Anand Wilder

“If I have anything to give the world as a songwriter, I’m trying to explore the middle ground. That's not the most effective for songwriters since the most provocative things are clear statements of good and evil.”

With his first solo album I Don’t Know My Words, Anand Wilder (formerly of Yeasayer), writes songs under intense emotional weight.

“I need some stress to be able to write,” Anand Wilder told me during our interview. And Wilder uses a few techniques to harness that stress to his advantage in his songwriting process, which often takes place from 11:00 to 6:00. That’s PM to AM, by the way.

• Wilder loves to journal. “Often after a big fight,” he says. He’ll go back to those entries and mine them for themes and rhymes.

• He loves writing long texts, but he doesn’t always send them. Instead, he’ll paste them into his Notes app and read them later, again for ideas.

• He loves sprinting. Literally. That’s not a metaphor.

• Wilder uses marijuana as an aid to his songwriting process. “My songs start by smoking weed and getting emotional. I’ll get so high that I can’t do anything but write or else I’ll freak out,” he says. But to be clear: he doesn’t smoke weed to be for the euphoria. “I do it to think differently. It gets me to a different radio signal,” Wilder told me.

Wilder has a pretty simple ritual. He starts with a melody then decides what the song will be about. Then he looks for sources for the lyrics, puling from everywhere: books, conversations, observations.

All those heavy issues aside, with this interview you’ll come for the process but stay for the impressions. Sure we take a deep dive into Wilder's songwriting process, but where else can you find impressions of John, Paul, and George (no Ringo). And Paul Simon? Wilder is one entertaining storyteller, as you’ll hear.

Watch the video or listen to the podcast with Anand Wilder below!