Songwriters on Process – Details, episodes & analysis

Wunderhorse is why you should always get to the show early to see the support act.

I was introduced to Jacob Slater's band when I saw them open for Fontaines D.C. (here's my podcast with Grian Chatten of Fontaines) at a small club in Pittsburgh in 2022. I had never heard of Wunderhorse, but they won everyone, including me, over in the first thirty seconds with their volume and their energy. I've been a huge fan of Slater and his band ever since. And as you'll hear, we share a strong affinity for the amazing writer Breece D'J Pancake.

Wunderhorse's fantastic album Midas is out now. 

It’s always fun to interview two songwriters who have a history together! Before his solo career, Kishi Bashi was a member of Kevin Barnes’ band of Montreal. 

Kishi Bashi’s new album Kantos is out now on Joyful Noise Recordings, and of Montreal’s Lady on the Cusp is out on Polyvinyl Records. Kishi Bashi’s “Omoiyari: A Song Film” has been nominated for an Emmy with the winners announced in September. 

Does the mind of Eric Earley from Blitzen Trapper ever rest? I think not.  After all, he told me that he liked to solve math problems in college while he was making breakfast. Earley is a voracious reader who just finished his self-proclaimed "Time of the Tomes," in which he read nothing but, well, tomes. (The longer, the better. Infinite Jest? Please. Kid's stuff).

Earley has a family and his other occupation involves working with the homeless population in Portland, so he's not quite as active as he used to be. But that's only because he doesn't have as much time, although now he's quite invested in meditation and dream journals. And songwriting, of course. 

This is the second time I've interviewed Earley; the first was in 2018, when he told me that he'd written five unpublished novels "just for fun." Earley is also responsible for turning me on to the great short story writer Breece D'J Pancake.

Blitzen Trapper's latest album 100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions is out now on Yep Roc Records. 

For Mia Berrin of Pom Pom Squad, how a song looks is as important as how it sounds. And her latest album Death of a Cheerleader  looks and sounds red.
 
Pom Pom Squad’s video for  “Head Cheerleader” is fantastic. (The song itself is amazing and one of my favorites of 2021.) It’s rife with colors, images, and symbols. 

But what Berrin did with the video is not surprising if you know her background: she first moved to New York to study acting at NYU. And while the video is awash in vivid colors, red stands out. That color played a big part of the songwriting process for Death of a Cheerleader. In fact, she surrounded herself with it during recording, “Lots of red velvet and red vinyl. I had red curtains and wore red gloves,” Berrin says. It was important for her to carve out a physical space during writing that “looked like the internal space of the record. And red is what I wanted the world of the record to look like.”

Berrin cites John Waters and David Lynch as influences in the making of her videos, which she says are heavily stylized representations of the world.

For Yola, songwriting is all about the colliculus. And sometimes a good vacuum.

There’s a common motion many songwriters make when telling me where their songs come from: they start grasping in the air, mere conduits pulling songs out of the ether. But if you ask Yola, she’d probably tap her head. “I have an obsessive neurological approach to songwriting,” she told me. 

The most important part of Yola’s process is her colliculus, a midbrain region. And that’s why this interview was part songwriting, part science lesson. “I farm out my work to my colliculi. It’s the part of the brain that takes things in from the periphery, like that billboard that you barely notice as you zoom by,” she said. Yola doesn’t want her songwriting process to be too analytical. “If I muscle something with my conscious mind, I might fabricate something based on issues I’m dealing with at the times," she told me. It’s why so many song ideas come to her when she’s doing something mundane like driving or vacuuming: she’s not thinking about songwriting. “It’s a state of being unconscious but extremely aware,” she said. 

Yola has been nominated for two GRAMMYs this year: one for Best Americana album (Stand for Myself) and the other for Best American Roots Song (“Diamond Studded Shoes.”)

Artists are always searching for the ideal creative state, that perfect time when the songs effortlessly flow. With both Anaïs Mitchell and Charlotte Cornfield, that involves, well, not really being aware of when they’re in that ideal state. 

For Mitchell, it involves accessing the subconscious in dreams. If she’s lucky, a fellow songwriter might appear in those dreams to give her counsel, like David Rawlings once did. And for Cornfield, that brief moment right before sleep, when she’s just about to doze off, is an especially fertile time. 

Mitchell and Cornfield love a good deadline. Their songwriting processes involve structure and discipline, not just sleeping and dreaming. “I'm a big fan of having a routine and showing up for it, even if nothing happens,” Mitchell told me. And they also find artistic inspiration in blank email messages (Mitchell), skateboards (Cornfield), door panels (Mitchell), and black ink (both). In fact, Mitchell is so versed in door panels that she actually told Cornfield and me what kind of door panels we have after noticing them in our interview.

In case you were wondering how I picked Mitchell and Cornfield as an interview pair, here’s my highly scientific process. I follow two artists on Twitter, then from that  I see if they follow each other. If they do, then it’s match. Turns out that Mitchell and Cornfield have known each other for over ten years, so their familiarity made this a very fun conversation. Enjoy!

Five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ draws that optimism from the “big bubbling river” of creativity.  

We can all use a little Keb’ Mo’ in our lives. As the world burns, Kevin Moore (aka Keb’ Mo’) sees cause for optimism everywhere—even in his own home, where he gets joy from mundane household chores that I certainly detest. While I may recoil at the sight of a big pile of laundry, Moore loves it: he finds comfort in folding clothes and even ironing! It’s not a direct part of his songwriting process. Instead, the meditative nature of the act calms him and prepares him to sit down and write.

And when Moore starts to write, he’s pretty confident that the songs will come. “Creativity is like a big, bubbling river. It’s there. You just have to plug into it,” he told me. “I feel like I’m swimming in a pool of creativity.” Would that we were all this optimistic!

Moore’s ideal time to write is between noon and 6pm, after he’s been to the gym. He likes to write lyrics with a pencil and notepad (a legal pad if possible; he hates paper with rings on the side). He sits on the couch with his guitar, turns on Netflix, and plays around until he hears something he likes.

The latest album by Keb’ Mo’ is Good to Be.

Allison Russell & Aoife O'Donovan talk about the songwriting process as full-time moms. Hint: there's not a process.

“We’re working moms, so the best undisturbed time is between midnight and 4am.”—Allison Russell

“I’m not the ‘lounge around’ type of person. There’s not one wasted hour in my day.” —Aoife O’Donovan

Russell and O’Donovan are full-time songwriters of course, but they’re moms first. So what you won’t hear in our conversation is how wonderful it is to wake up, have a leisurely cup of coffee, lounge on the couch with a guitar, and write undisturbed. Songwriting ritual? What’s that?

What you will hear is the phrase “we’re working moms” several times from both of them. You’ll hear how Russell writes between midnight and 4am because it’s often the only alone time she has. You’ll hear how she develops melodies and plays beats on her body while she’s in the shower—and how the shower was where she went to cry when she was a new mother. You’ll hear how O’Donovan gets so many of her song ideas while she’s running; sure, exercise spurs creativity, but it’s also alone time. You’ll hear how the practicalities of being a parent and full-time songwriter involve driving kids places and being without childcare and trying to help with schoolwork—all while trying to write an album. And you’ll hear how during the early stages of the pandemic they were managing school lessons over Zoom, and how in the heck can you write songs when your kids are home and your time is someone else’s? 

It’s no wonder O’Donovan told me there are no wasted hours in her day and that she writes best while her body is in motion. Because when you’re a working mom, when is it not in motion? 

Despite their limited time, both women have put out fantastic music recently. Russell’s first solo album Outside Child has been nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Americana Album, and the single “Nightflyer” has been nominated for two GRAMMYs in Best Americana Roots Performance & Best Americana Roots Song. O’Donovan has a fantastic new album Age of Apathy. The song “Prodigal Daughter” features Allison Russell. 

Ben talks to Ben: Songwriters on Process interviews Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses.

Fun fact: this is not the first time I've interviewed Bridwell. The first was in 2015, when the amazing Sera Cahoone hooked us up with each other.

Like most songwriters, Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses has found the past two years to be a bane to his creative process.  With few exceptions, songwriters have told me that dark days are not conducive to creativity.   As Carl Newman of The New Pornographers said to me, “Some people say that they write best when they're sad or depressed. I don't get that. Because when I'm sad or depressed, I'm crippled beyond writing.’” In our 2019 interview, Jim James of My Morning Jacket decried the myth of the tortured artist. Patterson Hood and Lilly Hiatt told me that they wrote a lot for about a month after the pandemic started, but that was it. Gloominess aside, if your songwriting centers around conversations you hear and people you see, what’s there to write about if you hear nothing and see nothing?

The pandemic has not been good for Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses. “It did not lead to me writing more stuff. It messed me up,” he told me. Large expanses of time—no touring, after all—have not led to more songwriting. In fact, all this time has made him feel “listless.” The breakup of Bridwell’s marriage has made things even tougher, and the freedom to write whenever he wants actually makes him want to write less. “All this freedom makes me push it away,” he says. “I never did that when there was structure. When I had a routine, it was easy to create. Without that, I’m listless.”
 
While Bridwell’s creative process may have changed in seven years because of family upheaval, one element remains constant: crossword puzzles. Just as he told me seven years ago, he uses crossword puzzles as a way to explore language and wordplay.

The latest album by Band of Horses is called Things are Great.

An introduction to the Songwriters on Process podcast