LSQ

This spring, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien released a beautiful and soul-stirring album called Blue Morpho , and in this episode, he shares with great depth and candor what inspired the album, his approach to recording it, and the transformative self exploration required to make it. One of the elements of the project was his desire to capture sounds at 432 Hz, and you’ll hear him explain the idea...

“Words were always my weapon,” says Genesis Owusu, talking about the love of creative writing he discovered as a child. “Also kind of ironically, conversation wasn’t always my weapon, so I always felt like the truest and rawest and most authentic of myself came out when I was writing stories or poetry. I’ve always loved world-building. Whether that be though a storyline or a soundtrack or a visual...

Like many of their fans, I discovered Corook’s music on TikTok , and I was immediately charmed by the sweetness and humor and directness of their songs. Honestly, as someone who is newer to using TikTok — I only set up my page about a year ago — I’ve been surprised that many artists who are hugely popular there, with viral videos amassing millions of views, have relatively little exposure in more...

Talking about his band American Football ’s latest return following a long absence, frontman Mike Kinsella invokes the notorious D.B. Cooper, saying, “I feel like we jumped out of a plane with a suitcase of money, except it was old demos, and then we faked our own death. We didn’t know we were faking it, we thought we were dead, everybody thought we were dead, and then it’s like, oh we’re alive, w...

“ Kneecap was born out of this need to represent the identity of young people who speak Irish in the city, an identity a lot of people around the world wouldn’t know exists,” says Móglaí Bap of Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap . “When I was growing up, you wouldn’t have seen the language on mainstream radio or BBC1 or in the cinemas, so as a teenager it wouldn’t have been that cool to speak Irish. So Kn...

“I just remember being fascinated by language, it felt like this treasure I was discovering,” says Arlo Parks , of her childhood affinity with words. “I remember being obsessed with the word ‘pebble,’ and the sense of different shapes. Maybe it’s because I learned French before English, so my approach to the English language was quite, like, seeking and grasping and understanding as I went along....

“When I started going to rock & roll camp once a summer, I definitely always felt like there was a lot to be proven of being like a girl, a small girl,” says Snail Mail ’s Lindsey Jordan. “My whole brain was just this ‘Be better than the boys, I have to in order to be able to even just exist’ thing, and that took some of the enjoyment out of it. But now I do have a bloodlust for getting better...

“I had never played a concert until I got a record deal with Sub Pop and they were like, ‘Well, you should consider going on tour,’" says Iron & Wine 's Sam Beam. "I was like, ‘Oh shit.’ It’s a very atypical story, and it also made me suffer from a lot of imposter syndrome for a long time. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, that I had fooled someone along the way and they...

“It is important to have faith when you’re making something,” says Florence Shaw, frontwoman for U.K. post-punk band Dry Cleaning, regarding the hyper-specificity of her lyrics and how they can still feel very relatable, even when she’s referencing something unfamiliar. (This, by the way, is one of my favorite things about Dry Cleaning’s music.) “You don’t have to dumb everything down and you don’...

In episode 133, Sudan Archives 's Brittney Parks shares the story of her creative evolution, beginning with falling in love with violin when she was in fourth grade (thanks to a school visit by Canadian fiddle group Barrage ), how playing in church led to learning songs from the MTV countdown to impress her friends, and eventually learning how to make beats and record her own songs using her i...

To kick off season 9 of the LSQ podcast, I had the pleasure of reconnecting with my old friends The Format , who are back together with their first new album since 2006’s Dog Problems. Produced by the legendary Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Bruce Springsteen), Boycott Heaven is a welcome return from the duo of Nate Ruess and Sam Means , who continue to expand into new terra...

An all-time favorite artist sits for an all-time favorite interview! Bon Iver 's Justin Vernon is my guest in this episode of the LSQ podcast — the final episode of 2025 and season 8 of the show. We recorded this at his home studio back in June, shortly after the release of Bon Iver’s brilliant latest album, SABLE, fABLE , which recently earned him another couple well-deserved Grammy nominatio...

Indie rock legend Evan Dando joins me in episode 130 to talk about The Lemonheads ’ excellent new album, Love Chant — their first LP of originals in twenty years. We also discuss the Townes Van Zandt covers album he’s currently working on, his recently released memoir, Rumors of My Demise , and we delve into important creative influences past and present: Sylvia Plath , the Replacements , Big Star...

It was awesome to finally get to interview Neko Case , whose music (both on her own and with New Pornographers) I've admired for ages. In late September she released an awesome new album called Midnight Grey, Neon Green , and in the interview she shares about the inspiration for the album, which she describes as a tribute to music and musicians, and "a tribute to joy, and the joy that mus...

For episode 128, I spoke with the brilliant Mdou Moctar , a Tuareg singer, guitarist and songwriter whose sound combines rock, blues and contemporary Saharan music into songs that range from shreddy and electrifying to beautiful and contemplative, and all the stops in between. I highly recommend digging into his catalog, which is now several albums deep. His latest releases with his band were a pa...

"I got the writing bug very early," says Suede's iconic frontman Brett Anderson. "I was fascinated by the simplicity of what was in front of me: You have six strings, and a limited number of notes, and 26 letters in the alphabet, and all of these things simultaneously mock you and inspire you. And it became a sort of an addiction for me quite early on, trying to search for that...

I remember back in the mid 90s when I first got into Elliott Smith ’s music and discovered that he also had a band. That band was called Heatmiser , and they were putting out amazing music, as well. A particular favorite for me was their 1996 album Mic City Sons , an album I’ve listened to hundreds of times over the years. And they’ve just released out an expanded 30th anniversary edition via Jack...

I can still remember being in high school in the early 90s and having my mind blown by seeing the video for Fishbone ’s "Sunless Saturday" on MTV’s 120 Minutes and going to my local record store (R.I.P., Twisted Disque on Jamaica Ave) to get their album The Reality of My Surroundings , and then walking around Queens with it blasting in my headphones, mesmerized by the way they melded genres like s...

Following the recent release of her excellent sophomore album, If You Asked For A Picture , Blondshell ’s Sabrina Teitelbaum joins the LSQ podcast to talk about important musical discoveries along her creative path: Falling in love with the Rolling Stones after her parents took her to see them in concert at Madison Square Garden when she was only seven years old, delving into songwriting a few yea...

Ben Kweller ’s music first stole my heart back in the early oughts when he released his wonderful debut album Sha Sha , and I have been a huge admirer of his work ever since. I’ve also had the good fortune of his friendship for more than twenty years, so it was amazing to finally get together with him for the LSQ podcast. Episode 123 features a deep and poignant conversation with BK about his enti...

For episode 122 of the LSQ podcast, I had the pleasure of connecting with the up-and-coming singer-songwriter Uwade , whose beautiful debut studio album, Florilegium, arrived this spring following, truly, YEARS of anticipation from those of us who were first captivated by her voice when we heard her sing on Fleet Foxes ’ 2020 album Shore . As you’ll hear, Uwade’s musical influences since childhood...

“There was always a way that music could speak to me,” says Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers . “I was really shy as a kid and I had a lot on my mind that I didn’t know how to get out. And music felt like one of those cheat codes where I felt like what I could say through one song was a lifetime worth of what was in my brain that I couldn’t say any other way.”  I was instantly captivated by Youth Lagoo...

When I learned that house and dance music legend Crystal Waters has been finishing her first new album since 1997 and was getting ready to share singles and do interviews and therefore might be up for talking with me, I was so geeked.  I’ve been a fan since the early 90s when huge hits like "Gypsy Woman" and "100% Pure Love" were all over the radio, and it was an honor to get t...

In episode 119, I catch up with Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller , the noise pop duo better known as Sleigh Bells . I have been a massive Sleigh Bells fan since their first few singles back in 2009 — brash, genre-defying bangers like “Crown on the Ground” and “Infinity Guitars” that sounded unlike anything else, combining elements of pop, metal, hardcore, hip-hop and punk. They’ve continued to blow...

It's a good thing ANOHNI and I decided to leave the cameras turned off for the interview included in episode 118 of the LSQ podcast, because there were moments when she was talking --about her creative process, about using her voice and her music as a survival strategy, about what it felt like to grow up as a trans femme amidst the violence of patriarchy -- that I was nearly in tears, so moved...