Songwriters on Process
In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. 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.
Episodes
195 episodes
Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie)
"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 pil...
Greg Mendez
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 w...
Euan Manning (Cardinals)
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 ratt...
Rostam
"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 fi...
Emma Jansson (Girl Scout)
"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 ...
Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene)
"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 w...
Jena Malone
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. Th...
Maya Hawke
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 for...
Lolo Zouaï
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...
Donovan Woods
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," ...
Sasha Spielberg (aka Buzzy Lee)
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
Cameron Picton (black midi, My New Band Believe)
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, ...
Carl Newman (The New Pornographers)
It's the return of Carl Newman of The New Pornographers! We were just kids back in 2015 when I first interviewed Newman
King Tuff (Kyle Thomas)
"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 ...
Snail Mail (Lindsey Jordan)
"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 r...
Nate Ruess
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 ...
Tyler Ballgame
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 procrastin...
Buck Meek (Big Thief)
“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 ...
Hotel Fiction
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 complic...
Nat and Alex Wolff
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 p...
Patton Magee (The Nude Party)
Patton Magee of The Nude Party has the best reason why reading makes you a better songwriter: it gives you a stronger and more wide-ranging vocabulary, which in turn gives you more ways to ex...
Courtney Marie Andrews
"I am a taskmaster," Courtney Marie Andrews told me. When we talked back in 2018, I marveled at Andrews'...