Songwriters on Process

Ben Opipari
  • 4.4 (14)
  • MUSIC INTERVIEWS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
Songwriters on Process

In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's it. Nothing else. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating songwriters as writers, plain and simple. By Ben Opipari, English Lit Ph.D.

  1. FEB 23

    Christian Lee Hutson

    “My biggest hurdle as a writer is trying to hack my brain to become less critical,” Christian Lee Hutson says. In other words, Hutson wants to get the hell out of his own way when he writes. I've heard this before from other songwriters: Matt Nathanson has a name for that annoyingly critical voice in his head that he's always trying to silence: "the assassin." Hutson and I talked at length about the process of discovery through mistakes. You can’t write the good stuff if you’re afraid of writ...

    55 min

  2. FEB 10

    Eli Hewson and Josh Jenkinson of Inhaler

    Eli Hewson of Inhaler usually stays up and writes all night. Come morning, he heads to bed and will sometimes pass his father Bono (yes, that Bono), who is just beginning his day and starting to write. (All of the band members live with their parents.) Hewson's admittedly "terrible sleeping habits" are nothing new; when he was five years old, his mother often found him watching tv in the middle of the night. Hewson's bandmate Josh Jenkinson wants no part of those late night writing sess...

    55 min

  3. FEB 5

    Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen

    Ed Note: Here’s my 2013 interview with Leithauser and my 2022 interview with his bandmate Walter Martin from The Walkmen. Hamilton Leithauser keeps regular hours. And those hours can be early: on the day we talked, he had started writing at 5am. It’s a problem if he doesn’t write every day, he says. "If I don’t write every day, I feel anxious or like I’ve done something wrong." I don't think Leithauser ever rests. "I can't ever stop doing stuff," he says, saying that it may border on "maniaca...

    43 min

  4. JAN 23

    Cecilia Castleman

    If you see Cecilia Castleman browsing the paint aisle at Home Depot, she’s probably not looking for paint. She’s looking for song ideas. Castleman finds inspiration everywhere, but paint names, she says, are particularly rich sources for song ideas and lyrics. And as you’ll hear, baking cakes and looking at old houses are great sources too. It took me about ten seconds—the first notes of the opening guitar riff—of listening to the opening track “It’s Alright” to realize I was going nowh...

    37 min

  5. JAN 19

    Larkin Poe

    Rebecca and Megan Lovell, the GRAMMY-winning sisters who compose Larkin Poe, call themselves “serial idea keepers.” This means they don’t write every day. Instead, “we pull back on ideas until we are ready to write,” they say. This seasonal writing, as they and other songwriters like to call it, requires discipline: you have to resist the urge to write every day and only write during certain times. The advantage of this is that the words flow freely when it’s time to write. But the Lovells be...

    54 min

  6. JAN 9

    Flipturn

    Flipturn's Tristan Duncan (guitar), Devon VonBalson (drums), and Dillon Basse (vocals) join the pod and go deep into their creative processes. We talk about, among other things, why certain times of day are better for writing, how exercise improves songwriting, and the places they find the most inspiring. Flipturn's latest album Burnout Days is out January 24 on Dualtone Records. Send us a text

    45 min

  7. 12/06/2024

    Phil and Tim Hanseroth (The Hanseroth Twins)

    Is Vera, the debut album by Phil and Tim Hanseroth (The Hanseroth Twins), really a debut? After all, they've won three GRAMMYs and have been nominated seven more times for their songwriting collaboration with Brandi Carlile. (They're the twins who flank her in concert live.) The twins' songs have been covered by Adele, Dolly Parton, and the Avett Brothers. So while this may be their first album as a duo, they've had excellent songwriting chops for a while. Had a great time talking about why ...

    47 min

  8. 11/11/2024

    Phantogram

    The last time I interviewed Josh Carter of Phantogram was in 2010, before this site was even a podcast. It was one of the first interviews I ever did, and Carter mentioned the author Breece D'J Pancake. The name stood out, of course, but it took a while for me to read about Pancake's tragic backstory. Then more songwriters started mentioning him in interviews, so I finally read his book, and wow. Incredible. This time, Carter and Sarah Barthel join me on the podcast to talk about their...

    46 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.4
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's it. Nothing else. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating songwriters as writers, plain and simple. By Ben Opipari, English Lit Ph.D.

Information

  • Creator
    Ben Opipari
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    121
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Songwriters on Process
  • Show Website
    Songwriters on Process

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