Alvvays have made some of my favorite indie music of the past decade, and although I’ve interviewed them briefly in the past, I loved going long with Molly Rankin from the band for episode 96. We talked about Alvvays’s awesome latest album, Blue Rev , the origins of “Archie, Marry Me,” which had it's 10th anniversary this year, about how Molly started writing songs as a teenager, inspired by learning the chords to her favorite Oasis tunes, what it was like growing up in a famous musical family (...
Oct 11, 2023•32 min•Season 6Ep. 13
On the eve of Blonde Redhead ’s first new album in nine years, their excellent Sit Down For Dinner , the band’s Kazu Makino joins the LSQ podcast for episode 95. She talks about how the experience of making her own solo album a few years ago inspired a new confidence going into this Blonde Redhead album; the influence she took from growing up in a household where classical music was playing at a soft volume at all times; the evolution of her songwriting within the band; how a good performance fe...
Sep 25, 2023•29 min•Season 6Ep. 12
Episode 94 features an interview with singer, songwriter and producer Andrew Wyatt , whose voice and tunes you probably know from a few different contexts: In addition to being the frontman and lead songwriter for alt-pop band Miike Snow, Wyatt keeps incredibly busy collaborating as a writer and producer with artists like Dua Lipa, Charlie XCX, Caroline Polachek, Lorde, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and many others. The New York native is also a Grammy and Academy award-winning writer of movie music, notably ...
Sep 06, 2023•51 min•Season 6Ep. 11
Fresh off releasing "Two Songs I Wrote in 1993 & Recorded Last Week," legendary Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee joins me for episode 93 (pure numerological coincidence!) to reflect on key moments of musical discovery -- seeing Nirvana play at Big Day Out, starring in a school musical called Uncle Moishe and his Mitzvah Men , recording fucked-up sounding songs on his Tascam 244, hoping to emulate Appetite for Destruction but coming up with something even cooler, figuring out how to get h...
Aug 25, 2023•48 min•Season 6Ep. 10
"I always said, I felt like, when the five of us are together, the universe does something different," says Albert Hammond Jr , guitarist for The Strokes , of his band's cosmic connection. "From the moment I met them, even before we did anything, all of a sudden the world felt different. I can only explain it like in the Matrix when he sees the numbers, so then it didn't feel that weird when stuff would happen. I didn't know what was gonna happen, but it felt like something was gonna happen." I ...
Jun 28, 2023•50 min•Season 6Ep. 9
The incomparable Jenny Lewis joins me for LSQ #91 and, let me tell you, THIS is one of my all-time favorite episodes. Not only is Lewis an artist whose music I've admired since her days in Rilo Kiley, but over the course of our ~15 years of friendship, I've learned what a hilarious, generous, soulful and inspiring person she is, as well. The release of her excellent new album Joy'All gave us a chance to get together at her place in Los Angeles and dig in on some topics we've never really talked ...
Jun 13, 2023•46 min•Season 6Ep. 8
On the occasion of their new 26th studio album, The Girl is Crying In Her Latté , the legendary Los Angeles art-pop duo Sparks (brothers Ron and Russell Mael) join the LSQ podcast to talk about the evolution of their sound; their work with producers such as Giorgio Moroder and Todd Rundgren, and why they value being able to produce their own music nowadays; growing up in LA seeing concerts by British Invasion bands they loved including The Kinks and The Who; getting to witness one of Jimi Hendri...
Jun 05, 2023•45 min•Season 6Ep. 7
When she started playing guitar at age seven, Sunny War saw herself as the next Slash or Angus Young, a future shredder, certain to be a rock star, and definitely NOT a folk singer. And yet, here we are, it's 2023 and thanks to her excellent latest album, Anarchist Gospel , and a Triple A-radio hit single, "No Reason," she is finally getting well-deserved recognition as one of the most exciting folk singers of her generation. In episode 89 of the LSQ podcast, get to know Sunny's story, and how s...
Apr 26, 2023•23 min•Season 6Ep. 6
To celebrate the release of the paperback edition of her beautiful, best-selling memoir, Crying In H Mart , and its accompanying book tour, the author -- celebrated indie singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast -- joins the LSQ podcast for a conversation that explores her early experiences in both writing and music. She also shares that her next book is already in development, as she plans to move to her native Korea for a year, to learn the language and document the experience. ...
Apr 04, 2023•27 min•Season 6Ep. 5
KP, the singer-songwriter at the helm of Black Belt Eagle Scout , joins the LSQ pod to talk about their beautiful new album, The Land, The Water, The Sky, recorded as KP was transitioning back to living in their homelands in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community , in LaConner, Washington. We talk about how KP first got into playing and writing music, learning to play Für Elise by ear on the piano as a child, figuring out that their favorite guitars are the ones that sound the warmest, learning t...
Mar 28, 2023•27 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Ryan Lott and Ian Chang from the experimental trio Son Lux talk about their Academy Award-nominated work on the score and soundtrack for the beautiful, epic film Everything Everywhere All At Once , which is as brilliantly unclassifiable as the movie itself. Their score is nominated for Best Original Score and the end credits tune (a duet between Mitski and David Byrn e, who cowrote the tune with Son Lux) is up for Best Music (Original Song) at the upcoming 95th Annual Academy Awards. They also d...
Mar 03, 2023•46 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Post-punk pioneer Gina Birch (bassist and founding member of UK band The Raincoats) joins the LSQ podcast on the eve of releasing her first ever solo album, the refreshing and irreverent collection I Play My Bass Loud , produced by Youth and out this week via Third Man . In episode 85, Birch talks about important music memories from her childhood (hearing her brother's Bob Marley records through the bedroom wall, seeing The Slits in concert and realizing that girls could also play in bands, and ...
Feb 23, 2023•41 min•Season 6Ep. 2
For the first episode of Season 6 of the LSQ podcast, I was honored to welcome an artist whose words and music I have admired for nearly thirty years now: the Mountain Goats ' John Darnielle. In episode 84, John shares fascinating insight into his early creative inklings, the music he loved as a kid, and how he went from clinging to his Aristocats soundtrack to embracing Elton John and the Bay City Rollers and eventually unlocking a secret passion for heavy metal. He also describes his transitio...
Feb 10, 2023•46 min•Season 6Ep. 1
U.K. artist Kae Tempest , on the first time they ever spit rhymes in public, at age 15: “I remember pushing through the crowd. I remember the tunnel vision. I remember reaching for the mic. I remember, like, the heat, the fever — your whole body beginning to like go into almost like unbearable minute precision-detail slow motion, and then the words. That was 20 years ago. More! And it's the same feeling that I have each time I'm about to approach the mic. It's this, like, deep connection to the ...
Nov 21, 2022•44 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Bartees Strange reflects on important moments during his musical development, including: Learning to sing alongside his opera and gospel singer mother, who brought him to most of her performances as a child, until eventually he was singing alongside her. “There's something magical being a child in an opera Hall, hearing sound without microphones, bouncing off of the wood, bouncing off of the space, and then looking up on stage and seeing like a 5’2” black woman who's your mom just fill it. And i...
Nov 04, 2022•32 min•Season 5Ep. 14
On the heels of their excellent latest LP, LA indie-pop trio MUNA (Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson) call into the LSQ podcast from the road, to talk about their individual experiences falling in love with music as kids, how they came together to form MUNA, and how their approach has evolved over the years. The original ethos remains: “We decided to make music that made us feel good, for sure, but that also had an audience in mind, and that could be useful to an audience,” Katie s...
Oct 17, 2022•46 min•Season 5Ep. 13
This is a special bonus episode for LSQ listeners of a podcast I had an excellent time collaborating on, as producer, with alt-J . Things Will Get Better is a five-episode podcast miniseries that explores the U.K. band's early days, and the making of their incredible, groundbreaking debut album, An Awesome Wave, in honor of its tenth anniversary. Within the series, the band revisit Ash Grove, the old college house where they played their first gig and wrote songs like "Matilda" and "Breezeblocks...
Oct 08, 2022•51 min•Season 5Ep. 11
"As young, upcoming artists, we aim to be the examples we saw, but as you grow in your artistry, you realize that example was only there to show you you could do it. Now it's time for you to take that example and interpret it into who you are. So, the less I tried to be like Lauryn [Hill], the more I could be Sampa. And the more I could see what I love, the stories I love to tell, the music I grew up on and love sharing, and the more I could solidify myself as an artist," says the Zambia-born Bo...
Sep 14, 2022•20 min•Season 5Ep. 10
One of the most influential guitarists and songwriters of all time, Johnny Marr ( The Smiths , Electronic , The The , Modest Mouse , The Cribs ) delves into major moments in his creative evolution, from discovering his love of guitar at age five to finding favorite artists like Marc Bolan and Patti Smith and The Only Ones as a teenager to joining his first band (Sister Ray; he was fourteen, playing with a group of adults) to the early days of The Smiths and how he dealt with the pressure of thei...
Aug 08, 2022•55 min•Season 5Ep. 9
The young San Diego singer-songwriter Jelani Aryeh caught my attention with his awesome tune "Stella Brown" a couple years back, and I really enjoyed his debut full-length, I've Got Some Living To Do , from 2021. But I especially loved the brief interview I got to do with Jelani last year for XMU, and was left with so many more questions for him about these early days in his career as an artist. So here we are, at an episode of the LSQ podcast where Jelani and I dig in further, to talk about inf...
Jun 23, 2022•22 min•Season 5Ep. 9
One of my favorite insights from Belle & Sebastian ’s Stuart Murdoch in episode #75: “Maybe 1994 or 1995, a switch came on, and I started writing better songs. There's no doubt about that. I remember writing a song called ‘Dog on Wheels’ at the start of 1995, and then quickly after that, I wrote a song called ‘The State I Am In,’ a song called ‘Lord Anthony,’ ‘Sleep The Clock Around,' and it suddenly started flowing. There was a moment when I been in my favorite cafe, which I practically liv...
May 24, 2022•30 min•Season 5Ep. 8
“I remember meeting [guitarist] Nick [Kivlen] outside a bar that we couldn't get into because we were probably 17,” says Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming, reflecting on the New York City indie rock trio’s early days. “He said, ‘I’m starting a band called Sunflower Bean, and I had this gut feeling, like, ‘Oh sh*t, I’m gonna join that band, aren’t I? And it became my life.” In a conversation recorded during the lead-up to Sunflower Bean’s excellent new album Headful of Sugar (out May 6), Cumming tal...
May 03, 2022•29 min•Season 5Ep. 7
“Fill in the blanks” - that’s how Grammy-nominated hip-hop, jazz and R&B artist, musician and producer Terrace Martin describes the special sauce he brings to any collaboration. What he means is that he is ready, willing and able to offer whatever tools from his well-equipped creative shed the situation calls for. Whether that’s playing saxophone (which he does at a master level) or putting together players or producing beats or writing melodies, Martin explains that he just wants to work in...
Mar 25, 2022•27 min•Season 5Ep. 5
It did honestly feel like one of those Wayne’s World "I’m-not-worthy" moments when I first got on the Zoom with the legendary Steven Van Zandt for the interview in episode 73 of the LSQ podcast. Was truly was an honor and pleasure to get to ask him about his creative ideas and process. Last fall, the musician, songwriter, producer, activist, DJ/radio maven, actor, and more, added "author" to his bona fides when he published his fascinating memoir, Unrequited Infatuations . You should read it. Or...
Feb 28, 2022•34 min•Season 5Ep. 4
The brilliant, genre-morphing jazz, hip-hop and R&B artist (and 4x Grammy winner) Robert Glasper reflects on important early moments in his creative evolution: developing his skills at performing arts school in Houston alongside fellow talents like Beyonce and songwriter/producer Bryan-Michael Cox , honing his craft with encouragement from modern greats like Roy Hargrove and Christian McBride during his years studying at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, collaborati...
Feb 07, 2022•35 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Fontaines D.C. ’s leader, Grian Chatten, joins LSQ to talk about the Irish post-punk band’s newly announced third studio album, Skinty Fia , which is f*cking excellent, btw. (It’s not out until April, but I was lucky enough to hear an advance, in preparation for the interview.) Of course we also delve into his formative creative experiences — from setting up a makeshift drum kit with boxes and pots and pans to recreate a drum fill in Bad Religion’s “American Jesus” (“There was something so symme...
Jan 15, 2022•44 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Have you heard the song “Chaise Longue” by U.K. duo Wet Leg ? Are you as obsessed with it — and with them — as I am? Great! In episode 70, get to know Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, who talk about how they overcame their own shyness to become fearless leaders of one of the most exciting young punk bands in years. (Their self-titled debut album comes out April 8 via Domino.) Episode 70 also features an on-the-road catch-up with LSQ alumni Hamilton Leithauser and Kevin Morby , durin...
Jan 03, 2022•25 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Courtney Barnett , on the unpredictability of inspiration: “Sometimes I just sit down on the couch, and I’m watching TV, and a whole idea will come to me in one. I never know what’s gonna happen, and that keeps it really exciting. It’s sometimes very frustrating, when I feel like I don’t know the answer, and I feel like I’ll never be able to write another song again. And then a week later, I just accidentally write a song I love. There’s inspiration in everything, that’s the most important lesso...
Nov 19, 2021•38 min•Season 4Ep. 15
The War On Drugs ’ Adam Granduciel remembers feeling the electricity through the floor and the house shaking, the very first time he played an electric guitar. It was at his friend Jeff’s house, on a rig he admits he's been chasing ever since, and it ignited an obsession whose evolution he discusses in episode 68 of the LSQ podcast. We talk about Nirvana and Bob Dylan and songwriting and being a perfectionist in the studio, and his band’s brilliant new album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore . (There’s...
Nov 05, 2021•47 min
“When I used to be in Oingo Boingo, I was constantly battling these impulses to go in opposite directions,” says film composer Danny Elfman of his earlier career. “First, I was in weird musical cabaret theater for eight years and suddenly I hear ska music out of England and I say, I want to be in a band. Every two years I wanted to be in a different band, but you can’t do that when you’re in a band. And then suddenly I become a film composer out of the blue, and I realized these competing influe...
Oct 18, 2021•52 min•Season 4Ep. 13
