In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's it. Nothing else. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating song...
Send us a textIf you see Cecilia Castleman browsing the paint aisle at Home Depot, she’s probably not looking for paint. She’s looking for song ideas. Castleman finds inspiration everywhere, but paint names, she says, are particularly rich sources for song ideas and lyrics. And as you’ll hear, baking cakes and looking at old houses are great sources too. It took me about ten seconds—the first notes of the opening guitar riff—of listening to the opening track “It’s Alright” to realize I was going nowhere for the next 48 minutes. This album is good. I mean really, really good. Cecilia Castleman’s self-titled debut is out on Glassnote Records.
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Larkin Poe
Send us a textRebecca and Megan Lovell, the GRAMMY-winning sisters who compose Larkin Poe, call themselves “serial idea keepers.” This means they don’t write every day. Instead, “we pull back on ideas until we are ready to write,” they say. This seasonal writing, as they and other songwriters like to call it, requires discipline: you have to resist the urge to write every day and only write during certain times. The advantage of this is that the words flow freely when it’s time to write.But the Lovells bemoan this age of constant online stimulation, where artists are missing one critical element for creativity: boredom. “There’s not enough boredom in our lives. We need time to daydream,” they say.Larkin Poe’s latest album is called Bloom.Ed note: to clarify my intro, Larkin Poe won the 2024 GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Blues Album for their 2023 album Blood Harmony.
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Flipturn
Send us a textFlipturn's Tristan Duncan (guitar), Devon VonBalson (drums), and Dillon Basse (vocals) join the pod and go deep into their creative processes. We talk about, among other things, why certain times of day are better for writing, how exercise improves songwriting, and the places they find the most inspiring.Flipturn's latest album Burnout Days is out January 24 on Dualtone Records.
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Phil and Tim Hanseroth (The Hanseroth Twins)
Send us a textIs Vera, the debut album by Phil and Tim Hanseroth (The Hanseroth Twins), really a debut? After all, they've won three GRAMMYs and have been nominated seven more times for their songwriting collaboration with Brandi Carlile. (They're the twins who flank her in concert live.) The twins' songs have been covered by Adele, Dolly Parton, and the Avett Brothers. So while this may be their first album as a duo, they've had excellent songwriting chops for a while.Had a great time talking about why it's important to not take the writing process too seriously, why the outdoors are so integral to creativity, and their uncanny ability to craft fully formed songs in their head before committing them to paper.
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Phantogram
Send us a textThe last time I interviewed Josh Carter of Phantogram was in 2010, before this site was even a podcast. It was one of the first interviews I ever did, and Carter mentioned the author Breece D'J Pancake. The name stood out, of course, but it took a while for me to read about Pancake's tragic backstory. Then more songwriters started mentioning him in interviews, so I finally read his book, and wow. Incredible. This time, Carter and Sarah Barthel join me on the podcast to talk about their decidedly old-school writing process. We talk about Barthel's collection of analog typewriters, Carter's use of his Dictaphone, and how we just need more time to be bored. Yes, we sound like three cranky old people railing against the impact tech has on creativity. But I'll take that any day as long as Phantogram continues to make such good music. Phantogram's latest album Memory of a Day is out now.
In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's it. Nothing else. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating songwriters as writers, plain and simple. By Ben Opipari, English Lit Ph.D.
New Zealand