I can still remember being in high school in the early 90s and having my mind blown by seeing the video for Fishbone ’s "Sunless Saturday" on MTV’s 120 Minutes and going to my local record store (R.I.P., Twisted Disque on Jamaica Ave) to get their album The Reality of My Surroundings , and then walking around Queens with it blasting in my headphones, mesmerized by the way they melded genres like ska, funk, punk, metal and more. Fishbone is one of the bands that showed me what was possible, as fa...
Jul 12, 2025•35 min•Season 8Ep. 10
Following the recent release of her excellent sophomore album, If You Asked For A Picture , Blondshell ’s Sabrina Teitelbaum joins the LSQ podcast to talk about important musical discoveries along her creative path: Falling in love with the Rolling Stones after her parents took her to see them in concert at Madison Square Garden when she was only seven years old, delving into songwriting a few years later, as a way of coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, going to as many concerts as she co...
Jun 26, 2025•31 min•Season 8Ep. 9
Ben Kweller ’s music first stole my heart back in the early oughts when he released his wonderful debut album Sha Sha , and I have been a huge admirer of his work ever since. I’ve also had the good fortune of his friendship for more than twenty years, so it was amazing to finally get together with him for the LSQ podcast. Episode 123 features a deep and poignant conversation with BK about his entire creative history, including his excellent latest album, Cover The Mirrors , which was written in ...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Season 8Ep. 8
For episode 122 of the LSQ podcast, I had the pleasure of connecting with the up-and-coming singer-songwriter Uwade , whose beautiful debut studio album, Florilegium, arrived this spring following, truly, YEARS of anticipation from those of us who were first captivated by her voice when we heard her sing on Fleet Foxes ’ 2020 album Shore . As you’ll hear, Uwade’s musical influences since childhood span an array of genres including R&B, gospel, choir music, pop, hip-hop, indie rock and more, ...
May 23, 2025•35 min•Season 8Ep. 7
“There was always a way that music could speak to me,” says Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers . “I was really shy as a kid and I had a lot on my mind that I didn’t know how to get out. And music felt like one of those cheat codes where I felt like what I could say through one song was a lifetime worth of what was in my brain that I couldn’t say any other way.” I was instantly captivated by Youth Lagoon’s music when I first heard it more than a decade ago: Trevor Powers’ plaintive, childlike voice, th...
May 07, 2025•44 min•Season 8Ep. 6
When I learned that house and dance music legend Crystal Waters has been finishing her first new album since 1997 and was getting ready to share singles and do interviews and therefore might be up for talking with me, I was so geeked. I’ve been a fan since the early 90s when huge hits like "Gypsy Woman" and "100% Pure Love" were all over the radio, and it was an honor to get to connect with her for episode 120 and a conversation about her songwriting process, how she got her start in music, and ...
Apr 16, 2025•22 min•Season 8Ep. 5
In episode 119, I catch up with Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller , the noise pop duo better known as Sleigh Bells . I have been a massive Sleigh Bells fan since their first few singles back in 2009 — brash, genre-defying bangers like “Crown on the Ground” and “Infinity Guitars” that sounded unlike anything else, combining elements of pop, metal, hardcore, hip-hop and punk. They’ve continued to blow my mind with the leaps they’ve made since then. The three of us are also old friends at this point, ...
Apr 02, 2025•54 min•Season 8Ep. 4
It's a good thing ANOHNI and I decided to leave the cameras turned off for the interview included in episode 118 of the LSQ podcast, because there were moments when she was talking --about her creative process, about using her voice and her music as a survival strategy, about what it felt like to grow up as a trans femme amidst the violence of patriarchy -- that I was nearly in tears, so moved by the way she described her experience. And since crying while interviewing is as cringe as "crying in...
Mar 26, 2025•48 min•Season 8Ep. 3
On the heels of the announcement last week of a much anticipated new album by indie folk band The Head and the Heart , I’m excited to be able to share the following conversation with the band’s Matty Gervais. This is one of your first chances to hear more about their exceptional new collection of tunes, Aperture , the band’s sixth LP, which will be out on May 9th. There are already a few beautiful introductory singles online now, including the anthemic "Arrow" and the newly shared album opener, ...
Mar 03, 2025•50 min•Season 8Ep. 2
Welcome to season 8 of the LSQ podcast! I’m thrilled to kick off this season with an interview with Julien Baker & Torres , two artists whose music on their own I’ve admired for years: Julien , as a solo performer and member of boygenius, and Torres , which is the musical moniker of the singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott. Last year, they revealed that they had been working together on a country project and they shared a beautiful debut single, “Sugar in the Tank” that I fell in love with inst...
Feb 03, 2025•43 min•Season 8Ep. 1
I learned a new word during this interview you’re about to hear with Big Thief ’s Adrianne Lenker and the deeply under appreciated singer-songwriter Tucker Zimmerman : Numinous . It means “having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.” Numinous. That’s how Tucker described the experience of recording the album Dance of Love , with Big Thief as his backing band, and the album’s producer. Released in October, Dance of Love is a collec...
Dec 06, 2024•39 min•Season 7Ep. 18
“I’ve always been pretty attached to my dreams,” says singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt . “[Dreams have] consistently been this means of receiving symbolic information that feels important. They do feel somewhat connected — the mental space that I’m in when I’m writing and the way that I feel in certain kinds of dreams. Sometimes you have a dream where it feels very loaded and weighted in this way that you can’t really argue with, and I look forward to those. And sometimes it’s the same with songs...
Nov 13, 2024•40 min•Season 7Ep. 17
What an incredible joy it was to spend some time talking face to face with one of my all-time favorite artists — Julian Casablancas of The Voidz and The Strokes — for episode 113 of the LSQ podcast. We met up for this interview backstage at LA’s Orpheum Theater just after The Voidz played a mind-blowing set, including music from their awesome new album, Like All Before You . Although we’re old friends and have done more than a few interviews over the years, this conversation allowed us to touch...
Oct 24, 2024•39 min•Season 7Ep. 16
I kind of felt like I already knew Madi Diaz , even though we’d never met before, when we connected over Zoom this summer for the conversation in episode 112 of the LSQ podcast. That’s in part because we have many music friends in common, and I’ve heard a lot of great things about her over the years. But it’s even more the case because her songs are so beautifully direct and intimate; they give you a really vivid sense of her inner world, with all of its relatable nuances. You can hear that gift...
Oct 11, 2024•38 min•Season 7Ep. 14
I’ll never forget the first time I heard the music of the iconic noise-rock band The Jesus Lizard — it was more than thirty years ago, thanks to my older brother Michael playing me their song “Seasick,” from the band’s second studio album, Goat , released in 1991 and produced by the legendary Steve Albini . That song blew my mind. It made me feel like I was actually inside of the tune itself, and that, like the narrator of the song, yowling about how he “can’t swim,” that I was somehow drowning ...
Sep 25, 2024•39 min•Season 7Ep. 14
Remi Wolf is my favorite kind of modern artist: a young music-maker who truly doesn't give a flying eff what genre names folks might use to try to neatly categorize her sound. Remi knows that, as she once said, "genres are pretty obsolete at this point." She continued (in this interview with Spin ): "I think artists are their own genre, where every artist is creating such a world for themselves that they are becoming the sound and the thing." The world Remi has created over the course of the pas...
Sep 09, 2024•43 min•Season 7Ep. 13
On the heels of Foster the People 's first new album in seven years, their excellent, uplifting and highly danceable new album Paradise State of Mind, hear from the project's creative mastermind about key moments in his musical journey: how he learned to play piano by ear as a kid, and was later inspired to play guitar by hearing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a kiosk at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; how he discovered the value of a local music community through his city's meta...
Aug 20, 2024•40 min•Season 7Ep. 11
On the eve of the release of her beautiful third studio album, Chaos Angel, singer-songwriter and actor Maya Hawke talks about how she arrived at her finest collection yet - a group of songs inspired by the idea of fighting one's own guardian angel. I loved getting to ask Maya about the creative path that led to this album, the music she was into as a kid, how she discovered her own musicality, the way her approach to songwriting and lyric writing has changed, even just in the months since she f...
May 30, 2024•26 min•Season 7Ep. 11
I had the best time getting to know the wonderful Gabriela Quintero of Grammy-winning psychedelic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela for this episode of the LSQ podcast. We recently met over Zoom for a conversation exploring important moments in her personal creative evolution — things like seeing an all-girl Japanese metal band when she was 10; or discovering Metallica thanks to the mixtape her sister’s boyfriend had made, as part of his romance strategy; meeting her bandmate Rodrigo Sánchez at a lo...
May 16, 2024•48 min•Season 7Ep. 10
Garage rock prince Ty Segall joins the LSQ podcast on the heels of his awesome fifteenth (!!!) studio album, Three Bells , to talk about the roots of his sound: how he first fell in love with rock and roll thanks to oldies radio ( Beatles , Ronettes , Kinks ) and a pile of vinyl records gifted by a Laguna Beach neighbor ( Alice Cooper , Black Sabbath , Bowie ), doing musical theater in high school, moving to San Francisco in search of like-minded weirdos and finding his community there, and more...
Apr 26, 2024•33 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Since there was a major influx of new listeners thanks to last week's episode 105 with Vampire Weekend 's Ezra Koenig, I wanted to bring back this super fun 2021 interview with VW bassist (Chris) Baio , which we recorded in the lead-up to his solo album Dead Hand Control . This is an abbreviated version of the episode, but you can find the full interview HERE . We talked about Sex and the City , Burnt , Spin Doctors, "Bohemian Rhapsody," Akron/Family, his dad's Columbia House CD collection, seei...
Apr 17, 2024•29 min•Season 7Ep. 8
Some bands, you love them almost instantly, and that was the deal for me with Vampire Weekend , who I was fortunate to be tipped off to early on, through some mutual friends in NYC. My love for them has only grown with each new album, as VW continue to explore new sonic terrain, including on their brilliant latest LP, Only God Was Above Us , which is out now. In this interview, VW frontman Ezra Koenig — one of my mega-favorite songwriters, and also one of my favorite dudes — talks about his mega...
Apr 10, 2024•52 min•Season 7Ep. 7
There is no other artist quite like Beth Ditto , the brilliant singer, songwriter, actor, clothing and cosmetics designer, and frontwoman for the legendary indie band Gossip. Her voice is singular and her energy is magical. In episode 104, Ditto talks about the making of Gossip 's exciting new album, Real Power , as well as her early experiences with music -- worshiping Cyndi Lauper and singing along with Skid Row during her childhood in Searcy, Arkansas, finding community in Olympia, Washington...
Mar 27, 2024•43 min•Season 7Ep. 6
Last fall, singer-songwriter and film score composer Dhani Harrison released a dynamic new solo album called Innerstanding, which gave me the perfect opportunity to finally interview him in depth. "To innerstand is to comprehend from a place of love and detachment, where you’re not forcing yourself or being forced," he explains. "If you come at things from a place of love, then you’ll always end up on the right side of history." I’ve known Dhani for nearly twenty years, and I was so glad to have...
Mar 06, 2024•38 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Joe Talbot, frontman for the ferocious U.K. band Idles , explores his artistic roots -- how his sculptor dad taught him the value of a creative purpose, how his love for hip-hop evolved as he became more politically aware, the inspiration he drew from Van Morrison's Astral Weeks , how the early oughts breakthrough by the Strokes influenced him, what it was like for Idles to find their sound in Bristol's fertile music scene, and how they learned to try new things, with help from producers Nigel G...
Feb 20, 2024•37 min•Season 7Ep. 3
On the eve of her incredible sophomore solo album, What Now (out February 9th), hear Brittany Howard share the story of her creative journey as a singer, songwriter and performer, explaining how she first discovered her voice and where she still hopes to go with it, how bonding with her friends over music like Black Sabbath and Kings of Leon led into starting her own band, the Alabama Shakes, with some of those same friends, how seeing Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings in concert several years ago ...
Feb 05, 2024•23 min•Season 7Ep. 3
Welcome to a super special episode -- not just because it’s the 100th episode, though I've gotta say I’m pretty proud of that, and so grateful to all of the artists who’ve given their time and been open to this conversation, but also because this episode features one of my favorite interviews from the podcast so far. I have been a deep admirer of Future Islands ' music, and Samuel T. Herring’s soulfulness and poeticism as a singer and writer, since the band's early albums, and I loved hearing hi...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney join Jenny for episode 99, to talk about their new album, Little Rope , growing up in the burgeoning Northwest indie scene of the late Eighties and arriving at Olympia, Washington's Evergreen College just in time for the birth of riot grrrl in the early Nineties. They discuss their early days together, how they found their songwriting method, and how it has grown and evolved over the course of three decades and eleven albums. Get a copy of Lit...
Jan 16, 2024•37 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Proof of Life , the excellent fourth studio album by Nashville-based singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun , has been one of my favorite LPs of 2023, and it's been awesome to see Joy's star rise in recent months. It was a true joy - if you'll pardon the pun - to meet Joy over Zoom and get to know more about their creative journey, growing up in Casa Grande, Arizona, as a child of Nigerian immigrants, coming to terms with their queerness against the backdrop of their religious upbringing. Joy talks abou...
Nov 15, 2023•31 min•Season 6Ep. 15
After years of admiring Jason Isbell's gifts as a songwriter and storyteller, I finally got to ask the alt-country artist about his earliest sparks of creativity, and it was fascinating to hear his memories of sitting on the front porch, singing with members of his extended family during weekly Sunday evening gatherings, and of listening to his Pentecostal preacher grandfather playing guitar, and introducing him to gospel and mountain songs and bluegrass and the blues. "Music was something that ...
Oct 20, 2023•32 min•Season 6Ep. 14
