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. It’s difficult to write songs, for example, when things are “pleasant” in her life. “There’s no urgency to the process,” she told me.
Read MoreA good songwriting process for Emily Scott Robinson involves bank pens and vacuum cleaners.
Read MoreSure, you know Jeff Daniels from his many films, but he's also been writing songs and playing guitar since 1976.
This is a conversation about the artistic process writ large, so if you're a songwriter, a playwright, an actor, or any combination of the three, you’ll love this interview. The playwriting process and the songwriting process overlap as Daniels effortlessly segues between the two in our discussion; at some point, he exclaims, "It's all fucking connected!"
Read MoreThere are two points during my interview with Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers and Lilly Hiatt when each reaches to the sky, grabs a piece of air, and pulls it down. Both were describing their songwriting process: songs come from the muse, from the sky, from somewhere they can’t explain. And it’s their duty to grab that song, pull it down, and create it.
Read MoreWhen Martin Sexton is in a rut, he drives his internal editor crazy through utter chaos: two radios playing two different songs simultaneously.
Read MoreFor George Clarke and Kerry McCoy of Deafheaven, it’s the ritual before the creative process that’s more important than the ritual during it.
Read MoreWalter Martin’s most efficient writing process involves not sitting down with the deliberate intent to create. Also: being hungover helps. Photo credit: Melissa Martin
Read MoreMorgan Wade’s songwriting process doesn’t involve a lot of sitting around. But it does involve some really early mornings. And I mean early.
Read MoreDebbie Gibson thanks The Song Fairies—and sometimes a carousel horse—for the zen-like calm that allows her to write so many iconic songs.
Read MoreJulien Baker and Matt Nathanson make music not just because they want to, but because they have to. For both songwriters, it’s a vital form of self-expression that’s not always easy.
Read More“Raw source material is supposed to be crap,” Michelle Zauner says. “You have to allow yourself to be terrible.” Her best writing comes in the revision process, not in those “garbage” first drafts.
Read MoreFor Mia Berrin of Pom Pom Squad, how a song looks is as important as how it sounds. And her latest album Death of a Cheerleader looks and sounds like red.
Read MoreArtists are always searching for the ideal creative state, that perfect time when the songs effortlessly flow. For both Anaïs Mitchell and Charlotte Cornfield, that ideal state involves, well, not really being aware of when they’re in that ideal state.
Read MoreAllison Russell and Aoife O’Donovan are celebrated songwriters—and working moms. This makes for a songwriting process in which the only ritual is recognizing that you don’t have one.
Read More“You would think that suffering leads to good art, but that’s false. I find it stifling.” Like most songwriters, Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses has found the past two years to be a bane to his creative process.
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