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
208 episodes
Jim James (My Morning Jacket)
Jim James needs a bigger head. How else to accommodate all the bursts of creativity he has throughout the day? They happen all the time. The My Morning Jacket fr...
Alicia Witt
You have seen Alicia Witt. Of that I can be sure since she's appeared in so many movies and tv shows. (She starred most recently opposite Nico...
hey, nothing
Tyler Mabry and Harlow Phillips of Athens-based hey, nothing have been friends since middle school. And when you've grown up with your songwriting partner, you have a good idea of what makes for an effic...
David Shaw (The Revivalists)
Took a wonderfully deep dive into the songwriting process with David Shaw of The Revivalists. We discuss middle of the night epiphanies, how mishearing a lyric can make for a better lyric, and how re...
Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Band)
Lenny Kaye's tenure as Patti Smith's guitarist and collaborator extends from 1971 to the present, but the 79 year old is only now releasing his debut
Alex Cameron
"I don't like closing a book on words, not even my laptop," says Alex Cameron. This is no metaphor. Cameron means this literally because he always wants to be able to see his words. He keeps a giant piece of ...
Bedouine (Azniv Korkejian)
"You don't have to be a tortured artist to write a song, but it's important to write about what you're feeling and not run away from it," Azniv Korkejian (aka Bedouine) says about her songwriting proc...
Dragos Chiriac (Men I Trust)
It's not often (ever?) that I get to talk Hegel, Jung, and Goethe with songwriters. But Dragos Chiriac of Men I Trust and I go deep into philosophy in this episode. I am a huge fan of the band and enjoyed our...
Keenan O'Meara
"The failure is not in writing a bad song. The failure is in writing no song." Keenan O'Meara has always honored the value of work. Maybe it's because he's also a carpenter by trade, but di...
Jason Newsted
Jason Newsted blends words and acrylics. Literally. The former Metallica bassist and leader of Jason Newsted and the Chophouse Band is also an accomplished ...
Molly Hamilton (Widowspeak)
I'd like to call myself an OG Widowspeak fan, as I told Molly Hamilton. I saw them when they opened for 2:54 back in 2011 or 2012 on their first tour, and I became an instant fan. Hamilton a...
Nick Allbrook (Pond)
"Hard work is important, and it feels good. My family put a lot of stake into working hard, so it's been ingrained in me," Nick Allbrook of Pond told me. We did this interview at 6:30am his time, so that's all yo...
Futurebirds
Go Dawgs! Loved having the Athens-bred Futurebirds on the pod. They're no longer college students at the University of Georgia, of course, but as longtime friends and bandmates they've evolved from...
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," ...