Deep Talk About the Songwriting Process.
In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's All. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating songwriters as writers, plain and simple. By Ben Opipari, English Lit Ph.D.
Recent Episodes
Oct. 6, 2025
Jay Som
"It's important to separate my sense of self-worth from my creations. If I was so self-aware of my output, I don't think I'd be having fun," Melina Duterte, who goes by the performing name Jay Som, told me. She says that outp...
Oct. 1, 2025
Hayes Carll
It's the return of Hayes Carll ! I first interviewed him in 2013 and again in 2016 . A recurring theme of those early interviews was Carll's admitted lack of discipline in the writing process. "I'm always looking for somethin...
Sept. 25, 2025
Mitch Rowland
"The decision has been made, and now it's time to f**k off," Mitch Rowland told me. To be clear, Rowland wasn't saying this to me; instead, it's Rowland ruthlessly killing his darlings in the editing process. Rowland is a solo artist, but he's also the guitarist in Harry Styles's solo band and has …
Sept. 17, 2025
Paul Muldoon
If you took a contemporary poetry class in college in the last 30 years, Paul Muldoon was probably on your syllabus. The New York Times has called him “one of the great poets of the past hundred years. . . . Only Yeats before...
Sept. 9, 2025
Patrick Hetherington (Parcels)
Patrick Hetherington of Parcels says that the urge to write usually strikes when he's had some kind of new input, but then he needs distance from that input to be able to process it and write about it. And a good sunset is ma...
Sept. 5, 2025
Molly Tuttle
It's the return of Molly Tuttle ! (The first time I interviewed Tuttle was in 2021, when I interviewed her and Katie Pruitt.) Tuttle won the GRAMMY for Best Bluegrass Album in both 2023 and 2024. And you don't become great wi...
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