Talkhouse Podcast

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a hardcore legend and a fierce Ukrainian bandleader who recently worked on a record together: Walter Schreifels and Eugene Hutz.Hutz is the founder, chief songwriter, and energetic frontman of Gogol Bordello, which has combined elements of punk, folk, Eastern European, Latin, and myriad other types of music for the past 20+ years. It’s a remarkable career that’s taken Hutz from his birthplace, Ukraine, to places as far flung as Vermont, Brazil, and New York’s Lower East Side. He’s also had forays into the film world, collaborated with everybody from Madonna to Primus, and gotten crowds jumping at pretty much every festival you can think of. The war in Ukraine has naturally been on Hutz’s mind, and he’s organized benefits and spoken up loudly about it this past year. At least one song on the brand new Gogol Bordello album addresses it directly. Speaking of that record, Solidartine, and Hutz’s penchant for collaboration, it was produced by Walter Schreifels. Check out “Fire on Ice Floe.”Schreifels isn’t just a producer; in fact, that job is probably like the tenth thing on his impressive resume. He was a pioneer of the New York hardcore scene as a member of both Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, and from there he went on to sing and play guitar in Quicksand. A restless writer and performer, Schreifels formed half a dozen short-lived projects over the past couple of decades, in addition to reuniting sporadically with his various bands. Quicksand has released two great albums since getting back together in 2012; they’re heading out on a package tour soon with Clutch and Helmet. There’s also a reissue of a great record by another of Schreifels’ short-lived projects, Rival Schools, coming later this year. It’s hard to keep track of everything he does, but well worth the effort.These two NYC pals talk here about the city’s importance and vibe, as well as getting into deeper conversation about the war in Ukraine, how running can help prepare you for being in a punk band, and about how the pandemic might have led people back to hardcore music. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Eugene Hutz and Walter Schreifels for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all we have to offer on this very website. 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 gathered three guys for a very focused discussion about one of the year’s most exciting horror movies: Ti West, Tyler Bates, and Tim Williams.Ti West is a director who’s made his name with a string of what I guess you’d call indie-horror movies—though I’m not sure that does justice to the kind of auteurist vision he has. With films like The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, he revealed a truly singular style. He tried his hand at a Western with the wild and wooly In A Valley of Violence in 2016, but returned to his horror roots this year with a pair of movies filmed back to back: X, which came out in March, and its prequel, Pearl, which is just hitting theaters now. For these two movies, which both star Mia Goth, West hooked up with indie powerhouse A24, which as you’ll hear in this chat, made a big bet on these two films—and since this chat took place, have now committed to a third in the franchise. If you like creepy, stylish horror, definitely check them out.A big part of what makes both X and Pearl work is the music, and that’s where the two other guys on this chat come in. Tyler Bates is a composer who’s worked on music for an incredible array of films, from 300 to John Wick to Guardians of the Galaxy. But he knows horror, too, having worked on Rob Zombie’s string of early flicks as well. Bates is also a music producer, having recently done the new Starcrawler album, and he was, briefly, a member of Marilyn Manson. For the more old-fashioned orchestral score for Pearl, he recruited his friend and neighbor Tim Williams, who’s contributed to a ton of great film and TV scores over the past decade as well.This chat among these three gets wonderfully granular about the world of film sound. Pearl is a prequel that takes place in 1918, so West wanted Bates to come up with something very old-school. That meant real orchestrations and the kinds of instruments and musical cues you don’t really hear anymore—and it works remarkably well. As you’ll hear in this conversation, West really thinks like an auteur: He’s concerned with every aspect of his movies, right down to whether the sound of crickets is going to interfere every so slightly with the score. All of that care definitely shows on screen, and you can hear when these guys talk how much they care about getting things just right. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Ti West, Tyler Bates, and Tim Williams for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written pieces on this very site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! 

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we have a pair of French electronic music pioneers who recently teamed up alongside a DJ who’s been responsible for some of the most exciting production of the past 20+ years: Braxe and Falcon with A-Trak.Alan Braxe and his cousin Stephane Quem—aka DJ Falcon—are legends of French house music going back decades: Braxe was one-third of the trio Stardust alongside Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter. They famously released just one song in 1998 before splitting up, but “Music Sounds Better With You” is a classic of the genre. Falcon’s biggest claim to fame might also be Daft Punk adjacent: He co-wrote and co-produced their song “Contact,” from 2013’s Random Access Memories. And though they’ve obviously been acquainted forever, Braxe and Falcon only recently came together for a project, and it’s pretty amazing. Their debut EP, Step By Step, includes a killer title track with an appearance by Panda Bear. Braxe and Falcon will make their live debut in November with two U.S. shows, one in New York and another in L.A. Check out “Step by Step” right here.That EP also features a remix by Braxe and Falcon’s old friend DJ A-Trak, a superstar of the electronic world whose resume makes me feel very lazy. As a young guy, he was a championship-level turntablist in his native Canada, which led to a years-long role on stage with Kanye West. His career continued as a headlining DJ and producer in his own right: He’s known both for creating his own sounds and remixing big names. He also runs the vaunted Fool’s Gold label and collaborates with lots of other folks, including Armand Van Helden in Duck Sauce. A-Track’s latest project is a collaborative album with elusive hip-hop icon Cam’ron called U Wasn’t There, which comes out September 23. Check out “All I Really Wanted” from that upcoming record.In this chat, Braxe, Falcon, and A-Trak talk about the sonic intersections of house music and old-school hip-hop, they discuss the ups and downs of the forced Covid break, and there’s a lot of gear talk—which is a whole different thing when you’re talking about samplers and keyboards instead of guitars and pedals. It’s a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Braxe, Falcon, and A-Trak for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out Talkhouse.com for all kinds of great written features. 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 conversation between two young performers who are just this week starting a huge tour together: Marcus King and Neal Francis.King is a blues-rock prodigy who, at 26, already has a lifetime of music under his belt—both as leader of the Marcus King Band and, more recently, as a solo artist. Though he wasn’t alive for the 1970s, King clearly has an affinity for that decade, with nods in his music to players like Jimi Hendrix and ZZ Top. He’s earned a huge following over the years, which makes sense since he’s been gigging since his teens. King’s first solo disc, 2020’s El Dorado, earned him a Grammy nomination, and for the brand new Youngblood he once again hooked up with producer Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. It’s a scorcher. Check out a little bit of “Hard Working Man” from Youngblood, from a recent performance on Jimmy Fallon's show.Neal Francis is similarly enamored of 1970s sounds, though he leans more toward the funk and soul sides of things. Francis was in a band in his hometown of Chicago called The Heard, but graduated to more sophisticated sounds as a solo artist: Think Sly Stone and Elton John and you’re on the right track. His latest album for ATO Records is called In Plain Sight, and it was partly inspired by Francis’ time living in a haunted church in Chicago. Check out “Problems” from In Plain Sight right here.What both Marcus and Neal’s records share is a little more seriousness than you might immediately hear in what sounds like party-friendly music. Both have had their bouts with substance issues and messy breakups, and those things make it into their songs. They’re both also really interested in ghosts, as you’ll hear: King isn’t sure whether alcohol made him see a demon, but he’s definitely seen it. They also talk about growing up bluesy, how David Lynch might translate into music, and the time-honored tradition of drawing dicks on dressing room walls. Enjoy.This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a couple of fantastic songwriters from the indie-rock world: Kenny Becker and Doug Martsch.Martsch I’m guessing our listeners will know as the chief songwriter and sole consistent member of Built to Spill, the band that made Boise, Idaho famous. Built to Spill has been an ongoing concern since the early 1990s, releasing a ton of great albums at a fairly leisurely pace, including stone classics like There’s Nothing Wrong With Love and Keep it Like a Secret. The Built to Spill lineup has mutated a bunch of times over the years, and that’s never been more true than for the genesis of their latest album, When the Wind Forgets Your Name. Writing and recording the album was done with members of the Brazilian band Orua, but the latest live lineup features Martsch alongside a pair of incredibly talented young women from up-and-coming bands: Prism Bitch’s Teresa Esguerra and Blood Lemon’s Melanie Radford. They bring a new energy to this storied band. Check out the hilarious video for “Fool’s Gold” from When the Wind Forgets Your Name.Goon has a much shorter history than Built to Spill, having really started as Kenny Becker’s solo project around 2015. Along with some college friends, Becker recorded Goon’s dreamy debut album Heaven is Humming. But that lineup was slowly lost to attrition and now, like Martsch, Becker has an entirely new set of players alongside a brand new album, Hour of Green Evening. This new one was recorded in a more bandlike setting, as you’ll hear in this chat, and Becker even had some help from Alex Fischel of Spoon. Check out the sweet and tender “Emily Says” from that new record.In this chat, Becker and Martsch talk about recording in a studio versus recording at home; they talk about finding those eureka moments in the studio, Built to Spill’s recent cover of a Cate Le Bon song, and getting musical ideas from TikTok. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Doug Martsch and Kenny Becker for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all of the other Talkhouse network shows and written pieces at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

New from Talkhouse:Join Björk in conversations with collaborators about her sound experiences. In the podcast you’ll learn about the moods, timbers, and tempos that vibrate through each album.Subscribe at: https://pod.link/bjork

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve paired a couple of friends who recently worked together on an incredible project: Ethan Hawke and Hamilton Leithauser.Ethan Hawke you surely know as the Academy Award-nominated actor in a million great films, from Reality Bites to Training Day to Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy to 2018’s First Reformed. Hawke is also a writer and director, and the impetus for today’s conversation is his six-part HBO Max documentary The Last Movie Stars. The series tells the story of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, both their personal lives as a married couple and their professional lives as two monumental actors of their generation. Far from a typical documentary, The Last Movie Stars uses archival footage alongside dramatizations of interviews featuring current movie stars. It even gets a bit meta, with Hawke revealing some of his process during the series via Zoom calls with contemporaries. It’s a fascinating way to tell this incredible story.Another way that Hawke brought this story into the present was with music from his old friend Hamilton Leithauser, who’s best known as the singer of the Walkmen, and who’s had a fruitful solo career since that band went on hiatus a while back. As you’ll hear in this chat, Hawke had the idea that Leithauser would be great at soundtrack work ages ago, so when he started working on The Last Movie Stars, Leithauser immediately came to mind. There’s a lot of Leithauser in the doc, and one song that they cover in this chat quite a bit is called “1959,” from an album that Leithauser made with Vampire Weekend co-founder Rostam.Elsewhere in the chat, Hawke and Leithauser talk about their processes for this project: Hawke originally envisioned a two-hour feature, but quickly realized that he needed much more time to tell this huge story. They talk about Bob Dylan’s influence—musical good, acting not so much—and the greatest soundtracks of all time. That, and much more. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Ethan Hawke and Hamilton Leithauser for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform—and check out The Last Movie Stars on HBO Max. 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 old friends with a ton of records and history between them: Kelley Stoltz and Spiral Stairs.Spiral Stairs—aka. Scott Kannberg—is a founding member of indie-rock kingpins Pavement, a band he formed in Stockton, California with his high school friend Stephen Malkmus. What started as a noisy, ramshackle outfit bloomed into one of the most important and influential bands of the 1990s. Their albums have only grown in stature over the years, getting the sort of deluxe reissue treatment that was once reserved only for the gods of classic rock. And though Pavement split up in 1999, they’ve reunited twice—and are about to launch a pretty hefty tour of the US and Europe. Outside of Pavement, Kannberg has kept plenty busy releasing music under both his Spiral Stairs moniker and, for a while, as Preston School of Industry. He’s had an incredibly prolific last few years, too, releasing three albums since 2017—the latest is the fantastic Medley Attack!!! It was a record born of some hardship, including Covid, worldwide relocations, and most unfortunately, the sudden death of Kannberg’s bassist Matt Harris. But those events resulted in what’s probably his best solo outing yet. Check out a little bit of the song “Pressure Drop (End of the Hurricane)” right here.Kannberg enlisted the help of several friends in making that record, including the other half of today’s conversation, singer-songwriter Kelley Stoltz. Stoltz is one of those guys who just has a knack for writing incredibly tuneful pop songs. If they were recorded with more slickness, you might mistake them for radio hits of the ‘60s and ‘70s—I mean that as a high compliment. Stoltz recently released his seventeenth studio album, The Stylist, and it’s a great place to start in a catalog that includes plenty of stone classics. Check out “Your Name Escapes Me.”As you’ll hear in this conversation—though not necessarily in either of those songs—Stoltz and Kannberg first bonded over a mutual love of Echo & The Bunnymen. Stoltz actually recorded a full album cover of that band’s Crocodiles album, and Kannberg joined him on some live shows to perform it. Weirdly, that led to Stoltz, who as a teen worshiped Ian McCulloch, to a brief stint as rhythm guitarist for the British band. Talk about Echo leads to talk about copycat haircuts of their youth, formative years working in record stores, and lots more. And you’ll even get to hear two songs in very early stages—one that Kannberg (maybe) wants to bring to his Pavement bandmates, and one that Stoltz has started writing for his infant daughter. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Kelley Stoltz and Scott Kannberg for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out both of their new albums, and of course 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!

To celebrate the release of the new Deftones album Ohms, we paired frontman Chino Moreno with his old friend and tourmate — and long-time Deftones fan! — comedian/musician Reggie Watts for a Talkhouse Podcast conversation.The guys were very psyched to catch up, and their freewheeling talk took in the making of the new Deftones LP; the ups and downs of long-term collaborations; their very different writing and recording approaches; and… bikes. Turns out they're both waaay into bikes.Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.—Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producerFor this week’s episode, everyone you hear recorded themselves. Our producer is Mark Yoshizumi.The Talkhouse Podcast theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

In Listening, a new series from Talkhouse and Mailchimp Presents, we invite some of the world’s most beloved and inventive musicians to create new compositions that allow us to intimately experience a time and a place in their lives. We’ll join each artist to hear about the creation of their piece, how deeper listening informs their process and how that practice can enrich all of our lives. Subscribe today!