My Favourite Elliott Smith Song

Catherynne M. Valente - or Cat - is a writer of fantasy and science fiction books. Her work includes the novels Palimpsest and Space Opera, and the Fairyland and Orphan's Tales series of books. Cat heard Elliott Smith for the first time in Miss Misery and immediately set about saving the money she needed to buy the film's soundtrack. In this interview we talk about how her love of Elliott has grow...

Joining us today is musician, Jessica Dobson. Jessica Dobson is a musician based in Los Angeles. She's the lead singer and guitarist for her band Deep Sea Diver, a group she formed in 2012. Before starting that project, Jessica played and toured with the likes of Beck, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Conor Oberst, and was a member of The Shins for a couple of years from 2011 to 2013. In this interview, Jessic...

Joining us today is the visual artist, Bunny Rogers. Bunny is a contemporary American artist that creates installation, video and sculptural works. She told us that Elliott Smith has been a big inspiration in a number of her works, sometimes consciously and other times subconsciously. Bunny has exhibited her work at many significant art museums and organisations all around the world, including the...

This episode is released on a special day - what would have been Elliott Smith’s 51st birthday.  We’ve been saving this interview to put out today because our guest Steve Holmes, who plays in the band American Football, has quite a strong personal connection to the song he picked. He talks us through one of Elliott’s rare and unreleased tracks because he was actually there at one of the very few t...

Joining us for this bonus episode* is the photographer, JJ Gonson. JJ had a big impact on Elliott Smith's career - particularly in the earlier stages. She was the manager of Heatmiser, she lived with Elliott in the house he recorded his first solo album in (a record she had a writing credit on), and she took countless photos of him and their friends during those days in Portland. JJ is also prepar...

In this episode, we’re taking a bit of a two pronged approach to the song we’re looking at.  First up, we have our main interview, which is with the musician Sammy Brue. Sammy is a musician based in Ogden, Utah, in the United States. Sammy released his first album at the age of just 16, and now at only 18 he’s just put out his second record, Crash Test Kid. He’s also quite new as an Elliott Smith...

Our guest today is the musician, Josh Burgess.  Josh plays in a band from New Zealand called Yumi Zouma. The group have been making music since 2014 and have put out three studio albums, with their most recent record - called Truth or Consequences - coming out in March this year. The band’s sound is a lot poppier than Elliott Smith’s, so it was interesting to hear that Josh was a fan, and we used...

Our guest today is the musician Ben Gregory. Ben is the lead singer and guitarist from the band, Blaenavon. Last year the band released their second album, Everything That Makes You Happy, and a collection of demos called Demoitis.  And Demoitis has, Ben says, some of his most Elliott Smith-influenced work. So, in this interview, we discuss that record, how he can relate to the mental strain Ellio...

Our guest today is the writer and podcaster, Merlin Mann. Merlin is the man(n) behind shows such as Do By Friday, Reconcilable Differences, Back to Work and Roderick on the Line, with a former guest on this show, John Roderick. He's also a big Elliott Smith fan too, and in this interview he talks about seeing him play live, how he still turns to his music when he's feeling vulnerable and we cover...

Welcome to a season three bonus episode! Our guest today is the actor Joe Gilgun, who's been in films and TV programmes such as This is England, Misfits and Preacher, and you currently see him on screens in the UK in Brassic, a show he also created. It's a bonus episode because Joe had so many different Elliott Smith songs he wanted to pick, we decided to discuss several tracks, rather than just o...

Our guest today is Joan Wasser (aka Joan as Police Woman). Joan is a musician, who started off her career playing with several bands including the Dambuilders, Antony and the Johnsons and Those Bastard Souls. Since the early 2000s, Joan has principally released music as a successful solo artist, releasing five regular studio albums, plus an EP and a couple of collections of covers. She's lived in...

Kicking off our third season is the musician, Christian Lee Hutson. Christian is a singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. He's currently preparing to release his third album, which has been produced by his friend and collaborator (and former guest on this show) Phoebe Bridgers. Keeping that kind of company, it's perhaps unsurprising that he is a big Elliott Smith fan. In this interview, we talk a...

To kick off the final episode of our second season, we speak to the musician Fenne Lily. Fenne is based in Bristol in the UK and released her first album, On Hold, in 2018. She's currently preparing to release her second record and kindly took some time out to chat to us about her favourite Elliott Smith song, what she learns from Elliott's writing and why she didn't become a fully fledged fan unt...

Our guest for our final episode of 2019 is the musician Rob Grote. Rob is the lead singer and guitarist in Philadelphia band, The Districts. He's also a massive Elliott Smith fan, and in this interview we talk about his selection for his favourite song, some of the Elliott lyrics he likes and why his music is really for any occasion. Following the chat with Rob, our listener pick comes from James...

Our guest today is the musician Ellen Kempner. Ellen leads the band Palehound, who released their third studio album, Black Friday, earlier this year. Ellen cites Elliott Smith has a major influence on that record, as well as on all of her previous work too. In this interview, we discuss how those influences come through in her music, how she was introduced to Elliott by a former guest on this sho...

Our guest for episode 13 of our second series is the musician, James Alex. James is best known for his work with the punk rock band, Beach Slang, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the US. They've released two studio albums - as well as one under the name Quiet Slang - with another on the way in the early part of 2020. James is, unsurprising, a massive Elliott Smith fan. In this interview, he...

Our guest today is the musician Prateek Kuhad. Prateek is a singer/songwriter currently based in New Delhi, India, though his life as a touring musician means he often finds himself further afield than that. He grew up in India as an aspiring musician but it wasn't until he moved to New York to go to university that he really got into Elliott Smith. In our interview, he discusses when it all click...

Our guest today is the musician Sameer Gandhia. Sameer is the lead singer of the band Young the Giant, a Los Angeles based group who've released four albums so far, including, most recently, Mirror Master, which came out about a year ago. He is also a big Elliott Smith fan, and in this interview he talks about how he's finding new appreciation for Elliott as his own career progresses, how he becam...

Musician, writer and podcaster John Roderick is our guest for episode 10 of season two. John was part of the music scene in Seattle during the '90s, while Elliott Smith was making a name for himself in nearby Portland. He saw Elliott play numerous times and admired the way he was able to carve his own sound, which was distinctive from a lot of other artists in the Pacific Northwest at the time. In...

Our guest today is Slim Moon, the founder of the record label Kill Rock Stars.    KRS put out two Elliott Smith albums, the self-titled record (1995) and Either/Or (1997), so Slim had pretty much a front row seat as he saw Elliott firmly establish himself as a successful solo artist.    As you can imagine, Slim has some incredible stories to tell – both about his favourite song pick, his relations...

Our guest today is the musician Laura Stevenson.  Laura is from New York and has released five albums over the course of her career, including, most recently, The Big Freeze which came out in March.  Laura is also a big Elliott fan, whose work has been influenced considerably by him. In this interview we talk about how those influences come up in her music, her covering the song Angel in the Snow...

Our guest for today's episode is the comedian, musician, actress and writer, Margaret Cho. Margaret is multi-talented, so you may know her from films such as Face Off, TV shows like Drop Dead Diva or her successful stand up and music careers. Margaret is also a huge Elliott Smith fan, which came to light most prominently in the day following his death in 2003 when she posted a heartfelt blog on wh...

In the sixth episode of this series, we're joined by Charlie Campbell, formerly of Portland band Pond, and Douglas Jenkins from the Portland Cello Project. First up, we hear from Charlie on his favourite song pick, what it was like playing and touring with Elliott during the '90s, and he also mentions one or two regrets he has about the time they spent together. We stick with the Portland theme wi...

Our guest today is the musician Martin Courtney. Martin is the lead singer and guitarist in the band Real Estate.    He’s been big into Elliott Smith since he was in high school and can even be found tweeting about Elliott from time to time – which is actually how we realised he was a fan in the first place.    In this interview, we discuss his favourite song pick, we talk about how he came across...

Our guest for episode four of our second series is the musician Benjamin Langford-Biss. Ben is a guitarist and vocalist for the alternative rock band As It Is. He calls Elliott Smith his 'favourite ever artist' and makes it part of his mission to spread the word about Elliott's music among his fan base. In this interview, we discuss keeping Elliott's legacy alive, how Ben works in his influences a...