Episodes

“If I’m drawing a lot, I’m writing a lot. Those two processes are closely connected.” Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman is, in his words, the “supreme doodler.” Whether he’s longboarding or reading to his kids or drawing, he's...

"I like to have structure in my songwriting process in order to let chaos rule." Jonathan Russell of The Head and the Heart loves structure. It helps him in his domestic life: he often finds missing bridges in his songs when ...

"With the stuff I've been through, I would just go outside and immediately start to feel better." S. Carey's (Sean Carey) new solo album Break Me Open was written during a time of tremendous domestic change: the dissolution o...

Tim Kasher's latest solo album is called MIDDLING AGE. The Cursive frontman explains why he's a "militant reader" and why he doesn't subscribe to the Hemingway credo of "write first, read later." But does he believe that you ...

“I’m better at writing songs after I’ve processed an emotion. I have to let myself feel an emotion before I can write about it.”—Katie Pruitt. "I write the best when I’m not putting pressure on myself to write about what’s ha...

"The more evolved periods of my life are when I’m journaling. My journal is a backbone to my life, a conversation with my subconscious. It makes for a healthy mind and spirit.” For Grammy winner Paula Cole, the songwriting pr...

Eric Pulido of Midlake takes a deep dive into his songwriting process on today's episode. Pulido is an avid runner, and we talk a lot about how that four mile loop in the local park is a great way to both get out of a rut and...

(This interview is from February 2021.) Listen to old friends Sarah Jarosz and Margaret Glaspy talk about their songwriting process! Four-time GRAMMY winner Jarosz and Glaspy have known each other since they were teenagers, s...

This interview is from January 2021. You think you're prolific? Stu Mackenzie and his bandmates put out five albums in one year, and sixteen over the course of ten years. Not surprisingly, Mackenzie is always creating and get...

“My receptors are always on because I don’t want to miss anything I see or hear. I try to collect everything," says Steve Gunn. The songwriting process is 24/7 for Gunn. Even when he’s not putting pencil to paper, he’s creati...

"If I have anything to give the world as a songwriter, I'm trying to explore the middle ground. That's not the most effective for songwriters because the most provocative things are clear statements of good and evil," says An...

“There are days when the songs won’t stop coming. It’s like I’m holding a bucket in the rain and just trying to catch all the ideas.” Bartees Strange has a lot of song ideas. So how does he get them all down when all he does ...

Did you know that "The Ballad of Jayne" by LA Guns was one of the first songs Brian Fallon learned on guitar? Or that Tracii Guns is a huge Brian Fallon fan? This interview is from the early stages of the pandemic, September ...

Erin Rae needs three things for her songwriting process: a hardwood floor, a phone on airplane mode, and glowiness. Rae typically gets compared to 70s singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne. It seems like ev...

“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 ...