Songwriters on Process

Jason Newsted blends words and acrylics. Literally. The former Metallica bassist and leader of Jason Newsted and the Chophouse Band is also an accomplished painter, and to get started he'll often write song lyrics (not his own) on a blank canvas, then paint over them. The lyrics serve as a way to stimulate his creative process as his brush strokes move over the words and mix. Newsted gives me...

I'd like to call myself an OG Widowspeak fan, as I told Molly Hamilton. I saw them when they opened for 2:54 back in 2011 or 2012 on their first tour, and I became an instant fan.  Hamilton and I go deep into the songwriting process, including how jobs outside of songwriting can be a boon for creativity--in Hamilton's case it's the food industry, and in her husband Robert Earl Thoma...

"Hard work is important, and it feels good. My family put a lot of stake into working hard, so it's been ingrained in me," Nick Allbrook of Pond told me. We did this interview at 6:30am his time, so that's all you need to know about his discipline.  But hard work means nothing if you're not attuned to your environment. Allbrook has that covered too: "You miss out on a...

Go Dawgs! Loved having the Athens-bred Futurebirds on the pod. They're no longer college students at the University of Georgia, of course, but as longtime friends and bandmates they've evolved from students to family men. As you'll hear, their songwriting processes have evolved accordingly. The latest album by Futurebirds is Far Out Country . 

"If I could sum up my process, it would be this: finish everything," says Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie . "I finish every song I start even if I know in the first verse that it’s a complete pile of shit. I finish it because there might be a lyrical idea or a theme in the third verse or the chorus or the bridge that I can use somewhere else." Unsurprisingly, Gibbard calls h...

Greg Mendez has a shelved album concept that he says you can have if you're a songwriter. The plan was to center each song around the rhythm of a different car's turn signal, and the title of the song would simply be the car's name (so "2003 Honda Accord," for example.) It never came to fruition of course, but it illustrates Mendez's hyperfocus on his environment as h...

The formula is simple. Step one, read great Irish literature. Step two, write killer songs. It's worked pretty well for Euan Manning of Cardinals so far. The Irish songwriter for the Cork-based band rattles off writers who have influenced him, and my god does he have impeccable taste: Flann O'Brien, Martin McDonagh, Kevin Barry, among others. As I always say, a clear through line travels...

"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...