Songwriters on Process

At some point in my interview with Jerry Harrison, guitarist and keyboardist for Talking Heads , I asked him to respond to a quote by the iconic Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Harrison told me that Ginsberg was a friend. And that is why he is Jerry Harrison. Talking Heads are one of the most influential acts of the past 50 years. Call it new wave, art pop, post punk, whatever: any act with that label c...

Jenny Owen Youngs  had me at " Shitty First Drafts ." This is the Anne Lamott essay espousing the idea that the first draft of anything is supposed to be atrocious. Just get it down, dammit. "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts," Lamott writes. The polish comes later. I always assigned this essay to my students when I was a professor. The challenge comes...

ED note: I mispronounced Cosentino’s name in the podcast intro: the first “o” should be long (as in snow ), but I used a short “o” (as in top) . I’m sorry Bethany! If you have plans to meet Bethany Cosentino and she’s late, look outside. There’s a good chance she’s there writing. Cosentino loves to write in her car—when it’s not moving, of course. She gets great ideas just sitting in it.  “I’ll be...

John McCauley and Ian O’Neil of Deer Tick stop by talk about what makes for an effective songwriting process. In no particular order: laundry rooms, a kitchen, a nice rug, running shoes, recumbent bikes, Raymond Carver, and turn signals.  Deer Tick’s latest album is Emotional Contracts , out now on ATO Records.

Academy Award nominee Emile Mosseri stops by the podcast to talk about the challenges that come with writing a solo album when all you’ve known is collaboration (his time in The Dig ) and film & television composing (like his film score for Minari , for which he received a 2021 Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score). We talk about why he likes to write when he’s not supposed to be w...

Josh Ritter stops by Songwriters on Process to declare that while we like to think he writes with a quill pen, he actually writes almost all of his lyrics on his phone. That's a first: many songwriters tell me they write on a computer, but Ritter eschews even that because he prefers the spontaneity that his phone provides. Ritter's latest album is  Spectral Lines, out now. 

"I'm pretty much always thinking about lyrics every day of my life." That quote represents the energy that Jess Williamson brings to this episode of the podcast. Her level of introspection and enthusiasm made this conversation so much fun. But what happens when you're always thinking about songwriting and you can't write a song? Williamson discusses the anxiety she felt du...

"We don't write on lined paper. That's a big no-no." This episode with Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten of Momma goes deep. We dig into the whys of the writing process, not just the hows.  We also discuss, for example, why mundane activities are never good for their creative process--a pretty unique answer among the songwriters I've interviewed. Most tell me that walki...

"A washing machine with a clumpy pair of shoes can be a beautiful thing." Legendary drummer Dave Lombardo, a founding member of Slayer, finds beauty in the mundane. And also in the annoying: "Even the rhythm of a jackhammer and the bumps in a road can be inspiring," he says in the latest Songwriters on Process podcast. Lombardo's debut solo album Rites of Percussion (Ipeca...

Sisters Natalie, Allison, and Meegan from Joseph talk about their individual and collective songwriting processes in this episode.  And in that discussion, they each learn something about the others that they didn't know! Joseph's new album The Sun  is out April 28 on ATO Records.

"I'm a wrong hallway person. I like to make wrong turns." Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats and Bonny Light Horseman makes a lot of mistakes. And that's a good thing, he says, because that's when the good stuff happens. "The excitement is in the mistakes," he says. "The song is a house, and sometimes you walk into the wrong room." Johnson's talking in...

"I've written whole songs on dog walks," says Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls .  "I write a lot when I'm on the lawnmower, says H.C. McEntire .  What a great time this was listening to these two friends and fantastic songwriters go deep into their songwriting processes. For Ray, it involves writing five times a week for no more than two hours a day. For McEntire, it involves c...

(NOTE: This interview is from December 2020. I've converted the video to podcast form. You can watch the interview here .) It's like opening a time capsule now when I listen to songwriters talk in 2020 about how they were navigating the pandemic as artists. For some, it was a bane: the isolation paralyzed their creativity. For Alex Skolnick of Testament , it was a boon. Quite simply, he...

"All the time in the world is too much pressure." Shana Cleveland of La Luz prefers a good deadline when she writes songs. And with a toddler in the house, her day is nothing but deadlines, which are also known as When Your Child Wakes From Their Nap. If you're an artist like Cleveland, the best time to write is nap time. (We have four kids, so I know the feeling.) She discovered he...

I first interviewed Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek in 2013, and this latest conversation reminded me why she is one one of my favorite interviews. The thoughtfulness and introspection she brings to this discussion are wonderful. No matter the art you create, this episode is for you. We didn't focus on the practical aspects of the songwriting process nearly as much as we talked about Creativity...

Philip Selway , Radiohead 's drummer, says that his best writing happens when "I'm looking the other way. My songs come along when they choose." But while Selway may prefer to wait for the muse, there are a few things he does to stimulate the songwriting process: Selway likes to write on his drum stool, not a traditional chair. "It grounds me in my wider life," he tol...

I love The Beths ! So talking to Liz Stokes was a blast. The band's new album Expert in a Dying Field was on almost every 2022 year-end  "best of" list. Listen to Stokes talk about the importance of journaling to her songwriting process, why distance is so important for revision, and the best headspace to write in.   Of course, we talk about why walking around outside is so importan...

On this week's episode, I talk to all three members of The Lone Bellow ! Zach Williams,  Kanene Pipkin, and Brian Elmquist go deep into their songwriting processes and even learn a few things about each other that they didn't know before! In this episode, we discuss the impact that leaf blowing, linguistics, and literature have on their songwriting process. 

Aly and AJ Michalka have been writing and recording songs together since they were teenagers. It’s  easy to see why: their processes are remarkably in sync.  Listen to the sisters talk about this smooth creative relationship, as well as the important role that both reading and exercise play in their songwriting processes. Book recommendations included in this episode! 

"I'm so much more prolific when I exercise." Tim Burgess of The Charlatans admitted to me during episode 55 of the podcast that "rock stars aren't supposed to exercise, but we all have our secrets, don't we?" Well, the cat's out of the bag. Burgess loves to exercise, and it's an important part of his songwriting process. Many of his song ideas come to h...

"When I sit down to write, the house has to be clean. Also, the dogs have to be walked because they need to fuck off and leave me alone," Kathleen Edwards told me. Now in podcast form, my 2020 joint interview with Edwards and Dave Hause! Listen now!

S.G. Goodman was raised a farmer's daughter and studied philosophy in college. This means that not only does she love to ponder, she has time do it during those long days in the field. The product of all the pondering: amazing lyrics. It's not a surprise, then, that Goodman doesn't like to write on tour and doesn't like to be inside at all when she writes. In fact, when she&apo...

Julian Lage has been hailed as one of the "most prodigious guitarists of his generation," so this was a new one for me: an interview with a songwriter who doesn't write lyrics, only instrumentals. As someone steeped in improvisation, Lage isn't one for specific rituals. And that's why I loved this conversation: it's a deep dive into the abstract elements of creativity...

“A good song has fragmented fireworks. It needs to pull people in with interesting turns of phrases, word combinations that no one has heard before.” Hear Gavin Rossdale of Bush explain why the painters Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud are far and away the biggest inspirations to his creative process. We also discuss why great writers are so important to his songwriting and how he gets so many ideas...

"I write all day, every day.  When I'm in the thick of it, it's a struggle to focus on anything else." For Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. , there’s no such thing as a writing ritual if you never stop writing.  He calls his writing process  his "constant annoying companion. I have writing on speed dial 24/7."  But Chatten says that he's always had a healthy relat...