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PODCAST

The Hardest Part

Palm Tree Island

Hosted by Kieron Banerji,The Hardest Part dives deep into the most challenging songs ever written. Every two weeks, an artist joins Kieron in the studio to break down the struggles, breakthroughs, and raw emotions behind their toughest songwriting experiences. From overcoming creative blocks to tapping into painful memories, these conversations reveal the delicate balance between self-expression and self-protection. Each episode wraps with an exclusive live performance of the song—raw, real,

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All Episodes

22:50

Castle Rat on Why Collaboration Made This Record Work

The Hardest Part ·

2026/09/30

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, the band's songwriter and frontwoman opens up "Serpent," the song that fought her hardest on The Bestiary: the one where every band member hated a different part, and the only fix was to scrap everything but the lyrics and start again. It's a conversation about ego and letting go, the first genuinely collaborative Castle Rat album, tears in the rehearsal space, the heart-to-heart that revealed her bandmates wanted to write too, and the fear

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33:35

Gently Tender on the song that took 3 years to write.

The Hardest Part ·

2026/09/24

One of these songs took Gently Tender three years. The other took two minutes. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Gently Tender's Sam Fryer and Francesca Brierley opens up "Staring at Fields" and "The City of the Beast," both from their upcoming album ,This Was Once Fields. It's a conversation about a lifelong Londoner mourning the city's lost magic, think the Astoria and Madame Jojo's, and about why he keeps escaping it on foot: the hyperacusis that makes city noise painful,

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29:52

HP #54: Little Dog Star on Leaving Acting for Music

The Hardest Part ·

2026/09/15

Izzy Steele had a full-time job acting on a TV soap, and left it to chase music before she knew if it would work, one of the hardest decisions she ever had to make. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Izzy opens up "Something Infinite," the title track of her EP: a song about the frustration that comes with ambition, that awkward middle part between leaving something safe and arriving anywhere at all. Izzy talks about how honesty is a job description: years of bottling emotions

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17:29

Pixie McCann on "Rotting": The Drunk Notes App That...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/09/08

Pixie McCann convinced herself in a toilet that everyone hated her, and filled her Notes app with the evidence: "literally everyone here is rotten." Then she woke up, read it back, and decided... this is good content. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up "Rotting," the song that came out of that night, and the debut EP it belongs to. It's a conversation about the pocket between beautiful and horrible things: her first year making music professionally while her

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15:06

HP #52: Show Me the Body: "See You Again"

The Hardest Part ·

2026/09/01

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Julian Pratt opens up "See You Again," from the band's new record: a song whose chorus, "I'll see you again, no grave or cemetery can keep you from me," was written for his mentor, San Diego hardcore legend Mike Down. After it was recorded, Julian's close friend passed. Now the song belongs to both of them. It's the rawest conversation this show has had: on belief, and what happens when grief shakes it; on riding motorcycles with Noble and

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37:53

HP #51: Jamie Webster: "Small Town Life"

The Hardest Part ·

2026/08/25

Jamie Webster joins Kieron Banerji on The Hardest Part to break down the writing, meaning and performance of his song “Small Town Life.” Jamie explains how years spent touring through towns across the UK inspired him to write a song celebrating the people, characters and communities that exist beyond the country’s biggest cities, places that might look imperfect from the outside, but mean everything to the people who call them home. Jamie takes us inside his songwriting process,

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24:15

HP #50: Le Ren: "Die Inside"

The Hardest Part ·

2026/08/19

Le Ren almost threw this song away. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up "Die Inside" from her album Don't Be Funny Without Me, a song that was easy to write but hard to sing, about a crush that was never going to be reciprocated, and the strange courage it takes to perform the plain, un-metaphored truth. It's a conversation about honesty in songwriting: why singing it live once made her "feel like a loser," how Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" gave her

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18:37

HP #49: Rosa Walton: "Halfway Round The World"

The Hardest Part ·

2026/08/11

Rosa Walton spent over 18 months getting one song right. On this episode of The Hardest Part, Rosa opens up "Halfway Around the World" from her album Tell Me It's a Dream, her first attempt at a "straight-down-the-line" love song, and the hardest lyrics she's ever had to write. It's a conversation about craft: why literal songwriting scares her more than abstract imagery, how she knows the moment a lyric is finally right, why she refuses to explain what her songs are about ("it takes away the

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23:24

HP #48: Tenderness: "Playing Country Roads"

The Hardest Part ·

2026/08/05

Tenderness didn't find "Playing Country Roads" hard to write, she found it almost impossible to hold. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up the closing song from her album: written on her late father Ivor's guitar, built on a voice memo she couldn't bring herself to re-record, and carrying two griefs at once. It's a conversation about turning loss into art without letting the performance swallow the feeling — the "healthy middle place" every songwriter has to

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21:40

HP #47: Julia Cumming on the Song That Scared Her to...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/06/26

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Julia Cumming to discuss “Please Let Me Remember This,” one of the most personal songs from her debut solo album Julia. What began as an attempt to write about the smallest possible moment gradually became something much bigger. Julia describes songwriting as visiting her subconscious, placing a cup into a flowing river, and seeing what comes back. But while writing this song, she found herself confronting thoughts she

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23:36

HP #46: Ava Joe on Songwriting and Nostalgia.

The Hardest Part ·

2026/06/12

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Ava Joe to break down the making of “Am I a Dreamer”, a song inspired by one of the most complicated emotions she experiences: nostalgia. Unlike most of her songwriting, which begins with a specific experience and the feelings that follow, this song started with an emotion. Ava set out to write about nostalgia itself, drawing together memories, places, films, relationships, and moments that all carried the same emotional

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18:42

HP #45: Metric on the Song That Defined the Album

The Hardest Part ·

2026/06/05

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Metric to break down the making of “Victim of Luck”, the opening track from their latest album and the song that took longer to finish than any other. The challenge wasn’t writing it. The challenge was knowing when it was right. Emily and Jimmy Shaw tell Kieron how the song was intended to introduce the entire record, setting the tone for everything that followed. But as the album evolved, so did the song. Lyrics

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25:21

#HP 44: Will White of The Maccabees on Writing...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/05/31

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Will White to break down the making of “6:30 AM”, a song that became the catalyst for everything that followed. Unlike most of his work, the song stayed with him for years. That alone was unusual. Will describes a songwriting process where songs either arrive fully formed or disappear entirely. He rarely revisits unfinished ideas, yet somehow “6:30 AM” refused to go away. Kieron and Will explore discomfort as

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23:06

#HP 43: Witch Fever on Christianity, misogyny,...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/05/22

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Witch Fever break down the songwriting process and music production process behind “The Garden,” a song shaped by religious trauma, feminist rebellion, and the emotional tension of leaving the church behind. We talk about how the band nearly abandoned the song after feeling the chorus sounded “too Jesus-y,” triggering memories of Christian worship music and charismatic church environments. The band explains how growing up in a strict

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20:12

HP #42: Lily Moore Breaks Down Grown Up Girl Regrets.

The Hardest Part ·

2026/05/13

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Lily Moore to break down the making of “Grown Up Girl Regrets” and why it became one of the most important songs she has ever written.Written during her first studio session after lockdown, the song emerged from a period of uncertainty, isolation, and emotional exhaustion. Walking back into a writing room for the first time in months, Lily found herself confronting feelings she had spent years avoiding in her songwriting

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23:00

HP #41: Young the Giant on Returning to the Spirit of...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/05/06

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Young the Giant break down the songwriting process and music production process behind “Different Kind of Love,” exploring how the band tried to return to the spirit of their first record. After years of touring, remote writing, adult responsibilities, and fragmented workflows, Young the Giant wanted to reconnect creatively by getting back into a room together and writing instinctively as a band again. Through writing retreats in Joshua Tree and

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19:41

HP #40: Westerman on isolation, injury, and writing...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/05/01

What happens when you can’t move, can’t escape, and a song is the only thing you can build. In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Westerman to break down the making of “Mosquito” from his 2025 album A Jackal’s Wedding. The song was written during a period of physical and emotional isolation, after Westerman tore his meniscus while travelling in northern Greece. Unable to move for months in extreme heat, with little contact with anyone else,

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23:23

HP #39: Winter on the importance of finding the right...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/04/24

Sometimes the hardest part is not writing the song, it is making it feel right. In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Winter to break down the making of “Misery” and how the song transformed completely in the studio. What started as a faster demo in a different key with only one verse became the longest and most complex process on the record. Through experimentation with tempo, pitch, and arrangement, the track slowly evolved into something entirely new. She

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17:47

HP #38: The Overjoyed on Writing About Mental Health,...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/04/17

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Athens-based band The Overjoyed to go behind the scenes of their track “Party Eyes,” exploring the songwriting process, music production, and the emotional realities that shaped it. The song begins with a deeply personal place: sleepless nights, hangovers, and the emotional comedown that can follow moments of excess or difficult periods in life. What starts as a reflection on insomnia evolves into something more

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41:21

HP #37: Tigercub on Balancing Instinct and Editing in...

The Hardest Part ·

2026/04/10

In this episode of The Hardest Part podcast, Tigercub break down the songwriting and creative process behind their track, "Fall In Fall Out". The track sits at the centre of their new album’s core tension, exploring contradiction, cycles, and the difficulty of articulating feelings that don’t fully make sense yet. Jamie explains how the song began with melody on acoustic guitar, before any clear meaning was attached. From there, the process became one of discovery, using stream of

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