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

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

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

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

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

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