Eli Hewson of Inhaler likes to stay up and writes all night. Come morning, he heads to bed and will sometimes pass his father Bono (yes, that Bono), who is just beginning his day and starting to write. Hewson's bandmate Josh Jenkinson wants no part of those late night writing sessions. "I just go to bed," he says. Jenkinson is a daytime writer; like Hewson, he's most productive during the day when no one else is around.
Read MoreHamilton Leithauser keeps regular hours. And those hours can be early: on the day we talked, he had started writing at 5am. It’s a problem if he doesn’t write every day, he says. "I keep regular hours, and if I don’t write every day, I feel anxious or like I’ve done something wrong.
Read MoreIf you see Cecilia Castleman browsing the paint aisle at Home Depot, she’s probably not looking for paint. She’s looking for song ideas. Castleman finds inspiration everywhere, but paint names, she says, are particularly rich sources for song ideas and lyrics. Her debut self-titled album is good. Really, really good.
Read MoreRebecca and Megan Lovell, the GRAMMY-winning sisters who compose Larkin Poe, are “serial idea keepers.” This means they don’t write every day. Instead, “we pull back on ideas until we are ready to write,” they say. This seasonal writing, as they and other songwriters like to call it, requires discipline: you have to resist the urge to write every day and only write during certain times. The advantage of this is that the words flow freely when it’s time to write.
Read MoreFlipturn's Tristan Duncan (guitar), Devon VonBalson (drums), and Dillon Basse (vocals) join the pod and go deep into their creative processes. The band’s latest album Burnout Daysis out January 24 on Dualtone Records.
Read MoreIs Vera, the debut album by Phil and Tim Hanseroth (The Hanseroth Twins), really a debut? After all, they've won three GRAMMYs and have been nominated seven more times for their songwriting collaboration with Brandi Carlile. (They're the twins who flank her in concert live.)
Read MorePhantogram talk about their decidedly old-school writing process, which involves analog typewriters, Dictaphones, and why tech has ruined our ability to be bored.
Read MoreWhenever Sophie Allison (aka Soccer Mommy) puts something out, I know I'll like it. Her new album Evergreen is no exception. We take a deep dive into her songwriting process on this episode.
Read MoreUnfortunately, I stopped recording before Conor Deegan (Deego) and I started reading poetry to each other. But that should give you a sense of how deep I went into the creative process with the Fontaines D.C. bassist.
Read MoreHello Mary on the pod today! Stella Wave, Helena Straight, and Mikaela Oppenheimer released their debut album in 2020, when Wave was 19 and Oppenheimer and Straight were 16. The band talks about their writing processes behind their new album Emita Ox.
Read MoreJacob Slater's band Wunderhorseis why you should always get to the show early to see the support act, as I found out in 2022.
Read MoreIt’s always fun to interview two songwriters who have a history together! Before his solo career, Kishi Bashi was a member of Kevin Barnes’ band of Montreal
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Magdalena Bay finds inspiration in everything around them, visually and sonically—even the act of Swiffering and the sound of hybrid cars.
Read More"I'm always writing and always creating. I relate to the world by writing," Eva Hendricks of Charly Bliss says. Even the act of hanging laundry is a rich source of inspiration.
Read MoreTracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura has a superpower: she's able to write entire songs in her head before putting them to paper.
Read MoreMatthew Koma of Winnetka Bowling League stops by the podcast to talk about how writing a song is like solving a crossword puzzle, why he doesn't like to dig through discarded melodic and lyrical ideas for new songs, and how he gets inspired by being among the stores.
Read MoreAshton Irwin, drummer for 5 Seconds of Summer, often writes songs out of necessity. While he likes to journal, Irwin finds songwriting a much more effective vehicle for maintaining his mental health.
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