Songwriters on Process

Ben Opipari

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.

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202 episodes
Updated July 27
Explicit

Episodes202

Newest first

Oct 6, 2025 · 41 min
Jay Som
"It's important to separate my sense of self-worth from my creations. If I was so self-aware of my output, I don't think I'd be having fun," Melina Duterte, who goes by the performing name Jay Som, told me. She says that output is proportional to her introspection: "How much I express through music depends on how much work I've been doing on myself," she says. And there's no better place for Duterte's introspection than at her kitchen sink, doing the dishes. Jay Som's latest album is Belong on Polyvinyl Records.
Oct 1, 2025 · 48 min
Hayes Carll
It's the return of Hayes Carll! I first interviewed him in 2013 and again in 2016. A recurring theme of those early interviews was Carll's admitted lack of discipline in the writing process. "I'm always looking for something else to do other than write," Carll told me in 2013. But 2025 brings a new Hayes Carll, one who sees discipline as an ally. "I don't turn away from the knock at the door, even when it's inconvenient," he says now. Carll's latest album is We're Only Human.
Sep 25, 2025 · 41 min
Mitch Rowland
"The decision has been made, and now it's time to f**k off," Mitch Rowland told me. To be clear, Rowland wasn't saying this to me; instead, it's Rowland ruthlessly killing his darlings in the editing process. Rowland is a solo artist, but he's also the guitarist in Harry Styles's solo band and has co-written many songs with Styles, including "Watermelon Sugar" and "Golden." (Rowland's wife Sarah Jones is the drummer in the band.) His songwriting has appeared on all three of Styles's albums. Rowland's songwriting process involves finding time for the eureka moments. He likes to mow the lawn, for example. Walking is an also big part of Rowland's process, so he never listens to music when he walks. And as he told me, "A tremendous amount of water has landed on my phone in the shower." Rowland's latest album is Whistling Pie.
Sep 17, 2025 · 44 min
Paul Muldoon
If you took a contemporary poetry class in college in the last 30 years, Paul Muldoon was probably on your syllabus. The New York Times has called him “one of the great poets of the past hundred years. . . . Only Yeats before him could write with such measured fury.” The Times Literary Supplement referred to Muldoon as “the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War.” He's a Pulitzer Prize winner, a former poetry editor at The New Yorker, and currently a professor at Princeton University. But Muldoon has a side gig as a songwriter, which is why he’s here. So if you’re a writer in any capacity, songwriter or not, listen to this episode as we go deep into the writing process of one of the most significant poets of the past hundred years. The latest album by Paul Muldoon & Rogue Elephant is Visible From Space.
Sep 9, 2025 · 40 min
Patrick Hetherington (Parcels)
Patrick Hetherington of Parcels says that the urge to write usually strikes when he's had some kind of new input, but then he needs distance from that input to be able to process it and write about it. And a good sunset is mandatory. "I need to touch base with the sunset every day. I take a walk at sunset to feel that change, that shift in the day." The latest album by Parcels is Loved.
Sep 5, 2025 · 36 min
Molly Tuttle
It's the return of Molly Tuttle! (The first time I interviewed Tuttle was in 2021, when I interviewed her and Katie Pruitt.) Tuttle won the GRAMMY for Best Bluegrass Album in both 2023 and 2024. And you don't become great without rigorous discipline. As you'll hear, Tuttle kept a flip phone as a student at Berklee because she wanted to maintain her focus on music, not a phone screen. Molly Tuttle's latest album is So Long Little Miss Sunshine on Nonesuch Records.
Sep 1, 2025 · 43 min
Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5)
I cannot imagine a world where Scott McCaughey is not writing. But first, some background. He was an auxiliary member of R.E.M. from 1994 to 2011, working with them in the studio and playing with them live. He founded The Baseball Project and The Minus Five, among other bands, both with members of R.E.M. He also founded The Young Fresh Fellows. McCaughey doesn't feel pressure to create every day because he's already doing it. It's a daily part of his routine. Many songwriters book studio time, then write the songs. McCaughey is the opposite: he books the studio time then "grabs songs off the shelf." Was there a hardest song to write on the new album? Nope. "It was my most effortless record," he said. McCaughey suffered a stroke in 2017 and lost all verbal ability for time, but after three days in the ICU he began writing songs. The latest album by The Minus Five is called Oar On, Penelope! on Yep Roc Records.
Aug 27, 2025 · 47 min
Dev Hynes (Blood Orange)
Dev Hynes had me at the bookshelves. All those bookshelves behind him on our Zoom interview, rising to the ceiling and stuffed with books. Small wonder, then, that Hynes works best in daily consumption mode rather than creation mode. He's adamant about not writing every day. The creative process is all about keeping it fun for Hynes. He likes to write in the afternoon for the simple reason that he likes his mornings, and who wants to write at night? Hynes isn't big on fancy equipment: he bought his third and fourth guitars only a couple of months ago. "Nothing matters to me as far as equipment," Hynes says. And when he hits a wall in the songwriting process, he doesn't push things too far if it looks like things aren't working. "I won't fold, but I'll see how hollow the wall is," he explains. The new Blood Orange album is called Essex Honey.
Aug 25, 2025 · 52 min
Will Taylor (Flyte)
There's a difference between wanting to write and needing to write. For Will Taylor of Flyte, it's usually a need. Taylor says that he doesn't write every day, but instead writes after an accumulation of experiences. "I know it's time because a sadness comes over me. It's a quite noticeable funk, and the clouds need to break," says Taylor. But for Taylor and his bandmate Nicolas Hill, that need to write doesn't mean inefficiency. As you'll hear, they have little patience for those songs that take too long to finish. "We have no problem throwing songs away immediately if they aren't working. We don't keep them lying around to work on them later." Flyte's latest album is Between You and Me.
Aug 21, 2025 · 55 min
Meg Duffy (Hand Habits)
"I write the most when I'm supposed to be doing something else because it tricks me into thinking that songwriting is rebellious," Meg Duffy (aka Hand Habits) told me. "It feels like I get to choose to do it." I love this quote so much. It illustrates how we sometimes have to trick ourselves into being creative. Duffy used the word "summon" a few times in our conversation regarding their songwriting process, which implies actively calling on something to be present rather than passively receiving it. This is the eternal question for the songwriter: do you wait for the muse or try to summon it? Summoning can happen everywhere for Duffy: they even did some summoning during a recent oil change. Duffy also uses walking as a way to summon. In this episode, we dig into all our collective methods of summoning. But stay for the hilarious story of how, when Duffy lived below Kyle Thomas (aka King Tuff), summoning became very, very difficult. The latest album by Hand Habits is Blue Reminder. It's incredible.
Aug 19, 2025 · 44 min
Hannah Cohen
The theme of today's podcast is nourishment. It dawned on me a few minutes into my conversation with Hannah Cohen that when she said proper nourishment was critical to her writing process, she was being literal. It was no metaphor. If Cohen's not hydrated and fed, the creative process becomes much more arduous. She's the first songwriter to ever tell me that. But when Cohen also told me that "the body keeps score," she was now talking nourishment as metaphor. She expressed a view that every writer knows: your writing process is always taking place. It's happening when you're eating, sleeping, working, talking, moving, whatever. Pen hitting paper is only a small part of that process. Cohen tells a great story in this episode of how her new song "Rag" came about. Back to the literal: it started with an actual rag on the side of the road. Cohen's latest album is Earthstar Mountain,
Aug 14, 2025 · 49 min
Lzzy Hale (Halestorm)
Ed Note: Lzzy Hale has collaborated with Mark Morton (Lamb of God) in the past. I co-authored Mark's new book Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir, hence the occasional reference to Mark and our book in this episode. Many songwriters I interview have a journal. Very few have two. Lzzy Hale of Halestorm is the only one who has three. She has a five-year journal, a freewrite journal, and a pocket field note journal "for when the mood strikes." Which, judging by our conversation, happens every waking moment for Hale. And probably a lot of sleeping moments too. Even a cursory listen to this episode will reveal Hale's enthusiasm for the creative process. She loves talking about it. Her passion for writing flows literally: she uses a fountain pen! Hale calls herself "a serial eavesdropper" as she's always listening for song ideas. And most importantly: she's not afraid to write the bad stuff to get to the good. "Every good songwriter has songs under their bed that suck," Hale says. Halestorm's new album Everest is out now.
Aug 11, 2025 · 49 min
Gordi
You think you're busy? You're not busy. Sophie Payten (known professionally as Gordi) is busy. She's a songwriter AND a physician. On this episode, we discuss how she finds time to do anything. We also explore how she so beautifully weaves themes from the world of patient care into her songwriting. Gordi's latest album, Like Plasticine, is out now.
Aug 7, 2025 · 54 min
Anamanaguchi
"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 people he even talks music with are the members of the band. Both men are inspired by music, visual art, movies, video games, and German philosophers. If it invades their senses, it's inspiring. Anamanaguchi's latest album is Anyway on Polyvinyl Records.
Jul 31, 2025 · 45 min
Cody Jinks
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.
Jul 28, 2025 · 55 min
Mary Chapin Carpenter
"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, is Personal History.
Jul 22, 2025 · 38 min
Indigo De Souza
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.
Jul 16, 2025 · 44 min
Jade Bird
"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.
Jul 10, 2025 · 49 min
Purity Ring
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.
Jul 8, 2025 · 1 hr
The Swell Season
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. Hansard wrote his song "Her Mercy" while waiting at a baggage claim in New Zealand. Irglová only needs space: she can't write in a busy place, which is why Iceland, where she lives, is ideal. The Swell Season won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Falling Slowly". Their latest album is Forward.