Journaling is not just an important part of the songwriting process for Paula Cole, it’s an important part of her life. Yet it’s just one piece of the Grammy winning songwriter’s very kinesthetic process. “I feel it in my body, like there are songs burgeoning,” she says.
Read MoreI first interviewed BJ Barham of American Aquarium in November 2020, and we had so much fun we decided to do it again! This time we added a third: S.A. Cosby, author of one of our favorite books from 2020, BLACKTOP WASTELAND. Watch these two creative heavyweights discuss the writing process and books and music.
Read More“I do a dream journal in the morning on an old IBM Selectric typewriter, then an evening journal on a 1983 Apple IIe computer. ”
Mike Doughty believes that old-school discipline is a necessary component of the songwriting process.
Read More“I get on with work no matter what emotions I’m going through. I show up to the studio every day and get something done,” says Daniel Lanois. The legendary producer brings the discipline he uses in the control room to his songwriting process on his new album Heavy Sun.
Read MoreFor both Sarah Jarosz and Margaret Glaspy, the creative process doesn’t allow for much off time. Jarosz doesn’t write on tour: it’s where she collects her ideas. And when she gets home, that’s when she sifts through all those ideas. “Even if I’m not working on a song, I’m always checking into the creative process every day,” Jarosz told me. Glaspy’s process involves using improvisation as a part of her songwriting process, “acting like I know how the song is supposed to go,” she says.
Read MoreLike many artists, Katie Pruitt and Molly Tuttle have found the creative process to be a hard road over the past year. But as you’ll hear, when those songs do come, dreams are an especially fruitful time: both women have been awoken in the middle of the night by incredible melodies running through their head.
Read MoreJeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers wrote most of his new solo album Piano Piano pre-pandemic, but, like most songwriters, he says that the past year has wreaked havoc on the creative process. “Last year was not a good headspace to write from. All that isolation was not good. There was, and is, an underlying element of fearfulness that’s bad for the creative spirit,” he. says.
Read MoreI’ve been a fan of King Gizzard for a while, but when I realized that they put out five albums in one year (2017) and had sixteen studio albums over the course of ten years, I had to discover how Mackenzie creates. Surely this man is always creating. Surely he spends all day thinking about songs. Surely he gets anxious when he’s not creating something, anything, right?
Read MoreThe experiences of Tim Showalter (Strand of Oaks) and Jessica Dobson (Deep Sea Diver) during the pandemic couldn’t be more different. Showalter’s tour cycle for his last album Eraserland ended in February; this meant the quarantine had little impact on his songwriting cycle since he already planned on spending 2020 writing. Dobson fared differently: Deep Sea Diver released Impossible Weight in October, so of course they were unable to tour behind the album, which threw all their plans out the window.
Read More“Not having to travel has opened me up to different ways to be creative that I didn’t have before.” For Alex Skolnick of Testament, isolation has proven to be a boon to his creative process, and deadlines have been a source for some great ideas.
Read MoreMost artists need external stimulation, some interaction with their environment, to create. That’s why the pandemic has made it difficult for songwriters: while some have taken advantage of the lull in touring to write, many others have found the isolation debilitating to their creative process. The two Nashville-based songwriters I interviewed in this video, Langhorne Slim and Jillette Johnson, have struggled at times to write songs during quarantine.
Read MoreThe key to The Black Pumas' creative process? Turn signals! Adrian Quesada told me that he’s mesmerized by the rhythm of his car’s turn signals when he’s driving. “I’m always superimposing a 6/4 rhythm on them whenever I’m at an intersection,” he told me. So much so that that his wife has to remind him that the light is green.
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