For the first new Talkhouse Podcast episode of the new year, we’ve got an unlikely pairing—which is one of our favorite kinds of pairings. But it wasn’t exactly our idea to connect Michael Vincent Waller and Lex Luger, it was theirs. The contemporary classical composer and the extremely prolific hip-hop producer made a really cool record together that came out in 2021, called Classic$. Waller is not your typical classical composer, he’s a real musical searcher. His compositions range from avant-...
Jan 13, 2022•43 min
This week we’re resurfacing a delightful episode that originally ran in April of 2020, and which features two of our favorite songwriters/performers: Matt Berninger of The National and Aimee Mann. Their chat was inspired by the release of an excellent documentary about Other Music, the revered New York record store that closed in 2016. The conversation veers into many other areas as well, including creativity during the pandemic. The challenges of the past couple of years were no match for these...
Jan 06, 2022•43 min
We’ve hosted some incredible Talkhouse conversations in 2021, and for our final brand-new episode of the year, we’ve got two people responsible for some of the best records of this year: Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner. Baker released her third album, Little Oblivions, back in February, and it’s a doozy. Expanding her sonic palette massively, Baker delivered her powerful, vulnerable songs with much bigger sounds. That might have felt like a gamble, but it paid off massively—she produced it hersel...
Dec 16, 2021•48 min
This week’s Talkhouse episode features a pair of legends from the alt-country or country or No Depression or Americana worlds—you pick. It’s Jay Farrar of Son Volt along with singer-songwriter (and many other things) Steve Earle. Jay Farrar started his career as part of the seminal band Uncle Tupelo alongside another noted songwriter (and frequent Talkhouse guest) Jeff Tweedy. After their split, Tweedy went on to Wilco while Farrar formed the band Son Volt, which has since released an impressive...
Dec 09, 2021•38 min
On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lively conversation between some people whose relationship got off to kind of a rocky start, but who’ve since become friends: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and all three members of Mountain Man: Amelia Meath, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Molly Sarle. Now the occasion for this conversation is the recent reissue of the first Mountain Man record, 2010’s Made the Harbor, which features new liner notes written by Tweedy. This gorgeous, strange record was made back...
Dec 02, 2021•50 min
Hey Talkhouse friends, this week we’re re-surfacing an episode that originally ran in May of 2020. Unlike most Talkhouse Podcast episodes, which feature two or more creative folks in conversation, this one is mostly just one guy talking: Joe Talbot of the band IDLES. It was recorded in front of a live audience in Glasgow, just before the pandemic hit, and it’s a fascinating look at an incredible artist—Talbot is a guy who’s unafraid to put it all out there, in both interviews and in his music. S...
Nov 25, 2021•1 hr 2 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a roundtable of old friends who are also, as it happens, all New York City legends: Cynthia Sley and Pat Place of Bush Tetras with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and director Jim Jarmusch. Cynthia and Pat — vocalist and guitarist, respectively — started the “groove-centric” post-punk band Bush Tetras in 1979 with Laura Kennedy on bass and Dee Pop on drums. They broke up just a few years later, but over the decades they’ve reunited periodically, and are ...
Nov 18, 2021•56 min
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, longtime friends and collaborators Rosario Dawson and Talia Lugacy sit down for a chat, on the occasion of the release of their latest film together, This is Not a War Story, the moving drama about combat trauma which Lugacy wrote, directed and stars in and Dawson executive produced. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two started off by talking about the recent tragic death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust and how it connects with persistent ...
Nov 11, 2021•49 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a little more focused conversation than usual, as Matthew Houck—the driving force behind the band Phosphorescent—chats with legendary songwriter Nick Lowe, largely about Lowe’s recently reissued 2001 album The Convincer. Even if Nick Lowe’s name isn’t super familiar to you, some of his songs almost certainly are. He’s had an incredible career that stretches back to the late 1960s, with his biggest mainstream moment coming via his dear friend Elvis Cost...
Nov 04, 2021•50 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve put together a pair of tourmates—past and present—who are separated by decades but united by a deep respect of American music: Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols. Patterson Hood has been in rock bands since he was a pre-teen, and he’s been the co-leader of Drive-By Truckers since 1996. The band has explored the sounds and ideas of Southern rock—Hood is from Alabama—over the years, with sounds and lyrics that stretch the boundaries well beyond the world of Lyn...
Oct 28, 2021•44 min
This week’s Talkhouse conversation features a pair of performers who came up in the ‘90s, and who have followed each other’s careers since: Tim Burgess of the Charlatans, and Joan Wasser, aka. Joan as Police Woman. Tim Burgess has had a fascinatingly diverse career: He first came to prominence as singer of the Charlatans, who were part of the early '90s Madchester scene along with the likes of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. But unlike many of their contemporaries, the Charlatans have had a l...
Oct 21, 2021•46 min
For this week’s Talkhouse Podcast episode, we rounded up a pair of friends who deeply admire each other’s playing and songwriting—and who ultimately met because of a different episode of the Talkhouse Podcast: Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro. Kurt Vile first came into music fans’ consciousness as part of The War On Drugs, though it wasn’t long before he decided to dedicate his time to his solo material. He’s released a string of incredible albums since, including 2013’s instant classic Wakin’ On A P...
Oct 14, 2021•46 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters separated by a generation, but united by a serious dedication to the craft: Carl Newman and Liam Kazar. Carl Newman—aka. A.C. Newman—is best known as the gravitational center of The New Pornographers, the lark of a supergroup that he started back in 1997 but that quickly found great enough success that it became his main gig. As you perhaps already know, the band also features the prodigious talents of Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan...
Oct 07, 2021•49 min
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, Tiller Russell – the man behind both the doc series The Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer and real-life drama Silk Road – sits down with Oscar winner Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee’s screenwriting partner on BlacKkKlansman, Chiraq and Da 5 Bloods and a fine director in his own right om films such as C.S.A: Confederate States of America and The 24th. In a fascinating conversation, the two filmmakers discuss the parallels between their work, the...
Sep 30, 2021•45 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a couple of friends who both happen to have new but very different projects out this month: Amber Tamblyn and Mac McCaughan. Tamblyn is an actor-writer-director-poet-activist with a wildly diverse resume. She may be best known for roles on Joan of Arcadia and Two and a Half Men, but that’s only the tip of a pretty incredible iceberg. She’s written well received books of poetry—including 2015’s Dark Sparkler. She directed the 2016 film Paint it Black, wh...
Sep 23, 2021•46 min
On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a fabulous cross-generational conversation between two women separated by a good number of years but united by a punk spirit: Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s and Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13. It’s no overstatement to say that Kathy Valentine has a massive place in music history as part of The Go-Go’s, who burst from the L.A. punk scene of the late ‘70s and into the musical mainstream in the early ‘80s. They were the first (and still only!) all...
Sep 16, 2021•59 min
Comedian Joe Pera (Joe Pera Talks With You) and singer-songwriter David Bazan (Pedro The Lion) have elevated self-aware open-heartedness and detailed observation of humanity into, well, art. When David discovered Joe's show, he fell for it hard, and reached out to Talkhouse to see if we could arrange a convo. We loved the idea, and think you'll really enjoy the result. Joe and David discuss a lot, including: their granular writing techniques; appreciating the gentle joys of life, like wearing gr...
Sep 09, 2021•54 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lively conversation between a pair of Nashville friends who also happen to be incredible songwriters and performers: Margo Price and Tristen. Price grew up in small town Illinois, but made her way to Music City and played in a couple of pop-leaning bands before giving into the allure of country music. (It can be hard not to, and she’s great at it.) After going solo, Price released a pair of albums on Jack White’s Nashville-based Third Man Records and...
Sep 02, 2021•50 min
This week on the Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got one of those fun conversations where the reverence is on full display from the get-go. When we asked singer-songwriter Beabadoobee who she’d be interested in speaking with for the podcast, she immediately responded Nina Persson of The Cardigans—one of her heroes, as you’ll hear. For those unfamiliar with Beabadoobee, she was born in the Philippines, raised in London, and found fame over the past couple of years via social media platforms like TikTok. ...
Aug 26, 2021•44 min
This week’s Talkhouse Podcast features a couple of names you almost certainly know, because each of these guys has had a pretty incredible career in music: Richard Marx and Jakob Dylan. Marx, of course, wrote and performed some of the most indelible pop hits of the late ’80s and early ’90s, including “Endless Summer Nights,” “Hold on to the Nights,” and the super smash “Right Here Waiting,” which comes up in this conversation. But even as the era of mullets and frosted jeans faded, Marx couldn’t...
Aug 19, 2021•45 min
On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a great conversation between two guys who don’t necessarily have a ton in common musically, but who approach creativity in similar ways—and who happen to be great fans of each other’s work: Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius, and composer-performer-multi-hyphenate Max Richter. Hadreas, whom you’ve hopefully heard on the Talkhouse Podcast in the past, has been recording and performing under the name Perfume Genius since 2008, and he’s one of those artists w...
Aug 12, 2021•33 min
This week’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast began somewhere not particularly known for good or fruitful ideas: Twitter. That’s where the poet Maggie Smith dropped a funny notion, which songwriter John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats picked up and ran with. Smith, whose was in the process of splitting up with her husband, suggested a photo essay in which she’d take her old wedding dress on a tour of the country, Weekend at Bernie’s style, only the dead thing isn’t a guy—it’s her marriage. Never ...
Aug 05, 2021•41 min
Jason Narducy is a Chicago guy, but he spends a ton of his time—or at least he used to—on tour, playing bass for both Bob Mould and Superchunk. In early 2020, a local theatre mounted a production of a musical called Verboten, which was based on Jason’s life—specifically his time as a pre-teen in a punk band. As a grown-up, in addition to providing the low end for those other great folks, he fronts his own band, Split Single. Under that moniker, Narducy writes the songs and recruits incredible mu...
Jul 29, 2021•33 min
Nick Murphy is best known for his downtempo electronic project Chet Faker, which is confusing because it also sounds like a guy’s name—but which released one of the best albums of 2014, Built On Glass. But as you’ll hear in this Talkhouse chat, Murphy put the Chet Faker name on a shelf at the height of its popularity in order to go in a more organic route under his own name. He subsequently released a pair of albums—including one initially through a meditation app, which is very 21st century and...
Jul 22, 2021•41 min
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a pair of incredible young songwriter-performers whose music isn’t super similar, but who both embrace a sort of ultra-modern mish-mash of styles: Dorian Electra and Claud. Claud was the first performer signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ new label, Saddest Factory, after spending some time in a duo called Toast. Claud’s debut album, Super Monster, is most often described as “bedroom pop”—that term is brought up in this chat—but that’s only a small part of it. ...
Jul 15, 2021•37 min
Liz Phair crashed into the indie-rock world in a huge way in the early ‘90s with her instant classic album Exile In Guyville, and she was already the talk of the town—in this case Chicago—before she had even performed publicly. It was an auspicious start to a fascinating career that went from indie-world stardom to Lilith Fair to composing for films and TV to a consciously pop-leaning album to a fantastic memoir called Horror Stories. And it comes full circle, sort of, with her new album Soberis...
Jul 08, 2021•49 min
This week on the Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a special treat for the drummers and drum geeks out there: a conversation between Morgan Simpson of Black Midi and Bill Bruford of, as he says in their chat, about 101 bands. That number for Bruford isn’t too far from reality. Over a 40+ year career, he played with some incredible names in the world of progressive music, most notably Yes and King Crimson, but also his own projects, including Earthworks. He’s an astoundingly versatile and musical drumm...
Jul 01, 2021•51 min
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, former REM frontman Michael Stipe talks with veteran indie director Jim McKay about the production company they’ve run together since the late 1980s, C-Hundred Film Corp, and the amazing work that has come out of it. In a fascinating conversation, the two best friends not only walk us through the history of the company – its humble beginnings in Athens, GA, to creating PSAs with KRS-One and Natalie Merchant, and Michael making the *original* Orange...
Jun 24, 2021•43 min
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, director Edgar Wright chats with musicians Ron and Russell Mael of the beloved cult band Sparks, who are the subject of Wright’s deeply enjoyable new documentary, The Sparks Brothers. In a wide-ranging conversation, the friends and collaborators veer from gripping discussions about food to in-depth explorations of the Mael brothers’ longstanding love of their other creative passion, cinema, which finally resulted in Leos Carax directing their film ...
Jun 17, 2021•42 min
Meghan Trainor burst into the public consciousness with her 2014 hit “All About That Bass,” which was accompanied by a triple-platinum album and loads of subsequent success. Two more albums followed, as did judging roles on the British version of The Voice, and perhaps more important to this conversation, a singing competition called The Four, where she was on a panel with Sean Combs and DJ Khaled. That show is where Trainor first encountered the spectacular singing voice of VINCINT, who wowed h...
Jun 10, 2021•21 min
