need Your Love." Alaina Moore and Pat Riley of Tennis are good friends of mine, which means this episode is more of a conversation than an interview as we go deep into the creative process. The band's website features Alaina surrounded by books, and this is hardly a surprise: they are voracious, and I do mean voracious, readers. We're always texting each other about the latest books we've read. Our latest obsession, as you'll he...

“Scribbling into oblivion” is how Lili Trifilio of Beach Bunny describes her editing process. (It's also an amazing song title.) She used this phrase in response to a question I like to ask songwriters: when you’re editing something you don’t like, do you cross it out with a single line or scratch it out? Trifilio wants that word or phrase to disappear forever. Beach Bunny’s latest album is Tunnel Vision.

Mike Campbell doesn't have songwriting rules. He hates them. But he doesn't need any because he's always creating. "I'm probably writing as I'm talking to you," he told me. In fact, Campbell's problem is that he can't stop coming up with ideas and sometimes wishes he could dial it back a bit. But that's what happens when you keep a guitar next to every chair in your house. Not just in every room, but next to every chair. Besides his work as Tom Petty's guitarist and collaborator/co-writer in ...

I always love having my buddy Derek Miller of Sleigh Bells on the pod! This is Miller's third time as a guest. I don't know how he ever has time to do interviews because the man is either writing music, about to write music, or thinking about why he's not writing music. Miller is inspired by everything, and I mean everything. Even LSU football. (Go Dawgs, sorry Derek!) We also talk about his newfound sobriety and how bands like R.E.M, the B-52s, and The Cars influence his music. The latest...

I'm a much better songwriter when I'm reading," Annie DiRusso says. Truer words have never been spoken; a clear through line connects quality songwriting and reading. And the fact that DiRusso loves poetry makes me even more of a fan. DiRusso does most of her songwriting in her "giant mess" of a bed. "It's covered in guitars, notebooks, pens, a laptop, mics. There's ink stains all over the sheets too," she says on the pod. DiRusso's new album Super Pedestrian is out now. (Photo by Danic...

Running and poetry are all Denison Witmer needs as a songwriter. "When I'm being physically active, my brain opens up," he says. Running is a big part of Witmer's life and plays a big role in his creative process. The other major source of Witmer's inspiration is poetry, and we talk about its impact on his songwriting. We also make a collective case for why the poet Li-Young Lee is so, so, so great and why you should read him right after you listen to this episode. Denison Witmer's new alb...

Benmont Tench is the keyboardist and a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That’s reason enough to listen to this podcast. I’ve interviewed other icons—Duff McKagan, Johnny Marr, and Jerry Harrison, to name a few—and they all have one common thread: a voracious appetite for art in all its forms. They consume books, movies, paintings, poetry, sculptures, you name it. Artists with longevity know that to create art, you have to constantly consume it. Tench is no exception. “The m...

"I have no rituals when it comes to writing. I don't want to think something can go wrong if things aren't set up the right way," says James McGovern of The Murder Capital. Indeed, that's the downside of a ritual: a fixed routine can limit your productivity when that routine isn't available. But McGovern does have one tiny "ritual" that I wholeheartedly endorse: writing the bad stuff before he gets to the good stuff. And as an aside, any songwriter who references Yeats, Keats, and Heaney in o...