Estelle is old school. With a modern twist yes, but nonetheless, if this most eclectic of artists leans in any particular direction it is towards ‘classic’. She even says it in one her own songs; "I'm not of-the-moment. I am a classic, yeah, I live at the MoMA” ( The Life , opening track of her 2012 album All of Me ). She is quite the proverbial eclectic artist - edgy but not (un)necessarily shocking, traditional but modern enough to make her point in the era of precision-tool song production, a...
Jul 02, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 12Ep. 2
During our live interview with Skye Edwards and Ross Godfrey of Morcheeba, I found myself at one stage scrolling through my notes to find a description of the band’s sound I’d queried using Chat GPT. I couldn’t find it at the time but here is what it said: “Morcheeba’s signature rich, mellow music became the soundtrack of the suburban homes and chillout rooms of the late 90s and early 00s”. That’s a composite of much that has been written about the band over some 30 years, and it doesn’t really ...
Jun 26, 2025•59 min•Season 12Ep. 1
Light, fire, water, fruit, and worms; “just the basics”, are Matt Berninger’s recurring themes, and these emerge again on his second solo album Get Sunk . One of life’s sponges, Berninger is constantly observing and recording the world around him - on paper scraps, whiteboards, garageband files, notes-to-self via text messages and even on baseballs . The sketches of songs ideas, lyrics and poems are transcribed from his brain to his fingertips, ready to go when the songwriting process gets under...
May 28, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 11Ep. 7
Valerie June’s journey to what we might call ‘cult stardom’ hasn’t been easy. “I was cleaning houses while playing bars & clubs at night. And I had a vision that I would not make it - my music wouldn't reach its audience through regular means - it would reach its audience through musicians. My friends would help me. I’m a musician’s musician”. Working through a talented community of musicians that has included Booker T Jones, Brandi Carlile and none other than Mavis Staples, eventually broug...
Apr 17, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 11Ep. 6
With the album’s reduced commercial clout and declining role in music consumption, a dilemma crops up for all long-established bands involved in the endeavour of making a new LP record. Put simply, why bother? Why toil for four years on a body of work that distils 100 song ideas into ten tracks, spending a fortune in the process, only to see it flash across the charts and then evaporate into the mesh of 100 million songs? It’s an existential question for Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue, who told me: “...
Mar 30, 2025•57 min•Season 11Ep. 5
A new album release by your favourite band is an important event. Thank god for this. A new album is a reprieve, an escape, a comfort and a joy. Of course, to experience all these emotions you do have to take the time to really listen. I particularly love that a record has the power to be your own personal time machine. When I first played back the new My Morning Jacket album, simply titled is , I was transported back in time to the late 70s, back to my childhood. A time of albums on vinyl or ca...
Mar 20, 2025•58 min
Great bands and great records shouldn't come down to a competition, but by way of bringing it to your attention, Tindersticks’ Soft Tissue was my choice of 5th best album of 2024. I’m touched that Stuart Staples seems genuinely pleased to be on the list. Alexi Petridis’ review of that record in the Guardian was so good I read it a few times. “If the overall message seems to be about noticing beauty in small things as a bulwark against the ghastliness of 21st-century life”. That captures the mood...
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 11Ep. 3
Doves have yet to have a big 'moment', but in the music business of 2025, those moments no longer even exist. Instead, bands of ‘modest success’ must crack on, do their best work, put it out in the world and hope people take some notice. If, as a result, they can reconnect with fans, get out on the road, and make another record, then that is what counts as success. Carrying on regardless. But, Doves have also had success by any hard industry measure. Hit singles (two UK top 10), sold out tours a...
Feb 27, 2025•47 min•Season 11Ep. 2
If the route to longevity is to be bendable into the music industry’s rules for success, The Lumineers really shouldn’t be here at all. It makes no sense. Their stripped back, rootsy ‘Americana’ (if that’s what we can call it) took hold for reasons not usually listed in the music industry rulebook. Instead, their unlikely ascendancy into the realms of being a major league band, by any measure, has happened through the real route to success: trial and error, hard graft, writing songs from the hea...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 11Ep. 1
This episode is brought to you in collaboration with War Child . This is a special episode of The Art of Longevity celebrating vinyl and the ongoing importance of vinyl and the album form to artists and to music fans. In this short audio documentary you’ll hear some thoughts and stories from renowned musicians like Ben Folds, Gaz Coombes, Interpol, Laura Veirs, Alela Diane, Crowded House, Eels, Ron Sexsmith, Tindersticks, Feeder, Goo Goo Dolls, John Grant and Brett Anderson of Suede. The Art of ...
Feb 03, 2025•32 min•Season 9Ep. 69
There are always some central pillars to a great party playlist - songs that just work. One of those is the Joan As Police Woman song Holy City. The song is always an instant hit at parties, guaranteed to elicit excitable inquiries as to “who is this?”. That instant reaction. The song is a #1 hit in my family - one of those multi-generational family life tracks. But if Holy City is instantly likeable, with a great beat and a strong poppy hook, it’s somewhat uncharacteristic of Joan’s music, whic...
Dec 28, 2024•53 min•Season 9Ep. 68
Of all the bands to grace our company on The Art of Longevity, Keane have ridden the music industry rollercoaster through all the stations of the cross : struggle, success, excess, disintegration and if you’re lucky - enlightenment. Tim Rice-Oxley doesn't hesitate for a moment: “Yeah, absolutely. Our struggle was quite long and our disintegration was quite quick, although we clung on effectively for quite a while. I feel like now we are in a more positive and exciting place than the day before H...
Dec 08, 2024•53 min•Season 9Ep. 67
What happens when you are a cult band (indeed when Pitchfork refers to you as “the ultimate cult band”) and you make the most accessible, most ‘mainstream’ album of your career? It’s a relevant question for many bands these days, because emerging from cult status to the mainstream (what’s left of it) is a very valid path to longevity and success. Look at Nick Cave for example. He’s done alright. But I can’t think of a better example right now, than Los Campesinos! With All Hell, they have made t...
Dec 05, 2024•57 min•Season 9Ep. 66
Artists have a duty to claim that their most recent project is the best work they have ever done. But what if it’s true? I’m so taken with David Gray’s new album Dear Life (released January 2025) - and so too is David of course - that it seemed churlish to dwell too much on his earlier career success, no matter just how definitive that was. “I’m always all in with the new stuff. If I wasn’t I would just retire. It’s always a moment of total commitment. I like the danger of writing and recording....
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 9Ep. 3
My guest for this pilot episode is Gale Paridjanian of (the magnificent) Turin Brakes. If you listen to the song Underdog (Save me) by Turin Brakes, it will tell you a lot about how Gale plays and what he brings to a song with his guitar playing. Gale is an underrated and understated guitar god - as all Turin Brakes fans know. Olly Knights, singer in Turin Brakes describes Gales playing as “the real deal since the very beginning", and also “band cheat code” which Gale & I explore further in ...
Oct 25, 2024•54 min•Ep. 1
When I heard the Chilly Gonzales song Neoclassical Massacre, I immediately got in touch with his management and label to get Gonzo on the Art of Longevity. Not only are his views on AI and background music incisive, but Gonzo has some strong opinions about the music industry and the modern culture in which it operates. The ever-evolving tension between creativity and commerce has been a career-long exploration for Gonzo. It makes him the perfect guest for The Art of Longevity. Indeed, his own ca...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 64
In this day & age of abundance, you can easily forget what’s precious - like your favourite bands. If you are anything like me the question “what’s your favourite band” now has an official top 40. As in I have a rolling 40 favourite bands. Making a welcome return to the top 40 is Nada Surf, the ‘New York’ (now firmly remote) indie band that first hit my favourites list way back in 2005. I always remember how I discovered a band, in the case of Nada Surf it was on a Mojo or Uncut free “coverm...
Sep 11, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 9Ep. 6
In Mark Oliver Everett’s autobiography “Things The Grandchildren Should Know”, the author, otherwise known as E, the frontman and band leader of Eels, wrote of Bob Dylan’s self-proclaimed destiny as a musician: “I wish I had something like that, but I didn’t. At all. All I had was an aching sense of desperation. I didn’t have any idea what the hell I was doing and was only doing it out of not knowing what else to do”. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, E simply continued to keep on keeping ...
May 29, 2024•55 min•Season 9Ep. 5
Marika Hackman's Big Sigh is everything a 4th album should be. Really good songs, good scheduling, sophisticated arrangements (brass and strings accompany many tracks). The album has variety - from the mysterious instrumental interludes of The Ground and The Lonely House (opening sides A and B of my/your bottle green vinyl copy) to stand out singles (Slime, No Caffeine) to epic album tracks (Hanging, The Yellow Mile). It has an impressive musicality and most of all, it has real depth . A truly g...
Apr 12, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 9Ep. 4
Fran Healy and his band Travis have this longevity thing down. Firstly, you must have a love and addiction to music, as something magical. Secondly, that magic is for you to create - making music to nobody’s expectations but your own. But thirdly, you get lucky. As Fran says in episode 3, Season 9: “The chances of a shit kicker from Glasgow going on to win the best band in the world is a billion to one. How can you be proud to be lucky?” Well okay, but as all bands that ever got a break know, yo...
Mar 29, 2024•47 min•Season 9Ep. 3
After 25 years in the music business, both as a major label priority artist and as a jobbing musician, Ed Harcourt still has big ambitions. “My greatest achievement would be to write a song I would never get bored of singing”. Cards on the table, Ed Harcourt’s two instrumental albums made between 2018 and 2020 (Beyond the End and Monochrome to Colour) got me through the pandemic. Well, they certainly helped. But Ed didn’t sing on either, so it comes as something of a relief to have Ed Harcourt b...
Mar 20, 2024•56 min•Season 9Ep. 2
Try playing a Crowded House record (any of them) then let Spotify play on…you will get just the best selection of really great songs . Go on, try it and you’ll see for yourself. This discovery may well make drivetime radio programming a heck of a lot easier, or possibly redundant altogether. You may of course be a Crowded House fan and like, know this already. You may be a casual admirer, or even a sceptic. In which case, take the time to enjoy this shared revelation. But let me tell you that th...
Mar 09, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 9Ep. 1
When Real Estate's fifth album The Main Thing was released to fairly mixed results, was it time for a reset? In a sense, yes. For band leader Martin Courtney , it was time to get back to songs . After all, without songs, bands are just jamming, right? He set the bar high too, inspired mostly by the 1992 R.E.M. classic Automatic For The People . Besides, you cannot call in a producer like Daniel Tashian without being able to play him songs of exceptionally high standard. For a start, Tashian prod...
Feb 16, 2024•52 min0
Like many women creators in the (still) white, male dominated music industry, the Staveley-Taylor sisters aka The Staves, bring a sense of humbleness to everything they have achieved, how they are positioned today and indeed, what the future holds. Is it possible that The Staves are better than they think they are? It seems so. Originally signed to a major label of some reverence (Atlantic, just before the hypergrowth of Spotify, social media and TikTok), it is likely that their major label A&am...
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr•Season 8Ep. 5
After the fiasco of having to cancel Beirut’s 2019 tour, Zach Condon knew he needed to take the time out to fully recover. Multiple infections, colds and in the end complicated throat ailments had led him to a total burnout, until finally: “My manager and my tour manager saved me from myself. They told me I can’t keep touring. I threw in the towel and dissolved the touring group. I later saw the fiasco over refunds and all that, and I felt horrible about it”. This adversity though, perhaps inevi...
Nov 17, 2023•56 min•Season 8Ep. 4
Metric has become one of those bands that have paved the way for independence, along with Aimee Mann, Chance The Rapper and the other self-releasing copyright owning pioneers. Their fifth album Synthetica (2012) as it turns out, is a favourite of the band’s front woman and main co-writer Emily Haines. Even though it didn’t reach the commercial heights predecessor Fantasies did, it was a mature and ambitious record, setting the tone for Metric’s accomplished and reliably strong catalogue. It brin...
Nov 05, 2023•46 min•Season 8Ep. 3
I had invited Half Moon Run onto the podcast after first hearing Salt - imploring their BMG PR to arrange it as a matter of priority. Speaking with Dylan Phillips was an insight behind the creative process of the (decades long) making of one of my favourite records in ages. Also, I had never spoken to a drummer who is simultaneously a keyboard player, but that is part of the modus operandi of Half Moon Run - a continual swapping out switching up of instruments between the band’s three members, P...
Oct 28, 2023•49 min•Season 8Ep. 2
In the 70s, the teenage years of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, one would have heard new music by word of mouth, from the music papers, and DJs like John Peel, and it is one of these channels that would have led the young Andy McCluskey in September 1975 to see Kraftwerk play at the Liverpool Empire. It's lazy to suggest that Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were entirely influenced by Kraftwerk – both founder members were keen music lovers and had performed together in a band called The Id...
Oct 13, 2023•52 min•Season 8Ep. 1
So many bands have a complex relationship with their biggest songs (probably because they essentially set a one dimensional benchmark - that of popularity) but dealing with that and playing those songs like it’s the last time you ever will, is part of doing the work. The Doll’s most biggest song and most recent tour are no exception: “Robby convinced me, play Iris last. But that’s what bands do when they only have one big song! So everyone has to stick around and hear all the other songs before ...
Sep 14, 2023•59 min0
What better guest for this 50th episode of The Art of Longevity than metal’s renaissance man Corey Taylor? A modern legend of the heavy metal genre, Corey has no less than three successful music projects. He is probably best known as Slipknot’s #9 (lead vocals) but before he joined Slipknot, Taylor already had another established hard rock band, Stone Sour. I met Corey as he was about to release his second solo record CMF2. This multiple persona artist is a sort-of blueprint for music creators i...
Aug 12, 2023•55 min•Season 8Ep. 50
