Songwriters on Process

John Gourley, lead singer and guitarist of Portugal. The Man, shares his unique perspective on songwriting influenced by ADHD. He emphasizes how this often-misunderstood condition helps him focus on creativity, turning chaos into artistry. Gourley discusses the importance of spontaneity and the role of exercise in enhancing creativity, revealing how physical movement stimulates his artistic flow. He also touches on overcoming creative fears, showing that imperfection can spark innovation in songwriting.

Laura Stevenson returns to the pod! This was an easy decision to have her on again (the first time was 2011) because I love her music and she's one of the funniest songwriters I've ever interviewed.I don't know how Stevenson has time to make music. We might imagine artists creating their art free of life's responsibilities, but Stevenson has responsibilities and then some: she's a mother, she's a music therapist, and she's getting her graduate degree. (She took Zoom calls with her thesis advisor in the car outside the studio while making this album.) Any one of these activities could derail the other the other three, so I left this podcast in awe.Stevenson's latest album is Late Great on Really Records.

Cautious Clay, a multi-talented artist known for his fusion of R&B, hip-hop, and indie pop, dives deep into the interplay between painting and songwriting, revealing how both forms ignite his creativity. He shares insights on how basketball fuels his lyricism and the surprising role of planks and stretching in his writing rituals. With mastery over seven instruments, he discusses the emotional depth these choices bring to his music. Get ready to explore the beautiful chaos of his songwriting process and the spontaneous inspirations that guide him.

This episode with Shura marks a first: we managed to draw a through line between Marcella Hazan's bolognese sauce and the songwriting process. We also talk about why peeing brings great ideas. (To be sure, Shura is not the first songwriter to tell me that.) Lest you think her inspiration is confined to those indoor pastimes, Shura told me that few things beat a hike in the mountains. This was one fun conversation!Shura's latest album I Got Too Sad For My Friends is out now on Play It Again Sam.

"The more I do this, the less I want to understand where it comes from," Orla Gartland says on the pod. Like most songwriters, Gartland likes to walk as a part of her songwriting process. She'll usually listen to music on these walks, and she walks to the tempo of the music she's listening to. So if you see her on the streets of London walking briskly one day and slowly the next, you now know why.Gartland's latest album Everybody Needs a Hero is out now.

It's the return of Nick Kivlen and Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean! We had so much fun in 2022 that we had to do it again. Kivlen says, "One of things I'm realizing as Julia I talk is that our processes are totally different." And as you'll hear, differences can actually streamline the process.Sunflower Bean's latest album Mortal Primetime is out now on Lucky Number Records.

"Without the labor, channeling can't happen," Matt Gervais of The Head and the Heart told me. He has stacks upon stacks of Mead notebooks to prove it, all the way back to when he was a kid. Gervais finds art galleries to be particularly inspiring; they were a rich source when he worked in the Seattle Art MuseumThe latest album by The Head and the Heart is Aperture, out now.

When a band has seven GRAMMY wins and thirty-one GRAMMY nominations among them, they're a supergroup. So let's be clear: I'm With Her is a supergroup. The trio of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan, and Sara Watkins are close friends who say that great songs can come from a good trip to the grocery store. I've had all three on the pod before, but never together.The latest album by I'm With Her is Wild and Clear Blue on Rounder Records.NOTE: here are my past interviews with Jarosz, O'Donovan, and Watkins.

"I need to have those times of being fully in bloom, then fully hibernating. That's how I get my best, most genuine work," Samantha Crain says. She's a seasonal songwriter who actively takes time not to write, and those times are the hibernation stages. Some of Crain's songs hibernate too: the title track off her new album took twenty years to write.Crain's writing process is like a wide-angle lens. She likes to write at the dining room table in a chair that gives her a view of the entire room. "It feels like an unplanned mood board if I need a starting point, with lots of stuff in my periphery," Crain says. That mood board produced one of my favorite albums of the year. I first discovered Samantha Crain's music on Reservation Dogs, one of the best shows on television ever. (I've also interviewed Deerlady, a phenomenal band whose music is also on the show.) Crain's latest album is Gumshoe on Real Kind Records.

ED NOTE: here's my episode with Hood's bandmate Ashton Irwin.It's about time a songwriter referenced the movie Lost in Translation, as 5 Seconds of Summer bassist Calum Hood did in our conversation. It's part of Hood's process: he finds inspiration everywhere. And he likes to create every day, but that doesn't always happen. "I'm an anxious person anyway, so if I go a few days without writing, I start to wonder what's going on," Hood says. "That's when I practice mindfulness." Calum Hood's debut solo album is ORDER chaos ORDER on Capitol Records.