Episodes

"This is gonna sound gross, but I'm a 34 year old adult and I've just started flossing for the first time in my life." Come for the process, stay for the hygiene! Yes, there is a connection between Kevin Morby's songwriting process and his dental health: it all has to do with organization. But while Morby may not floss and write at the same time, he does have a few rituals. He likes a cheap Bic pen and a yellow legal pad for lyrics because the unfussiness of them allows him get messy. He likes...

Martin Courtney of Real Estate says that songwriting can be a "painstaking" process, so he's trying something new. "I'm trying to plow through it, take a step back, then chip away at it," he told me. He's also found fulfillment in writing about the small details of everyday life, trying to work those ideas into his songs. But he always has Strega Nona to fall back on. Courtney's new solo album is called Magic Sign.

For Laura Veirs, the songwriting process involves giving the muse a good, long side eye. That's when she's not painting, surfing, reading, or exercising--all while being a single parent. "I try to do several things at once so nothing becomes too precious or too obsessive," Veirs told me in our interview.

Six-time GRAMMY nominees The Black Pumas are not a found sound band. But Adrian Quesada loves nothing more than a good turn signal. "I’m always superimposing a 6/4 rhythm on them whenever I’m at an intersection," he said. So much so that that his wife often has to remind him when the light turns green. This interview with Quesada and Eric Burton is from December 2020.

BJ Barham of American Aquarium & I were reading S.A. Cosby long before it was cool! But seriously, now that Cosby has received universal acclaim for his books RAZORBLADE TEARS and BLACKTOP WASTELAND, the secret's out. Listen to my conversation with these two master storytellers as we discussed the writing process! (This interview is from April 2021).

"If the next record is about whaling, you'll know where that came from." Craig Finn takes it all in. He's the kind of songwriter who absorbs everything he sees and hears, and right now that involves reading "Moby Dick." Finn is a voracious reader, demonstrating something I've always maintained: the best lyricists read a lot. So when he sits down to write, he's efficient in his ritual: he writes quickly, usually giving himself 90 minutes to write four or five verses. Then he sets aside for a wee...

Fresh off their new release Headful of Sugar, Julia Cumming (bass, vocals) and Nick Kivlen (guitar, vocals) of Sunflower Bean discuss how their sometimes divergent creative processes coalesce into an efficient whole.

“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 always thinking about his next song. This interview is from July 2021.

"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 he’s cleaning the house, for example. “I love order,” Russell told me. “Clean kitchen, happy brain.” And he loves using lists to make his day easier. When I asked Russell what kind of writing he does outside of songwriting, his immediate response was simple: “I’m a listmake...

"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 of his marriage, the death of his father, and the growth of his children. Any three of these events, much less all three, would be time for introspection. On the deeply personal lyrics of Break Me Open, Carey channels this introspection. And these periods of reflection were...

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 should always write when you're hungry? Listen for the answer to that, and hear why he thinks songwriters always sing about "walkin' down the street."

“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 happening around me.”—Molly Tuttle. For Pruitt and Tuttle, dreams are an especially fruitful time for song ideas: both women have been awoken in the middle of the night by incredible melodies running through their head. (And as you’ll also hear, one of those daytime melodies...

"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 process is deeply contemplative and kinesthetic. But journaling is just one part of Cole’s very kinesthetic writing process. “I feel it in my body,” she told me. “It’s like feeling creatively pregnant.” Cole uses movement to bear those songs. They come from walking, swimming,...

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 conjure up new ideas. Midlake's latest album is called For the Sake of Bethel Woods (ATO Records).

(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, so this was a fun conversation. But we did this in the middle of the first COVID winter, so it's a stark reminder that songwriters are only now beginning to emerge from a long spell of unemployment. You'll hear phrases like "when you lose your job, it's stressful" and "the r...

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 gets anxious when he's not. He gets song ideas from everywhere: one song even came from the time signature of the alarm his car makes when he leaves the lights on.

“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 creating. This interview is from August of 2021.

"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 Anand Wilder, formerly of Yeasayer. In this podcast, you'll come for the process and stay for the impressions! Sure we take a deep dive into Wilder's songwriting process, but where else can you find impressions of John, Paul, and George (no Ringo). And Paul Simon? Impression...

“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 is think about creating?

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 2020. It's interesting to hear people talk about making and playing music in what seemed like a different time. I got these two together after noticing that they always commented on each other's social media posts. Little did I know this was the first time they met! This is...

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 every review has the obligatory "Laurel Canyon" reference. But heck: these are just good songs, period. No comparison needed. Erin Rae's latest album Lighten Up is out now on Thirty Tigers Records.

“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 genres outside of songwriting. As one of the songwriters for The Go-Go’s, Valentine wrote two of their most popular hits in “Vacation” and “Head Over Heels” as well as several other songs. So we’ve been able to check "killer songwriter” off the list for a while. Now we can ad...

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) when she discussed how she writes songs. She uses songwriting as a way to process the events in her life, much more so than most songwriters have shared with me. But it’s difficult to write songs when things are “pleasant” in her life. “There’s no urgency to the process in...

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 a flow state where the writing just happens: you don't have to think about the words because they issue forth. It's when you're on a roll. Achieving this flow state is hard, so that's where the bank pens and vacuum cleaners come in. Robinson is a pen-and-paper person for ...