Making Music with Jake Haws

Today’s episode is about the title track from one of my albums called Ocean recorded back in 2002.First, I'll started with the influence. At the time, I was into a Seattle indie band called Pedro The Lion. One of my favorite tracks of theirs was the first song off their 1998 album, "It's Hard To Find A Friend" and the song is called "Of Up And Coming Monarchs."So when I wrote my song, there are se...

Since Easter was this last Sunday, I thought I would share something I dug up from my time as a missionary. This is a recording of my mission companion, Elder Brad Chaston, and myself singing "The Lord is My Shepard" recorded onto mini-disc. We were in Manhattan and this would have been sometime between January and April of 2004. This is one of my favorite hymns. We're not perfectly in tune with o...

This week's song is called "Scarlet Letter," which was released by my band Declaration on our 2006 album, Panic Button. This was originally written during my senior year of high school for a class project. We were reading the book, "The Scarlet Letter," and tasked with doing something creative to depict certain aspects of the story. Most people made posters or collages but I decided to write a son...

Today I have a special guest: Oscar Olaya. He's a rapper from New York City who now lives in Utah. We discuss his own journey of making music and play some tracks from his new EP. We even jam together on a song. Download his album on iTunes or stream it on Spotify. Here's his video for "I'm OK" (you can see me in the background): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rH4NoNPVko Here's the song Oscar an...

Pitchfork.com does a feature on their website called "5-10-15-20" where an artist talks about what they were listening to and influenced by during different ages in their life starting with age 5, than age 10 and so on. I thought it would be fun to do it myself. For a playlist with all these songs, visit: http://jakehaws.com/ep-40-5-10-15-20-music-thats-inspired-me-over-the-years/

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I thought it was a good time to share some Irish style music I've recorded. A little back, I was asked to write some music for a video game. The maker of the game described the different scenes to me and I tried to match the mood the best I could to each of those scenes (without seeing any visuals). The project ended up not happening but at least I g...

Today’s episode is a song from my “50 songs in 50 weeks” series called "What Can I Say". I recorded it in 2012 but it was actually written around 1999 while I was in high school. The lyrics are about expectations and wondering whether you measure up what other people want out of you. It was influenced by the Sixpence None The Richer song "Kiss Me." I probably would have been made fun of by my frie...

This week on the show, I'm excited to have as my first guest, a very good friend of mine, Archie Crisanto. We recently got together and challenged ourselves to write and record a song out of thin air. The topic we drew to base the song on was "having someone mistake you for someone else." In the audio, you'll hear our conversation in writing the song (with the boring parts edited out) followed by...

Today’s episode is an guitar instrumental. I actually wrote this one way back in high school. Over th years, I've tried to come up with some words for it but I was never satisfied with anything and it felt like the guitar part was melodic enough that it stood on it's own. I didn't have a specific influence in mind this time, other than I wanted to make something that sounded classical. Visit jakeh...

Today's episode is my cover of Weezer's Across the Sea. In 1996, Weezer released Pinkerton, their follow-up to the successful blue album. They went for a much rawer sound this time including both the sound and performance of the music as well as lyrics that drew from Rivers Cuomo's own heart breaks and frustrations. The album was initially panned but has since gone on over to time to become a cult...

This week's song is influenced by a band called The Black Heart Procession. I first heard them when I was a freshman in college and one of my room mates showed them to me. They have a pretty unique sound where they borrow from folk and blues traditions but with their own dark spaghetti-western spin on it. They incorporate church organ, put heavy reverb on the vocals and guitars and even play the s...

Today’s episode is a new song of mine called "Eye to Eye." This one is going to be on my album, which will be coming out later this year. It's influenced by Elvis Costello's song "Pump It Up." Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

For today’s episode, I'm sharing with you a instrumental piano piece I starting writing back when I was about 14. It's actually one of my first pieces of music. Over the years, I've modified it a bit and added parts to make it longer but the main theme has stayed about the same. About a year ago, I decided it would be a good idea to record it in case any film makers wanted to use it for a scene. I...

This week's song, "Have I Loved You" is influenced by the Beatles. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

For this week's episode, I break apart my song, "I Get By" (Song Exploder style) so you can hear the individual parts and how they came together to make this recording (spoiler alert: there's beatboxing!). This song was influenced by John Vanderslice. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

Listen to my selections for the best music of 2016, including Radiohead, Chris Staples, The Lumineers, Parker Millsap, Blind Pilot, Wilco, Kishi Bashi, American Football, Childish Gambino, and The Head and the Heart. Visit jakehaws.com for more.

This week's song is influenced by Bob Marley. Visit jakehaws.com for more info.

This week's song is about being a Dad. It's influenced by Drew Danburry. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

This week's song is influenced by The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

In this week's special Halloween episode, I highlight 4 original songs I wrote for a local stage production of "The Woman In Black." The music is very eerie and spooky sounding. Visit jakehaws.com to learn more and download the separate tracks.

This week's song is influenced by The Beatles. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

This week's track is influenced by The Beta Band. Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

This week's song is a religious tune from the LDS Children's Songbook. Visit jakehaws.com/podcast for the lyrics and more background on this song.

This week's song is influenced by the Beatles "Across the Universe" and Panda Bear's "Alsatian Darn." Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.

This week's song is influenced by Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You." Visit jakehaws.com for lyrics and more info.