Songwriters on Process

"If the next record is about whaling, you'll know where that came from."

Craig Finn takes it all in. He's the kind of songwriter who absorbs everything he sees and hears, and right now that involves r…

Fresh off their new release Headful of Sugar, Julia Cumming (bass, vocals) and Nick Kivlen (guitar, vocals) of Sunflower Bean discuss how their sometimes divergent creative processes coalesce into an…

“If I’m drawing a lot, I’m writing a lot. Those two processes are closely connected.” Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman is, in his words, the “supreme doodler.” Whether he’s longboarding or reading to…

"With the stuff I've been through, I would just go outside and immediately start to feel better." 

S. Carey's (Sean Carey) new solo album Break Me Open was written during a time of tremendous domesti…

Tim Kasher's latest solo album is called MIDDLING AGE. The Cursive frontman explains why he's a "militant reader" and why he doesn't subscribe to the Hemingway credo of "write first, read later." But…

“I’m better at writing songs after I’ve processed an emotion. I have to let myself feel an emotion before I can write about it.”—Katie Pruitt.

"I write the best when I’m not putting pressure on myself…

"The more evolved periods of my life are when I’m journaling. My journal is a backbone to my life, a conversation with my subconscious. It makes for a healthy mind and spirit.” For Grammy winner Paul…

Eric Pulido of Midlake takes a deep dive into his songwriting process on today's episode. Pulido is an avid runner, and we talk a lot about how that four mile loop in the local park is a great way to…

(This interview is from February 2021.) 

Listen to old friends Sarah Jarosz and Margaret Glaspy talk about their songwriting process! Four-time GRAMMY winner Jarosz and Glaspy have known each other si…

This interview is from January 2021.

You think you're prolific? Stu Mackenzie and his bandmates put out five albums in one year, and sixteen over the course of ten years. Not surprisingly, Mackenzie i…

“My receptors are always on because I don’t want to miss anything I see or hear. I try to collect everything," says Steve Gunn. The songwriting process is 24/7 for Gunn. Even when he’s not putting pe…

"If I have anything to give the world as a songwriter, I'm trying to explore the middle ground. That's not the most effective for songwriters because the most provocative things are clear statements …

“There are days when the songs won’t stop coming. It’s like I’m holding a bucket in the rain and just trying to catch all the ideas.” Bartees Strange has a lot of song ideas. So how does he get them …

Did you know that "The Ballad of Jayne" by LA Guns was one of the first songs Brian Fallon learned on guitar? Or that Tracii Guns is a huge Brian Fallon fan?

This interview is from the early stages of…

Erin Rae needs three things for her songwriting process: a hardwood floor, a phone on airplane mode, and glowiness.

Rae typically gets compared to 70s singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Jackson…

“It's important to me as a writer to push myself out of my comfort zone in order to grow. That's what excites me now.”

With her terrific memoir All I Ever Wanted,  bassist Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go…

For Tomberlin, songwriting is emotional and heavy work. It’s not always pleasant. There’s a lot of emotional prodding and digging.

The word “processing” came up a lot in my interview with Sarah Beth T…