Talkhouse Podcast

The inspiration for the pairing on this week's Talkhouse Podcast goes back 40 years, to one of the greatest concert films—maybe the greatest concert film—ever made, Stop Making Sense. We’ve got Jerry Harrison and Carlos Arévalo. Harrison was of course the keyboard player and sometimes guitarist behind one of the most influential and groundbreaking bands of the 1970s and 80s, Talking Heads. The band’s legacy can’t be overstated; they made eight incredible studio albums before splitting up in 1991, they’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and their impact on both other musicians and the culture at large has been enormous. And in addition to all of those studio records, Talking Heads—along with director Jonathan Demme—made Stop Making Sense, the audacious live document of the band from 1983. The film was lovingly restored for its 40th anniversary last year, with both the visuals and audio painstakingly refreshed—the latter in no small part due to Harrison’s efforts. Celebrating this reissue has been the closest thing to a Talking Heads reunion that the world has ever seen—or likely will see. They’ve gotten onstage together to talk about it, but the likelihood of them playing together again seems very slim. But during the band’s tenure and even more so afterward, Harrison made a career for himself as a producer for other bands, manning the boards for some incredibly successful records, some of which you’ll hear about in today’s chat. From Live to No Doubt and beyond, he’s had a hand in some really big ones. Along with the Stop Making Sense re-release came a star-studded tribute album called Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, and that’s where today’s other guest comes in. The album features contributions from heavy hitters like Paramore, Lorde, and The National, but one of the best tracks is by Arévalo’s band, Chicano Batman. The Los Angeles group has been around since 2008, mixing up a genre-defiant stew of psychedelia and R&B with bits of indie-rock and Latin flair. On the trio’s latest album, Notebook Fantasy, they stretch out a bit more than usual, allowing some extra breathing room for the songs. That’s not necessarily the case for their contribution to the Talking Heads tribute album, though: They do a pretty faithful rendition of the frenetic “Crosseyed and Painless,” re-creating its indelible groove and then adding their own flavor. Check out that cover right here. In this conversation, Harrison and Arévalo talk about how Chicano Batman approached their Talking Heads cover—including the special guests they brought in to help. Then Arévalo, a budding producer himself, picks Harrison’s brain about some of the records he’s produced over the years, from Live to Les Butcherettes to No Doubt. Great stories abound, enjoy. 0:00 – Intro 2:34 – Start of the chat 4:06 – Jerry's thoughts on Chicano Batman's cover 8:28 – Talking about Jerry's production work, starting with the first Live album 19:20 – Carlos on <em>Notebook Fantasy</em> and studio techniques 24:05 – Producing No Doubt's "New" 34:40 – Jerry loses his car while mixing "Girlfriend is Better" 38:45 – On how Chicano Batman's cover of "Crosseyed and Painless" came to be Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jerry Harrison and Carlos Arévalo for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’re diving deep into a chat inspired by two tribute albums to an incredibly influential musician, Sun Ra. Joining us are Meshell Ndegeocello and David Harrington. And oh man, do I have my work cut out for me in trying to introduce these incredible people and their careers—I won’t even scratch the surface. Meshell Ndegeocello’s biggest foray into the public consciousness, strangely enough, came on a duet with John Mellencamp in the mid-’90s, but that’s not at all indicative of her wide-ranging career, which also includes everything from go-go music to neo-soul to jazz to rapping on a Madonna song. These days, the Grammys had to create an entirely new category for what she does: She just won the first-ever Grammy award for Alternative Jazz for last year’s The Omnichord Real Book. It’s no surprise given her musical serachings that Ndegeocello is also deeply inspired by Sun Ra, the legendary out-there jazz composer and performer who traveled through time and space until leaving our planet in 1993. His legacy lives on, though, and Ndegeocello recently released Red Hot & Ra: The Magic City, which features new compositions, old sounds, and a fresh look not just at Ra’s work but his musical spirit. It’s hard to explain, but check out “Bedlam Blues” from The Magic City right here. Today’s other guest is David Harrington, founding member of Kronos Quartet, which has been expanding the music world for 50 years. I’d be a fool to try and sum up everything they’ve done and everyone with whom they’ve performed over the years, but do yourself a favor and Google them if you’re not familiar. I’ll just say that Kronos has pushed the envelope from just about every conceivable angle and expanded the scope and understanding of classical music, pop music, experimental music and much more. They’ve done film scores that you’ve definitely heard and deep dives into fringe classical compositions that you almost certainly haven’t. So it’s no wonder that they, too, like Ndegeocello, have found the wonder and mystery in Sun Ra’s music, and that they’ve put together their own tribute in the Red Hot and Ra series. Theirs is called Outer Spaceways Incorporated: Kronos Quartet and Friends Meet Sun Ra. The friends on their volume of the series include Laurie Anderson, Marshall Allen, Laraaji, Moor Mother, Terry Riley, and more. Check out “Outer Spaceways Incorporated,” which features Georgia Anne Muldrow, right here. I should mention too that both of these albums are being released by the Red Hot organization, which has been raising money and awareness for good causes—initially AIDS research, and now that and more—since 1989. The Red Hot and Ra series is just the latest in a long line of albums that push musical boundaries while also serving humanity, so kudos to them—and to former Talkhouse host Elia Einhorn, who’s been working with the Red Hot folks on these Sun Ra tributes. In this great conversation, Harrington and Ndegeocello talk, naturally, about Sun Ra, and they get granular with it, touching on MLK’s "I Have A Dream" speech and its relationship to this music. They also chat about bringing more women into composition—a Kronos mandate since the beginning—as well as how finding Sun Ra changed Ndegeocello’s musical path completely. Harrington also shares a great story about rehearsing with Ornette Coleman. Bonus! Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Meshell Ndegeocello and David Harrington for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a popular comedian, podcaster, and actor in conversation with a musician-slash-director who released their first song together earlier this year: Marc Maron and Paige Stark. Maron is of course the host of the long-running interview podcast WTF, but that’s really just the headline on a long and winding career. He was of course first known—and is still known!—as a top-tier stand-up comedian whose shows are often discursive explorations of his own psyche while also being wildly funny. He’s also an actor, having been a regular on the Netflix series GLOW and a lead in a couple of dramatic movies, including To Leslie, which comes up in this conversation, and Sword of Trust, which was directed by Maron’s girlfriend Lynn Shelton, who died unexpectedly in 2020. That fact worked its way into Maron’s latest stand-up special, last year’s brilliant From Bleak to Dark. Oh, and he also dabbles as a musician, having played guitar in bands in his school days, and keeping it up mostly as a hobby since. That’s where singer and songwriter Paige Stark comes in. A friend of Maron’s, she recruited him recently to play some "searing" guitar and duet with her on a cover of Love’s 1966 song “Signed DC.” Stark has been kicking around the L.A. music scene for years, most notably as part of the band Tashaki Miyaki, whose name is the subject of discussion in this podcast. Stark only recently began releasing music under her own name, including a bunch of singles this year that feature friends like Cherry Glazerr, Jon Brion, and of course Maron. Stark is also an actor and director who’s working on a narrative short at the moment. Busy busy. Check out the duet she did with Maron on “Signed DC.” This funny, wide-ranging conversation covers everything from the recording of this duet to Maron’s guitar setup to Stark’s substance-fueled nights out in Los Angeles. They also clearly love talking about music, dissecting everything from Nick Cave to Bob Dylan and beyond. Enjoy! 0:00 - Intro 2:27 - Start of the chat/Trying to figure out Talkhouse 8:14 - Periods of self-doubt and Maron's confidence in singing 20:16 - "I don't know that many comedians." 29:20 - Paige's party years 33:26 - "You're one of my favorite actors"—Stark 37:18 - Maron's junior high and high school bands 45:55 - New bands Maron has recently seen Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Marc Maron and Paige Stark for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two singer-songwriters who both come from the tradition of socially conscious folk-punk. One of them you could credit with inventing the genre, the other may be its most popular current proponent: Billy Bragg and Frank Turner. Billy Bragg is a legendary British performer who came up just after the punk boom of the late 1970s and channeled that energy into the style of a solo troubadour. His early records were massively influential to all sorts of musicians, which is no surprise given their wit, their lyrical pointedness, and how beautifully they capture the spirit of youthful engagement. But that was 40 years ago, and Bragg has created an incredible body of work that’s always expanding but never losing that kernel of truth. It got really easy to catch up with the whole thing recently, as he released a massive 14-CD box set called The Roaring Forty, which you’ll hear a little bit about in this chat. Bragg also has some US dates lined up for this July. Check out a classic Bragg track right here, one that today’s other guest references in this chat. This is “Tank Park Salute.” Frank Turner mentions that song as well as some other Bragg classics in this chat, because he’s clearly a big fan. Turner has been doing it for two decades now, and he’s an absolute road warrior: Next week will mark his 3000th gig, a big number recently aided by a world record he set in which he played 15 shows in different cities in the span of 24 hours. True to his ethic, this wasn’t a publicity stunt, but also a way to support one of the many causes he believes in—in this case the Music Venue Trust. Those shows came hot on the heels of Turner’s tenth album, Undefeated, in which he reckons a bit with getting older but remaining true to himself and the things he believes in. That feeling is perfectly encapsulated in the relatively chill “Ceasefire,” check it out. In this great chat, Bragg and Turner talk about everything from Bragg’s first US tour to their moments of musical awakening. Turner hilariously talks about his inner 15 year old giving him shit for being successful, as well as an old punk mentor who came to see him at Wembley. They talk about how activism and understanding change over the years, and how one of Bragg’s biggest songs, “Sexuality,” has morphed in this age of trans visibility. And they talk about how music—especially live music—as a chance for communion, which is something I imagine most Talkhouse listeners can relate to. Enjoy. 0:00 - Intro 3:00 - Start of the chat 4:58 - Where to look while you're on stage performing 8:04 - Who's the most famous person in Frank Turner's phone? 16:11 - How to sustain yourself in the music industry 18:50 - Turner's upcoming 3000th gig 24:24 - Frank's 15-year-old inner punk judges his current chart success 29:45 - Staying true to your 25 year old self 44:58 - People choose the wrong Frank and Billy songs for their weddings Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Frank Turner and Billy Bragg for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a favorite repeat guest alongside a newer name you perhaps haven’t heard yet: Amelia Meath and Fabi Reyna. Meath is half of the duo Sylvan Esso, which has been crafting gorgeous electro-pop for the past decade. It’s been amazing to watch Meath and her partner Nick Sanborn grow over the years, building a catalog and fanbase with songs that are equally enjoyable on headphones and in front of massive crowds. Speaking of massive crowds, Sylvan Esso has been trying to figure out for years how to play to all the people that want to see them in their adopted hometown of Durham, North Carolina, and this weekend marks their inaugural Good Moon Festival at a minor-league stadium. They’ll be joined by other great bands including co-headliner Fleet Foxes, plus a lineup of hand-picked bands including today’s other guest, Fabi Reyna. Reyna is the driving force behind Reyna Tropical, whose debut album Malegria was recently released on the Psychic Hotline label, which is run by none other than… Sylvan Esso. Reyna has long been an advocate for women in music; she’s not only a musician herself but also founder and editor of She Shreds Media. It’s a fantastic, bouncing album that plucks influences from all over the world: Reyna is Mexican-American, and she pulls sounds from all over the Southern Hemisphere as well as West Africa and sultry pop. Check out “Cartagena” from Malegria right here. In this great chat, Meath and Reyna talk about the upcoming Good Moon festival, about how playing in front of unfriendly audiences can sometimes be helpful, about the loss of Reyna’s musical partner Nectali Diaz, aka Sumohair, the just-released tenth anniversary reissue of Sylvan Esso’s great debut album and much more. Enjoy. 0:00 - Intro 2:14 - Start of the chat 3:42 - Anxiety, a constant companion. 5:58 - What to do when the audience isn't there for you. 12:26 - On naming the Good Moon festival. 15:20 - On Amelia's favorite part of a festival. 25:48 - On overcoming imposter syndrome. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Amelia Meath and Fabi Reyna for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

Greetings, Talkhouse friends. Instead of a Talkhouse episode this week, I wanted to share another episode of my pal Craig Finn’s show, That’s How I Remember It, which is just starting its third season. Craig has an incredible array of guests lined up, and he’s switching to a new schedule where he’ll have new episodes every other week without a break. That means more amazing chats for you, including this one with Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck. Craig and Matt chat about the philosophy behind That’s How I Remember It—it’s a podcast about creativity and memory—as well as an early meeting between the two, Phosphorescent’s mighty “Song For Zula” and much more. I’ll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming, but for now, give That’s How I Remember It your attention. See you next week! 0:00 - Intro 2:41 - "Do you think you have a good memory?" 3:58 - The origins of That's How I Remember It 8:43 - Craig vs. Matt's approach to songwriting 13:14 - "Do you have a first memory of music? 23:00 - "Do you connect music with seasons?" 35:53 - Craig and Matt first meeting at SXSW 2010 36:52 - "Did the Full Moon Project ... affect your own songwriting?" 43:30 - "Song For Zula" - "Did it surprise you?" 46:45 - "Has traveling/moving changed your music?" This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two incredible singer-songwriters who sprung from the same fertile late '80s/early '90s scene, and who are still doing it right all these years later: Joe Pernice and Bill Janovitz. Joe Pernice first found notice in the country-ish pop band Scud Mountain Boys, whose home-recorded songs landed them a deal with Sub Pop in the mid-1990s. The Scuds weren’t around super long, but their end was the beginning of the Pernice Brothers, Joe’s long-running band that continues to put out excellent, often melancholy songs. The latest Pernice Brothers album—and by the way, he’s really the only constant member at this point—is called Who Will You Believe, and it stands up there with his incredibly durable catalog. In addition to writing and playing songs, Pernice wrote a great novel a while back called It Feels So Good When I Stop, and he even had a short stint writing for TV. But for now, he’s concentrating on music. Check out “December in Her Eyes” from Who Will You Believe. The other half of today’s conversation, Bill Janovitz, has been the singer and guitar player for the band Buffalo Tom since their inception back in 1986, and while there have been quieter periods in there, they’ve consistently released records, including the new Jump Rope, which comes out on May 31. Buffalo Tom came out of the same incredible Boston/Amherst music scene that birthed Pernice Brothers, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and many more, and these guys dive right into reminiscing about those fertile days. In addition to making music, Janovitz is also something of a rock historian, having written the comprehensive Leon Russell book in recent years, as well as a volume on The Rolling Stones. His next book is about The Cars, which these guys talk about during this chat as well. Check out “Helmet” from the upcoming album Jump Rope right here. Like I said, these guys dive back into the Boston days, talking about mutual friends and collaborators like J Mascis and David Berman of Silver Jews. They also try to remember their first encounters, one of which involves Pernice being a little ornery, and they talk about selecting songs for records—and how they never know which ones people are going to react to. Enjoy. 0:00 - Intro 2:46 - Start of the chat 7:37 - Joe's legendary cousin 12:15 - Joe walks out of college and has "a mild nervous breakdown" 18:20 - "When did you meet [David] Berman?" 23:58 - "My first album was made for $60." 31:01 - Berman wants to hear Joe say the word "cocksucker." 42:12 - Craft versus hack, and writing for TV and film Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Joe Pernice and Bill Janovitz for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and make sure to check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

This week's Talkhouse Podcast brings together two important figures from the ‘90s shoegaze movement—and beyond—Miki Berenyi and Debbie Googe. Berenyi was one of the two women at the front of Lush, the powerhouse band that burned very bright from the late ‘80s to a difficult end in 1996. Their fascinating story—and much more—is told in Berenyi’s recent autobiography, the excellent Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success. The book details everything from Berenyi’s childhood through a no-holds-barred look at her band’s successes and failures, from management woes to in-fighting to a stage dive on Lollapalooza that left her in literal stitches. Berenyi is about to launch a U.S. tour, her first in a while, that also marks the beginnings of a new band, the Miki Berenyi Trio. Details can be found at mikistuff.com. The other half of this conversation is Debbie Googe, best known as the bassist for My Bloody Valentine, perhaps the most legendary of the shoegaze bands. Googe was there almost from the volatile band’s start, both in their early, more rocking days—which you’ll hear a bit about in this chat—to its ongoing reunion. In the long stretches between My Bloody Valentine tours, Googe has played in other interesting bands, including Thurston Moore’s solo lineups and with Brix Smith of the Fall. Googe also recently started performing and recording more experimental music as da Googie, including a recent collaborative single with Too Many Things. As you’ll hear, Berenyi and Googe know each other from way back—from the days when their bands were small enough to be playing shows in squats, in fact. In this chat, they talk about what touring is like in Europe versus their UK home—better food in Europe—as well as Berenyi’s bandmate and partner Moose losing his passport recently. Googe tells the hilarious story of her My Bloody Valentine bandmate Bilinda Butcher auditioning for the band, which involves accidentally being interviewed for another, entirely different, job. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Miki Berenyi and Debbie Googe for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

This week's Talkhouse Podcast came together in a fun way, when a new-ish artist referenced the work of a more established band in a song, and the head of a legendary indie label thought they should meet. That sounds complicated, but don’t worry I’ll explain. Our guests are Claire Rousay and Kevin Drew. Kevin Drew is best known as one of the founders of Broken Social Scene, the influential Canadian band slash collective that’s been around for 25 years now. The band has amassed an incredible catalog that broke out with 2002’s unstoppable You Forgot It In People but all of its records reward a deep dive—as does the solo work that Drew has also released over the years. Last year he released a moving record about loss—among other things—called Aging, and as you’ll hear in this conversation, he hopes to reignite Broken Social Scene for one more run that includes some of the collective’s members that have gone on to big careers outside the band, like Leslie Feist and Emily Haines. I personally would love to see it. I imagine the other half of today’s conversation, Claire Rousay, would as well. The impetus for this conversation is her song “Lover’s Spit Plays in the Background.” In case you’re not familiar with the aforementioned Broken Social Scene album, You Forgot It In People, it features a song called “Lover’s Spit.” Rousay’s song is from her fantastic new album Sentiment, just out on Thrill Jockey Records, on which she leans more into song structure than on past releases, which have been tagged “emo ambient.” Rousay uses found sounds, hazy atmospherics, and Auto-Tune to tell sometimes crushingly depressing stories in a way that somehow turns out gorgeous. Check out “Lover’s Spit Plays in the Background” right here. This conversation ended up happening because Thrill Jockey’s Bettina Richards reached out to Drew to let him know about the nod on Rousay’s song, and the rest is history: As you’ll hear, they connected pretty quickly, and they chat about blackout curtains, influential record labels, the death of Kevin’s mom, and what Drew dubs Claire’s “beautiful, vulnerable, shadowy womb/sleeping bag of a record.” Enjoy. 0:00 - Intro 2:29 - Start of the chat 4:49 - On Claire's unusual introduction to Broken Social Scene's music 9:24 - On music as a lifesaver 13:47 - On the future of Broken Social Scene 17:35 - On being jealous of your peers 21:42 - On blackout curtains 31:27 - On signing to Thrill Jockey 36:46 - On negativity and career expectations Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Claire Rousay and Kevin Drew for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

This week’s Talkhouse Podcast is actually taken from a conversation that served as the online launch party for the second issue of our print ‘zine, The Talkhouse Reader, which was lovingly put together by Talkhouse music editor Annie Fell. The issue, which you can order at store.talkhouse.com explores the intersection of food and music, so naturally this episode does as well. Our guests are Jason Stewart and Rostam. Stewart is, along with Chris Black, the host of the popular podcast How Long Gone, in which the two discuss pop culture, fashion, and whatever else happens to come to mind, often with great guests—recent ones include Jenny Lewis, Waxahatchee, and Isaac Brock—but frequently just the two of them gabbing like better-read versions of your hippest friends. They’re part of the fabulous Talkhouse Podcast Network, and you can catch the How Long Gone guys live this June if you’re lucky enough to live in one of the cities they’ll be visiting. Tour dates and their deep catalog of episodes can be found on their site. Today’s other guest is Rostam, who’s best known as a co-founder of Vampire Weekend and co-architect of that band’s sound. Rostam left Vampire Weekend a few years ago to pursue solo and production work, and he’s kept plenty busy. He made a great record with Hamilton Leithauser of the Walkmen as well as a fully solo record called Changephobia—you may have heard him on the Talkhouse Podcast talking about it with Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast. He’s released a few standalone songs recently as well, and as always he’s a thoughtful conversationalist with something interesting to say. Since this conversation is focused largely on food, you can expect to hear about Rostam’s egg habits, a killer salmon recipe, and some talk about Rostam’s mom, who’s a well known chef of Persian food who once went toe-to-toe with Martha Stewart. Enjoy, and please check out the Talkhouse Reader issue two at store.talkhouse.com. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jason Stewart and Rostam for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was put together by Annie Fell and edited by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a whopping four guys representing three bands, more or less: Ryan Hahn and Nik Ewing from Local Natives and Sean Cimino and Isom Innis from Foster the People but, perhaps more importantly for purposes of this chat, their side project Peel. Local Natives have been around since around 2005, but it wasn’t until their debut album Gorilla Manor hit shelves in 2009 that the California band had its first real moment. They rode a similar wave to bands like Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear, with bits of folk and punk and psychedelia all wrapped up in songs that are frequently undeniable earworms. They’ve built a really impressive catalog since, and the sessions for 2023’s Time Will Wait For No One were so fruitful that they actually yielded a companion record that’s just coming out now, called But I’ll Wait For You. It’s another gorgeously layered set of songs that feels even a little weirder than what came right before it. Check out the song “April” right here. The other half of this conversation is Sean Cimino and Isom Innis, who are best known as part of Foster the People, which had a huge hit straight out of the gate in 2010 with “Pumped Up Kicks,” and which has been chipping away at incredible pop-inflected songs since. But Cimino and Innis recently released their debut album under the name Peel, which takes a much more psychedelic approach to songs, creating dancey dream-pop that sometimes looks back at the ‘90s through some gauzy glasses. Check out one of the dancier tracks from Peel’s album Acid Star right here. This is called “Y2J.” In this chat, these old friends immediately head into a conversation about the relative merits of U2 and other bands that you should or should not be ashamed to love. They also chat about their history together, which goes way back, and of course about their latest records. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sean Cimino, Isom Innis, Nik Ewing and Ryan Hahn for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two powerhouses in what I guess you might call modern indie-folk, though it’s a lot more than that: Gregory Alan Isakov and Jeremiah Fraites. Fraites is, along with Wesley Schultz, a founding member of the Lumineers, the band whose simple-yet-powerful take on folky Americana has been met with pretty massive success over the past couple of decades. The band’s catalog goes deeper than massive hits like “Ho Hey” and “Stubborn Love,” songs you’ve probably heard even if you’re not super familiar with the band. The Lumineers’ latest album is 2022’s Brightside, but that’s not Fraites’ latest: He just released his second solo album of intriguing, fantastic instrumental piano pieces—a big departure from the sound of his main gig, but great nonetheless. It’s called Piano Piano 2—you can probably guess what the first one was called—and it stretches into even more cinematic territory than the first. Plus, it features a guest vocal from the other half of today’s conversation. Gregory Alan Isakov may seem like an overnight sensation, but the Colorado-based singer-songwriter has been plugging away—sometimes quietly—for nearly two decades, building a fanbase for his intimate songs over the course of seven albums. His latest, Appaloosa Bones, came out late last year, and as you’ll hear in this chat, the songs ended up being a bit more fleshed out than those on his past records. He’s on tour now, and he’s featured on the new Noah Kahan single as well. So yeah, kind of a big deal. Oh, and as I mentioned a minute ago, he collaborated with Jeremiah Fraites recently, on a cover of Radiohead’s classic “No Surprises.” Check out a bit of the magic they wrung from making the song their own. In this chat, Fraites and Isakov talk about how songwriting never gets easier—sorry, budding songwriters—about Isakov’s teenage obsession with the Nintendo game Metroid, and what that has to do with music, and about finding intimate sounds in massive places like Red Rocks, aka the best venue in the universe. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jeremiah Fraites and Gregory Alan Isakov for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a rare trio episode for you, since two of our guests created something very cool together: Jo Firestone, Marissa Paternoster, and Joe Steinhardt. I’ll start with Jo Firestone, the actor, writer, comedian, podcaster, game inventor, and probably some other stuff that I’m forgetting, who you may have seen on the show Joe Pera Talks With You or, like a million other things. She’s done stand-up specials and albums, she’s written for The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, and she hosts the game-centric podcast Dr. Gameshow. Firestone is currently the head writer on After Midnight, the comedy/game show hybrid that airs late every night on CBS. In other words, she’s busy. But not too busy to chat with her friends Marissa Paternoster and Joe Steinhardt about their new graphic novel, Merriment. You may recognize Paternoster are the singer and guitarist for the amazing, recently broken up band Screaming Females, and Talkhouse readers and listeners may even recognize her illustrations, which have appeared on the site over the years. Paternoster continues to make music, but the focus of this chat is Merriment, her first graphic novel. Paternoster put her eerie, singular images to a story by her old friend Joe Steinhardt, head of the long-running independent label Don Giovanni Records, which has been home to a number of incredible bands over the past two decades, including Screaming Females. These three have a fun, loose chat about Merriment, which in case I didn’t say it yet, you should definitely check out, as well as Steinhardt’s not-so-secret desires to be a comedian, Paternoster’s can’t-fail movie idea, how Firestone was once tasked with selling St. Louis pizza with a New York attitude, and a game I’d never heard of called “Somebody Pooped in the Salad.” Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jo Firestone, Marissa Paternoster, and Joe Steinhardt for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two songwriters whose music bursts with personality, but in oddly different ways: CMAT and John Grant. CMAT is the stage name/alter ego of Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, who’s already hit it pretty big in her native Ireland with funny, frank, and flamboyant songs about break-ups and time travel and everything in between, I guess you might say. She was recently nominated for a BRIT Award for Best International Artist—she wore a jaw-dropping dress to the ceremony—and her second album, Crazymad, For Me went to number one in her home country as well. Now she’s ready to take on the States a bit, to see if her music—queer-friendly, over-the-top pop—can make as big a splash here. Check out “Where are Your Kids Tonight,” which features today’s other guest John Grant, and catch CMAT on tour in the US right now. Dates are at cmatbaby.com. John Grant is a tough guy to explain: On the surface, his music can sound like party-friendly electro-pop, but the themes and lyrics run deep and often pretty intense. Grant started out in the Denver band The Czars, but it wasn’t until he spread his wings as a solo artist—starting with 2010’s Queen of Denmark, which he made with help from members of the band Midlake—that he really found his unique voice. Since then it’s been a series of fascinating records with a series of fascinating collaborators, including Cate Le Bon, who produced his 2021 album Boy From Michigan. Grant just announced the release of his sixth album, The Art of The Lie. It comes out in June, and it promises a no-punches-pulled look at America in 2024, yet with some funk to help ease the medicine. Check out the song “It’s a Bitch” right here, and you can pre-order the whole record at johngrantmusic.com. In this conversation, Grant and CMAT have pretty dissimilar demeanors—she’s brash, he’s a more quiet sort of intense—but it works: Clearly these two are fans of each other’s work, as you’ll see, and they have a great chat about language, the ugliness of social media—especially for queer and/or female artists—and CMAT’s ass crack, which was “pixelated by the Daily Mail.” Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to John Grant and CMAT for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s Talkhouse episode was recorded live at the On Air Festival in Brooklyn recently—that explains why you’ll hear some audience questions at the end—and it features Hamilton Leithauser and Randall Poster, two interesting guys who were just meeting for the first time. Leithauser is best known as the frontman for The Walkmen, the New York band that put out a string of incredible records between 2000 and 2013 before going on a hiatus that lasted a decade—they reunited for a tour last year and have some festival dates lined up for this year. But Leithauser kept plenty busy during the band’s downtime, releasing three great records on his own—and he’s apparently got another one just about ready to go. Perhaps more relevant to this conversation, at least a bit, is the fact that he’s recently gotten into making music for film and TV. Avid Talkhouse listeners will remember that he was on the podcast last year talking with Ethan Hawke about a Paul Newman documentary they worked on together. Leithauser’s latest project in that realm is music for a doc series that just premiered at Sundance, and he also just finished up his yearly residence at the posh Cafe Carlyle. You may not immediately recognize the name of today’s other guest, but Randall Poster has almost certainly played you a song that you love at some point over the past few decades. As the go-to music supervisor for some incredible filmmakers, he’s helped set the mood for more than 200 movies. Perhaps most notably Poster has worked repeatedly with Wes Anderson, a director for whom the soundtrack is massively important. Watch the credits next time you love the song choices in a movie, and you might just see his name. Poster also recently curated a huge 20-LP box set called The Birdsong Project Collection, which you’ll hear about in this chat as well. Elsewhere, Leithauser and Poster talk about their jobs, about other podcasts—including one they had in common, called Call Your Grandmother. They get into the story of how Poster got into his unusual profession, and Leithauser talks about a Springsteen cover he recorded that may never see the light of day. Leithauser also talks about the time the presence of Christian Bale basically ruined a Walkmen show, though he can’t quite remember the movie it was surrounding: Guys, it was Terrence Malick’s already-kinda-forgotten film Song To Song. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hamilton Leithauser and Randall Poster for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters who broke out in the ‘90s and early 2000s and have had fruitful careers since—and who happen to be old pals—Ben Kweller and Brendan Benson. As you’ll hear in this chat, Kweller got his rock life started early, learning guitar as a teenager and hustling hard for gigs in the small Texas town where he grew up. His first band, Radish, got a big record deal while Kweller was still a kid, and while they never exactly blew up, there’s definitely some love out there for the band’s early records. Kweller went solo in the early 2000s with the classic album Sha Sha, which was an early release on Dave Matthews’ record label ATO—and which last year got the deluxe anniversary reissue treatment. He’s had a run of great solo records since, and was in a supergroup called The Bens with Ben Folds and Ben Lee. He also started a music collective called The Noise Company, which is a sort of hybrid studio/management/record label. They’re having a big blowout at this year’s South by Southwest, so if you’re down there, it’s at the Mohawk on March 15. Check out a little bit of a great Kweller song right here, “American Cigarettes.” Brendan Benson, as you’ll hear in this chat, is a bit older than Kweller, but he’s had a similarly remarkable career. Benson’s debut solo album came out back in 1996, but if you’re looking for a place to start with his driving rock songs, check out 2002’s Lapalco. Benson has eight solo albums to his credit, including 2002’s Low Key, but he might be best known as the co-frontman of The Raconteurs, along with his old friend, bandmate, and Detroit-area native Jack White. Check out a great Benson track for earlier days right here, “What I’m Looking For,” and catch him at the Noise Company showcase this weekend as well. These two old pals sound delighted to be chatting, and they jump right into an unplanned episode of Car Talk—Kweller, as it turns out, might get himself a Tesla Cybertruck. They also talk a lot of the spark of creativity that led them to their chosen careers, and they each mention the embarrassing first songs they ever wrote. Kweller tells a great story about hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the first time as well, and Benson admits that The Three Stooges have had a huge influence on how he harmonizes. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Ben Kweller and Brendan Benson for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This episode originally aired on October 19, 2023. On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two women who lead fierce, fantastic rock bands: Karly Hartzman and Marisa Dabice. Hartzman is the driving force behind the band Wednesday, which started as a solo-ish vehicle for her songs back in 2017 but has blossomed into a full band with an already-sizable catalog. Everything they’ve done is worth checking out, but it sure feels like Wednesday hit exactly what they’d always been striving for on the album Rat Saw God, which came out earlier this year. Hartzman’s lyrics are both pointed and poetic—amazing in their specificity and delivered with some serious passion, whether in a country-ish moment, or one that feels almost metal. Today’s other guest, Marisa Dabice, thinks Wednesday sounds like Black Sabbath meets Sparklehorse, which is both accurate and something that’s probably never been said about any band before. Check out “Bull Believer” from Rat Saw God. Marisa Dabice is the voice behind Mannequin Pussy, a band that’s been releasing blistering music since 2010. Just this week, Mannequin Pussy announced the release of their long-awaited fourth album, I Got Heaven, which will come out in March of 2024. Hartzman, as you’ll hear in this conversation, has already gotten a listen to the record—which was produced with John Congleton—and she loves it. The title track is already getting rave reviews for taking Mannequin Pussy’s intense punk energy and adding a bit of sweetness with some synths and a sugary chorus, but those aspects almost make it sound even more confrontational in a way. In any case, it’s awesome: Check out “I Got Heaven” right here. In this chat, these two friends talk about touring, and specifically about how unusual it can feel to perform—and how that can lead to actual tears on stage, not the most fun experience. They chat about the difference between Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday fans, and about the pressure to enjoy your success while it’s happening. Oh, and about saunas. You’ve gotta love a sauna. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Maria Dabice and Karly Hartzman for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and check out all the goodness elsewhere on this site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

I’m so excited to to share this week’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, which features a fascinating, deep yet kind of low-key conversation between two really talented people that you might not have expected to be paired up: Bob Odenkirk and Marcellus Hall. I’m guessing most people listening to this podcast will know who Odenkirk is. A longtime comedian and writer, he and his pal David Cross gifted the world some of the funniest TV ever created in Mr. Show With Bob And David, and if that was the only thing Odenkirk ever did, it’d be plenty. But of course the other really huge thing in his career is his portrayal of Saul Goodman on both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, two dramas that stand among some of the best TV ever. And I haven’t even mentioned his books, the movies he’s produced and directed, or the many things he’s starred in. Without Bob, there would be no motivational speaker Matt Foley from SNL or any Tim and Eric Awesome Show. He’s a legend, and he probably wouldn’t want me saying that, which makes him a legend even more. Bob has also been a huge booster for things that he loves over the course of his career, including the aforementioned Tim and Eric plus things like the Birthday Boys and the unheralded movie Girlfriends Day, which he also stars in. And Bob has been a vocal fan of today’s other guest, Marcellus Hall, for many years, too. Hall’s music career goes back to the 1990s, when he was the frontman of the band Railroad Jerk, a clattering blues-punk band whose self-titled debut was one of the first albums ever released by Matador Records. Railroad Jerk is one of those bands that never quite hit it big, but those who saw them play live—I did once, in Madison Wisconsin—never forgot it. After that band broke up, Hall started another one, called White Hassle, and eventually started releasing albums under his own name while simultaneously enjoying a career as an illustrator—he’s done a bunch of New Yorker covers and put out a really touching graphic novel a few years back called Kaleidoscope City. But this conversation was inspired by Hall’s return to music after some years away. He just released a brand new album called I Will Never Let You Down. Here’s the album’s title track, which these guys chat about. In this lengthy and intimate conversation, which took place at Hall’s New York apartment, he and Odenkirk start and end by talking about Jack Kerouac, and in between they go to a ton of interesting places. Sometimes these Talkhouse chats really feel like you’re eavesdropping, and this is definitely one of those. They talk about Hall’s work as well as Odenkirk’s, and they dive into the notion that it gets harder as you get older to find that spark of inspiration. Odenkirk admits to some feelings of imposter syndrome, even after all of his success, and they both come across as guys who are still seeking, even after all these years. It’s contemplative, but I think ultimately inspiring. This may be the last podcast you hear Odenkirk on for a while, as he’s decided to stop saying “yes” to quite as many things as he did in the past. I love that, too. So get yourself some headphones and give this one your full attention—you won’t regret it. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Marcellus Hall and Bob Odenkirk for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was recorded by Mark Yoshizumi and produced by Myron Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a very cool episode that was inspired by a very cool performance coming up in Los Angeles soon. It’s David Longstreth in conversation with Phil Elverum. Longstreth is the focal point of the band Dirty Projectors, which formed about 20 years ago in Brooklyn, and was part of a scene that kind of elevated indie-pop into something more serious and timeless. It’s been clear throughout the years that Longstreth is a musical searcher, having never been content to repeat himself. That’s led to an incredibly varied catalog that can even border on pleasantly confusing, and the huge undertaking that he’s in the midst of—and the starting point of this conversation—is no exception. About 10 years ago, Longstreth began working on what I’d guess you’d call a contemporary classical song cycle called Song of the Earth, which he performed with the ensemble stargaze a few years back. He’s since been refining and reworking the piece, and along with Dirty Projectors and the world-renowned L.A. Philharmonic, he’ll perform it on March 2 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. That’s a huge group of people and a massive undertaking—and not to be missed. At almost the opposite end of the spectrum will be that evening’s opening act, Mount Eerie, aka renowned minimalist songwriter Phil Elverum. Elverum is almost a mythical figure in indie-rock, having forged a truly unique path over the past decade, first under the name The Microphones and later Mount Eerie. His music is often deeply personal, and he’ll move from simply structured indie-folk into fully immersive lo-fi drones in ways that can confound and disarm. His catalog is wide and deep, though if you’re unfamiliar with his music, a good place to start is 2001’s The Glow Pt. 2. At this concert, he’ll not only open the show for Dirty Projectors but he’ll also—as you’ll hear—participate a little bit, because Longstreth tapped Elverum to help out on a Song of The Earth piece called “Twin Aspens.” They were nice enough to give us a preview of the piece here, so check out a little bit of a not-quite-final version of “Twin Aspens,” composed by Longstreth and with some help from Elverum. As you’ll hear in this conversation, these guys are deeply immersed in music, and certainly not just pop music. From hearing them chat I learned about Japanese Gagaku music, among other things. They also talk at length about Elverum’s incredible album-length song “Microphones in 2020,” which is essentially a history of his own evolution, with a fascinating visual to go along with it. They also talk a lot about starting the creative process with a palette in mind, which I found fascinating as well. Enjoy the chat, and if you’re in the L.A. area, I think there are a few tickets left for this once-in-a-lifetime performance on March 2. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to David Longstreth and Phil Elverum for talking. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. Annie Fell has my eternal thanks for stepping in to record it at the last minute, too. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriting visionaries who came to prominence in the 1990s with well respected indie bands, and who both have vital new music out now: Jason Lytle and Gruff Rhys. Lytle started making music under the name Grandaddy back in 1992. He was a pro skateboarder who found a second passion in home recording, and as you’ll hear in this chat, kind of stumbled upon some guys who helped him flesh out the sound into something both humble and grand. The first run of Grandaddy albums—including Under the Western Freeway and 2000’s classic The Sophtware Slump—felt a bit like quieter, more heartfelt cousins to the music the Flaming Lips were making at the time. After that initial run, the band eventually split up, only to reform sporadically over the years. Lytle also recorded some really fascinating solo records while also taking time—as you’ll hear—to try and leave the music world behind a little bit. But he’s been called back to the Grandaddy world with a brand new album called Blu Wav, and it’s everything you’d expect from his brain: a mixture of sweet sadness with fuzzy guitars and synths from another age. Check out “Cabin in My Mind” from Blu Wav right here. The other half of today’s conversation is Gruff Rhys, who just released his 25th album overall in a career that has spanned 35 years and taken some fascinating turns. He’s still probably best known as the frontman of the colorful, psych-leaning Welsh pop band Super Furry Animals, which was signed to the venerated Creation Records label back in the 1990s, and whose records and visuals always zigged when you thought they might zag—that’s a compliment. For his solo work, Rhys has been genre-expansive to say the least, but his brand new record, Sadness Sets Me Free, is refreshingly straightforward pop. As you’ll hear in this chat, it was recorded pretty quickly, without a lot of fuss. It doesn’t sound miles away from the new Grandaddy album, really. Check out “Bad Friend” right here. As it turns out, these two toured together a million years ago, and each has fond memories of that time—a soccer match, a special parting gift, and more. They also chat about Lytle’s preference to stay away from the madness of the big city, even as he lives perilously close to it once again as well as their tendency to make up words in their songs when the ones that exist just won’t do. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Gruff Rhys and Jason Lytle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range, and we offer special thanks this week to Keenan Kush. See you next time!

Hello and welcome to the Talkhouse Podcast, I’m Josh Modell. On this week’s episode we’ve got a pair of friends who, as you’ll hear, have provided emotional support and advice to each other throughout interesting, winding careers over the past couple of decades; Mary Timony and Joe Wong. Timony is probably best known as the leader of the ‘90s indie-rock band Helium, but her catalog goes far beyond it. Prior to Helium, Timony came up in the DC punk scene as part of the band Autoclave, and after she’s been part of Wild Flag with members of Sleater-Kinney, fronted a band called Ex Hex, and released records under her own name. That’s mostly why we’re here today, because Timony is about to release her first solo record in 15 years, and it’s fantastic. It’s called Untame the Tiger, and it picks up on some of the psych elements that Timony has wrangled in the past—and even includes a guest appearance by the former drummer of Fairport Convention, Dave Mattacks, as you’ll hear in this chat. Untame the Tiger was also produced in part by today’s other guest, Joe Wong. It comes out February 23, but check out the song “Dominoes” right here. As I mentioned, today’s other guest is Joe Wong, who grew up in Milwaukee and played in indie-rock bands before finding his creative path in two amazing ways: as a composer for TV and film and as a podcast host. He’s written music for the likes of Russian Doll and Master of None, and he helms the popular podcast The Trap Set, which originated as a way to spotlight his favorite drummers, but has since expanded into deep and incredible conversations with all kinds of creative folks. But a few years back, partly at the urging of his friend Mary Timony, Wong began writing songs for himself rather than for other people’s scores. He just released his second album, Mere Survival, and while it still has late-’60s big-pop vibes, it gets even bigger and weirder than his first. It features not only Timony, but also Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron, among other guests. Check out the title track from Mere Survival right here. This conversation took place shortly after two big release shows for Mere Survival for which Wong gathered a 20-piece band, so you’ll hear a bit about that, as well as some thoughts on songwriting itself. Wong and Timony also get deep on how their parents’ illnesses brought them together, about self-sabotage and perfectionism, and much more. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Mary TImony and Joe Wong for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written pieces at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of visionary artists who came from different backgrounds but ended up in the same place—sort of. Dawn Richard jumped into the deep end when she auditioned for the reality show Making the Band 3 back in 2004. She made the cut and subsequently became part of the Diddy-manufactured girl group Danity Kane, which hit it pretty big for several years. Richard then formed Dirty Money, which eventually added Diddy himself as a member. But Richard’s artistic ambitions went far beyond mainstream pop, and about 10 years ago she leaned into more experimental music—while also filling her time with a vegan food truck, representing brands, and working with Adult Swim. She’s often compared to artists like Bjork and Imogen Heap, which makes sense in that she’s always surprising her audience. In what seemed like an unusual pairing, she signed with indie powerhouse Merge Records for the universally acclaimed album Second Line. She’s subsequently released an album with sonic experimentalist Spencer Zahn, and as you’ll hear in this chat, she plans on working with him again. Check out “Babe Ruth,” which is taken from Richard’s most recent EP, The Architect. Torres—aka Mackenzie Scott—has also found a home at Merge Records, and her records—powerful, emotional indie-rock with big aspirations—are perhaps more in line with the sound the label was built on. The sixth Torres album just came out, and it’s got the best title you’ll hear all year: It’s called What an Enormous Room, and it’s the most expansive set of songs she’s ever done, with big hooks and big emotions to match that big title. Torres just kicked off a big tour that’ll take Scott and her band around the world this year, so whether you’re in Berlin or Boise, you can check them out. And you should. In the meantime, check out “Jerk Into Joy,” a song that Richard loves, as you’ll hear in this conversation. Elsewhere in the chat, Scott and Richard talk about whether full albums and bigger concepts can compete with digital singles and instant internet culture, and they get into how running is a vital part of their creative processes. Richard tells Scott that the secret to getting everything done is not sleeping, and they compare church upbringings, and how religious songs left a big impression on both. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Dawn Richard and Mackenzie Scott of Torres for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and check out the wide variety of other shows available on our network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of friends who make sometimes challenging yet often incredibly catchy and tuneful music, one of whom you’ve seen and heard on Talkhouse several times before: Mac DeMarco and Kirin J. Callinan. DeMarco has been on the podcast before, and we keep inviting him both because we love his music and because he’s a great conversationalist. For the music part, DeMarco has been making dizzyingly catchy songs since around 2012, when his confusingly titled debut, which is called 2, came out. But it’s been part of his fun-loving persona to keep it light and a little bit silly, even as he’s zapping you with catchy pop. Sometimes he ventures into soft-rock, other times he's vaguely psychedelic. For his latest album One Wayne G—and I’m not actually sure you can call it that—DeMarco assembled 199 songs that run almost nine hours. Songs might be a little strong a word to use for most of these tracks, which are often instrumental ideas more than fully fleshed out “songs”—he even says that on this podcast. Check out one of those ideas right here, whose title is simply the day it was recorded, “20190205.” Now Kirin J. Callinan’s records are, like DeMarco’s, often referred to as “provocative,” but these two guys push buttons in different ways. While his friend Mac gives off chill vibes onstage, Callinan likes a little bit of danger in performances. His records can be grandiosely pop-centric while his persona is… intense. He’s often compared to either David Bowie or Nick Cave, and I think the truth is somewhere in between. He’s played on a lot of other folks’ records, including songs with DeMarco and appearances with Caroline Polachek and Mark Ronson, and he starred on the TV series Top of The Lake, so it's been a varied career to say the least. February 2 will see the release of Callinan’s fantastic new album If I Could Sing. Check out the song “Young Drunk Driver.” You’ll realize quickly that DeMarco and Callinan are old friends: They get right into talking about Callinan’s recent dye-job and other chummy topics. Some are less fun, including the recent theft of Callinan’s motorcycle—recent meaning he had just gotten off the phone with the police when this chat started. They also talk about the relative coolness of tennis versus golf, Callinan’s new record, and potential future collaborations. You heard it here first. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Mac DeMarco and Kirin J. Callinan for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got two guys whose work I’ve admired for decades, but who I never realized were as close as they are personally: David Wain and Craig Wedren. Wain is a writer-director-actor (and more) who first came to fame with the hilarious sketch-comedy group The State, whose mid-'90s MTV show was and is a cult sensation—and still holds up to this day. Proof of that: The State has been doing reunion shows recently, and today’s podcast was inspired by the fact that I saw today’s other guest, Craig Wedren, in the audience for their recent Chicago show. After The State, Wain went on to direct a bunch of hilarious movies, including Wet Hot American Summer, Wanderlust and Role Models. He’s also done lots of acting, and way more stuff than I can list here in a reasonable amount of time. On top of that, he started the just-for-fun, cheekily named Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, whose core also includes State alumnus Ken Marino and lots of big special guests. The Jam band will be playing at SF Sketchfest, which starts today, with tons of other great acts, including… The State. Craig Wedren started his career as the singer of Shudder to Think, the DC-based band of art-rockers whose early records came out on Dischord. After that band split up—which had something to do with Wedren being diagnosed with a pretty serious cancer in his mid-20s—he switched his focus to scoring and soundtrack work, at which he has undoubtedly succeeded. He’s made music for tons of TV and film, including many of Wain’s projects. He’s also made some fantastic solo albums, including one that’s due for release next week called The Dream Dreaming. It’s maybe the most accessible thing he’s ever done, but as Wain points out in this conversation, accessible music by Craig Wedren is still beautifully odd. Check out “Play Innocent” from The Dream Dreaming. As a huge fan of both Shudder to Think and The State, I’m surprised I didn’t realize that Wain and Wedren weren’t just professional collaborators, but literally life-long friends. They’ve known each other since they were about 4, and they started making creative things together not long after that—they get into that history here. In this conversation, they talk about their history together, what they’re doing now, the ups and downs of doing it yourself, bath-time tips, and Wedren’s health issues over the years, including one that just happened. It’s a great chat. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to David Wain and Craig Wedren for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Hello and welcome to the Talkhouse Podcast, I’m Josh Modell. On this week’s episode we’ve got the return of one of our favorite repeat guests in conversation with an equally fantastic songwriter making her first Talkhouse Podcast appearance. Sharon Van Etten is a singer and songwriter who’s been making records for the past decade plus, growing and changing and taking chances in exactly the way you hope truly talented people will. Her amazing early records were quietly intense, very confessional affairs, but she burst from the seams with subsequent releases. In 2019, she released Remind Me Tomorrow, which brought in bigger sounds and colors and an entirely different kind of confidence to her songwriting and performance. In 2022, Van Etten released another incredible album called We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, which puts into intense songs some of the feelings we’ve all been feeling through the last few years. As you’ll hear in this chat, Van Etten has already written a ton of songs for her next album, and now she’s trying to figure out how to get there. Check out "Mistakes" from We've Been Going About This All Wrong. The other half of today’s chat is Canadian singer-songwriter Charlotte Cornfield. Yes, that’s her real last name—you can actually read the story on Talkhouse.com from 2021 where she explained its origins to Amy Millan of the band Stars. Cornfield starting releasing music back in 2008, and her fifth album, Could Have Done Anything, was released in May of 2023. This conversation was originally meant to be recorded back then, but Cornfield had a baby around that same time, which as some of you surely know, changes your schedule pretty intensely. But motherhood is a big part of this conversation: Van Etten has a six-year-old, and the two openly talk about the joys and challenges of raising a child. Check out “Gentle Like the Drugs,” from Could Have Done Anything. In addition to getting deep about parenting, Van Etten and Cornfield talk about Van Etten’s creative in-between space, about the plusses and minuses of New York vs Los Angeles vs Toronto, and about how Southerners eat trash—but in a good way. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sharon Van Etten and Charlotte Cornfield for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an episode for the drummers and those who like a great story: Jon Wurster and Stewart Copeland. Copeland is of course the drummer for the legendary, gazillion-selling Rock and Roll Hall of Famers the Police, who were called “the biggest band in the world” during their mid-'80s heyday. Their hits have endured over the decades, too, and that’s in no small part due to the special chemistry the trio enjoyed—and that chemistry, as you’ll hear, often manifested itself in fights between Copeland and his old bandmate Sting. Copeland has made a fascinating career for himself since; he directed a documentary about his old band that made interesting use of their music, and he’s got a new album and tour called Police Deranged for Orchestra, which features those classic songs redone in wild new ways. As you’ll hear in this chat, Copeland also found a side career as a film composer, working on everything from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street to the classic Francis Ford Coppola movie Rumble Fish. Check out a little bit of “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic“ from Police Deranged for Orchestra right here. Now the other half of this conversation is a drummer from a later era and, as you’ll hear, a huge fan of Copeland’s work. Jon Wurster is a renaissance man who’s played most regularly with Superchunk, the Mountain Goats, and Bob Mould, but whose list of credits goes way beyond those amazing acts. He’s also a comedy writer and half of the duo Scharpling and Wurster, which gave birth to some of the funniest characters in radio comedy ever. This summer, Wurster will tour with both Mountain Goats and Bob Mould, so chances are good that he’ll be in a city near you. In this conversation, Wurster—as I had hoped he would—gets deep into specifics with Copeland, asking him right off the bat about a gig from the early 1980s. They also chat about how Copeland’s orchestral tours actually work and about his forays into the soundtrack world—I had never heard the term “shit chord” before. They get into the fights that Copeland had with Police frontman Sting, and about how band therapy helped sort that all out. Wurster also gets a chance to ask about the lyrics to a deep cut called “On Any Other Day.” Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jon Wurster and Stewart Copeland for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s episode we’ve got two guests who might know each other better than any two prior guests of this podcast ever have: brothers Ben Nichols and Jeff Nichols. Ben Nichols is the singer, guitarist, and chief lyricist for the long-running Memphis band Lucero, and when I say long-running, I mean it: Assuming you’re listening to this podcast the day we release it, the band played its first show exactly 25 years ago today, on April 13 of 1998. In that time, they’ve released an even dozen albums, making the journey from punk-influenced country—or maybe that’s country-influenced punk—to soul to straight-up rock and roll. I’ve always felt like Lucero was the Southern version of The Hold Steady, purveyors of great story-songs and always an incredibly good time live. The newest Lucero album came out in February, and it’s a very intentional back-to-basics rock record called Should’ve Learned By Now. Check out “Macon If We Make It” from that record. Ben’s younger brother Jeff followed a similar independently creative path, but down a different road: He’s a successful—and incredible—film director whose credits include Mud starring Matthew McConaughey, a drama about the real life battle over interracial marriage called Loving, and my personal favorite, Take Shelter, in which Nichols’ frequent collaborator Michael Shannon plays a family man who may or may not be coming unglued. Each is very different from the next, and each is excellent. Jeff Nichols next film is called The Bikeriders, and it will star Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodi Comer, among others. It’s very loosely based on a book of the same name that Jeff was introduced to by Ben. As you’ll hear in this conversation, it’s not the only time the two have influenced each other. They talk about how Lucero songs have found their way into Jeff’s movies, about how the brothers came upon the same exact story in different ways, and about Jeff’s potential future as the man who may attempt the impossible: adapting some of Cormac McCarthy’s more complicated books, including Blood Meridian, for the big screen. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Ben Nichols and Jeff Nichols for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written stuff we’ve got at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of New Zealanders who’ve forged incredible careers in music and comedy and comedic music: Jemaine Clement and Ruban Nielson. I’m guessing Clement is best known to our listeners as half of Flight of the Conchords, his musical and acting duo with Bret McKenzie. They haven’t put out a record or toured much in the last decade or so, but their albums and HBO series definitely endure with their subtle hilarity. Clement has of course been plenty busy post-Conchords as both an actor and director. His 2014 mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, co-directed with his old friend Taika Watiti, spun off into one of the funniest shows on TV, and you’ve also heard or seen him in everything from Despicable Me to the latest Avatar movie. In the awful event that you’re not familiar with Flight of the Conchords, here’s their David Bowie tribute, simply called “Bowie,” which is discussed a bit in this episode. Clement seemed excited—and well prepared!—to speak with Ruban Nielson, the singer-guitarist behind Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Though both of these guys are, as I said, from New Zealand and fans of each other’s work, they had never met before. UMO, as Nielson’s band is known for short, has been making a sort of uncategorizable music since 2010; they most often get pegged as psychedelic rock, which isn’t wrong, but also doesn’t tell the whole story. There are also elements of lo-fi indie rock, a bit of funk, and some garage rock. But the fact that it’s tough to name is part of what makes UMO’s music so appealing. Check out a little their song “The Garden,” which opens the latest UMO album, V. These guys have a fantastic conversation that spans everything from the history of New Zealand and their shared Maori heritage to an in-depth examination of the Jagstang, a guitar designed by Kurt Cobain and favored by Nielson. They talk about bombing on stage—and getting bombed before getting on stage—and they share stories about coming up in a shared place. Also, you’ll hear the phrase “sad funky ghost,” perhaps for the first and last time in your life. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jemaine Clement and Ruban Nielson for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and be sure to check out all the goodies at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a rare but not totally unprecedented pairing of a couple—by which I mean boyfriend and girlfriend, for lack of better words—in conversation, both fantastic songwriters: Briston Maroney and Samia. Briston Maroney is an earnest, powerful songwriter who first caught attention via American Idol, but perhaps lucky for him and us he didn’t ride that appearance into the pop world. Instead, over the past decade Maroney has built a solid catalog of personal songs that include folk and indie-rock influences, but that could really play anywhere people like a good tune. His latest album is called Ultrapure, a word he uses to describe those incredible moments in life that you might not even know you’re experiencing until they’re gone. Check out “Body” from Ultrapure right here. The other half of today’s conversation is Maroney’s partner of the past few years, the singer and songwriter Samia. She’s a bit more interested in the darker sides of life than Maroney, as you’ll hear them laugh about in this conversation. Her latest album, Honey, features bitter breakup songs that will strike right at your heart: It’s no wonder she’s been compared to the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. But Samia has her own thing going, and for my money, Honey is one of 2023’s best albums. Check out the intensely fantastic “KIll Her Freak Out” right here. Though they live together, this conversation took place on different continents, as Samia was at their now former home in Nashville—they just moved to L.A., as you’ll hear—while Maroney was on tour in Europe. They joke at the outset that they hadn’t spoken in two years, but really they’re in constant contact, and know each other super well. They chat about horror movies, their dog camera, and how writing in the same physical space might lead to accidental song theft. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Samia and Briston Maroney for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got two guys from very different musical worlds who’ve collided over the years in really interesting and fruitful ways, Vic Mensa and Johan Lenox. Mensa is a Chicago-bred rapper who first found notice with the group Kids These Days, but who quickly established himself as a solo artist around 2013. He’s collaborated with an amazing array of artists, from Kanye West to Weezer and all points in between. Mensa’s second proper album—there are lots of mix tapes and guest appearances out there, too—came out last year, and it’s called Victor. Once again, Mensa displays an incredible agility, bouncing from fun to deep and back again; he’s an incredible lyricist equally adept at party starters and deep thoughts, both of which are on display here. Contributors to the album include Jay Electronica, Chance the Rapper, Thundercat, Ty Dolla Sign, and may others, including today’s other guest, Johan Lenox. Now Lenox did not come up through the hip-hop world, but rather the world of classical music. Hearing Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy pushed Lenox out of that bubble, though, and led to a cultural mash-up called Yeethoven, which utilized a live orchestra to mash up Kanye West and, yes, Beethoven. Lenox has since worked as a producer for West, Lil Nas X, and many others, and worked with the likes of No I.D. and Big Sean. He also put out a solo record of R&B-ish jams called What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up (technically titled WDYWTBWYGU, but that's hard to pronounce) and another record, also in 2022, credited to Isomonstrosity, a trio he formed that treats classical music like hip-hop, chopping and mixing it into something new and bold. Earlier this year, he released a string album called Johan’s Childhood Chamber Nostalgia Album. But let’s check out a track from the Isomonstrosity record that features Vic Mensa. This is called “Wake Up.” In this conversation, Lenox and Mensa talk about being inspired by everyone from Kanye to Kurt Cobain, about how Mensa wants to inject his sense of humor into more of his music, about artificial intelligence and the future of music, and a songwriting trick they recently learned. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Vic Mensa and Johan Lenox for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of talented songwriter/performers who’ve known each other for years, and who’ve both had busy years: Margaret Glaspy and Bridget Kearney. Margaret Glaspy has quietly built an impressive catalog of songs over the past decade, putting her sharp lyrics front and center. Her third album, Echo The Diamond, came out earlier this year, and it takes a turn back toward more organic sounds after 2020’s Devotion. You may have seen Glaspy on tour over the years with the likes of the Lumineers and Neko Case, and she just finished her first post-pandemic solo run throughout the U.S.—she’s an amazing live performer. Chicagoans will have a chance to see her this December when Glaspy opens Andrew Bird’s yearly holiday concerts there. In the meantime, check out the bluesy, scrappy “Act Natural” from Echo the Diamond. The other half of today’s conversation, Bridget Kearney, is best known as a member of the band Lake Street Dive, the soulful indie-pop outfit that’s been kicking around for the past 20 or so years—and probably playing a big theater in your town sometime soon. In addition to holding down the low end for that band, Kearney makes slightly more somber music as a solo artist and more groove-oriented songs in a trio called BB Wisely. In other words, she’s not that into sitting still, musically or physically, it seems. Check out the great “I Bet UR,” from Kearney’s 2023 solo album Snakes of Paradise. In this lively chat, Glaspy and Kearney talk about their long friendship, which leads to… powerful microscopes. They talk about Kearney’s three musical lanes, and how you should trust your gut when the recording vibe is off. And then they get into some powerful advice about exactly how many fucks one should give in a day—it seems like a great system to me, so check it out. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Margaret Glaspy and Bridget Kearney for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got everyone’s favorite Canadian twin-sister duo Tegan and Sara in conversation with powerhouse songwriter and artist LP. Now LP has had a fascinating, winding career in the music business, starting out in the late ‘90s as a performer whose incredible voice attracted lots of attention in the industry—you’ll hear about that in this chat—but who ended up kind of going through the wringer of that system. But LP turned their attention to writing songs for other people, which had an immediate and far-reaching effect: LP’s compositions have been hits for the likes of Rihanna and Celine Dion, and for a while it seemed like that’s where LP’s career would stay. But a return to performing about ten years ago has born some incredible fruit, and with a big personality like LP’s, it’s not surprising that TikTok and other social media has embraced them. LP’s latest album is the powerful Love Lines, check out “Dayglow” from that album, and catch LP on tour in the US right now through the end of the month; dates are at iamLP.com. The other half of today’s conversation, Tegan and Sara, started making music as teenagers and were flung into the spotlight very quickly, being signed to Neil Young’s record label and opening for him when they were basically still kids. But they got some good advice—you’ll hear about that here—that helped the twin sisters navigate the ups and downs of fame. Over the course of 25 years they’ve released ten albums, a memoir that was turned into a TV series, a graphic novel, and much more. They are creative lifers, and the world is a better place because of it. Check out the song “Yellow” from Tegan and Sara’s latest album Crybaby. In this lively conversation, you’ll hear about two incredible, uncompromising careers. These three talk about how their music has not only inspired joy in other people, but also understanding: LP talks about visiting other countries where many people in the audience perhaps hadn’t met a gay person—at least not knowingly. They get into all things Canada, the vital importance of a good monitor mix, and the primal wound that inspires creativity. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse podcast, and thanks to Tegan and Sara and LP for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an award-winning multi-hyphenate that you may have seen on TV, a Broadway stage, or packing out a big theater near you in conversation with a guy whose equally riveting work has mostly been behind the scenes: Sara Bareilles and Rob Moose. I’m not sure where to begin with Sara Bareilles’ resume: She found fame with her music, with songs like “Brave” and “Love Song” topping the charts. But in addition to making huge records, she’s been a judge on NBC’s The Sing-Off, she wrote the music and lyrics for—then eventually starred in—the Broadway production of Waitress, and she co-created the Apple TV series Little Voice and acted in the Peacock series Girls5Eva. And honestly, this is all just the tip of the iceberg. You will be surprised by how remarkably down to earth she seems in this conversation—I was. Rob Moose met Bareilles when he was asked to do some string arrangements for her at a Lincoln Center event organized by Ben Folds. For the past 20 years, that’s the kind of work Moose has mostly done: His expert strings have added color and wonder to music by everyone from Sufjan Stevens and The Decemberists to Taylor Swift. He’s been a member of Bon Iver and performed live with Jay-Z. Chances are very good that you’ve heard him without ever hearing his name, because it wasn’t until this year that he decided to release music under his own name: It was while on tour with Paul Simon that Moose had the idea to collaborate with some amazing singers, setting their voices to his strings—and nothing more. The result is an EP called Inflorescence, which features Emily King, Brittany Howard, Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, and—perhaps you guessed by now—Sara Bareilles. It’s a fantastic, unexpected set of songs that brings out the best in both the strings and the voices. Check out a little bit of Moose and Bareilles on the song “Extract.” In this conversation, these two chat about how a Craigslist ad changed Moose’s life, about how Bareilles was a bit gunshy about collaborating early in her career, and about how you’ve got to really want to live in New York City—which they both seem to want to do. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Rob Moose and Sara Bareilles for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we have the pleasure of reuniting two intensely creative individuals who first worked together decades ago: Emily Haines and Olivier Assayas. Haines is, of course, the singer and primary songwriter for the band Metric, which she’s been fronting for the past 20-plus years, and which sprang from the same fertile Canadian scene that gave the world Broken Social Scene and Stars, among many others—in fact, it’s Haines’ voice that you hear on Broken Social Scene’s biggest (and I would argue best) song, “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl.” But her primary focus over the years has of course been Metric, which just released their ninth album of thought-provoking indie-rock anthems, Formentera II. It’s a sequel to the excellent album they released exactly a year prior, and another collection of danceable, fantastic songs. Check out “Just the Once,” from Formentera II, which Haines describes as “regret disco.” So what does a catchy Canadian indie band have to do with a fearless French filmmaker like Olivier Assayas? A lot, as it turns out. Back when Assayas was prepping his 2004 film Clean, he needed a band to perform in a scene, and when he saw Metric, everything clicked: You can see the band perform their early hit “Dead Disco” in the movie, and Haines and Assayas hit it off after working together. Like Metric, Assayas has created an incredible body of work over the years, and done it—again like Metric—by following his own muse. His best-known films include Irma Vep, Clouds of Sils Maria, and 2016’s Personal Shopper, for which he was proclaimed Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. In a strange twist, he was asked to re-created Irma Vep as a TV series for HBO, which he did under the condition that he have total artistic freedom. That came out last year, and it’s definitely worth checking out. These two get right into a great discussion about how they approach creating their art: Both rely on instinct rather than any desire for commercial success. They talk about the real Formentera—it’s an island in Spain—versus the one Haines created for these albums. They touch on Haines’ father, a well-known poet, and how that might have figured into her creative growth. Also, you’ll learn from this chat that every piano has one great song in it. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Emily Haines and Olivier Assayas for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two women who lead fierce, fantastic rock bands: Karly Hartzman and Marisa Dabice. Hartzman is the driving force behind the band Wednesday, which started as a solo-ish vehicle for her songs back in 2017 but has blossomed into a full band with an already-sizable catalog. Everything they’ve done is worth checking out, but it sure feels like Wednesday hit exactly what they’d always been striving for on the album Rat Saw God, which came out earlier this year. Hartzman’s lyrics are both pointed and poetic—amazing in their specificity and delivered with some serious passion, whether in a country-ish moment, or one that feels almost metal. Today’s other guest, Marisa Dabice, thinks Wednesday sounds like Black Sabbath meets Sparklehorse, which is both accurate and something that’s probably never been said about any band before. Check out “Bull Believer” from Rat Saw God. Marisa Dabice is the voice behind Mannequin Pussy, a band that’s been releasing blistering music since 2010. Just this week, Mannequin Pussy announced the release of their long-awaited fourth album, I Got Heaven, which will come out in March of 2024. Hartzman, as you’ll hear in this conversation, has already gotten a listen to the record—which was produced with John Congleton—and she loves it. The title track is already getting rave reviews for taking Mannequin Pussy’s intense punk energy and adding a bit of sweetness with some synths and a sugary chorus, but those aspects almost make it sound even more confrontational in a way. In any case, it’s awesome: Check out “I Got Heaven” right here. In this chat, these two friends talk about touring, and specifically about how unusual it can feel to perform—and how that can lead to actual tears on stage, not the most fun experience. They chat about the difference between Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday fans, and about the pressure to enjoy your success while it’s happening. Oh, and about saunas. You’ve gotta love a sauna. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Maria Dabice and Karly Hartzman for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and check out all the goodness elsewhere on this site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of performers and songwriters whose work joyfully throws genre out the window in search of something bigger: Robert Glasper and Emily King. Glasper started his career pretty firmly in the jazz world, though as you’ll hear in this conversation he really started out by playing in churches in his native Texas. But in 2012 he released an album called Black Radio with his electric quartet, the Robert Glasper Experiment, which gleefully knocked down boundaries between jazz and hip-hop, and featured such artists as Erykah Badu and Lupe Fiasco—not to mention an awesome cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” His catalog before and since is too broad and varied to cover in any depth here, but in addition to jazz and R&B records, he’s done a bunch of movie and TV work—including a bit of acting, which you’ll hear about—won a handful of Grammys, and helped curate the Blue Note Jazz Festival, another topic of conversation here. Right now he’s in the middle of “Robtober,” his monthlong residency at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club, which will feature an incredible lineup of guests throughout. The other half of this conversation is Glasper’s friend and fellow Blue Note alumni Emily King, herself a Grammy nominee whose music exists at the corner of R&B, soul, and pop. Her third and latest album, Special Occasion, is brash, heartfelt, and energetic, and she’s an incredible presence live. The album, like most of King’s work, was produced by Jeremy Most, who happens to be an old schoolmate of Glasper’s—and with whom King was in a long-term relationship with until just recently. (You can hear a bit of that tension in its songs, in a good way.) King will be opening for Marc Rebelliet later this month at Red Rocks, which is pretty awesome. Check out a little bit of “Special Occasion” right here. In this lively chat, these two talk about how the New York Times accidentally named Glasper’s band for him, the chances of Glasper becoming a PEGOT—you’ll see—how being a messy person might make you creative, and more. There’s also talk of bad hairstyle choices, and how having white friends might exacerbate that problem. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Robert Glasper and Emily King for chatting. If you liked what you hear, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of musicians with interesting backgrounds: one in computer engineering, the other in stand-up comedy. It’s Vagabon and Jaboukie. Vagabon, aka New Yorker Lætitia Tamko, just released her third album under the name, and as you’ll hear in this chat, it had been four years since her last. But Sorry I Haven’t Called was worth the wait, and another cool stylistic leap. Tamko’s first album, Infinite Worlds, felt like a fresh take on indie-rock; her second, a self-titled record from 2019, dipped more into more varied electronic pop. But Sorry I Haven’t Called, which was partly produced by former Vampire Weekend guy Rostam, takes things even a step further, with an eye toward something even bigger and bolder. And even though the songs were inspired by a dark time in Tamko’s life, they turned out incredibly buoyant and upbeat. Check out “Lexicon” right here. Jaboukie Young-White is best known as a stand-up comic, writer, and actor: You may have experienced his jokes on Big Mouth, or seen him as a correspondent on The Daily Show or acting in Only Murders in the Building. If you’re a fan of this podcast, you may have heard him in conversation with Jonathan Pierce of the Drums a couple years back. But in the past couple of years, Jaboukie has set his last name aside and worked hard on his debut album, which just came out. It’s called all who can’t hear must feel, and it’s an incredibly diverse set of songs that touches on a bunch of genres—rock, hyperpop, jungle—without sounding beholden to any one in particular. Jaboukie played almost every note of every instrument on the record, and as you’ll hear, he spent a lot of time getting it just right. Check out “Cranberry Sauce” right here. In this chat, Jaboukie and Vagabon talk about how creating is like molting, about how music can feel more timeless than comedy, about “domming” your audience, and about how Janet Jackson is MOTHER. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Vagabon and Jaboukie for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the goodness elsewhere on this site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of artists who got to know each other over the course of the pandemic, and who got together in the same room for this chat—which is still kind of a rarity these days: Sarah Tudzin and Alex Lahey. Sarah Tudzin is best known as the mastermind behind Illuminati Hotties, the band she started as sort of an extension of her production and engineering work, which includes contributions to albums and songs by Boygenius, the Armed, and Eliza McLamb. As Illuminati Hotties, she creates pointed, sometimes funny, always catchy songs that she once described as “tenderpunk,” which is kind of perfect. Check out a little bit of “freequent letdown” from Illuminati Hotties’ 2020 release Free I.H., an album/mixtape that comes with an interesting backstory you can find online. New music is supposedly forthcoming pretty soon, so keep your ears open for that. Alex Lahey was born and raised an ocean away from Tudzin, in Australia, but she’s been spending a lot more time in Los Angeles recently, as you’ll hear in this chat. Lahey has been releasing great records since 2016, and her latest set of punky, animated break-up anthems, called The Answer Is Always Yes, is actually being re-released in an expanded edition with some bonus tracks next week. Check out the ultra-catchy “On the Way Down” right here. These two chat about the philosophy behind Lahey’s album title, The Answer is Always Yes, as well as thinking about whether a creative career beyond music makes sense. They talk about the relatively unpopularity of guitar music at the moment, and speculate whether either of their songs might someday get crazy big. (For the record, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all.) Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Alex Lahey and Sarah Tudzin for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all of the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got the frontman for a band that recently made a welcome return after a long absence, and the producer who helped him find the sounds and songs to do it: John Gourley and Jeff Bhasker. Gourley is the singer for Portugal. The Man, which started making music in their home state of Alaska back in the early 2000s before finding success and relocating to Portland, Oregon. The band has an impressive catalog that runs the pop gamut, and weirdly they hit it huge pretty deep into their career, with the 2017 song “Feel It Still,” which is still on pop radio six years later. Just this year, PTM finally released a new album, called Chris Black Changed My Life, which both mourns and celebrates the band’s close friend, for whom it’s also named. The album was also partly inspired by the daughter of Gourley and his bandmate Zoe Manville; Frances Gourley has a rare genetic disorder that’s touched on in this chat. But the album and Gourley’s story is by no means grim: He’s all about celebrating life, as you’ll hear on this track, “Summer of Luv,” which features some assistance from another recent Talkhouse guest, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. You’ll also hear the fingerprints of producer Jeff Bhasker on that track. Bhasker is best known for co-writing and co-producing smash hits like Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk.” He’s one of several names that Portugal. The Man brought in to help realize Chris Black Changed My Life. The two talk about how that process worked, and in particular how Gourley is—unlike some songwriters—always happy to have more creative voices in the room. They also chat about which of them is a better singer, about playing at the Hollywood Bowl, about Gourley’s life-changing jaw injury, and about Gourley’s daughter Frances and the challenges they face. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to John Gourley and Jeff Bhasker for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written pieces at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an actor-director you’ll likely recognize along with the musician-slash-composer who made beautiful sounds for one of his films: Jesse Eisenberg and Emile Mosseri. Eisenberg is best known as an actor; he was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, which is just one of his dozens of credits. You’ve also seen him in Zombieland, The Squid and the Whale, the Now You See Me movies, and lots of indies. He also starred in the TV drama Fleishman is in Trouble last year alongside Claire Danes and Lizzy Caplan. And if that isn’t enough, Eisenberg is also a writer, playwright, and director. His feature debut as a director came earlier this year with When You Finish Saving the World, which began life as Audible original—which he also wrote. The movie stars Julianne Moore and Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard, and it was released by A24, a trademark of quality. And… segue time… music for the film was composed by today’s other guest, Emile Mosseri. Now Mosseri spent years in bands, most notably The Dig, but really seems to have found his stride in recent years as a film composer. In 2020 he did the music for both Miranda July’s Kajillionaire and for Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, for which Mosseri was Academy-nominated for Best Original Score. He’s also worked on Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Jonah Hill’s Stutz, which you’ll hear a little about in this conversation. Earlier this year, Mosseri released his first album of original songs under his own name, which is called Heaven Hunters. It’s a really personal, intimate record that sounds best on a pair of quality headphones, as it’s sort of cinematic and somehow also small and quiet. Check out one of Eisenberg’s favorite songs from Heaven Hunters, this is “My Greedy Heart.” These two get right into a great chat, talking about the various neuroses that fuel their art and stifle their ambition: Mosseri even talks about choosing whether to spend money on his therapist or an awards-season publicist. Eisenberg talks about his experiments using AI on a script—they don’t go well—which leads to a discussion about whether AI will impinge on creative jobs like theirs in the future. It’s a great, fun chat—enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jesse Eisenberg and Emile Mosseri for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written pieces at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of musicians who create with an air of mystery, but who have a fantastically straightforward chat here: Ethel Cain and Adam McIlwee. Ethel Cain is a character created by Hayden Anhedonia, though one that’s been sort of all-consuming. Anhedonia began releasing music under the name in 2019, finding her sound and her vibe over the next couple of years before releasing the absolutely epic Preacher’s Daughter in May of 2022. The album, a concept collection about the life and ultimate demise of Ethel Cain, skillfully moves through sounds from a sort of Gothic Americana to slowcore to ambient sounds to who knows what, exactly, other than it’s thoroughly engaging. The album was pretty quickly hailed as a masterful debut, and Cain found herself not only the darling of the music world, but with some prominent modeling gigs as well. As you’ll hear in this chat, though, the spotlight has gotten a little bit bright for her taste lately. She’s currently on the European festival circuit, though she’ll head back to the States in October for sold-out shows at really interesting venues. Check out “Crush” right here. Cain and today’s other guest, Adam McIlwee, go way back. He was an early supporter of her music, and appears on her Inbred EP under his most prominent alias, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. Though he started his musical journey as part of the pop-punkish band Tigers Jaw, he’s moved in a dozen other directions since. He founded the emo-rap collective GothBoiClique back in 2012, which briefly counted Lil Peep among its members. As Wicca Phase, though, McIlwee combines synth-pop with more acoustic sounds and more hammering beats, depending on the track. His latest release under the name is self-titled, and it just came out in June. It’s well worth checking out. In fact, check out “Moving Without Movement” right here. Now for two people who’ve created such interesting mystiques, this is a refreshingly down-to-earth conversation in which they talk about trying to carve out space as middle-class musicians who don’t expect to conquer the charts with their music—but who’d love to be able to make a decent living at it. They talk about what to do when you hit a touring wall—this chat took place not long after Cain fainted onstage in Australia—and how great Vicks Steam Inhalers are for singers. Hey Vicks, you might have a couple of spokespeople here if you play your cards right. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hayden Anhedonia aka Ethel Cain and Adam McIlwee aka Wicca Phase Springs Eternal for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the other podcasts in our ever-expanding network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of young artists and friends who share more in their outlooks than they do in their sounds: Alaska Reid and Ekkstacy. Alaska Reid, despite her name, actually grew up in Montana, as you’ll hear in this chat, but she splits her time between there and Los Angeles, and you can sort of hear that in her music—polished indie-rock that’s got an edge you kind of have to look for. She’s released a bunch of fantastic singles over the past couple of years, and just last month released her debut album, Disenchanter. You may have seen Reid opening for the likes of Charli XCX or Caroline Polachek, and she’ll embark on a headlining U.S. tour this September, and it’ll probably be your one and only chance to see her play in relatively small venues for a while. Check out “French Fries” from Disenchanter right here. Ekkstacy is a Canadian musician who makes emotional songs that are deeply indebted to early-’80s new wave—a sound he definitely didn’t experience firsthand, since he’s barely old enough to drink. Ekkstacy is known for both songs and interviews that wear their emotions on their sleeves: He puts it all out there, and it often seems like he’s exorcizing his most negative feelings through catchy songs. Sample song titles from last year’s album Misery include “I Just Want to Hide My Face” and “Wish I was Dead,” and his big breakthrough single was “I Walk This Earth All By Myself.” But he’s no sad-sack: Ekkstacy is passionate about what he’s doing, and he wants to make it big, as you’ll hear in this conversation. Check out “I’m So Happy” right here. As a person of a certain age—by which I mean way older than these two—I found this chat fascinating. Alaska and Ekkstacy talk about growing up plugged in, and how that can affect your personality. They talk about how much you’re obligated to engage with a live audience. And Ekkstacy talks about a run-in with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio, and how he wants what they’ve got, though not exactly. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Alaska Reid and Ekkstacy for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the delights at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two guys who were part of monumentally influential bands in the 2000s, and who continue to make groundbreaking music today: Paul Maroon and Noah Lennox. Maroon is behind the incredible, instantly recognizable guitar sound of The Walkmen, a band that sort of split up a decade ago but reunited just this year for what has turned into an incredibly jubilant tour. The band is currently in Europe, where they just played a show in Lennox’s adopted home country of Portugal, and they’ll return for a string of U.S. dates this fall, culminating in a hometown—that’d be New York—show in October. Since the Walkmen split, Maroon has mostly turned his attention to composing classical music and the occasional film score. He put out a really engaging record with the pianist Jenny Lin called 13 Short Piano Pieces, with each of those pieces inspired by and named for a different place Maroon has lived—he currently calls Seville, Spain home. Check out “El Raval” right here, and go to Paulmaroon.co for info on his solo stuff, or thewalkmen.com for tour dates. Maroon released a seven-inch recently that featured singing from his friend Noah Lennox, who’s perhaps better known by the name he uses as part of Animal Collective, Panda Bear. Lennox has been part of that massively influential experimental rock band for nearly 25 years, and he’s released a ton of great music both with Animal Collective and as a solo artist. His latest release, though, is a collaboration with Pete Kember, also known as Sonic Boom. Kember was a member of Spacemen 3 way back when, and he’s also released incredible music as Spectrum and E.A.R. He’s also earned his production stripes over the years, producing records for Beach House, MGMT, and… Panda Bear. Last year, Kember and Lennox released a collaborative album they recorded during the pandemic called Reset, and they just followed it with a dub version of the album remixed by Adrian Sherwood called Reset in Dub. Check out “Gettin’ to the Point” from Reset. In this conversation, we learn that Lennox was in attendance for the first-ever Walkmen show; we hear about their adventures living in Portugal and Spain, the difference between a good show and a bad show, and whether these two are “daily guys.” Lennox also makes an accurate prediction about the NBA Finals, even though, as you’ll hear, this is not a basketball podcast. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Noah Lennox and Paul Maroon for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow us on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a very mellow, very lovely conversation between a woman known for her gorgeous voice and heartfelt songwriting and a man known for, as he calls it, “wobbly saxophone,” Beth Orton and Alabaster dePlume. Beth Orton has been making beautiful, often heartbreaking songs since the early 1990s, when she was a leading light in what I think is a now-forgotten genre called “folktronica.” She first found notice by contributing vocals to a few Chemical Brothers songs, then broke out with her timeless debut album Trailer Park in 1996. She has since created a lovely and varied body of work that’s explored a variety of sounds but that’s tied together by her unforgettable voice. Orton’s latest album is from last year: It’s called Weather Alive, which to me sounds like a spiritual heir to Van Morrison’s classic Astral Weeks, which may in part be because it features the saxophone playing of today’s other guest, Alabaster dePlume. Check out a little bit of “Fractals” right here, and definitely go see Orton on tour this fall; she’ll be back in the States this September. Bethortonofficial.com has all the dates. Alabaster dePlume picked up the saxophone in 2007, but sort of reinvented himself—including taking on that stage name—in 2015. He became a fixture in London’s improvisational jazz scene not long after, and a lot of what he does is centered around the recording studio/gathering place where this conversation was recorded, Total Refreshment Centre. DePlume broke out in 2020 with an album called To Cy & Lee, which was inspired by and named after some folks he helped as a mental-health support worker. In a couple of weeks, he’ll release a new album called Come With Fierce Grace, whose initial sessions were done during the pandemic with Tom Skinner, a drummer who’s currently also a member of the Radiohead offshoot The Smile. Check out “Greek Honey Slick” from the new album, and check out alabaster-deplume.com for his schedule, which includes a month of U.S. shows in September. As I mentioned at the top of this intro, this chat is both lovely and very mellow. DePlume is a soothing presence whose spirit seems powered almost exclusively by love, and Orton is happy to participate. They chat about the climate-activism event that landed dePlume in jail and found Orton chased off the stage; they talk about angry yoga and the joys of triangle chokes, and Orton points out how technological advances can help women artists. Find your zen and enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Beth Orton and Alabaster dePlume for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness on this very site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a couple of singers who’ve devoted themselves, in slightly different ways, to keeping traditional music alive: Shirley Collins and Radie Peat. Collins is 88, and she’s had a pretty strange and incredible career. She started performing traditional songs in the mid-1950s, and she notably left England in 1959 to travel the United States with Alan Lomax, recording songs and singers in Appalachia and elsewhere that may otherwise have been lost to history. She recorded some incredibly influential records in the '60s and '70s with Davy Graham and, separately, with her sister Dolly Collins. And then Shirley left music entirely. It wasn’t until the 2000s that unlikely underground musicians would coax her back to performing: British apocalyptic-folk-industrial band Current 93 were the first, strangely. It wasn’t until 2014—38 years after her last album—that Collins made a new one, and it was gorgeous and well received. She’s since released a couple more, all for the hip Domino label, fitting for someone who’s been so quietly influential. Her latest is Archangel Hill; check out “Hares on the Mountain” right here. Radie Peat, singer for Lankum, is one of the many musicians who’ve been deeply influenced by Collins—and by the traditional songs that Collins helped to keep alive. But while Lankum is definitely part of the folk tradition, they modernize the sound in wildly interesting ways. Their fourth and latest album is called False Lankum, and I love this quote about it from Mojo Magazine: “If modern folk music needs its own OK Computer, its own The Dark Side of the Moon, or indeed its own F♯A♯∞, this may well be it.” (That last album referenced, in case you didn’t recognize it, is the debut from Godspeed You Black Emperor.) If that all sounds intriguing, you’ll probably love it. Oh, and the album was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize. Here’s “Go Dig My Grave” from False Lankum. Peat describes this conversation as “fangirling,” though I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. There’s definitely some mutual admiration happening here—Collins still keeps up with music, and she loves Lankum as well. They talk about Collins’ adventures in America with Alan Lomax, about other singers they admire, and how they share a pretty strong hatred for jazz. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Shirley Collins and Radie Peat for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse episode we’ve got two guys who’ve known each other for decades, and who have a popular podcast, a post-hardcore band, and a new novel between them: Geoff Rickly and Jonah Bayer. Now Geoff Rickly is best known as the singer of the band Thursday, whose 2001 album Full Collapse is rightly considered a touchstone in the post-hardcore/screamo genre. That band had a full and varied existence, creating an impressive catalog that they still occasionally tour on. Rickly has also been part of other wild and wooly outfits: He stood in for the singer of legendary vampire-hardcore band Ink & Dagger for a tour, after their singer passed away—you’ll hear about that band in this conversation. But most recently, Rickly switched his focus to writing his first novel, which just came out. Someone Who Isn’t Me is most definitely not a memoir, though it is slightly more than loosely based on Rickly’s experience in being in a band, becoming addicted to heroin, and finding a path to treatment. The other half of this conversation is an old friend and bandmate of Ricky’s, Jonah Bayer. Bayer and Rickly were part of the mysterious supergroup United Nations, which put out a bunch of music while keeping most of their identities secret. There’s a small but powerful United Nations catalog out there, if you’re into confrontational, mysterious hardcore. Bayer is also a journalist and recently started working as a mental-health clinician, which maybe makes him the perfect guy to chat with Rickly about his book. Oh, and Bayer also hosts a really fun podcast with his sister Vanessa Bayer—of Saturday Night Live fame—called How Did We Get Weird that just launched its third season. In this chat, Bayer gets deep with Rickly about Someone Who Isn’t Me, diving into the odd structure of the book, whether it made sense to fictionalize his friends, and how to dramatize a psychedelic trip. The two also talk about how “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli fits into Rickly’s story, how Ink & Dagger deserves more recognition, and about a Kurt Cobain dream that Rickly once had. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jonah Bayer and Geoff Rickly for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got two guys who’ve been friends a long time, but recently formed a new project together. Oh, and one of them happens to be the bassist in a little band called Pearl Jam: It’s Jeff Ament and John Wicks. Now Jeff Ament you’ve surely heard of, since he’s a founding member of one of rock’s biggest and most reliable acts, Pearl Jam, who’ve been going strong and steady since the early 1990s. That band released their latest album, Gigaton, right when the pandemic first hit us, so it scuttled some touring plans, but Pearl Jam is back out on the road this fall. Ament has always been a musical seeker beyond his main gig, though, experimenting both with solo records and side projects over the years. He’s also an accomplished visual artist. Not only is Ament the hand behind Pearl Jam’s iconic stickman logo, but he’s also an incredible painter and poster artist. John Wicks is an accomplished drummer probably best known as a founding member of the band Fitz & The Tantrums, though he’s also loaned his skills to the likes of Bruno Mars and Cee Lo Green. He teamed up with his old friend Ament to make the music for a TV series called Under the Banner of Heaven, and then the pandemic allowed them time to start an entirely new project that they’ve dubbed Deaf Charlie. Their debut album under the name is called Catastrophic Metamorphic, and it’s a weird, fun, occasionally dark set of psychedelic pop that’s also fully engaging. Ament sings lead on most of the songs, which is new for him. Check out “We are Doing It” right here. The chat you’re about to hear took place the day after Deaf Charlie’s first rehearsal as a full band; even though Wicks and Ament never really intended to play these songs live, plans changed and they’ll be making their live debut at the Ohana Festival in early October. Both of these guys live in Montana now, and they chat about Ament’s upbringing in small town Big Sandy, Wicks’ recent job as a professor at the University of Montana, how originality is often discovered through mistakes, and the unparalleled joy of finding yourself inside the music—or other art—that you’re making. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jeff Ament and John Wicks for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters from relatively similar locales but different generations who also happened to record a song together that’s finally coming out: Stuart Murdoch and Suki Waterhouse. Stuart Murdoch is the primary force behind the delightfully wry and smart Scottish band Belle and Sebastian, which shyly emerged from Glasgow in the mid-'90s but quickly became one of those touchstone indie bands—or as Waterhouse puts it in this chat, a legacy band. Belle and Sebastian have released a dozen terrific albums over the years, and they’re still capable of surprising their devoted fanbase. The band’s latest, Late Developers, was released early this year, hot on the heels of the band’s 11th album, A Bit of Previous. If you haven’t availed yourself of the band’s charms in recent years, this new one is a great place to jump back in. Suki Waterhouse is probably best known as an actor and model—you may have seen her in the music-focused Amazon Prime series Daisy Jones & The Six recently—but she’s been passionate about music forever as well. Her debut album came out last year on Sub Pop; it’s called I Can’t Let Go, and it’s perfect for fans of Fiona Apple or Lana Del Ray. And music isn’t just a side thing for Waterhouse; she jumped right in the van, as you’ll hear, to tour her songs as soon as her acting gig allowed it. She also recorded a song with Belle and Sebastian a few years back, which has finally been released as a Sub Pop single, and it’s the reason we ended up here together. The song is called “Every Day’s a Lesson in Humility.” Check it out. Waterhouse and Murdoch hadn’t seen in each other in a while, but they picked up the conversation like old friends, talking about breakfast, peptides, a funny nickname that Murdoch got when he started his short-lived career as a roadie, and the difficulties of pooping as a touring musician. Yes, you read that right. We also hear about some incredible Los Angeles advice that Murdoch got way back when. It’s a charming chat, and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Suki Waterhouse and Stuart Murdoch for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out the many wonderful written pieces and other goings-on at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an episode for the drummers and those who like a great story: Jon Wurster and Stewart Copeland. Copeland is of course the drummer for the legendary, gazillion-selling Rock and Roll Hall of Famers the Police, who were called “the biggest band in the world” during their mid-'80s heyday. Their hits have endured over the decades, too, and that’s in no small part due to the special chemistry the trio enjoyed—and that chemistry, as you’ll hear, often manifested itself in fights between Copeland and his old bandmate Sting. Copeland has made a fascinating career for himself since; he directed a documentary about his old band that made interesting use of their music, and he’s got a new album and tour called Police Deranged for Orchestra, which features those classic songs redone in wild new ways. As you’ll hear in this chat, Copeland also found a side career as a film composer, working on everything from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street to the classic Francis Ford Coppola movie Rumble Fish. Check out a little bit of “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic“ from Police Deranged for Orchestra right here. Now the other half of this conversation is a drummer from a later era and, as you’ll hear, a huge fan of Copeland’s work. Jon Wurster is a renaissance man who’s played most regularly with Superchunk, the Mountain Goats, and Bob Mould, but whose list of credits goes way beyond those amazing acts. He’s also a comedy writer and half of the duo Scharpling and Wurster, which gave birth to some of the funniest characters in radio comedy ever. This summer, Wurster will tour with both Mountain Goats and Bob Mould, so chances are good that he’ll be in a city near you. In this conversation, Wurster—as I had hoped he would—gets deep into specifics with Copeland, asking him right off the bat about a gig from the early 1980s. They also chat about how Copeland’s orchestral tours actually work and about his forays into the soundtrack world—I had never heard the term “shit chord” before. They get into the fights that Copeland had with Police frontman Sting, and about how band therapy helped sort that all out. Wurster also gets a chance to ask about the lyrics to a deep cut called “On Any Other Day.” Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jon Wurster and Stewart Copeland for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters separated by thousands of miles who came together recently for a killer single: Remi Wolf and Benny Sings. Wolf has been writing songs since her early teens, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that her neon pop jams starting getting some social media attention. A major label came calling, and Wolf spent a good chunk of the early pandemic making her full-length debut album Juno, which she named after her recently adopted dog. It’s one of those deceptively sunny records that hides some bigger emotions inside huge hooks, and it led to a bunch of amazing singles like “Anthony Kiedis”—that’s the name of the song— and tours: Wolf will play Coachella next month. As you’ll hear in this chat, Wolf met Dutch singer-songwriter Benny Sings when both were playing a Spanish festival that had some kind of Medieval theme. Wolf was already a fan of Benny’s work, both as a performer and a producer: Not only has he released a ton of great music on his own, but he also co-wrote a hit with Rex Orange County and has worked with the likes of Mac Demarco. Benny’s music has a sort of classic soft-pop vibe; he playfully mixes in hip-hop and island vibes on occasion, too, making the sort of breezy songs that easily get stuck in your head. When it came time to record his brand new album Young Hearts, which comes out next week, he reached out to Remi for some vocal assistance. The result is a delightful little nugget called “Pyjamas.” Check out that song right here. In this chat, Remi and Benny talk about collaborating on the video for “Pyjamas”—she directed it, adding some of the visual flair she’s known for. They also chat about songwriting in general—whether it’s craft or divination, and they get into whether technology is good or evil—and whether these two would survive a tech-pocalypse. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Remi Wolf and Benny Sings for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!