Songwriters on Process

It's the return of Molly Tuttle! (The first time I interviewed Tuttle was in 2021, when I interviewed her and Katie Pruitt.)

Tuttle won the GRAMMY for Best Bluegrass Album in both 2023 and 2024. And y…

I cannot imagine a world where Scott McCaughey is not writing. But first, some background. He was an auxiliary member of R.E.M. from 1994 to 2011, working with them in the studio and playing with the…

Dev Hynes had me at the bookshelves.

All those bookshelves behind him on our Zoom interview, rising to the ceiling and stuffed with books. Small wonder, then, that Hynes works best in daily consumptio…

There's a difference between wanting to write and needing to write. For Will Taylor of Flyte, it's usually a need. Taylor says that he doesn't write every day, but instead writes after an accumulatio…

"I write the most when I'm supposed to be doing something else because it tricks me into thinking that songwriting is rebellious," Meg Duffy (aka Hand Habits) told me. "It feels like I get to choose …

The theme of today's podcast is nourishment.

It dawned on me a few minutes into my conversation with Hannah Cohen that when she said proper nourishment was critical to her writing process, she was bei…

Ed Note: Lzzy Hale has collaborated with Mark Morton (Lamb of God) in the past. I co-authored Mark's new book Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir, hence the occasional reference to Mark and our book in …

You think you're busy? You're not busy. Sophie Payten (known professionally as Gordi) is busy. She's a songwriter AND a physician. On this episode, we discuss how she finds time to do anything. We al…

"I see no point in being bored. I just don't understand the concept.  So I'm always looking for things to occupy my time and get me excited," Peter Berkman of Anamanaguchi told me. Berkman actually t…

Cody Jinks had me at "I could talk about books forever." He estimates that he reads 80-100 books a year. All that reading leads to a lot of writing: songs, poetry, a journal, and an almost completed …

"Songwriting is about being awake to something you've never thought of or a way of thinking about something you've never experienced before," Mary Chapin Carpenter says on the pod. The five-time GRAM…

I'm a huge Indigo De Souza fan, so I had a great time on this episode! We went deep into her songwriting process and discussed, among other things, how moving from western North Carolina to Los Angel…

"I'm realizing how neurotic my process is as I'm talking to you," Jade Bird said, laughing, during our conversation. Indeed, Bird is pretty specific about her writing ritual, which can be intense: sh…

At some point I told Megan James and Corin Roddick, who compose Purity Ring, that this was the bizarro episode: I'd mention something that a lot of songwriters do, and they told me that they actually…

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová of The Swell Season feel no need to write every day. They both wait patiently for a spark. "I have no worries if I don't write anything. I'm available 24/7," Hansard …

"I'm always chasing that ADHD thing: whatever it tells me to do, I just do it," John Gourley of Portugal. The Man told me. 

This episode hit hard. I used to be a middle school special education teache…

Laura Stevenson returns to the pod! This was an easy decision to have her on again (the first time was 2011) because I love her music and she's one of the funniest songwriters I've ever interviewed.

I…

Cautious Clay and I spent the first ten minutes of this episode talking about the role that painting plays in his creative process. Then a few minutes later, the topic turned to the through line betw…

This episode with Shura marks a first: we managed to draw a through line between Marcella Hazan's bolognese sauce and the songwriting process. We also talk about why peeing brings great ideas. (To be…

"The more I do this, the less I want to understand where it comes from," Orla Gartland says on the pod. Like most songwriters, Gartland likes to walk as a part of her songwriting process. She'll usua…