LSQ

On the heels of her fantastic new album, Home Video, singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus describes the path that led to it -- growing up in Richmond, Virginia, finding a passion for creative writing early on, discovering musical favorites like Yo La Tengo and Broken Social Scene, playing her first gigs at house shows, developing her songwriting practice, and beyond. 

Manchester Orchestra's Andy Hull talks about early influences (Death Cab For Cutie, Modest Mouse, the Beatles, the classical music his mother played around the house); his evolving approach to songwriting; how his band's sound has grown to cinematic new heights; what advice he gives young artists who come to him for wisdom about surviving the music business; and more! Manchester Orchestra's new album, The Million Masks of God, is out now, and they are on tour in the U.S. this fall, as well as next year. Get tickets here! 

As a producer, writer, recording artist and entrepreneur, Poo Bear is always searching for collaborators who bring out the best in him, and vice versa. "Do you believe in me?," he'll ask an artist who wants to record one of his songs, because for him, the best work arises when there is that mutual passion for each other's work. He's definitely found that zone with Justin Bieber, his most extensive song partner over the past several years. But his prolific work includes hundreds of tunes, for artists as varied as Jill Scott, the Zac Brown Band, J. Balvin and FKA Twigs, to name just a few. In this conversation, we talk about his earliest projects (as a kid, singing in R&B groups in Atlanta, and writing professionally from the time he was 16), how he has evolved his songwriting formula, where he sees pop music going in the future, and more. 

Tegan and Sara Quinn rejoin the podcast for a fun, roundtable-style conversation with Lili Trifilio from the up-and-coming Chicago indie band Beach Bunny, on the heels of their recent collaboration on a new version of Beach Bunny's viral hit "Cloud 9." We talk about how the collaboration - where each chorus features alternate pronouns -- came to exist,  Lili's early musical experiences, and Tegan & Sara's next book (on twins), and Lili gets some big sisterly advice from T&S about how to deal with trolls.

Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker delves into his earliest musical endeavors -- learning to play his brother's drums, writing songs on one guitar string, playing with his first band at the high school talent show -- and how his attitudes toward songwriting and creativity have evolved since then. He also talks about plans to get back into collaborating with other artists, now that social distancing has relaxed. Tame Impala will also be getting back on the road in the coming months, playing festivals including Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. 

Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne on the profound influence of punk rock in his life: “Previous to that, you didn’t know that art was fucked up. To be a musician meant, ‘You’ve gotta know music. If you don’t know music, you don’t belong here.’ When really, some of the greatest musicians would say just the opposite — ‘Don’t worry about that, fuckin’ do your thing.’ But in this world, when you’re young and surrounded by a bunch of know-it-alls, everybody wants to tell you, ‘This is how it works and you don’t know nothin’.’ And you’re innocent, you believe them and say, ‘Well, I wanna try to do it my way.’ I was lucky punk rock came along. And I really did relate to John Lydon, I really did relate to the guys in Duran Duran and even Anthony Kiedis and Red Hot Chili Peppers. They just said, ‘Fuck it, we’re gonna do it our way and we don’t care.’ Beastie Boys. Having that inspiration, you can’t know how valuable that is. Suddenly what you thought might be true, they’re living it saying, ‘Yeah, it’s true.’ We started to do more and more shows and Black Flag came through here and played and the Minutemen came though here and played and the Replacements. And all these people, Sonic Youth came here and they would sleep on our couch and we’d talk to them and it’d be like, ‘We’re not alone.’ And I think that’s such a powerful bond, and it’s even more of a bond than just doing music. To know that there’s this thing, that you can do it, you can be a part of it. They’re inspiring you and you’re inspiring them, and it’s amazing. It’s knowing, ‘I’m not stupid for thinking this. I’m not purposely being an outsider.’”

Experimental electronic composer and producer Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never delves into key influences from Chick Corea to Rush to My Bloody Valentine to Nirvana to DJ Premier, in a conversation about his evolving creative process. He talks about growing up as the child of Russian immigrants, recollecting the “beautiful red velvet walls” of the Russian restaurant where his father’s rock band played weekly covers gigs; his early adventures in sampling while working as a video store clerk; his fascination with “the way melody emerges from texture, how an incidental sound can be a rhythm,” as well as “the hallucinatory experience of music” and the “hidden frequencies of life.”

The three members of Houston, TX trio Khruangbin — bassist Laura Lee, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, guitarist Mark Speer — share insights into their individual and collective creative journeys. “LL,” as her bandmates call her, talks about learning to read by studying Beatles liner notes, her teenage obsession with Radiohead, and how her approach to art has evolved since she joined Khruangbin. DJ shares memories of being three years-old, playing Barry White songs on his little kids' drum kit, how gigging in a church band with Mark developed into playing in Khruangbin, and which of the band’s recent achievements he’s proudest of. And Mark describes learning how to use his older brother’s abandoned synthesizer as an early songwriting tool, his experiences working at a drumstick factory, his philosophy for Khruangbin’s sound, and more.

“I didn’t like curse words when I was real young, so my dad would read Spin and get black ink and blot out the curse words for me,” says Vampire Weekend bassist Chris Baio, explaining how his father helped shape his early interest in music. “He would bring home records he was interested in and it always ran a wide gamut. His favorite musician is Jimi Hendrix and we would listen to so much Jimi Hendrix, but at the same time, I would have been ten years old when he bought his first Guided By Voices album and we would have had that on in the house. Always having music around in the house, reading the Saturday or Sunday paper, that’s how I grew up. There wasn’t one defined sensibility. My dad would buy A Tribe Called Quest, he’d buy Green Day, and so I’d listen to a fairly wide gamut. It’s definitely a huge reason why I’m a musician today.” Baio’s new solo album, Dead Hand Control, is out now.

“I’d write terrible songs constantly, and I just loved it so much,” Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold says of his early years exploring songwriting — a process he began by elaborating on Joni Mitchell and Elliott Smith tunings he’d learned on the internet. “I felt so passionately about it as a teenager that I think every other possibility started to seem unlikely. I just felt like that was what I was going to do.” Episode 56 features a conversation about Pecknold’s creative journey, favorite artists of his including Nirvana, John Prine and Joanna Newsom, how his songwriting has evolved since those teenage years, Fleet Foxes’ beautiful 2020 album Shore, and more.