x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

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.

music music interviews

All Episodes

54:01

Anamanaguchi

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/08/07

"I see no point in being bored. I just don't understand the concept. So I'm always looking for things to occupy my time and get me excited," Peter Berkman of Anamanaguchi told me. Berkman actually told me this in 2011, when he was one of my first interviews for this site. And let me tell you: he hasn't changed one bit. Talking to Berkman and Ary Warnaar, it's obvious that music plays only a tiny role in their inspiration and creative process. In fact, Warnaar says that the only pe...

en-us

45:08

Cody Jinks

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/07/31

Cody Jinks had me at "I could talk about books forever." He estimates that he reads 80-100 books a year. All that reading leads to a lot of writing: songs, poetry, a journal, and an almost completed memoir. Oh and he paints. That's a great example of the through line between reading and writing: if you want to write well, you have to read. (Shameless plug: one of the books he read last year was my book) Jinks's latest album is In My Blood.

en-us

55:20

Mary Chapin Carpenter

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/07/28

"Songwriting is about being awake to something you've never thought of or a way of thinking about something you've never experienced before," Mary Chapin Carpenter says on the pod. The five-time GRAMMY winner has a poet's way of thinking about songwriting. And on those rare occasions when she's stuck, she goes songwalking. I've always been a fan of Carpenter's music, but when she mentioned David Grann and S.A. Cosby as two of her favorite writers, I swooned. Carpenter's new album, her 17th, i...

en-us

38:15

Indigo De Souza

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/07/22

I'm a huge Indigo De Souza fan, so I had a great time on this episode! We went deep into her songwriting process and discussed, among other things, how moving from western North Carolina to Los Angeles changed her songwriting process, how television plays a role in her writing routine, and what part of the day she's most effective as a writer. De Souza's latest album is Precipice.

en-us

44:49

Jade Bird

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/07/16

"I'm realizing how neurotic my process is as I'm talking to you," Jade Bird said, laughing, during our conversation. Indeed, Bird is pretty specific about her writing ritual, which can be intense: she usually takes a walk after writing to relieve back stiffness that comes from hunching over her notebook. And while many songwriters boost their creativity through movement, Bird says that there's nothing like a good nap. Bird's latest album is Who Wants to Talk About Love on Glassnote Records.

en-us

49:22

Purity Ring

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/07/10

At some point I told Megan James and Corin Roddick, who compose Purity Ring, that this was the bizarro episode: I'd mention something that a lot of songwriters do, and they told me that they actually did the opposite. But that's why I love this band because the music they create is so incredibly unique. Their latest album is the self-titled Purity Ring.

en-us

60:13

The Swell Season

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/07/08

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová of The Swell Season feel no need to write every day. They both wait patiently for a spark. "I have no worries if I don't write anything. I'm available 24/7," Hansard says. "I never noodle, never rehearse, never just play around." For Irglová, she feels a current. "There's something calling me to the piano. There's a feeling. I plant the seed, then let it ruminate by doing something else like taking a walk," she says. Both can write most anywhere. Ha...

en-us

49:26

John Gourley (Portugal. The Man)

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/06/30

"I'm always chasing that ADHD thing: whatever it tells me to do, I just do it," John Gourley of Portugal. The Man told me. This episode hit hard. I used to be a middle school special education teacher. I taught kids with severe learning disabilities, and most also had severe ADHD. A big misconception is that people with ADHD can't focus on anything, when in fact the opposite is true: they focus on everything. "ADHD is a driver of my process," Gourley says, and as you'll hear he harnesse...

en-us

49:13

Laura Stevenson

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/06/23

Laura Stevenson returns to the pod! This was an easy decision to have her on again (the first time was 2011) because I love her music and she's one of the funniest songwriters I've ever interviewed. I don't know how Stevenson has time to make music. We might imagine artists creating their art free of life's responsibilities, but Stevenson has responsibilities and then some: she's a mother, she's a music therapist, and she's getting her graduate degree. (She took Zoom calls with her thesis adv...

en-us

39:51

Cautious Clay

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/06/17

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 basketball and songwriting. And later he mentioned that planks and stretching are a part of his writing ritual. He also plays seven (at least) instruments: drums, bass, guitar, piano, sax, flute, and vocals. Cautious Clay is a true Renaissance Man--who was also sampled by Taylor Swift. H...

en-us

59:54

Shura

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/06/13

This episode with Shura marks a first: we managed to draw a through line between Marcella Hazan's bolognese sauce and the songwriting process. We also talk about why peeing brings great ideas. (To be sure, Shura is not the first songwriter to tell me that.) Lest you think her inspiration is confined to those indoor pastimes, Shura told me that few things beat a hike in the mountains. This was one fun conversation! Shura's latest album I Got Too Sad For My Friends is out now on Play It Again S...

en-us

50:52

Orla Gartland

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/06/02

"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 usually listen to music on these walks, and she walks to the tempo of the music she's listening to. So if you see her on the streets of London walking briskly one day and slowly the next, you now know why. Gartland's latest album Everybody Needs a Hero is out now.

en-us

50:30

Sunflower Bean

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/05/26

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. Kivlen says, "One of things I'm realizing as Julia I talk is that our processes are totally different." And as you'll hear, differences can actually streamline the process. Sunflower Bean's latest album Mortal Primetime is out now on Lucky Number Records.

en-us

51:36

Matt Gervais (The Head and the Heart)

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/05/19

"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 finds art galleries to be particularly inspiring; they were a rich source when he worked in the Seattle Art Museum The latest album by The Head and the Heart is Aperture, out now.

en-us

47:15

I'm With Her

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/05/14

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 Watkins are close friends who say that great songs can come from a good trip to the grocery store. I've had all three on the pod before, but never together. The latest album by I'm With Her is Wild and Clear Blue on Rounder Records. NOTE: here are my past interviews with Jarosz, O'Donovan, and...

en-us

38:41

Samantha Crain

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/05/11

"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 to write, and those times are the hibernation stages. Some of Crain's songs hibernate too: the title track off her new album took twenty years to write. Crain's writing process is like a wide-angle lens. She likes to write at the dining room table in a chair that gives her a view of the entire ro...

en-us

52:57

Calum Hood (5 Seconds of Summer)

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/05/07

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 5 Seconds of Summer bassist Calum Hood did in our conversation. It's part of Hood's process: he finds inspiration everywhere. And he likes to create every day, but that doesn't always happen. "I'm an anxious person anyway, so if I go a few days without writing, I start to wonder what's going on," Hood says. "That's when I practice mindfulness." Calum Ho...

en-us

47:25

Suzanne Vega

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/05/03

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," Vega says. She starts the process with a theme in mind then heads straight to that pile of notebooks to look for ideas to fit the theme. Some of her songs take years to emerge: "Lucinda" started as an idea more than 25 years ago. It's a pretty rich compost heap that can produce "Tom's Di...

en-us

50:21

Stefan Babcock (PUP)

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/04/30

"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 an artist to attach self-worth to what they create, but Babcock says he's working on loosening that attachment. "Trying to write and not have every song be everything has been a big weight off my shoulders," he says. PUP's latest album is Who Will Look After the Dogs?

en-us

42:26

Uwade

Songwriters on Process ·

2025/04/27

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 University, and in this episode we explore how these two lives intersect. We also go deep into her songwriting process, which must involve a .38mm Muji black ink pen. It has to be black ink because "blue is too whimsical. Black ink is me telling myself, You have get real. No more fun and games....

en-us

170 results

Similar Podcasts

Pasquale Maassen Soundcloud

Pasquale Maassen

Marian Klose

Marian Klose

sevenism

sevenism

Dean Delray"s LET THERE BE TALK

Cactus Radio Network

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold