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
141 episodes
Laura Stevenson
Laura Stevenson returns to the pod! This was an easy decision to have her on again (the first time was 2011...
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Episode 141
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49:13
Cautious Clay
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 between ba...
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Episode 140
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39:51
Shura
This episode with Shura marks a first: we managed to draw a through line between Marcella Hazan's bolognese sauce and t...
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Episode 139
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59:54
Orla Gartland
"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 usuall...
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Episode 138
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50:52
Sunflower Bean
It's the return of Nick Kivlen and Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean! We had so much fun in 2022 that we had to do it again....
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Episode 137
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50:30
Matt Gervais (The Head and the Heart)
"Without the labor, channeling can't happen," Matt Gervais of The Head and the Heart told me. He has stacks upon stacks of Mead notebooks to prove it, all the way back to when he was a kid. Gervais f...
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Episode 136
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51:36
I'm With Her
When a band has seven GRAMMY wins and thirty-one GRAMMY nominations among them, they're a supergroup. So let's be clear: I'm With Her is a supergroup. The trio of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan, and Sara W...
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Episode 135
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47:15
Samantha Crain
"I need to have those times of being fully in bloom, then fully hibernating. That's how I get my best, most genuine work," Samantha Crain says. She's a seasonal songwriter who actively takes time not ...
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Episode 134
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38:41
Calum Hood (5 Seconds of Summer)
ED NOTE: here's my episode with Hood's bandmate Ashton Irwin.It's about time a songwriter referenced the movie Lost in Translation, as <...
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Episode 133
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52:57
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega usually heads straight to the compost heap for song ideas. "I have a compost heap of at least 50 notebooks dating back many years, and I pull from those notebooks when writing a new album,"...
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Episode 132
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47:25
Stefan Babcock (PUP)
"I assign too much personal value to my creative output. Too much of my self-worth is wrapped up in that process in a way that is unhealthy," Stefan Babcock of PUP told me. It's natural for a...
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Episode 131
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50:21
Uwade
It's not easy being a songwriter. It's also not easy being a PhD student. I don't know how Uwade is able to do both simultaneously. Uwade is in the first year of her PhD program in Classics at Stanford Univer...
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Episode 130
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42:26
Tennis
Ed note: my new permanent intro and outro music is, in fact, the Tennis song "Need Your Love."Alaina Moore and Pat Riley of Tennis are good friends of mine, which means this episode is more o...
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Episode 129
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1:02:51
Lili Trifilio (Beach Bunny)
“Scribbling into oblivion” is how Lili Trifilio of Beach Bunny describes her editing process. (It's also an amazing song title.) She used this phrase in response to a question I like to ask songwrit...
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Episode 128
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48:29
Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Dirty Knobs)
ED NOTE: Here's my recent episode with Benmont Tench, keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
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Episode 127
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44:14
Derek Miller (Sleigh Bells)
I always love having my buddy Derek Miller of Sleigh Bells on the pod! This is Miller's third time as a guest. I don't know how he ever has time to do interviews because the man is either writing music, about...
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Episode 126
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57:23
Denison Witmer
Running and poetry are all Denison Witmer needs as a songwriter."When I'm being physically active, my brain opens up," he says. Running is a big part of Witmer's life and plays a big role in his c...
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Episode 124
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46:43
Annie DiRusso
I'm a much better songwriter when I'm reading," Annie DiRusso says. Truer words have never been spoken; a clear through line connects quality songwriting and reading. And the fact that DiRusso loves p...
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Episode 125
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51:06
Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
Note: here's my recent interview with Mike Campell, guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
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Episode 123
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48:13
James McGovern (The Murder Capital)
"I have no rituals when it comes to writing. I don't want to think something can go wrong if things aren't set up the right way," says James McGovern of The Murder Capital. Indeed, that's the downside ...
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Episode 122
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50:09
Christian Lee Hutson
“My biggest hurdle as a writer is trying to hack my brain to become less critical,” Christian Lee Hutson says. In other words, Hutson wants to get the hell out of his own way when he writes. I've hea...
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Episode 121
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54:55
Eli Hewson and Josh Jenkinson (Inhaler)
Eli Hewson of Inhaler usually stays up and writes all night. Come morning, he heads to bed and will sometimes pass his father Bono (yes, that Bono), who is just beginning his day and starting to write. (Al...
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Episode 120
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54:58
Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen
Ed Note: Here’s my 2013 interview with Leithauser and my
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Episode 119
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43:14