Making Music with Jake Haws

I'm joined this episode by singer/songwriter, Kimberly Knighton. We talk about how she got started playing music, including taking songwriting classes, her time in Nashville and finding her voice as an artist. She performs the songs: Better Now, The ABCs, and We Don't Have To Save The World.

This podcast, I'm joined by Severin Bozung of Seve Vs. Evan. We challenged ourselves to write a song about being picked last in gym class. We ended up with a fun synth-pop tune called "The Underdog (Swervy Courage)."

In this episode, I'm joined by singer/songwriter Iris (aka Britney Holman). We talk about how got started making music, her time recording in Nashville and hearing her song at a Victoria's Secret. She performs 3 original songs: Love?, Let Go, and Blue Sky. Listen to more of Iris' music at officialirismusic.com.

For this week's episode, I'm joined by Tom Brinton. We challenged ourselves to "write a song about another band." We ended writing a song about the first time Tom heard The Strokes and appropriately titled the song, "The First Time I Heard The Strokes." Listen to our conversation writing the song and the process of recording it in this podcast. For lyrics and more info, visit jakehaws.com.

For this week's episode, I break apart a brand new song I just recorded called "Flawed," which will be on my new album coming out later this year. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

Today’s episode is about a song I wrote back in high school called "Based On a True Story." It's influenced by a Radiohead tune, "Bulletproof... I Wish I Was" from their album, The Bends. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

I'm joined by professional guitarist and friend, Mike Fjerstad. We challenged ourselves to "write a song based on an abbreviation." We chose "BRB" and came up with an epic story about a sci-fi romance involving a time warp. Hear our conversation writing the song and process of recording it in this week's episode.

This one is an oldie written during high school. At the time, I was digging the mandolin sounds on R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" so I tried to use that as a template. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

I was recently apporached by someone to record Depeche Mode's song "Somebody" in the style of Blake Shelton to be sung at his wedding.  Visit jakehaws.com for more details.

My attempt to write something in a Bossa Nova style. Influenced by the Astrud Gilberto & Stan Getz track, "The Girl From Ipanema." Visit jakehaws.com for more.

For this episode, I'm joined by a special guest, acoustic guitarist Camille Nelson. We talked about how she got started making music and she shares some of the stories behind the songs on her new album, Lead Me Home.

When my wife and I first married, we started a tradition of recording Christmas songs every year. Sometimes it's just one song and other years, we've recorded as many as five. We've kept it up for 11 years now, totaling 24 songs. This year, we recorded "Little Drummer Boy." I sang lead vocals, played acoustic guitar, bass, mandolin, tamborine, and cajon. My wife, Melissa sang harmony vocals. Our t...

In this episode, I highlight my favorite music of the year including songs from Dr. Dog, Dan Auerbach, Jeff Tweedy, Asgeir, Mac Demarco, LCD Soundsystem, Iron & Wine, Morning Teleportation, Spoon and Jason Isbell. Visit http://jakehaws.com/ep-59-favorite-music-of-2017-top-ten-albums/ for more info on this episode.

For this week's episode, I break apart a folky bluegrass tune of mine about a fictional kidnapping. Music influenced by Tapes 'n Tapes. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and free downloads.

For this episode, I remixed a track by Bleachers called "Don't Take The Money." Bleachers is the project of Jack Antonoff. He is also a member of the band Fun and has written songs for some pretty big names in pop music including Lorde, Taylor Swift, and Carly Rae Jepsen. His new album, "Gone Now" came out earlier this year. The remix I did was for a contest put on by indabamusic.com. I was given...

Today in Utah, we are celebrating Pioneer Day, which marks the day when Brigham Young and Mormon pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. To commemorate the occasion, I'm going to share with you a performance from when I was a part of the Men's Chorus at Brigham Young University. This performance took place April 2007 at the LDS General Conference, which is a meeting the church hosts twice...

For this week's episode, I'm joined by a guest collaborator, film composer and good friend of mine, Micah Dahl Anderson. The topic we randomly drew was "Write a song about a movie that doesn't exist." What you'll hear next is our conversation while writing the song (with the boring parts edited out), the process of recording it, and the finished song at the end. For the recording, Micah sang lead...

This one is an oldie written when I was around 15 years old. I was going for an R.E.M. feel and I think I achieved that with the guitar part, which mimics Peter Buck's picking style. The intro kind of has a spaghetti western vibe with the tambourine, shakers retro organ and overdrive guitar. The lyrics are about feeling like your life is passing by. Visit jakehaws.com for more.

Here's a brand new song I recently submitted to a contest put on by the podcast Song Exploder and a website called Splice. Basically, Splice is a subscription site which contains a large library of samples you can use for your songs. For this contest, I was given a collection of 50 samples and tasked with creating a song using at least 4 of them. If my song is selected, I'll win a one year subscri...

For this week's episode, I was was digging through some of my old tapes and found this instrumental piano piece I wrote back when I was around 14. I believe it might even be the very first thing I ever wrote. I submitted this tape for a school contest called "reflections" and won for my age category. It's not the best quality recording but I think it still captures the mood nicely. I'd love to see...

This week marks the 50th Episode for me of doing this podcast. I started it about a year and a half ago and It's been a lot of fun so I'm excited for the many more episodes to come. This week also happens to be the 50th Anniversary of the Beatles classic album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which is regarded by many as one of the greatest albums of all time. To commemorate the occasion,...

Today’s episode is a song from my “50 songs in 50 weeks” series. This is one of my first songs I ever wrote, written back when I was 14. It's about a time when I went to a school dance and the girl I went with pretty much ignored me the whole time so I was pretty bummed. They said, write what you know, don't they. Come I was I was 14. I tried to copy a little bit the style of Dave Matthews Band, p...

This week, I'm sharing a track called "Elephant In The Room" from my upcoming album, which should be out this fall. Most of the time when I write songs, I start off by playing something on the guitar or piano, then come up with some sort of melody on top of it, then add lyrics. This song is a little different, in that I had the melody in my head and come up with lyrics before I even picked up a gu...

For this week's episode, I break apart a song from my “50 songs in 50 weeks” series. This one was written back in high school. I originally planned on playing it with my band at the time, Made in the Shade, but it didn't quite come together when we jammed on it. When I wrote it, I was heavily into the band Sunny Day Real Estate. They came out of Seattle in the 90s and are considered one of the god...

This week, I'm sharing some music and sounds from a film project I recently worked on. This was a collaboration with my friend, Archie Crisanto. You long term listeners may remember Archie's name from episode 37 when we collaborated on writing a song together and also from episode 20 when I shared some music I wrote for a play he directed called "The Woman in Black." This project was a short 11-mi...