Talkhouse Podcast

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve paired up a couple of old friends and onetime tourmates, Sharon Van Etten and Jonathan Meiburg. This pairing was especially fun for me, since I had the pleasure of putting these two together in a different context many years ago, when I was editor of The A.V. Club: Sharon and Jonathan performed an amazing version of the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” for the site’s A.V. Undercover series. Seeing their faces together brought back that fun memory, and it was great seeing them reconnect. 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. She gives partial credit in this chat to producer John Congleton, who was recommended to Van Etten by none other than Jonathan Meiburg. Earlier this year, 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 the past couple of years. You know what I’m talking about. Check out “Mistakes” from that new album, and check out Van Etten on the Wild Hearts tour over the next few months, with Angel Olsen and Julien Baker. Today’s other guest, Jonathan Meiburg, is best known in the music world as the driving force behind the band Shearwater, which he started way back in the late ‘90s as an offshoot of his previous band, Okkervil River. But under this name, Meiburg has created a vast and varied catalog that combines his writerly mind with sometimes-moody, sometimes-joyous music. Shearwater just released their first album in six years: It’s called The Great Awakening, and it’s what a lazy podcast host might refer to as a return to form—or at least more austere earlier vibes. Don’t let that six-year gap fool you, though: Meiburg has been plenty busy. He’s got another band called Loma with the members of Cross Record, and they’ve got a third album on the way. Oh, and Meiburg wrote and released an incredible book called A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey, which rolls up history, science, and travel into one really beautifully written piece. (Around Talkhouse HQ, we like to brag that Meiburg has written a bunch of pieces for us over the years.) As you’ll hear in this conversation, he’s already started working on another book. Check out “Empty Orchestra” from The Great Awakening. As you’ll hear, Van Etten and Meiburg are old friends who toured together long ago, but hadn’t seen each other in person until very recently, when Van Etten’s tour took her to Hamburg, where Meiburg is currently living. They talk about writing songs—and specifically about how gibberish can become lyrics, which I always find interesting. Meiburg remarks on Van Etten’s transformation as a stage performer over the years, and they even chat about Sharon’s son—specifically his relationship to the movie Cool Runnings. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sharon Van Etten and Jonathan Meiburg for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please do follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

This week we’re revisiting a Talkhouse episode that was originally released in October of 2020, when perhaps you missed it because you had other things on your mind. It happens. This one features a great chat between two women at different phases in their careers: Carly Rae Jepsen and mxmtoon. You might recognize mxmtoon’s name from her podcast 365 Days, which is part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Speaking of, did you know we have a network full of other great shows, including Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions, Sing for Science, Craig Finn’s brand new podcast That’s How I Remember It, and What Had Happened Was with Open Mike Eagle? We do! Anyway, just before this episode, Carly Rae and mxmtoon had just collaborated on a track called “Ok on your own,” and they dove right into a great conversation about songwriting and much, much more. Check it out, and we’ll be back with a brand new episode next week! To celebrate Carly Rae Jepsen and mxmtoon's rad collab track "ok on your own," we paired the pop stars for what turned out to be a deep dive into the art of making music and learning to thrive in the complicated music industry. In this very warm and insightful conversation, Carly and Maia each share their (very different!) origin stories, and explore both the art of songwriting and live performance. Carly also shares clutch career wisdom. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. Plus, ICYMI: mxmtoon just kicked off her yearlong podcast project 365 days with mxmtoon in collab with Talkhouse, which features quirky stories from history that occurred on each day, old diary entries and more; it’s really fun, and like eight minutes long. —Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer For this week’s episode, Carly was recorded by Nick Theodorakis, and everyone else you hear recorded themselves. Our producer is Mark Yoshizumi. The Talkhouse Podcast theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

On this Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got one of those chats that feels like it’s going to lead to something bigger down the road: Jonathan Davis and Danny Brown. Neither of these guys probably needs an introduction, but here goes anyway: Jonathan Davis is the frontman of the band Korn, which basically invented a sound and subsequent genre about 30 years ago. I’m not sure if people still say “nu metal,” but whatever you want to call it, it never really seemed to leave the cultural zeitgeist once it took hold. Korn always seemed to have a wider variety of influences than some of their peers, taking bits and pieces from goth, metal, and hip-hop to make a strange new brew. They’ve released an impressive 14 albums, taking stylistic turns like 2011’s The Path of Totality, which incorporated dubstep and drum-and-bass elements. The band’s latest is Requiem, which was written and recorded during Covid’s enforced ban on touring. It’s a bit of a return to their classic sound, and it’s gotten incredibly positive reviews from fans and critics. Danny Brown is a rapper and, more recently, a comedian who broke out of his hometown of Detroit around 2010, and has released a series of groundbreaking, incredible records that never seem to sit still—just like him. He’s had huge singles and collaborated with everybody from Eminem to Purity Ring to Kendrick Lamar to A$AP Rocky. And though he hasn’t put out a proper album since 2019’s killer U Know What I’m Sayin’, Brown has kept busy making music, making his stand-up comedy debut, doing the hilarious Danny Brown Show on YouTube, and allegedly prepping a new record with the working title Quaranta. He’s described the record as “all over the place,” which makes sense considering Brown’s varied list of influences—one of which is Korn, which is how we got here in the first place. This genesis of this conversation, Davis and Brown’s first, was Brown covering Korn’s classic “Freak on a Leash” live in concert last year. Like I said, this is the first real conversation that Brown and Davis have ever had, and they get along great—great enough that they’re instantly talking about meeting up in person to collaborate at Davis’ Bakersfield, California studio. They get into Korn’s songwriting process, Covid-inspired depression, and how the internet provides the kind of instant rejection you had to work harder for in the old days. It’s a great chat, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jonathan Davis and Danny Brown for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe via your favorite podcasting app, and while you’re already there, go ahead and rate us. 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 both suffer from the effects of LSD—that’s lead singer disease—Stuart Murdoch and Ramesh Srivastava. Ramesh was and is now again the lead singer and chief creative force behind the Austin, Texas band Voxtrot, which burned bright but maybe too quick in the early 2000s. They released a series of rapturously received EPs and one LP that were beloved by fans of deeply British institutions like Sarah Records and The Smiths. But the band had split by 2010, and Ramesh went on to release a pair of solo albums that didn’t quite have the impact his band did. For a while, he was content to leave Voxtrot in the past, but gathering material for two reissues gave him the spark to get thing going again. The next few months will see the release of both Early Music—which gathers the band’s beloved EPs—and Cut from the Stone, which features rarities and B-sides. And then, like some unstoppable force of nature, Voxtrot will tour the U.S. again. Dates can be found at voxtrot.net. And in case you’re not familiar, here’s a great Voxtrot song called “The Start of Something.” Do you hear a bit of Belle and Sebastian in that song? They’re a pretty clear influence on Voxtrot, and Srivastava met Stuart Murdoch while living in Glasgow in his younger days—you’ll hear about their meet-cute in this conversation. Belle and Sebastian, of course, have had an incredible career over the past quarter century or so. They started life as a school project for Murdoch, a shy young man whose feelings spilled out into his gentle songs in a way that seemed then—and now—to be almost magical. Over the years, Belle and Sebastian developed from a sort of bedroom-pop project to a massive pop machine, while never losing that spirit of playfulness and sincerity that Murdoch has always projected. The band recently released their ninth studio album, called A Bit of Previous. The title is a bit tricky in that it seems to reference the good old days but also Murdoch’s longtime interest in Buddhism, which he explored in greater depth during the pandemic. In this conversation, you’ll actually hear a bit about how both Ramesh and Stuart approach spirituality, both Christianity and Buddhism. You’ll hear how being a “gay brown person” pushed Ramesh away from religion for a long time. They talk about the aforementioned “lead singer disease,” and how that affects everyday life. And we get to hear about a young Stuart Murdoch making his way to the London flat of one of his musical heroes, but then deciding not to actually knock on his door. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Ramesh Srivastava and Stuart Murdoch for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite social channels and check out talkhouse.com for lots of great written pieces, too. 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 who are meeting for the first time, which we haven’t had in an episode in quite a while. Martin Courtney and Tim Darcy. Until recently, Darcy was the frontman of the band Ought, which released three fantastic, brainy art-punk albums from their home base of Montreal—despite the fact that Darcy is, in fact, “secretly American.” Ought split up pre-pandemic but that wasn’t really public news until the announcement of the existence of Darcy’s new band, Cola, which he started just a couple of years ago along with Ought bassist Ben Stidworthy and Weather Station/US Girls drummer Evan Cartwright. Just last month, Cola released their debut album, Deep In View, and it feels like a sort of back-to-basics take on their old band—but still fresh and exciting. Darcy is a guy who takes his lyrics seriously, and though he clearly had a great time making the record, there’s a darkness to it that recalls the best post-punk and trebly art-rock of the past 40 years, from Talking Heads to Parquet Courts. Martin Courtney is the singer and guitarist of Real Estate, the New Jersey-born band that has released five albums of songs that battle gently the urges toward pop-song structure and a slight psychedelic haze. Real Estate had particularly bad timing luck with regard to that worldwide pandemic we’ve all talked so much about over the past couple of years, releasing an album just weeks before the world shut down, resulting naturally in canceled tours and other plans. Instead of diving into another Real Estate album during the lockdown, Courtney decided to take a path of less resistance and record his second solo album. As he jokes in this conversation, most solo albums tend to be an excuse for an artist to indulge their more out-there impulses, but his impulses tend to lead him back toward more structured pop songs. He came up with a killer batch for this record, which is called Magic Sign. Darcy and Courtney hadn’t met before this chat, but that doesn’t stop them from getting into a great conversation: They talk about how podcasts might be boring—and how that’s okay (!?). They get into Courtney’s slight sense of disillusionment with music in general. Then they bring it back to creative desires: They are both guys itching with ideas and ready to get them out to the world. And, as fate would have it, both are going to be touring this summer, god willing. So get out there and see them, but first, check out this chat. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Tim Darcy and Martin Courtney for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcast platform, and check out the great new records by both of this week’s guests. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Hello Talkhouse listeners and readers. We’ve got a special treat for you this week: Instead of the usual Talkhouse Podcast, we’re featuring the debut episode of a podcast called That’s How I Remember It. Craig Finn, as you hopefully already know, is the singer of The Hold Steady as well as a solo artist. He’s got an excellent new solo record called A Legacy of Rentals, and it inspired him to start a new podcast that explores the intersection of memory and creativity. The Talkhouse gang helped him put it together, and we’re happy to present the first episode here. If you like it, which you undoubtedly will, please subscribe! Here it is, the first episode of That’s How I Remember It, featuring Craig in conversation with Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers. Enjoy, and we’ll be back to regular Talkhouse episodes next week! Subscribe to That’s How I Remember It to catch future episodes with Brian Koppelman, Fred Armisen, and many more.

Hello Talkhouse listeners; this week we’re resurfacing a talk featuring a frequent Talkhouse contributor who seems to be having yet another career moment: Michelle Zauner, aka. Japanese Breakfast. You may have caught Zauner and her band on the season finale of SNL, or playing your local theater, or on every playlist worth a dang. This talk, which originally ran on June 3, 2021—around the time the latest Japanese Breakfast album, Jubilee, came out—features Zauner in conversation with Rostam, the musician and producer best known as part of Vampire Weekend. If you like what you hear, there are two more Zauner-led Talkhouse Podcasts in the archives, one with Alex Cameron, and the other with Rachel Goswell of Slowdive. -------- Today’s Talkhouse Podcast started with a little bit of serendipity in the form of album release dates: Both of our guests, Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast and producer/musician/former Vampire Weekend guy Rostam, have excellent records coming out on June 4. They’re also fans of each other’s work, so we figured it made plenty of sense to put them together. Zauner’s album, her third under the Japanese Breakfast name, is called Jubilee, and as you’ll hear in this conversation, it took a deliberate turn toward slightly happier themes than her first two. It comes hot on the heels of Zauner’s first book, a heartbreaking memoir called Crying In H Mart, that deals with her mother’s death—also a theme in her early music—and food, lots of food. It’s a really touching read, and an ideal companion to her musical catalog, which grew in really compelling ways with Jubilee. Rostam is best known as a founding member of Vampire Weekend, and even though he officially left the band a few years ago, he still contributes some songwriting and production work. He’s kept plenty busy otherwise, producing records and writing songs with an incredible array of other artists, from Hamilton Leithauser to HAIM to Clairo. His first proper solo album is the gentle, string-filled, fantastic Half-Light, which came out in 2017, and now he’s releasing Changephobia, which as you’ll hear ditches the string section and brings in a sax, among other things. These two jump right into a conversation that flits around from silly to deep: On one hand, they talk about childhood loves of chess and fencing and the importance of song five on an album. On the other, Zauner gets rightfully annoyed at interview questions she gets that other people don’t, and Rostam talks about being Persian in a band that was sometimes pegged as particularly white. It’s a funny, smart chat. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by The Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of electronic-music duos whose histories, as you’ll hear, are intimately intertwined: The Knocks and Sofi Tukker. The Knocks—consisting of James Patterson and Ben Ruttner—just released their third album, and it’s once again dancefloor-ready and heavy on the collaborations with indie icons. It’s called History, and it’s their first since 2018’s New York Narcotic, which featured the massive Foster the People collaboration “Ride or Die.” The guys used the extra time granted them by the pandemic to refocus and make History exactly what they wanted it, and it shows. The album includes guest spots from Cold War Kids, Cannons, and another jam with Foster the People. Check out “Slow Song,” which features Dragonette. Speaking of features and collaborations, The Knocks have worked with Sofi Tukker—the duo consisting of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern—a bunch over the years, and as you’ll hear in this conversation, Sofi Tukker might not even be a chart-topping outfit at all without the help and influence of James and Ben. Together they scored a bit hit with “Best Friend,” though if you only know one Sofi Tukker song it’s probably the massive “Drinkee.” But the duo has a brand new record out with the provocative title Wet Tennis, and they’re about to embark on a massive tour that includes two huge California shows with the Knocks as special guests. Check out “Kakee” from Wet Tennis. In this conversation, these four talk about their shared history in New York, right down to a specific building that the Beastie Boys used to own. They talk about the old days playing college shows and the new days playing the massive Greek Theatre. And you’ll hear them graciously compliment each other on their latest songs. It’s a regular lovefest. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sophie, Tucker, Ben, and James for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite social channels and podcasting platforms. 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 from the UK who recently collaborated for the first time, Dana Margolin and Joseph Mount. Mount has been the driving force behind Metronomy since 1999, and he’s found success not only with a series of winning electro-pop records, but also by remixing tracks for big names like Franz Ferdinand, Gorillaz, and Lady Gaga. If you’re unfamiliar with Metronomy, a good place to start is 2008’s Nights Out, which is a sort of concept album about, as you might guess, a night out. But Metronomy’s catalog is intriguingly all over the map; the band’s latest is called Small World, and it features a much gentler side of Mount’s songwriting personality overall. It also features a stunning duet with the other side of today’s conversation, Dana Margolin of Porridge Radio. Like Metronomy, Porridge Radio really started out as a solo project but grew into more of a band situation—though each is still the brainchild of one person. Margolin started recorded under the Porridge Radio name back in 2015, but it was her second proper studio album, 2020’s Every Bad, that really made the world stand up and take notice. It’s a powerful, intense record that stands alongside current heatseekers like Dry Cleaning and Wet Leg, but that has a stamina all its own. Margolin is just about to release the follow up to Every Bad, an equally bracing and incredible set of songs called Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky, once again on the Secretly Canadian label. In this conversation, Mount and Margolin talk about their collaboration, about the time that Mount almost but didn’t quite catch Margolin performing, and about the importance of lyrics—you’ll hear how eczema factors into a new song. They also get to Kierkegaard, Michael Stipe, and Margolin’s desire to—but inability—to write a “nice little love song.” Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Dana Margolin and Joseph Mount for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcast platform and all social media channels. 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 guests who I can call legends without hesitation: Shirley Manson and John Doe. Doe is a founding member of the insanely influential punk band X, which started life way back in 1977 Los Angeles. They were part of a scene that leaned into hardcore punk, but X set itself apart by sneaking elements of country and Americana into their blistering records and live sets. And the chemistry between Doe and his co-lead singer Exene Cervenka was legendary: In fact, it still is. Though the band has split a few times over the years, they’re still actively rocking all these years later, and in fact released a really great record in 2020, called Alphabetland—it was their first in about 20 years. Doe has also been an active solo artist as well, and he’s got a great new album coming out May 20, 2022: It’s called Fables in a Foreign Land, and it’s a concept record whose tales take place in the 1890s. It’s dark and folky, and includes some songwriting help from a bunch of amazing folks, including today’s other guest, Shirley Manson. Manson of course is the singer and frontperson of Garbage, which she’s been a part of steadily since the early 1990s. Garbage was formed by producer Butch Vig—he of Nirvana’s Nevermind fame—and was a massive success right out of the gate, with hits like “Queer,” “Stupid Girl,” and “Only Happy When It Rains.” They even did one of the best James Bond themes in recent memory, “The World is Not Enough.” The band has released a steady stream of great records over the years, including last year’s No Gods No Masters. A bonus track from that album, “Destroying Angels,” was written with and features both John Doe and Exene Cervenka, and an entirely different version of it also appears on this great new John Doe record. In this chat, Manson grills Doe on his intentions as a songwriter, and he asks her about Garbage’s process as well. Manson wants to know whether Doe considers himself a singer or songwriter first, and she refers to Butch Vig more than once in her charming Scottish accent as "Butchie." They also talk about the afterlife, and how playing new music for the people closest to you can be a little deflating. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Shirley Manson and John Doe for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcast platform and all social media channels. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! CORRECTION: May 12, 6:17 PM Shirley claims via Twitter that she never referred to Vig as “Butchie,” and upon further review of the tapes, it seems I was misinterpreting a breath as another syllable. Apologies to Ms. Manson!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a legendary guitarist and songwriter in conversation with one of our favorite repeat guests: Mike Campbell and Margo Price. Campbell is best known as Tom Petty’s right-hand man, a position he proudly held for five decades until Petty’s untimely death in 2017. Together they wrote some of the Heartbreakers’ best known songs, including “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” and “You Got Lucky.” Campbell also produced a bunch of Petty solo and Heartbreakers songs, and has contributed his playing and writing skills to lots of other artists, too. I was surprised to learn just recently that Campbell co-wrote Don Henley’s massive “Boys of Summer,” too. Who knew? But even before the end of the Heartbreakers’ run, Campbell would spend time with his side band, the Dirty Knobs, where he not only plays guitar but also sings and writes the lyrics. The band recently released their second studio album, External Combustion, which is where today’s other guest comes in. Margo Price is a firecracker of a singer and songwriter who doesn’t exactly fit neatly into the world of country—which is perhaps why she’s been so embraced by folks outside of that world. Jack White’s Third Man Records released Price’s first two albums, including her killer debut from 2016, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, and though she lives in Nashville, her sound is more old-school country than new. Her last album is 2020’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, though as you’ll hear in this chat, she’s been working on both new music and an upcoming memoir. She pulls no punches, so both should be great. Oh, and she found some time to help out with some vocals on The Dirty Knobs’ latest, specifically on a song called “State of Mind.” As a longtime fan of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, she was excited as hell to work with Campbell, and the feeling was mutual. Check out “State of Mind” here. Classic sounding, right? In this chat, Campbell and Price talk about getting back on the road after so long away. They talk about songwriting with other people: Price thinks it can be more personal than sleeping with someone. Campbell gets Price excited by revealing that he’s being joined on some dates by old-school Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch. And the two make plans to meet up on the road, specifically when they’re both opening huge amphitheaters for Chris Stapleton in June. Enjoy! Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Margo Price and Mike Campbell for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platforms and social media channels. 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 leading lights of modern psychedelic indie-rock, Melody Prochet and Lila Ramani. Prochet is the creative force behind Melody’s Echo Chamber, whose evocative name is taken from a dream she once had. Her debut album under the name, which Prochet recorded with help from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, was released in 2012. She has since released two more full-lengths while bouncing around the planet and raising children. The new one, Emotional Eternal, was partly inspired by Prochet’s move from Paris to the idyllic quiet of the Swiss Alps. It features assists from members of the Swedish band Dungen, though it’s more spare and stripped down than that might suggest—and more spare than her past work, too. There are bits of psych in there, along with echoes of bands like Stereolab. Lila Ramani of the New York band Crumb shares some of those influences, and Melody Prochet’s music influenced what Ramani wanted to do in her band, too. Crumb got going while its members were still in college in 2016, but really picked up speed with their debut full length, Jinx, which came out in 2019. Crumb released a second album, Ice Melt, in 2021, further incorporating jazzy rhythms into their psychedelic stew. In this conversation, the mutual admirers talk about their personal lives, including Prochet’s side gig as an art therapist as well as Ramani’s childhood growing up near the Gowanus Canal. They chat about Coachella, “grinding vs floating,” and Prochet’s favorite American city—which will almost certainly surprise you. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Melody Prochet and Lila Ramani for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to Talkhouse on your favorite platform, and tell your friends that we’re the best. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! View the full transcript of this podcast here.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lovefest between two musicians who came together to create one of the year’s most electrifying records: Eno Williams of Ibibio Sound Machine and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip. Ibibio Sound Machine has been mashing up sounds for just under a decade now, blending elements of Afrobeat and electronic music into a fierce combination that inspires dancing, chanting, and sweating—at least when they’re allowed to hit the road. Williams is a force of nature on their newest album, Electricity. She was born in London but grew up in Nigeria—specifically the Ibibio region—and was exposed to those incredible regional sounds before moving back to London for school and steeping herself in the electronic music happening there. Electricity captures her vision pretty perfectly, thanks at least in part to today’s other guest, Joe Goddard of Hot Chip. As you’ll hear in this chat, Goddard was a fan of Ibibio Sound Machine, having seen one of their incredible live performances at a festival, and the feeling was mutual. Goddard and his Hot Chip collaborators came in to produce Electricity, which was the first time Ibibio had used an outside producer. You can hear the Hot Chip fingerprints all over the record; it’s an amazing collaboration that both sides are clearly very happy with, as evidenced by this chat. And just moments ago—for me, anyway, it will be later for you—Hot Chip announced a brand new album as well. Freakout/Release will be out in August, and Hot Chip will play the second weekend of Coachella this Saturday. In this podcast, Goddard and Williams get deep into musical influences, including Nigerian electronic music pioneer Wiliam Onyeabor, Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, and more. They also talk about how sometimes the audience doesn’t know you’re having a bad show, and about the “super synth power” they found while working together. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Eno Williams and Joe Goddard for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! View the full transcript of this podcast here.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got two veterans of ‘90s rock who went on to form bands that referenced air travel in their name and whose biggest bands both start with Jaw: Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker and J. Robbins of Jawbox. Sorry if that was confusing, I’ll clear it up for you. Blake Schwarzenbach was and is the singer and guitarist of the band Jawbreaker, which had its initial run from 1986 until 1996, at which time they acrimoniously splintered after longtime fans turned their backs on 1995’s Dear You, mostly because these dogmatic listeners were mad that the band had signed to a major label. These things were a big deal then, which seems kind of quaint now. History was incredibly kind to both Jawbreaker and Dear You, so much so that in 2017 they reformed to headline Chicago’s massive Riot Fest, and they’ve been playing together on and off ever since. In the intervening years, Schwarzenbach also played in other great bands, most notably Jets to Brazil, which is what I was referencing earlier. Jawbreaker is on tour now, and they’re bringing along some of their favorite bands to open, which brings us to… Jawbox, which followed a sorta similar trajectory to Jawbreaker. They came together in the late ‘80s, released a couple of incredible albums for a respected independent label, and then moved into the big leagues, with all the baggage and joy that might bring. Jawbox split in 1997, and Robbins went on to form Burning Airlines—are you seeing a pattern here?—but Jawbox reconvened in 2019. Those two bands certainly aren’t the beginning and end of Robbins’ amazing contributions to the world of music, though: Prior to Jawbox he was in Government Issue—you’ll hear them referred to as GI in this chat—he’s served as producer for a number of bands over the years, including Jets to Brazil, the Promise Ring, the Dismemberment Plan, Against Me, and other bands that make my 1990s heart sing. I hope you’ll notice I haven’t said emo once yet. In this conversation, J. and Blake talk about what it feels like to play shows together again after all these years—and all this pandemic. Blake compliments J. on his psychedelic guitar playing, and J. isn’t sure what to make of that. And we learn—I think for the first time—that Jawbox briefly considered calling themselves Jawbreaker, before J. discovered Jawbreaker’s first single at a record store and crossed it off his list. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to J. Robbins and Blake Schwarzenbach for chatting. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a pair of Norwegian friends who both have excellent new records out this year: Sondre Lerche and AURORA. Lerche started writing gorgeous pop songs while he was still a teen in the suburbs of Bergen, Norway. It wasn’t too long before his music started finding its way out into the world, and he’s released a bunch of albums since the early 2000s. Though clearly starting from a pop background—his songs are incredibly catchy—Lerche has nimbly moved through various permutations over the years, flirting with jazzy sounds, more intimate acoustic numbers, touches of Brazilian sounds, and the occasional out-and-out new wavey rock. Not long before the pandemic, Lerche recorded Patience, which he intended to tour behind, but instead he ended up moving back to Norway from Los Angeles and recording another excellent album, called Avatars of Love. For this one, his tenth, Lerche recruited a bunch of friends to help out, including another Norwegian star from a younger generation, AURORA. Here’s a bit of the sensual duet they performed together for the album, it’s called “Alone in the Night.” As you can hear, AURORA has a kind of otherworldly quality to her voice, though on her own records it’s more often set against a more electronic backdrop: You may have heard her killer single “Cure for Me,” which came out last year and appears on her latest album, which came out earlier this year. It’s called The Gods We Can Touch, and she’s once again—like Lerche—supremely interested in lyrics, this time around going heavy on love and relationships. You’ll hear the two of them chat about the importance of love in this podcast, as well as their native Norway, earlobe hair, and more. One minute they’re deep into how music can help us overcome grief, and the next they’re talking about how religion and music are both like penises, in that they are beautiful and lovely, but you shouldn’t shove any of them in someone’s face. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to AURORA and Sondre Lerche for letting us listen in on their fun. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

I’m thrilled to share a special preview of the Broken Record podcast from Pushkin Industries. In honor of the Red Hot Chili Peppers new album, Unlimited Love, the band members sit with their legendary producer Rick Rubin to share exclusive insights about the band’s dynamic. In this preview, Rick, John, and Anthony discuss John rejoining the band after a 10 year hiatus and how right it felt to be playing together again. You can hear the full episode, and more from Broken Record at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/brokenrecordrhcp?sid=talkhouse.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters who share a serious dedication to the craft, a slightly sardonic outlook on life, and deep, incredible catalogs: Neil Hannon and Ben Folds. Neil Hannon is from Northern Ireland, and it’s safe to say that he and the band that he’s fronted for the past 30 years, the Divine Comedy, are a bit better known in Europe than in the States. Under the Divine Comedy name, Hannon has released a dozen delightfully clever albums, the latest of which is 2019’s Office Politics. If you’re a newbie and that seems far too much to catch up on, you’re in luck: Just this year, the Divine Comedy released a fantastic greatest-hits set called Charmed Life. Hannon has also kept himself busy over the years writing an opera of sorts, as well as composing the theme songs to two beloved British sitcoms, The IT Crowd and Father Ted—the latter show comes up at the beginning of this conversation. Another thing you’ll hear Hannon reference in this chat is “Wonka money”—he’s referring to the fact that he’s composing the music for the upcoming Willy Wonka movie starring Timothee Chalamet. Not too shabby. Here’s a little bit of the Divine Comedy’s “The Best Mistakes.” Ben Folds, as you’ll hear in this conversation, is a huge fan of Hannon and his music. They’ve played together in the past and they plan to again; you’ll even hear them chatting about an orchestral series of concerts that Folds helps produce at the Kennedy Center. Folds, of course, is the piano-playing maestro who led the Ben Folds Five during the ‘90s, then struck out on his own for a vastly varied career in music. In addition to more pop-oriented albums, he’s collaborated with everyone from William Shatner to Weird Al; he’s written a piano concerto for the Nashville Symphony, released a well received memoir, and started a podcast in which he interviews interesting folks from various walks of life. Another guest who makes us all feel lazy. Damn it, Folds! For this chat, the old friends were in vastly different time zones: Hannon in Ireland and Folds in Australia, the former ready for bed and the latter just waking up. They talk about their admiration for each other—and how they don’t really understand current pop music, because they know they’re not supposed to. They talk about the downsides of ProTools and the upsides of the pandemic. And you get to hear Ben Folds say the phrase “getting on fucking Talkhouse and kissing ass,” which made my week. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Ben Folds and Neil Hannon for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Sometimes Talkhouse Podcast participants have never met, sometimes they're acquainted, and on rare occasions, they know each other really well. For this week's chat, it became clear pretty quickly that Sasha Spielberg—a.k.a. Buzzy Lee—and Alana Haim already spoke the same language. As it turns out, and you'll hear this in the conversation, they're close enough to share a Hulu account. The occasion for this conversation is the debut full-length from Buzzy Lee, the excellent Spoiled Love, which is out now. And of course, it's not too late to enjoy the latest album from HAIM, Women In Music Pt. III, which came out in 2020. The two old friends talk about young love, bat mitzvahs, "cozy boys," and songwriting. It's charming as hell.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a funny pairing that proves that good things do occasionally result from the existence of social media: Steve Albini and Max Collins. You almost certainly know Steve Albini’s name and probably some of his work, too, but I’ll share this brief summary anyway: As a musician, he has played in some incredibly influential bands, most notably Big Black and Shellac. As a producer/engineer/studio owner, he has helped make records by thousands of small independent bands and several huge mainstream ones, most notably Nirvana, with whom he recorded In Utero. (Other notable credits include PJ Harvey, Pixies, and the list goes on.) Albini is also a poker enthusiast who holds a World Series bracelet, though that part of his life doesn’t come up here. Throughout his career, Albini has been an outspoken champion of independence from the major-label system, and even penned a widely shared essay way back in the day about the general shittiness of the mainstream music business. Which makes it kind of funny that he’s speaking today with Max Collins, frontman for the band Eve 6, who were sort of a prime example of the major-label machinery in the ‘90s—though through no fault of their own. Signed to a huge deal just out of high school, the band had a pretty massive hit with a song called “Inside Out,” whose chorus features the phrase “heart in a blender.” Eve 6 largely disappeared after the turn of the century, but Collins found a hilarious new way to connect with fans during the pandemic: Twitter. His no-holds-barred tweets are funny and self-effacing, and they gained him an instant following. He refers to himself frequently—even once during this podcast—as the “heart in a blender guy,” and he openly shares his stories about other alt stars of the ‘90s, his opinions on current and older bands, and even some of his personal life. Albini, no stranger to no filter himself, became a fan after the two started playfully sparring about the relative merits of Counting Crows. A Twitter beef was born. If you don’t like that phrase, this is not the episode for you. Eve 6 has since started recording and releasing new music, and the two talk a bit about that in this episode. They also get into Eve 6’s financial history, the evils of major-label deals in the ‘90s, and for brief moment of non-playfulness, the idea of art as the antidote for the hellscape we all live in. Then there’s talk of starting a new beef, this time with Dave Grohl. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Steve Albini and Max Collins for chatting. If you liked what you heard, follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and please rate us—it actually does help. 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, which we recorded as part of the On Air Festival, we’ve got a kind of unusually focused conversation about another person entirely: It’s Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie along with Meg Remy of U.S. Girls, talking at length about legendary artist Yoko Ono. It’s not just out of nowhere, though: Ben Gibbard, who you almost certainly know as the frontman of Death Cab For Cutie, whose impressive catalog has shaped indie-rock over the past two decades, recently curated a compilation that pays tribute to Ono’s music. He’s a man on a mission, which as you’ll hear is not to re-evaluate Yoko Ono’s vast catalog, but really to evaluate it in the first place. What people tend to know about Ono’s music doesn’t reflect the variety of her output, and her narrative as the villain in the Beatles story is ridiculous. To that end, Gibbard gathered a killer lineup to cover Ono’s songs for an album called Ocean Child. Musicians features in the collection include David Byrne with Yo La Tengo, Sharon Van Etten, Jay Som, Japanese Breakfast, the Flaming Lips, and of course Death Cab for Cutie themselves. Also included on Ocean Child is U.S. Girls, the musical project of Meg Remy. She’s been making music under the name for the past 15 years or so, amassing an impressive collection of records up to an including 2020’s Heavy Light–a Pitchfork best new music designee. She’s a perfect fit for a tribute to and conversation about Yoko Ono, since she’s not only a huge fan but clearly influenced by Ono’s sonic and political fearlessness. Before they get to chatting Yoko, Gibbard and Remy talk about Covid—there were some positives in it for Remy, who also gave birth to twins recently—and hotel notepads. Then it’s on to Yoko, whom they both deeply admire: They talk about her records, her art, and how the recent Get Back documentary kind of exploded the narrative on her vis a vis the Beatles. It’s a great chat about a worthy, misunderstood subject. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Meg Remy and Ben Gibbard for chatting. If you like what you heard, check out Ocean Child. And if you enjoyed the podcast, please follow, like, and rate Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! View the full transcript of this podcast here.

This week's Talkhouse Podcast features a bit of a lovefest between two titans of the indie-rock world, Lou Barlow and Ben Bridwell. It’s a cliche, sure, but Lou Barlow probably doesn’t need an introduction around here. A founding member of Dinosaur Jr., he played on that band’s formative 1980s albums before not very amicably parting ways with frontman J Mascis. But Barlow found plenty of subsequent success in the 90s with Sebadoh, whose 1994 masterpiece Bakesale is referenced in this chat. Barlow also, weirdly, had kind of a mainstream hit with his side project Folk Implosion—and there’s some very interesting, unexpected Folk Implosion news in this podcast that I won’t spoil for you. Barlow eventually rejoined Dinosaur Jr. in 2005, and the band has found a fruitful third life, making vital new records. Speaking of vital records, the prolific Barlow has also found time to make new Sebadoh music and solo records. The latest Lou Barlow record came out just last year, and it’s called Reason to Live, and there was also an excellent Dinosaur Jr. album from 2021 called Sweep it Into Space. As Ben Bridwell points out in this chat, Lou Barlow has been making music in public for damn near 40 years, while the group that Bridwell leads, Band of Horses, is approaching 20 years now. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Bridwell moved from the South to various other cities, ending up in Seattle—and specifically at the legendary Crocodile Cafe—where he played in bands and listened to lots of music. He loved Sebadoh, as did pretty much everybody in the 90s, and it was one of the inspirations for Bridwell to launch Band of Horses, which subsequently found its own substantial fanbase—no surprise considering Bridwell’s passionate voice and fantastic songs. Band of Horses hasn’t put out a full length in more than five years—blame the pandemic for at least some of that delay—but is just now releasing a great new record that feels a bit more like their early stuff, and they’re about to head out on a huge tour supporting the Black Keys. The new album is called Things are Great. It’s clear from the very start of this conversation what a huge fan of each other these two guys are—and also that neither of them are very good at accepting compliments. Barlow talks about the magical moment he connected with Bridwell’s voice, Bridwell talks about discovering the power of that voice, they talk about how a Camel cigarettes tour brought them together, and eventually, Bridwell makes up his own segment for the Talkhouse Podcast called “rapid fire.” It’s a delight. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Lou Barlow and Ben Bridwell for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and social media service. Oh, and rate us, too—it really does help! This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

As a music fan of a certain age, I can be a bit partial to the 1990s, and to that era’s emo-rock in particular, so this week’s Talkhouse pairing speaks to me: It’s Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World and Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional. Jimmy Eat World started life in 1993 in Arizona, pretty much straight out of high school. Before they knew what hit them, they had a major label deal with Capitol and a hearty underground following for their catchy, raw songs. A rollercoaster of a career eventually led to a massive radio hit in 2001: “The Middle”—you know it, believe me—which launched them to new heights but didn’t really change the band’s fundamentals. They’ve continued making excellent records since, up to and including 2019’s Surviving. One of that album’s best songs is the focus of part of today’s podcast, too: “555.” Dashboard Confessional, which is the product of singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba, started life a little later in the ‘90s, but also with a bang. His heart-on-sleeve lyrics almost immediately inspired sold-out shows and tear-stained singalongs. In other words, the “emo” tag actually makes some sense for once. The pandemic cut short Carrabba’s touring look back at 20 years of Dashboard Confessional, but it allowed him to finish a brand new album called All the Truth That I Can Tell. Now Carrabba and Adkins aren’t just here because they’re pals and they come from similar backgrounds. They’re also bringing their bands together through March on a co-headlining tour dubbed “Surviving The Truth" and then both bands will be part of the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas in October. All the dates can be found on either band’s website, naturally. Adkins and Carrabba chat a lot about songwriting here, specifically about techniques for letting a song find itself. They also ponder whether it’s better to have a big radio hit, like Jimmy Eat World did, or to be associated with a huge Spider-Man movie, as Dashboard Confessional was. And both seem delighted, even after all this time, to be able to make music their living. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Chris Carrabba and Jim Adkins for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and social channels. 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 episode, while not particularly hilarious, might set a new Talkhouse record for the sheer amount of laughter. You’ll see why when you listen: It’s the members of BadBadNotGood in conversation with Laraaji. BadBadNotGood is a Canadian band that straddles the line between jazz and instrumental hip-hop, but has gone well beyond those two things in the last decade, incorporating electronic elements, Brazilian sounds, and much more. They’ve collaborated with everyone from Kendrick Lamar, who sought them out after seeing them at Coachella, to Tyler the Creator to Ghostface Killah to Future Islands’ Samuel Herring. The list goes on and on. BadBadNotGood returned last year after a five-year album gap with a collection called Talk Memory. On it, they proved more collaborative than ever, bringing in a bunch of incredible musicians to expand their sound. One of the musicians they called on was the legendary yet under the radar Laraaji, who’s had a remarkable career over the past 40 years or so. After a winding road that included acting and stand-up comedy, Laraaji was eventually discovered while busking in Washington Square Park by none other than Brian Eno, who produced and released Laraaji’s Day of Radiance album as part of his Ambient series. Since then, he’s released dozens more recordings. Laraaji’s main instrument is an electrified zither, which as you’ll hear in this conversation, came to him in kind of a magical way. Once you hear him talk, though, that won’t surprise you: He’s obviously open to whatever experiences the world wants to bring him. On record that most recently includes a collaboration with the improvisational ensemble NOUS and his old friend Arji OceAnanda called Circle of Celebration. In this conversation, you’ll hear Laraaji laughing a lot, because in addition to his music, he leads laughter workshops—which are exactly what you might think they are. You’ll also hear about Laraaji’s past, about the brain that exists inside your abdomen, creative trances, and why the color orange has played a big part in his life. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Laraaji and the members of BadBadNotGood for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. 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 unlikely pairing of two performers who share a home state, but it would seem at first glance not too much else—though that’s just first glance: Britt Daniel of Spoon and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Now the genesis of this conversation was actually a comment that Britt Daniel made around the time the band announced its new album, Lucifer on the Sofa. About the song “The Hardest Cut,” he simply said that he’d been listening to a lot of ZZ Top in the years leading up to the album’s recording. And while the song is certainly no tribute to ZZ Top, you can hear the snarl and bite coming through in its tones and lyrics as well as on a few other place on this collection. It’s album number 10 for Spoon, who have had an incredibly strong run over the past almost three decades. Lucifer on the Sofa is out this week, and it stands among their best—catchy, considered, and a bit more raw than recent records. Maybe that’s because they recorded it back in Britt’s home state, which of course is where the legendary ZZ Top was born as well. Billy Gibbons formed the band with Dusty Hill and Frank Beard way back in 1969, and the original trio rocked consistently for five decades until Hill’s death in 2021. The blues-inspired rock band gained traction in the ‘70s with songs like “La Grange” and “Tush,” then took off in the ‘80s as they became superstars of the early MTV era with “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs.” They were shoo-ins for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, of course, and not even Hill’s death could stop them: His guitar tech and friend Elwood Francis stepped in, and ZZ Top will play shows with Cheap Trick this April—all the dates, naturally, are at ZZTop.com. Daniel and Gibbons talk a lot about what they have in common, which is the state of Texas and specifically its myriad Mexican restaurants. Daniel asks about the legendary photo inside ZZ Top’s classic 1973 album Tres Hombres, and Gibbons gets a chance to talk about some of his contemporaries and friends, including Roky Erickson of the 13th Floor Elevators and Bo Diddley, with whom he collaborated on a guitar design, among other things. Enjoy. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platforms and social media channels. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got the guitarist-singer of a great young-ish band from Minneapolis in conversation with a hotshot guitarist who’s just starting to make a name for herself: Nathan Stocker of Hippo Campus and Yasmin Williams. Hippo Campus formed just under a decade ago, while Stocker and his bandmates were still in high school. They came out of the gate just as you might expect: eager and excited, releasing a series of EPs followed by a bang-bang pair of excellent albums and inspiring crowds at pretty much every festival you could think of. After touring behind 2018’s Bambi, Hippo Campus took some time to stretch their legs, with each member heading off into side projects of various sounds and sizes. But the band reconvened with fresh motivation and a clearer-eyed outlook last year, and they came up with a powerhouse of an album with the simple title of LP3. It’s slightly more mature in the best ways, but still incredibly catchy and true to their sound. There’s a lot of inward looking existential lyrics, but wrapped in fantastic hooks. It was Stocker’s idea to chat with guitarist Yasmin Williams, who he had recently come across via NPR’s long-running, always reliable Tiny Desk concert series. That performance was particularly captivating, because you’re not just hearing what Williams can do with an acoustic guitar, but you’re seeing it as well. She takes the foundation built by fingerstyle masters like John Fahey and Michael Hedges but brings a modern sensibility to it: In this conversation, she talks a lot about her love of metal and math-rock, bits of which you can almost hear in her beautiful playing. Williams has released two albums so far, and as you’ll also hear in this chat, she’s working on a third. The latest is Urban Driftwood. Williams and Stocker didn’t know each other at all prior to this chat, but it turned out that she’s a Hippo Campus fan. The two talk about gear nerd stuff, YouTube videos by Andy McKee, being in competition with yourself, and of course the inspiration for Williams’ interest in music to begin with: a little game called Guitar Hero 2. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, highly acclaimed actor Harry Melling and writer-director Amanda Kramer chat over Zoom from their respective homes in London and Los Angeles. The two recently collaborated as star and filmmaker on Kramer’s latest feature, Please Baby Please, which also stars Andrea Riseborough and Demi Moore and is the opening film at 2022 International Film Festival Rotterdam. In a wide-ranging conversation, Kramer and Melling touched on many subjects, from making Please Baby Please during COVID in Montana, to Harry’s love of dancing, why Amanda almost had a breakdown on set, actors’ misplaced obsession with playing real people, how Amanda expanded Harry’s love and knowledge of English cinema, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

This week’s Talkhouse conversation features a pair of indie musicians—one of whom is known a bit better for another career—who recently collaborated on a song, and who have lots to say about creativity and the current state of the music biz: Hrishikesh Hirway and Melina Duterte, aka. Jay Som. If you recognize Hirway’s name, chances are good it’s from one of his popular podcasts: The best known is probably Song Exploder, on which Hirway and a guest break down a single song, spending time to get at its component parts and to explore the creative process. (Perhaps it goes without saying that it shares some DNA with the Talkhouse Podcast.) Guests over the years have included Bjork, Spoon, St. Vincent—the list goes on and on. Song Exploder became a Netflix series in 2020, with Hirway acting host on the TV version as well. In addition to that, he’s behind some other great podcasts, including the fun pandemic-era food chat show Home Cooking, which he co-hosts with Samin Nusrat. With all of that on his plate, it’s easy to overlook that Hirway spent many years making gentle, melancholy indie music under the name The One AM Radio. That part of his life took a backseat to his other pursuits, but music called him back, and he spent some time over the pandemic recording some songs that he’s slowly releasing under his own name. The first was a collaboration with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and just this week came the second: a collaboration with today’s other guest, Melina Duterte, who’s better known by her project’s name, Jay Som. The two met because Duterte was a guest on Song Exploder, where she spoke about her song “Tenderness.” Though he didn’t actually host that episode, Hirway loved what he heard, and the two struck up a friendship that led to Duterte guesting on the touching song “Home.” If you like what you hear, the Jay Som catalog is thoroughly fantastic. Her last album under the name was 2019’s Anak Ko, but she’s spent time producing and collaborating with other folks over the past couple of years, including production duties for the latest album by Julia Shapiro of Chastity Belt—a recent guest on this very podcast. Jay Som’s music is often called “bedroom pop,” but after people hear this conversation, they may have to start calling it “attic pop,” since Duterte recently relocated to a private top floor of her own. Elsewhere in this conversation, she and Hirway talk about the hot mess that is the music industry, the software they sometimes use, and the alt-rock band that Duterte obsessed over as a pre-teen. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hrishikesh Hirway and Melina Duterte for chatting. Check out their collaborative song, “Home,” and be sure to follow them both—and Talkhouse!—on your favorite social media channels. See you next time!

For the first new Talkhouse Podcast episode of the new year, we’ve got an unlikely pairing—which is one of our favorite kinds of pairings. But it wasn’t exactly our idea to connect Michael Vincent Waller and Lex Luger, it was theirs. The contemporary classical composer and the extremely prolific hip-hop producer made a really cool record together that came out in 2021, called Classic$. Waller is not your typical classical composer, he’s a real musical searcher. His compositions range from avant-garde to minimalist to slightly more classic-sounding classical music. But over his career he hasn’t stayed in one place musically for very long. He made a record back in 2019 with electronic producer JLin, which you may have read about in an interview with the pair right on this very website. So maybe it’s no surprise at all that Waller didn’t let genre get in the way of his love for hip-hop when he reached out to Luger for an assist on Classic$—which I should note is credited to MVW, rather than Waller’s full name, in case you have trouble finding it on your favorite streaming service. The two collaborated on the music, as you’ll hear, and they brought in a bunch of voices to help flesh things out. Luger has had an incredible career in hip-hop. For the last decade-plus, he’s been a go-to producer for some huge names, starting with Waka Flocka Flame—who he connected with via MySpace—and Rick Ross, but running through tracks by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Snoop Dogg, among many, many others. He famously used to make hundreds of beats at a stretch: If you didn’t like one of his spooky trap sounds, he had a dozen others ready for you. I guess the place that Luger and Waller might intersect is that Luger’s beats often feature symphonic elements: They can sound, at times, like horror-movie scores. In this conversation, Luger and Waller talk about how working together affected them: It was more than just another job for Luger, who feels like he learned something valuable from Waller’s acoustic-first approach. They also talk about what music actually means to them, which is a very Talkhouse-friendly subject. They clearly want to work with one another again, which says something about the deep connection they made on Classic$. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Lex Luger and Michael Vincent Waller for chatting. Be sure to follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range.

This week we’re resurfacing a delightful episode that originally ran in April of 2020, and which features two of our favorite songwriters/performers: Matt Berninger of The National and Aimee Mann. Their chat was inspired by the release of an excellent documentary about Other Music, the revered New York record store that closed in 2016. The conversation veers into many other areas as well, including creativity during the pandemic. The challenges of the past couple of years were no match for these two: Berninger released a solo album called Serpentine Prison last year, and Mann just released Queens of the Summer Hotel, a set of new songs inspired by the book Girl, Interrupted. Enjoy, and we’ll be back with a brand new episode next week. —Josh Modell This week on the show, we celebrate the wonderful Other Music documentary with two Grammy-winning artists: singer-songwriter Aimee Mann and the National's Matt Berninger. The two discuss the iconic record store and the creative importance of having physical spaces dedicated to musical community, plus we hear how they're managing to work during the pandemic, and Matt reveals that he's both writing a musical and launching a label imprint. The Other Music doc features many wonderful artists that have appeared on our show — TV on the Radio, the Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jason Schwartzman, Animal Collective, William Basinski, Frankie Cosmos and more — this is truly a #talkhousecore film! Other Music is currently being screened via a "virtual theatrical release," with more than 200 independent record shops and movie theaters offering it to rent, and splitting the profits 50/50. This is a wonderful chance to support your local purveyor of brilliant art, and catch one of the must-see music films of the year. Click here to find your local favorite store or theater that's screening it! (Our producer Mark Yoshizumi rented it from his alma mater Reckless Records in Chicago; Talkhouse Film's Editor-in-Chief Nick Dawson supported Permanent Records in L.A., and I went with Record Grouch in Brooklyn, where I've spent many and many a happy hour amongst the hallowed racks.) Enjoy today's show, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including upcoming talks like Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) with the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, and Black Belt Eagle Scout with Sasami. —Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer This week’s show was recorded by Aimee Mann, Matt Berninger, Nick Dawson, and myself in our respective #stayhome studios. The Talkhouse Podcast's co-producer is Mark Yoshizumi. Our theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

We’ve hosted some incredible Talkhouse conversations in 2021, and for our final brand-new episode of the year, we’ve got two people responsible for some of the best records of this year: Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner. Baker released her third album, Little Oblivions, back in February, and it’s a doozy. Expanding her sonic palette massively, Baker delivered her powerful, vulnerable songs with much bigger sounds. That might have felt like a gamble, but it paid off massively—she produced it herself and pushed herself into new spaces. Dessner is of course a founding member of the National, with whom he’s played for the past 20+ years. While his main band slowed down over the past couple of years, Dessner has been operating at hyperspeed. He was one of the main co-writers and producers on Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums. He won an Album of the Year Grammy for the former, and was nominated for five more Grammys for the latter. He somehow also found time to release a new album with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon under the name Big Red Machine called How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? In addition to loads of guest singers, that record features Dessner on occasional lead vocals. These two have a fantastic conversation about creativity and, specifically, production: Aaron has done a lot of producing for other artists, and Julien is just getting into it. Julien talks about what it’s like to have a full live band backing her, rather than being a quote-unquote masochist and playing alone. They talk about what it was like to be deprived of live audiences for so long, and Aaron gets into how his studio setup has changed over the years. Also, they both know what it’s like when music can make you cry—that’s the kind of thing we love here at Talkhouse. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner for having such a wonderful chat. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service and social media channels--we’re everywhere. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan and Keenan Kush, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s Talkhouse episode features a pair of legends from the alt-country or country or No Depression or Americana worlds—you pick. It’s Jay Farrar of Son Volt along with singer-songwriter (and many other things) Steve Earle. Jay Farrar started his career as part of the seminal band Uncle Tupelo alongside another noted songwriter (and frequent Talkhouse guest) Jeff Tweedy. After their split, Tweedy went on to Wilco while Farrar formed the band Son Volt, which has since released an impressive catalog—their tenth and latest album was recorded during pandemic downtime, and you can hear it in the deliberateness of the songs. It’s called Electro Melodier. Steve Earle is one of those guys who makes you feel lazy. He’s not only an incredibly accomplished singer and songwriter with literally dozens of albums to his credit, he’s also a producer, an actor—most notably on The Wire—a novelist, a Sirius XM DJ, and as you’ll hear here, an aspiring TV show creator. His 2020 album Ghosts of West Virginia was spun off from an off-Broadway show he worked on, while this year’s J.T. is a tribute to his talented son, Justin Townes Earle, who passed away just last year. As you’ll hear, he’s got even more projects in the works, including a tribute to singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker. As you’ll hear, Steve Earle loves to chat, while Jay Farrar is a bit more subdued—a fact that these friends acknowledge right off the bat. But they get into a great conversation about their favorite subject: music—what they listened to growing up, the great shows that Earle saw as a kid, and even selling some weed to Leslie West of Mountain. Steve talks about missing the whole genesis of alt-country for good reason—he was in jail—but catching up with it, and with Son Volt in particular. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Jay Farrar and Steve Earle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on all your favorite podcasting services and social media channels. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa 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 lively conversation between some people whose relationship got off to kind of a rocky start, but who’ve since become friends: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and all three members of Mountain Man: Amelia Meath, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Molly Sarle. Now the occasion for this conversation is the recent reissue of the first Mountain Man record, 2010’s Made the Harbor, which features new liner notes written by Tweedy. This gorgeous, strange record was made back when these three women were just getting to know each other as college students in Vermont. Somehow, as if by magic—you’ll hear about that in this chat—their voices perfectly intertwined, and some of the very first songs that any of them wrote ended up becoming these timeless little gems. And then they went their separate ways for quite a long time: Meath ended up as half of Sylvan Esso, most notably. They’ve since regrouped for shows and more excellent music, most recently a live album called Look at Me, Don’t Look at Me. The members of Mountain Man first met Jeff Tweedy when they played Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival—and apparently snubbed Tweedy when he introduced himself. No offense was taken and a friendship was eventually formed, though as you’ll hear, Tweedy still finds himself a little intimidated in their presence. Tweedy’s latest entry in an incredibly prolific career is a deluxe edition of Love is the King, the album he recorded and released during the first part of the pandemic. It’s now getting a bonus disc called Live is the King, which as you may have guessed, features live renditions of these excellent songs. Tweedy and Mountain Man will meet again in person in January during Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky festival in Mexico. Presumably they will recognize him this time. In this funny, winding conversation, they begin by talking about seasonal depression, pivot quickly to a discussion of candy, and then move on to the serious business of creating music—and what that means to them. So we’ve got everything from Mountain Man’s magical discovery of their own voices—like a unicorn in the woods—to Jeff’s story about the time he thought he could lose weight by eating only Snickers. One minute, Amelia Meath is talking about sexy lumberjacks on TikTok, the next Jeff Tweedy is pining for an honorary Bachelor’s Degree. Won’t somebody give him one? We’re looking at you, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jeff Tweedy and Mountain Man for chatting. If you liked what you heard, follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and all relevant social channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

Hey Talkhouse friends, this week we’re re-surfacing an episode that originally ran in May of 2020. Unlike most Talkhouse Podcast episodes, which feature two or more creative folks in conversation, this one is mostly just one guy talking: Joe Talbot of the band IDLES. It was recorded in front of a live audience in Glasgow, just before the pandemic hit, and it’s a fascinating look at an incredible artist—Talbot is a guy who’s unafraid to put it all out there, in both interviews and in his music. Speaking of music, part of the reason we’re re-promoting this episode this week is that Idles just released another incredible album: Crawler is the British band’s fourth, and it’s unsurprisingly being met with pretty ecstatic reviews. Check out this fascinating chat with Joe and a live audience, and have a great Thanksgiving. —Josh Modell ---- This week's show is a bit different from usual Talkhouse Podcast episodes. While it's nominally hosted by the legendary Alan McGee of Creation Records — the man who signed The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and a lil ol' band called Oasis — it's not at all a two-person conversation. Instead, this episode features Joe Talbot, frontman of the incredible post-punk group IDLES, in one of the funniest, most viscerally honest live audience Q&A's I've ever witnessed. Both Joe and the attendees are willing to go to deep and often uncomfortable areas: Buckle up for a discussion of toxic masculinity, the role of violence in IDLES' music, and the difficult process of developing one’s own artistic language. We also hear about Joe collabing with Mike Skinner of The Streets, turning Sleaford Mods’ taunts into a song, putting human ashes into vinyl records, and... we even get an unexpected lesson on mindfulness. This Q&A was recorded at the wonderful Barras Art & Design in Glasgow. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including upcoming talks like Helado Negro with Buscabulla, Julien Baker and Katie Harkin (Harkin, Sleater-Kinney), Black Belt Eagle Scout with Sasami, and Scott Avett (The Avett Brothers) with Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide). — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer Today’s show was recorded in Glasgow by Nadar Shahzad of Blue Audio (thx Nadar!). Our co-producer is Mark Yoshizumi. Thanks so much to Matt Sadowski of Alt Waves Records and to Barras Art & Design for allowing us to share this event. The Talkhouse Podcast’s theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a roundtable of old friends who are also, as it happens, all New York City legends: Cynthia Sley and Pat Place of Bush Tetras with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and director Jim Jarmusch. Cynthia and Pat — vocalist and guitarist, respectively — started the “groove-centric” post-punk band Bush Tetras in 1979 with Laura Kennedy on bass and Dee Pop on drums. They broke up just a few years later, but over the decades they’ve reunited periodically, and are back in action now — though, sadly, without Kennedy, who died in 2011, and Dee Pop, who passed away last month after the recording of this conversation. But as Cynthia told the New York Times, “Bush Tetras is a force that cannot be stopped.” Their pioneering work lives on, archived in a new box set called Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras, which came out on Wharf Cat last week and includes three LPs and a booklet featuring essays by Moore, Jarmusch, members of The Clash and Gang of Four, and many others. Thurston Moore was a founding member of Sonic Youth. Now based in London, he performs and records solo — his latest album is last year's By The Fire. Jim Jarmusch is the director of films like Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Coffee and Cigarettes, and so many more. He’s also a musician, and currently performs with the avant-rock band SQÜRL. As Cynthia says at the beginning of their conversation, they have about 40 years of friendship between the four them, but this is the first time all four of them have gotten to talk together. Their decades-in-the-making conversation covers a lot, including Pat’s influence on Thurston as a guitarist, Tier 3 and Mudd Club memories, and an era of New York when there were still chicken slaughterhouses on Prince Street. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Bush Tetras, Thurston Moore, and Jim Jarmusch for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, longtime friends and collaborators Rosario Dawson and Talia Lugacy sit down for a chat, on the occasion of the release of their latest film together, This is Not a War Story, the moving drama about combat trauma which Lugacy wrote, directed and stars in and Dawson executive produced. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two started off by talking about the recent tragic death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust and how it connects with persistent problems in both indie and studio filmmaking, and moved on to touch on everything from the human aspect of cinema, art as therapy and Rosario’s thoughts on directing, to their time as teenagers at the Lee Strasberg Institute with Scarlett Johansson and Hayden Christensen, the changing of the guard that is currently taking place in Hollywood, and the journey they have taken together, both creatively and personally. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse Podcast theme music is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a little more focused conversation than usual, as Matthew Houck—the driving force behind the band Phosphorescent—chats with legendary songwriter Nick Lowe, largely about Lowe’s recently reissued 2001 album The Convincer. Even if Nick Lowe’s name isn’t super familiar to you, some of his songs almost certainly are. He’s had an incredible career that stretches back to the late 1960s, with his biggest mainstream moment coming via his dear friend Elvis Costello, who covered Lowe’s “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” and made it a hit. Lowe also produced Costello’s first five albums, as well as a bunch of other classic British records, in addition to his solo work and his time with the band Rockpile. Today’s conversation is focused largely on Lowe’s 2001 album The Convincer, which was something of an artistic rebirth for him. He wanted to age gracefully and continue to challenge himself, which he did with a trilogy of albums that ended with this one. It’s a beautifully written and performed set of songs that didn’t set the commercial world on fire, but which has quietly found its way into many people’s hearts over the past two decades. The song “I’m A Mess” is the reason for this conversation. Matthew Houck, who has been making incredible music of his own under the name Phosphorescent since the early aughts, is an obsessive fan of The Convincer, so much so that he’s been working on a cover of “I’m A Mess.” A mutual friend of Houck and Lowe’s sent Lowe a copy of the song, which isn’t available yet, and they chat about it here. The most recent Phosphorescent release is the BBC Sessions EP, and it strips a set of Houck’s songs down to their barest essentials—much of his studio material is far more gussied up, and this is a great chance to hear them naked. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Houck is a huge fan of Lowe’s, and specifically of The Convincer. They get into specifics about a bunch of the songs—and you’ll find out if Lowe agrees that this was indeed his finest hour. You’ll also hear about how The Bodyguard soundtrack changed Lowe’s fortunes forever, how his onetime girlfriend Margot Kidder made her way into a song, and how Wilco helped him win fans in Indianapolis. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Nick Lowe and Matthew Houck for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve put together a pair of tourmates—past and present—who are separated by decades but united by a deep respect of American music: Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols. Patterson Hood has been in rock bands since he was a pre-teen, and he’s been the co-leader of Drive-By Truckers since 1996. The band has explored the sounds and ideas of Southern rock—Hood is from Alabama—over the years, with sounds and lyrics that stretch the boundaries well beyond the world of Lynyrd Skynyrd. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Hood is a nuanced thinker and writer. You’ll also hear that, of course, on his records, both as a solo artist and a Drive-By Trucker. The band actually released two albums last year, The Unraveling back in January, and then its companion, The New OK, in October. Carl Nichols, aka Buffalo Nichols, toured with Drive-By Truckers in the past, and he’s in the midst of another touring opening for them now. Nichols, as you’ll hear, has an interesting musical history of his own—he’s been more of a genre jumper than his friend Patterson, playing in punk bands early on and then in the Milwaukee folk-ish duo Nickel and Rose. He just released his debut as Buffalo Nichols, and it takes a turn toward what Rolling Stone called “existential blues.” It’s just out on the venerated Fat Possum label. Nichols and Hood—that sounds like a great name for a duo, come to think of it—talk here about the protests in Portland, where Hood now lives; how Hood’s politics drove off a certain percentage of his audience; and a mutual love of Outkast. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

This week’s Talkhouse conversation features a pair of performers who came up in the ‘90s, and who have followed each other’s careers since: Tim Burgess of the Charlatans, and Joan Wasser, aka. Joan as Police Woman. Tim Burgess has had a fascinatingly diverse career: He first came to prominence as singer of the Charlatans, who were part of the early '90s Madchester scene along with the likes of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. But unlike many of their contemporaries, the Charlatans have had a long and prosperous career, releasing more than a dozen albums in addition to Burgess’ solo output. This week sees the release of a massive Charlatans box set called A Head Full Of Ideas that spans their career and includes hits and rare tracks. In addition to the box set, a Charlatans tour that’s just about to start, and a solo album slated for next year, Burgess has kept himself busy through the pandemic with a fun concept he named Tim’s Twitter Listening Party. It’s simple enough: He coaxes other musicians to essentially live-tweet their own albums, and it’s resulted in literally hundreds of sessions with everyone from his UK contemporaries like Oasis and Blur to a session with Sir Paul McCartney himself. A hundred of those parties have now been gathered into a hardcover book, which also includes rare photos from the participants and lots more. One of those hundred is Joan Wasser, who also got her start in a ‘90s band—the Dambuilders—and subsequently launched an incredibly varied career. She was in Antony and the Johnsons for a bit, and she’s recorded a bunch of great records under the name Joan As Police Woman. The first of those, 2006’s Real Life, knocked Tim Burgess over when he first heard it—as you’ll hear in this conversation. Wasser is just about to release an incredible collaborative album that she made with Dave Okumu and Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen, not long before Allen’s death last year. It’s called The Solution is Restless, which is a pretty perfect title, and it’ll be out in November. These two have a great chat: Tim is super chill and loves to meditate; Joan is a total firecracker. They talk about how Joan’s album “knocked Tim for six,” the myth of Lou Reed—Tim met him as a fan, Joan toured with him—and how Tim, in addition to everything else, has a coffee business. Sort of. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Tim Burgess and Joan Wasser for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

For this week’s Talkhouse Podcast episode, we rounded up a pair of friends who deeply admire each other’s playing and songwriting—and who ultimately met because of a different episode of the Talkhouse Podcast: Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro. Kurt Vile first came into music fans’ consciousness as part of The War On Drugs, though it wasn’t long before he decided to dedicate his time to his solo material. He’s released a string of incredible albums since, including 2013’s instant classic Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze and 2018’s Bottle It In. As you’ll hear in this conversation, he’s been hard at work, writing "too many" songs for a new album. In 2017, Vile collaborated with Australian singer Courtney Barnett on an album called Lotta Sea Lice, and it was Barnett who turned him onto Julia Shapiro and her band Chastity Belt. When Barnett and Shapiro chatted on this very podcast back in 2017, that sealed the deal for Vile, who became a huge Chastity Belt fan—and eventual friend of Shapiro’s. Now Chastity Belt, which started life about a decade ago in Washington State, has released four powerful albums over the years, most recently a self-titled set in 2019. But the occasion for this conversation is actually Shapiro’s second album as a solo artist. It’s called Zorked, a word that means kind of what you might think: extremely stoned, or maybe just completely out of it. That’s how Shapiro felt after moving to Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic, where her social circle was smaller and the world kind of closed in on her. The result is a weird, incredible set of songs Shapiro co-produced with her roommate Melina Duterte—aka Jay Som. That might sound a little serious, but Julia and Kurt have a fun chat here, talking about how they met, how Kurt mistook Chastity Belt for another band at first, how Julia once crowdsurfed at one of Kurt’s shows, and Julia’s love of TikTok. She even tries to convince Kurt to sign up. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcast and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa 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 a generation, but united by a serious dedication to the craft: Carl Newman and Liam Kazar. Carl Newman—aka. A.C. Newman—is best known as the gravitational center of The New Pornographers, the lark of a supergroup that he started back in 1997 but that quickly found great enough success that it became his main gig. As you perhaps already know, the band also features the prodigious talents of Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, though Newman does the vast majority of the songwriting. The band’s latest album is 2019’s In The Morse Code of Brake Lights, but as you’ll hear—maybe for the first time?—in this conversation, they’ve spent part of the pandemic working on a new one. If that’s not enough, the band’s classic debut Mass Romantic has just been reissued on vinyl, and in November and December the New Pornographers will do a tour on which they perform both that album and 2005’s Twin Cinema in their entirety. Newman has also been spending some time on Twitter in the past couple of years, and that’s how he heard about Liam Kazar’s song “Shoes Too Tight.” Another Talkhouse guest from this year, Eric Slick, tweeted about the song, and Newman heartily endorsed it. It’s from Kazar’s debut solo album Due North, which came out earlier this year on Kevin Morby’s new label, Mare Records. And while it may be his first album as a solo artist, it’s far from the first thing Kazar has done: He was part of the Chicago collective Kids These Days, which also featured Vic Mensa, and he’s part of the band Tweedy with his pal Spencer Tweedy and Spencer’s famous dad, Jeff. But Due North is the first time that Kazar has been front and center as a songwriter, and he sounds like an old soul. Newman and Kazar talk a lot about songwriting on this podcast, and they also get into social media, Liam’s talented family, and lots more. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Carl Newman and Liam Kazar for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media channels. Today’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, Tiller Russell – the man behind both the doc series The Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer and real-life drama Silk Road – sits down with Oscar winner Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee’s screenwriting partner on BlacKkKlansman, Chiraq and Da 5 Bloods and a fine director in his own right om films such as C.S.A: Confederate States of America and The 24th. In a fascinating conversation, the two filmmakers discuss the parallels between their work, the theme of duality that runs through Willmott’s movies, making work that resonates in a post-January 6th world, how Errol Morris changed Tiller’s life, Kevin’s path to becoming Spike Lee’s collaborator, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a couple of friends who both happen to have new but very different projects out this month: Amber Tamblyn and Mac McCaughan. Tamblyn is an actor-writer-director-poet-activist with a wildly diverse resume. She may be best known for roles on Joan of Arcadia and Two and a Half Men, but that’s only the tip of a pretty incredible iceberg. She’s written well received books of poetry—including 2015’s Dark Sparkler. She directed the 2016 film Paint it Black, which features a score by today’s other guest. She’s one of the founders of the Time’s Up movement and the author of a book about feminism and activism called Era of Ignition. And now she’s starring the FX/Hulu adaptation of the comic book Y: The Last Man, in which every man on earth suddenly dies—except one. It’s pretty awesome so far, and she’s great in it. Mac McCaughan also wears many hats, chiefly as singer-guitarist of the long-running band Superchunk and co-owner of the righteously vaunted independent record label Merge. During the pandemic—after suffering a sort-of writer’s block—McCaughan wrote and recorded a solo album, though he didn’t exactly do it alone. The Sound of Yourself features a bunch of guests that Mac wrangled over the internet—one of the only good uses for that damn thing—including Mackenzie Scott of Torres, Michael Lerner of Telekinesis, and many more. It’s a quietly contemplative record that mixes McCaughan’s perfect pop with some more ambient instrumental passages—something he and Tamblyn talk about in this podcast. Elsewhere in this lively conversation, we get to hear about how Mac and Amber didn’t quite cross paths during the pandemic, when he graciously loaned his house to Amber, her husband David Cross, and their young daughter. They also chat about writer’s block, and whether that exists, what it was like for Tamblyn to play an ultra-conservative in Y The Last Man, and their other recent projects, which include the score for Amy Poehler’s movie Moxie (for Mac), and a bunch of new books (for Amber). They also connect about ambient music and the sheer power of Bob Mould. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa 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 fabulous cross-generational conversation between two women separated by a good number of years but united by a punk spirit: Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s and Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13. It’s no overstatement to say that Kathy Valentine has a massive place in music history as part of The Go-Go’s, who burst from the L.A. punk scene of the late ‘70s and into the musical mainstream in the early ‘80s. They were the first (and still only!) all-woman band who wrote and performed their own songs to top the Billboard charts, and their debut album Beauty And The Beat remains a classic to this day. It’s been an amazing career for Valentine and her band, some of which she recalls in her excellent memoir, called All I Ever Wanted, which came out last year. If you’re more of a viewer than a reader, there’s also a great Go-Go’s documentary on Showtime that covers the remarkable band’s career. This year—finally, after being eligible for 15 years—the Go-Go’s have been voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They’ll be inducted next month alongside Foo Fighters, Todd Rundgren, Jay-Z, Tina Turner, and Carole King. Good company. These days, Valentine lives in Austin, makes her own music when she’s not writing or doing charitable work, and occasionally gigs with The Go-Go’s. Sadie Dupuis lived in Austin very briefly—the two get into that—not long before she started the band that would launch her career, Speedy Ortiz, in Massachusetts. With Speedy, she’s released three albums—the latest is 2018’s Twerp Verse—and as Sad13, she’s released another two, including last year’s fully vibing Haunted Painting. She’s also released a book of poems called Mouthguard, and perhaps most importantly, she’s been dissecting every episode of the Gossip Girl reboot exclusively for the Talkhouse newsletter. Yes, you should subscribe. Valentine and Dupuis have a great conversation about everything from Sadie’s punk-rock parents—and her dad’s odd connection to the Rock Hall—to the Greenbrier alternative school to the soundtrack that Valentine created to go along with her book. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Kathy Valentine and Sadie Dupuis for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on all your favorite podcast providers and social media channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed by the Range. See you next time!

Comedian Joe Pera (Joe Pera Talks With You) and singer-songwriter David Bazan (Pedro The Lion) have elevated self-aware open-heartedness and detailed observation of humanity into, well, art. When David discovered Joe's show, he fell for it hard, and reached out to Talkhouse to see if we could arrange a convo. We loved the idea, and think you'll really enjoy the result. Joe and David discuss a lot, including: their granular writing techniques; appreciating the gentle joys of life, like wearing green hats on St. Patrick’s day; how some performers only achieve their maximum authenticity onstage; and why live performers must be doms. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lively conversation between a pair of Nashville friends who also happen to be incredible songwriters and performers: Margo Price and Tristen. Price grew up in small town Illinois, but made her way to Music City and played in a couple of pop-leaning bands before giving into the allure of country music. (It can be hard not to, and she’s great at it.) After going solo, Price released a pair of albums on Jack White’s Nashville-based Third Man Records and built up a loyal fanbase with amazing songs and even better live shows. For album number three, she moved to a new label and engaged some incredible session musicians to help her out, including Benmont Tench, Matt Sweeny, Pino Palladino, and her old pal Sturgill Simpson, who co-produced. It’s called That’s How Rumors Get Started. Tristen also grew up in Illinois and made her way to Nashville, though her musical journey has taken her to more out of the way sounds than her friend Margo over the course of five albums. She’s one of those songwriters and performers absolutely beloved by other musicians, and for good reason. She’s a risk-taker in the studio, venturing out into unknown territory and pretty much always finding something at least interesting, and often incredible. Her latest album is this year’s Aquatic Flowers. Tristen and Margo get into it right away, talking about the financial realities of today’s music industry, how working with their significant others works, and “the trick of capitalism at its core.” That might sound heavy, and sometimes it is, but it’s also super informative and fun. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Margo and Tristen for chatting. If you liked what you heard, definitely check out their recent records—and of course check out Talkhouse on all your favorite social channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week on the Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got one of those fun conversations where the reverence is on full display from the get-go. When we asked singer-songwriter Beabadoobee who she’d be interested in speaking with for the podcast, she immediately responded Nina Persson of The Cardigans—one of her heroes, as you’ll hear. For those unfamiliar with Beabadoobee, she was born in the Philippines, raised in London, and found fame over the past couple of years via social media platforms like TikTok. Canadian rapper Powfu built his song “Death Bed” around Bea’s song “Coffee,” giving her a huge hit with what was essentially the first song she ever wrote. She followed that with a string of really strong EPs, and then dropped her proper debut album, called Fake It Flowers, in October of last year. It’s a fantastic set of fuzzy pop songs that clearly found a ton of inspiration in the music of the 1990s—bands like The Sundays, Pavement, Belly, and even Daniel Johnston have bandied about in reviews. Beabadoobee is hitting the road this year with her fantastic labelmates Blackstar Kids; you can see all the tour dates down below. And maybe if you’re listening closely you’ll hear a little bit of the Cardigans in there as well, another band that found fame in those alternative-nation days. The Swedish band had a huge hit in 1996 with the song “Lovefool,” whose chorus was imprinted on a generation, and released a string of excellent albums right up through 2005, when they went into a sort of semi-retirement, emerging occasionally to play shows. At the front of the band was charming lead singer Persson, who went on to form a band called A Camp, as well as release a solo album. She’s also, admiringly, enjoying not being all that busy. She plays the occasional show but also teaches and does pottery. Sounds nice. Bea and Nina had a really lively cross-generational conversation: You can hear the admiration in Bea’s voice, and the real interest from Nina about how things are different as a twentysomething woman in the music business now versus when she was topping the charts. They also talk about social media, Nina’s favorite moments from the Cardigans catalog, red pandas, and gross hotel rooms with shag carpet, sperm, and toenails. Yuck. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Nina and Bea for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platforms and social channels, and don’t forget to check out all the great written content at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s Talkhouse Podcast features a couple of names you almost certainly know, because each of these guys has had a pretty incredible career in music: Richard Marx and Jakob Dylan. Marx, of course, wrote and performed some of the most indelible pop hits of the late ’80s and early ’90s, including “Endless Summer Nights,” “Hold on to the Nights,” and the super smash “Right Here Waiting,” which comes up in this conversation. But even as the era of mullets and frosted jeans faded, Marx couldn’t be stopped—or rather Marx’s songs couldn’t be stopped. He’s continued releasing music over the years, and his influence can be felt deeply to this day: Just check out the audio and visual vibe of John Mayer’s latest album, which basically pays tribute. And it’s not just music: Marx recently released a funny, candid memoir called Stories To Tell, in which he details some of the incredible memories he’s made in the music business over the years. And that’s where Jakob Dylan enters the picture, as you’ll hear. Though the two didn’t know each other, Dylan went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to praise Marx’s book, and a friendship was born. Dylan is no slouch in the music department, either—you can’t be, with that family name. He’s been the main creative force behind the Wallflowers for the past 30 years, releasing seven Wallflowers albums, two solo sets, and criss-crossing the globe. The latest Wallflowers record, Exit Wounds, just came out, and its lyrics and vibe are reflective of the times we’re living in, which is to say it’s a bit harrowing but also incredibly catchy. A bunch of the songs feature Shelby Lynne on backing vocals as well, which is a great bonus. In this chat, the two songwriters talk about process, about how writing a book is different than writing a song, a special moment Marx recently dedicated to his ailing mother, and how Barbra Streisand has no regrets about not recording Marx’s biggest hit. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Richard Marx and Jakob Dylan for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service as well as all your favorite social media services. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a great conversation between two guys who don’t necessarily have a ton in common musically, but who approach creativity in similar ways—and who happen to be great fans of each other’s work: Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius, and composer-performer-multi-hyphenate Max Richter. Hadreas, whom you’ve hopefully heard on the Talkhouse Podcast in the past, has been recording and performing under the name Perfume Genius since 2008, and he’s one of those artists whose music just inexplicably gets better with each passing day—even when you think it couldn’t. His records are this incredible combination of fearlessness and joy, whether he’s singing about dealing with homophobia or just making bodies move. The latest Perfume Genius record, which came out right as Covid was entering the world’s consciousness, bears the fantastic title Set My Heart On Fire Immediately. Perfume Genius will start playing shows again next month; check out perfumegenius.org for dates. As for Max Richter, it would take far more than this limited space allows just going over his resume. From contributing to a classic Future Sound of London album back in the ‘90s through his incredible score for HBO’s The Leftovers to a dozen other things, the musician/composer has an incredibly full plate. He composed an eight-hour minimalist classical piece called Sleep, which was performed for audiences that were provided with beds and encouraged to, y’know, fall asleep. (It’s now an app, too!) His latest release, just out last week, is called Exiles, and it features a lengthy new track that he composed for a ballet alongside some reimaginings of pieces he’s composed over the years. In this conversation, Richter and Hadreas talk about how making music is about articulating what can’t otherwise be articulated, where to start when you’re working on a soundtrack, and the joys of being influenced by other music. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast began somewhere not particularly known for good or fruitful ideas: Twitter. That’s where the poet Maggie Smith dropped a funny notion, which songwriter John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats picked up and ran with. Smith, whose was in the process of splitting up with her husband, suggested a photo essay in which she’d take her old wedding dress on a tour of the country, Weekend at Bernie’s style, only the dead thing isn’t a guy—it’s her marriage. Never one to shy away from life’s darkest moments, Darnielle jokingly suggested—or at least it seemed like a joke—that there was a song in Smith’s idea, and he suggested calling it “Picture of My Dress.” And then, wouldn’t you know it, he went and wrote the song, releasing it on last year’s excellent album Getting Into Knives. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Darnielle came up with the song: He’s so prolific that it makes the average person—meaning me—really jealous. The Mountain Goats released two studio albums and a live album in 2020, and another new album this year, called Dark In Here. He’s also an accomplished novelist and served as a judge for the 2020 National Book Awards. Speaking of writers, Maggie Smith had the unusual distinction of being a poet who broke through to the wider world with a poem called “Good Bones” back in 2016. Last year, she released the well received essay collection Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity and Change, and just last month released a poetry collection called Goldenrod. All are well worth your time, and Smith is on a sort of virtual book tour at the moment: You can check out the details on that at her site, maggiesmithpoet.com. In this conversation, Darnielle and Smith talk about the unusual nature of their kinda-sorta collaboration, a delightful thing she calls “the cake sound,” John’s failed attempt at writing a song about NASCAR, and much more. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Maggie Smith and John Darnielle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and/or your social media. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Jason Narducy is a Chicago guy, but he spends a ton of his time—or at least he used to—on tour, playing bass for both Bob Mould and Superchunk. In early 2020, a local theatre mounted a production of a musical called Verboten, which was based on Jason’s life—specifically his time as a pre-teen in a punk band. As a grown-up, in addition to providing the low end for those other great folks, he fronts his own band, Split Single. Under that moniker, Narducy writes the songs and recruits incredible musicians to record and play with him. For the excellent new Split Single album, Amplificado, Narducy once again asked Superchunk’s Jon Wurster to play drums, and he summoned the bassist from a certain famous Athens, Georgia band to play as well. That’d be R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, who fleshes out the Split Single sound with his bass and backing vocals on Amplificado, which the trio recorded here in Chicago before the pandemic ground everything to a halt. Mills has kept himself busy since R.E.M. split up about ten years ago, playing with the Baseball Project and playing golf, as you’ll hear. (He’s earned it, right?) In this conversation, he also talks about a long-gestating solo album, a project that incorporates classical music, and his rescue pooch. In case you missed it, Mills’ R.E.M. bandmate Michael Stipe was on the Talkhouse Podcast just six weeks ago—we’re two for four! Elsewhere in this conversation, Mills and Narducy talk about the pandemic, of course, as well as hope for the future, passing the baton to the next generation, and the majesty of working with excellent drummers—specifically Jon Wurster and Bill Berry. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. Thanks for checking it out!