Interviews

Alaina Moore, Tennis

The story behind the creative process of Tennis' debut Cape Dory has been told ad nauseam elsewhere. Make that "everywhere else"; the internet seems incapable of mentioning the band without talking about The Trip. And in that narrative, you'll see words like beach and sunny to describe the music of this Denver-based couple (Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley are married).

But that's not what Moore and I wanted to talk about.

I remember an interview with an author who said that the term "beach read" is an insult because it implies that the writing has no depth and can be consumed with little effort. As you'll see, Moore's songwriting process--really, her life--reflects the anxiety behind that idea. When descriptors like that follow your music everywhere, I imagine it must be frustrating to Moore, whose songwriting has far more depth than that.

Fat Possum Records, Dream Pop, Indie, Indie PopBen OpipariApril 5, 2015 Comment

John Oates, Hall and Oates

When I started this site in 2010, I had a goal: treat songwriters as writers, plain and simple. As someone with a Ph.D. in English Literature, I had read my share of interviews with poets, playwrights, novelists, and short story writers detailing their writing process. But what about songwriters? Aren't they writers too? Shouldn't they be included? So when John Oates started our interview by saying, "I've always looked at myself as a writer," I swooned. Because songwriters are writers. Period.

Pop, Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Influencers, RockBen OpipariMarch 3, 2015Archives Comment

Ben Bridwell, Band of Horses

Oh, to be a young and single songwriter. There are no limits to your creative process: without family commitments, you can write anywhere, anytime. And that's what Ben Bridwell, singer and songwriter for Band of Horses, did. He went to cabins and cabooses, from mountains to ocean shores. Bridwell craves that isolation to write, and he thought it was a necessary component to his process. And that isolation, he believed, couldn't be a quiet room in the house. It had to be far away. (Not all songwriters need solitude, though; many have told me that they prefer to be around at least a little bit of action. There's Cory Branan, who wrote his first two albums in a mall food court. And there's Rhett Miller, who likes venue stairwells, where it's quiet but he not too far from the hustle and bustle of load in.)

Three daughters and a wife later, Bridwell can no longer pack up his notebooks and head to the hills to write like he used to. He's got a family now. But he's found the perfect space: his garage-cum-studio. No one bothers him there, though admittedly they stay away for more practical reasons: according to Bridwell, "it's dark and there are lots of bugs." Having this space made Bridwell realize that it's solitude that matters, not where the solitude is.

Alternative, Indie Rock, Folk Rock, Pop, Sub Pop Records, Fat Possum RecordsBen OpipariFebruary 10, 2015 Comments

Carl Newman, The New Pornographers

At the beginning of our interview, Carl Newman of The New Pornographers said that he didn’t think he had a process. He insisted that he was “absolutely not a disciplined writer.” But as he discovered by the time we finished talking, he does have a process. In fact, it’s happening all the time, probably as you read this.

Newman may not sit down to write every day or may not have structured writing time, but according to him, “There’s an obsession in the back of my head that always makes me think about writing. I’m distracted by the idea of songwriting.” I get the sense that Newman is never not thinking about music. He’s always picking up words or turns of a phrase, and he’s always got melodies in his head. So it’s a nonstop process, even though it’s not a deliberate and conscious one. But the act of actually sitting down to write is “painful,” says Newman.

Read my interview with Carl Newman after the video. We get to the bottom of his creative process, but we also talk about Infinite Jest, his obsession with 10cc, and why lyrics are such a punishing part of his songwriting process. And course, we talk about the role that turn signals and windshield wipers play in his creative process.

Matador Records, Indie Rock, Indie, Power PopBen OpipariFebruary 6, 2015Comment

Cory Branan

Next time you pass through a food court at your local mall, look around for the guy in the video below. He's probably got his head down, scrawling on a piece of paper or maybe even a sketch pad. He likes the energy of the people there, as long as it doesn't distract him. Don't be surprised if it's Cory Branan; after all, the food court at the Oak Court Mall in Memphis is where he wrote his first two albums.

Rolling Stone named Branan one of the "10 New Artists You Need to Know in 2014" for his terrific new release The No Hit Wonder on Bloodshot Records. Branan's music has been described by critics as a mixture of country, punk, and rock n roll. But he's also a fantastic storyteller who takes great care to craft his lyrics. He's one of the few songwriters I've interviewed who starts with the lyrics rather than the music, and by his own admission his process involves "tons of overwriting coupled with merciless editing." What's important to Branan more than the content of the words is the cadence and the rhythm of the lyrics. It's something he's always thinking about: in fact, the voice memo on his phone is so filled with lines and lyrics that he can no longer use it to play music at parties. If he does, and it's on shuffle, you're liable to hear a voice memo of Cory reciting song ideas in between songs.

Bloodshot Records, Alt Country, Folk Rock, RockBen OpipariJanuary 26, 2015Comment

Kevn Kinney, Drivin' N Cryin'

It is a testament to Kevn Kinney's stature among songwriters that other artists like Matt Nathanson and David Bazan tweeted their enthusiasm when I announced that Kinney would be featured here. Kinney has fronted Drivin' N Cryin' for close to 30 years now, and I've been a fan for most of those years. Kinney is a native of Milwaukee but the band started in Atlanta, so naturally they've been pegged as a Southern rock band, whatever THAT designation is. I prefer to see them as a rock band, plain and simple, with early staples like "Fly Me Courageous," "Honeysuckle Blue," and "Can't Promise You the World." The band is still active in both recording and touring, releasing one LP and four EPs since 2009.

Influencers, Alt Country, Rock, Hard Rock, Americana, Southern RockBen OpipariJanuary 18, 2015kevin kinney, kevn kinney, drivin n cryin, singer songwriter, Americana Comments

Jim Kerr, Simple Minds

I've been fortunate to interview songwriters who achieved considerable success in the 1980s and beyond: Chris Difford (Squeeze), Neil Finn (Crowded House), Cy Curnin (The Fixx), Andy McCluskey (OMD). I figure all are worth listening to when they discuss the work ethic of the songwriter. That's the one common element of their songwriting process: they write all the time. The idea of waiting for the muse is a foreign concept, because writing is something you have to work at.

New Wave, Post Punk, 1980sBen OpipariDecember 18, 2014Comment

Rhett Miller, Old 97's

I started this site in 2010 as a way to give a voice to songwriters in the same way that interviewers give poets and prose writers. I wanted to treat songwriters as writers and to have an intelligent discussion about the writing process. A Paris Review of songwriting interviews. Rhett Miller of the Old 97's fulfilled that mission for me perhaps better than any other. But that's because he sees himself as a writer, not because I treated him as one. There are a few times during our conversation when Miller reveals himself as a songwriter when he discusses guitars and chord progressions, but for the most part Miller could just as well be a poet or a short story writer. Of course, Miller is both of those: he's written poems and essays and short stories.

Alt Country, Rock, ATO Records, Bloodshot Records, New West RecordsBen OpipariNovember 5, 2014old 97s, rhett miller, alt country, Americana Comments

Richard On, O.A.R.

Richard On, guitarist and songwriter for O.A.R, is a working man. He's up before sunrise to work out. He hears melodies all day that he's constantly recording to his phone. And he does most of his best writing at night, after he's put the kids to bed and is finally able to relax with his wife. Heck, even when he sleeps he's still working: he wrote the riff to one of their songs after getting up in the middle of the nigh. On recorded it, then went back to sleep. It was only when he saw the timestamp on the recording later that he remembered what he'd done. Of course, all this hard work can be undone by the tiny fingers of his children, as you'll read.

Pop, RockBen OpipariOctober 20, 2014oar Comments

Tom Keifer, Cinderella

For almost thirty years, Tom Keifer has had seeds rolling around in his head. All day long. They never stop. But Keifer wants it no other way.

Keifer achieved tremendous success as the frontman for the 80s hard rock band Cinderella, selling over 20 million albums worldwide. Throughout his career, Keifer's creative process has involved the sifting of these "seeds," as he calls them. These seeds take the form of melodies and lines that he's always juggling in his mind. Those that he forgets are probably not meant to be anyway, he figures. But those seeds that stick around for weeks or even months are probably, in Keifer's view, meant to be songs. It's not surprising, then, that Keifer's songwriting process always starts with the lyrics. The guitar hooks, he says, are "the easy part." He can write those all day long.

Rock, Metal, Hard Rock, 1980sBen OpipariOctober 13, 2014metal, hair metal, 80s metal, 80s, cinderella, tom keiferComment

Mark Morton, Lamb of God

This site is woefully short of interviews with metal songwriters. I've been a Lamb of God fan for a while, but it was only recently that I watched the 2014 documentary about the band "As the Palaces Burn." No less a metal god than Slash calls them one of the biggest metal acts in the world in the trailer (below). I was impressed by the introspection and thoughtful responses in the band member interviews, so I figured that Mark Morton, guitarist and songwriter for the band, would make a fantastic interview. And boy was I right.

Hard Rock, Metal, Rock, InfluencersBen OpipariSeptember 4, 2014lamb of god, mark morton, randy blythe, metal Comments

Jay Gonzalez, Drive-By Truckers

Jay Gonzalez: Drive-By Trucker, Bay City Roller. Sure, Gonzalez is guitarist and keyboard player for the Truckers. But his solo stuff sounds nothing like his Truckers work. Gonzalez is an unabashed fan of 70s power pop, bands like The Sweet and The Bay City Rollers. In his own words, "I possess the attention span of a goldfish. I’m a sucker for short pop songs filled with hooks and devoid of filler." The defining element of 70s power pop is the melody. It reigns supreme. Lyrics exist merely to enhance the melody, not to tell a story. According to Gonzalez, "I think the ideal situation is to have a song that if it were an instrumental or if it were a Muzak song, you would recognize the melody. It’s strong enough to stand on its own without the lyrics."

Alt Country, Southern Rock, Americana, Pop, ATO Records, New West Records, Lost Highway RecordsBen OpipariJune 19, 2014bitter suite, cooley, drive by truckers, jay gonzalez, patterson Comment

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