Songwriters on Process

"A great way to write is to overwrite. Write more verses than could be contained in a song. Then take the best of what's there," says Rostam Batmanglij . I cannot agree more: good writers know that the first pass is never the time to decide what to keep and what to leave out. Overwriting will always be faster. Just ask Anne Lamott . Of course, overwriting for Rostam comes easy becau...

"When I'm not self-conscious, I tend to write better stuff. I need the dud sessions before I make progress," says Emma Jansson of Girl Scout . Good writing in the initial stages is indeed all about getting out of your own way and applying the Anne Lamott method . And it's why Jansson often starts her writing process with a pen and paper instead of a keyboard because, as she exp...

"We should see how many disco records were made in the winter," Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene said. And with that, we ventured into the intersection of songwriting and meteorology: how weather patterns and temperature affect the creative mind.  The Canadian songwriters I've interviewed tend to be seasonal writers. Many tend to write more during the winter, when they're like...

Jena Malone had me at the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. When the actor/songwriter started our discussion talking about Millay and the profound effect poetry has on her songwriting process, I swooned. There’s a theme here: I’ve had a lot of actor/songwriters on the pod recently ( Maya Hawke , Sasha Spielberg , The Wolff Brothers) and it’s not surprising that, given their other day jobs when they’re...

All you need to know about Maya Hawke's dedication to wordcraft is summed up in this memory: "The day I fell in love with my husband was the day we got into a fight about free verse poetry versus formal poetry." (Hawke's husband is singer/songwriter Christian Lee Hutson, whom I interviewed last year.) Hawke is of course an actor ( Stranger Things , Inside Out 2 , among others)...

As a bilingual artist, Lolo Zouaï uses both English and French on her new album Reverie . Sometimes it's because the meaning of a word in one language is more precise for the song, while other times the sound of the word fits the melody better. We take a deep dive into Zouaï's songwriting process and discuss why she's not good at late-night writing sessions, why the bathroom is a gr...

Donovan Woods is the master of the pull quote when it comes to the songwriting process. His words are wise counsel for any songwriter. To wit: "A good song asks questions rather than provides wisdom," and "When I have writer's block, it's because I'm not reading enough." I'll quibble slightly with the latter quote only because I cannot imagine Woods getting...

I wasn't surprised when Sasha Spielberg--an actor, visual artist, and musician who records as Buzzy Lee --told me that she once cried listening to the score to E.T. , one of her father's most famous movies. I was surprised, however, when she told me that she also cried watching "The Real Housewives of Orange County." But that's why this convo with Spielberg is one of the f...

Morgan Nagler has co-written with HAIM, Phoebe Bridgers, Kim Deal, Madi Diaz, and Margo Price among others. And now comes her fantastic debut solo album I've Got Nothing to Lose, and I'm Losing It . We go deep into her songwriting process on the pod, including a discussion of why physical movement is so important to the creative process.

My New Band Believe is Cameron Picton's new band after his time as the bassist and sometimes frontman for black midi . We go deep into his songwriting process, including a discussion of how sounds outside the studio affect his songwriting.  My New Band Believe's self-titled debut is on Rough Trade Records .

It's the return of Carl Newman of The New Pornographers ! We were just kids back in 2015 when I first interviewed Newman and we discussed his love of the 10cc song "Dreadlock Holiday." We return to that song in this episode, and we span the entirety of Newman's songwriting process, including a great discussion of why writing badly is so important and why gibberish is a great wa...

"I'm a jacket man," King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas) told me as we discussed why feeling good is important to the songwriting process. I had mentioned a writer who told me that he must wear a winter coat when he writes--even during the Washington, DC summers where he lives. This is not a complicated idea: if we're in a good headspace, we're more likely to be productive and writ...

"I very much consider myself a writer," Lindsey Jordan ( Snail Mail ) says. And any good writer has a ritual. Part of Jordan's ritual involves the balance between keeping the writing process precious and recognizing that too much preciousness can create a rut. Regardless, Jordan's love of reading (and poetry!) makes her one hell of a lyricist.  Snail Mail's latest album is...

Nate Ruess's songwriting catalog includes his Grammy winning band Fun ; his co-write and co-performance with P!nk on "Just Give Me a Reason"; and songs for Hayley Williams, Kesha, and Young Thug. After feeling no urge to write for ten years, he's back with the first new material in twenty years for his band The Format .  Their new album is Boycott Heaven .  And as you'll h...

Procrastinators unite! Thank you, Tyler Ballgame , you are a kindred spirit. Finally someone who admits that procrastination is a great tool for writing. So much has been written on the evils of procrastination, yet some people achieve peak efficiency only when they're under pressure.  But sleep works for Ballgame too: as you'll hear, some of his best songs started as dreams. And his ide...

“When I go to the grocery store, that’s part of the songwriting process. When I work on my truck, that’s part of my songwriting process. Every aspect of our life feeds into our creativity. The more present I can be, the better the songs,” says Buck Meek .  Meek, the guitarist in Big Thief, is the first songwriter to discuss how “fluid dynamics” impact his songwriting. The ocean—with its waves, shi...

Jade Long and Jessica Thompson of Athens, Georgia based Hotel Fiction have a simple routine for their songwriting sessions: make some brownies, pour some wine. And they like to be outside. It's not complicated.  But while food, drink, and the outdoors are all common sources of inspiration for songwriters, one element of the Hotel Fiction writing process is unique. When they're outside, t...

Nat and Alex Wolff had me at Sam Shepard . The playwright/writer/actor was one of my dissertation topics and the brothers acted in his plays, so we agreed early on that he's one of our favorite writers.  (After you listen, please read Shepard's Pulitzer Prize winning play Buried Child. )  I’ve interviewed other actors who are also songwriters, and as you’ll hear, all channel their stage...

Patton Magee of The Nude Party  has the best reason why reading makes you a better songwriter: it gives you a stronger and more wide-ranging vocabulary, which in turn gives you more ways to express yourself. "Words that you rarely use are a lot more fun to play around with," he says on the pod. This reminds me of one of my favorite lines in William Zinsser's book On Writing Well, wh...

"I am a taskmaster," Courtney Marie Andrews told me. When we talked back in 2018 , I marveled at Andrews' discipline. She calls it "chunk writing": Andrews doesn't write on tour but instead collects notes and ideas while she's there. Then, when she's home, she blocks off chunks of time on her calendar and does nothing but write. This discipline makes for pro...

"To write about something sad and dark, I need to feel content, to feel a sense of well being. I can't write when I'm depressed," Lucinda Williams told me.  Much of my discussion with Williams focused on how we prepare to write. By her own admission, she's obsessed with paper. "I could spend hours in an office supply store," says Williams. A comfortable chair is...

"I've been very happy lately, and that's worrying," KT Tunstall told me. "It's much easier to write sad songs than happy songs. Happiness makes you want to be present, but pain makes you want to escape. And music has always been a way for me to get out." Tunstall is adamant about not writing every day. "I love doing nothing, so mindless puttering is especial...

Why do so many of us feel the need to clean our space before we create? Melody Prochet (aka Melody's Echo Chamber ) and I discuss why it's important to our respective writing processes. When she's not writing in that nice and tiny space, she's walking along the water, another important element to her songwriting.  The latest album by Melody's Echo Chamber is called Uncloud...

"Pants delivery was my eureka moment," Julien Ehrlich of Whitney says on the pod, and with that we have my favorite out-of-context pull quote.  Ehrlich was not speaking metaphorically: when he and bandmate Max Kakacek were writing Whitney's first album, he drove a clothing delivery van that had no working radio. The monotonous drives were great sources of inspiration. Kakacek, on th...

“I’m a ‘go in phases’ type of gal. It took me a year and a half to write this record, but it came in blocks,” Gatlin says. It’s how she manages her routine in those blocks that makes her songwriting process so fascinating. Gatlin is most effective between 3pm and 5pm, and thanks to a typing class she took as a child, she can type those lyrics at 95 words per minute. She finds walks to be particula...