Stay ConnectedEvery week, we sit down with an acclaimed and venerable songwriter to intimately discuss what happens behind closed doors in the music industry. There are millions of singers, thousands of artists, and only 40 top songs per genre at a time… this podcast is about the people who make them. Produced by Joe London & Ross Golan in association with Big Deal Music & Mega House Music. And The Writer Is… ™
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Copyright: © And The Writer Is
Today's guest is an artist most people meet through the bit: the deadpan internet, the cowboy suit, the one-sided war he's been waging with Harry Styles for a year that Harry Styles knows nothing about.
So this is the other version of him. A kid in Pittsburgh with a borrowed mic and beats ripped off YouTube, broke and failing out of school, who gets a message that Mac Miller loves a song off his first EP — and uses those three days in LA to convince his parents to let him drop out.
It's also one of the more honest conversations we've had about what the industry's upgrades actually cost you. Not the version where getting signed is the happy ending — the version where the nice studio, the engineer recording your vocals, and the A&R in your ear slowly make music that isn't yours. Chuck Timely & The Hourglass is what's on the other side of that: a record about time, made by someone who spent years trying to get his own back. And the only person who ever told him not to make it was his mother.
And The Writer Is... Role Model!
A special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.
Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.
And @splice — the best sample library on the market. Period.
They are also maybe the only ethical ai-integrated sample library and they pay creators for using their work in the new Variations update and beyond.
Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:00 The year-long war with Harry Styles that Harry Styles knows nothing about
2:41 Mac Miller and Odd Future on Vine are why he finally said yes to TikTok
3:33 The message about "Stolen Car" that came while he was failing out of school
15:01 "Did you scrub the internet?" — "Yes. Because I was embarrassed."
16:13 "I was trying to impress a label. I just made shitty music."
24:16 A 16-year-old in Portland, Maine, and an EP made entirely over email
25:44 The labels start calling: "I was a sitting duck"
27:01 The studio trap — how nice rooms take the music out of your hands
28:01 The two EPs he's blocked out: "I don't remember making that music"
28:54 Why he won't pitch songs to other artists
31:06 The 80s synth album they made for two months and scrapped
34:33 The two rules: no synths, no drum machines
35:06 His mom: "There's country in it? Your fans are gonna hate that."
37:39 "Sally," written in the 30 minutes a session ran short
42:09 "But who is Chuck?" — inventing Chuck Timely
47:12 Ross defines a good song: "This will piss off a lot of people"
53:10 What he'd say to Mac Miller
54:44 "Look at That Woman" started as a joke — and why the loose ones win
56:27 The permission Kansas Anymore gave other songwriters
Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry .
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's guest wrote "The Climb." She also wrote "I Drive Your Truck," "Mine Would Be You," "Don't Think Jesus," and "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma." But her real story isn't the hits. It's the ten years before the first one, the five years after it when the phone stopped ringing, and what she figured out in between about how to actually last in this business.
From a dropped record deal and years as what she calls a washed-up artist nobody would write with, to Song of the Year, a Grammy nomination, and a run of hits she wrote while raising three kids under three. She carries three things at once that almost no writer figures out how to hold together: a working method she can actually teach, a conviction that this is a calling and not a job, and a refusal to write the safe version of anything.
And The Writer Is... Jessi Alexander!
Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.
Follow us on socials: @andthewriteris
A special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.
Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.
0:00 Intro
0:48 Her favorite non-songwriting songwriter trick
1:54 "How do you make unavailable country men emotional?"
5:33 The five songs on her Hall of Fame plaque
11:07 Pool halls and stick shifts: "that color is what I draw from"
12:42 The artist deal that fizzled — "I wasn't the artist type"
13:31 No man's land: "no one took me seriously, I was a washed-up artist"
14:01 The insane story behind writing The Climb: "just another damn day"
20:11 Bud Light, a guitar pull, and a British director
22:07 Being told The Climb would change her life "Sir, that doesnt happen to people like me"
28:08 Nashville still said No
30:38 Getting men to sing: long notes and the falsetto flip
31:44 "What part of their tool belt have they not used?"
34:32 The professor who told her to quit school
36:18 Her album, the mergers, and Redneck Woman
40:27 New mom: "they'll just put someone else in my spot"
45:30 Good mom or good at work — never both
46:16 2015 to 2020: "the water just turned off"
48:23 Advice for the writer whose phone stopped ringing
50:24 The song that rang every bell
57:21 Concept-first or melody-first: "I'm the director"
61:16 Songwriters own it. Screenwriters sell it.
64:16 Imposter syndrome and the Billy Strings answer
65:24 What makes Morgan Wallen great
69:46 "I don't like to not know where all the bodies are buried"
71:43 I Drive Your Truck (Crazy story)
74:37 Her granddad's truck in the driveway
75:44 "Call in the third. Call in the fourth. Call in the 10th."
76:46 No #1 party until they found him
80:36 The truck-song traffic jam they were worried sick about
85:38 "Keep your head down." Still the only answer.
Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's guest is a songwriter four albums deep, with a song that's been picking up new listeners for nine years and Mick Fleetwood playing on her latest record. But her real story isn't any of that.
From weekend stage camps in West London to opening Wembley for Taylor Swift five months after giving birth, she spent a decade releasing roughly one song a year into near silence. What kept her going wasn't a plan — it was a pair of collaborators who got nothing back for years and got up and made something every day anyway.
This is an honest conversation about what a long stretch of nobody listening actually feels like, and what happens when the proof finally shows up on a timeline you didn't choose.
And The Writer Is... Suki Waterhouse!
Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.
Follow us on socials: @andthewriteris
A special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.
Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.
And @splice — the best sample library on the market. Period.
They've developed a Sounds plugin that allows creators to actually get paid for derivatively generated work from their art, and they have paid out $100M+ to artists already since inception.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:46 How's being a parent and doing music?
1:18 "Being a parent is only hard for good parents"
2:49 "The girl with the guitar" — how her daughter describes her job
4:30 Test-driving album demos on a toddler in her "no" phase
12:44 Somewhere Over the Rainbow — and losing to the girl who sang All Saints
14:38 The voice teacher who told her she was too skinny to sing
15:58 "I was angry. I had this huge fire in me."
16:42 The friend group that turned on her: "fuck this school, fuck these people"
26:45 "You walk through open doors" — model, actor, musician
28:56 "Brutally," 2016, and ten years of making things nobody heard
31:01 Advice to a young female artist: learn to produce, even basically
32:56 "I went hunting for my fucking tribe. And I found them."
35:54 Amy Winehouse at the pub, The Libertines, and a London scene that's gone
38:12 Backstage at a Jake Bugg show — meeting Natalie and Jules at eighteen
39:23 "They got zero back for years and years and years"
42:45 Extreme ADHD, a giant sitar, and a fight over a song
46:26 December 7th: flying to London for a song that didn't exist yet
47:16 The pact: "if we're not writing something brilliant, we're not carrying it on"
47:28 The worst audition of her life, in the dark
48:09 A Wurlitzer, a Mellotron, and the song that opens the album
1:01:39 "Good Looking" — top ten on TikTok, written nine years ago
1:05:53 Covid, Daisy Jones, and deciding to just make the record
1:06:32 Every label said no except Sub Pop
1:08:40 "It's nothing about what happens in the first week"
1:10:16 "Dangerous Woman" and a song that gains meaning over time
1:11:38 Daisy Jones: "my name wasn't on the list and I was fucking pissed"
1:16:24 "You're more envious of the check than the song"
1:26:14 What makes a good song — Beck, Elliott Smith, and roughness
1:29:26 Red Rocks with no ear monitors: "I was in insane debt"
1:32:04 Opening for Taylor Swift at Wembley
1:34:17 Hayley Williams: "this one's for Mr. Waterhouse"
1:37:02 A baby in March, a record in September
1:39:44 "When everyone goes a bit red — that's when you keep it in the song"
1:40:35 What to play driving at night, heartbroken, walking through London
Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry .
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's guest is one of the great voices of his generation — the theater kid who auditioned for American Idol with Michael Jackson, watched the judges' faces fall, and demanded a second song because he'd just quit his job and had no health insurance. But his real story isn't the voice. It's the game — the one Freddie Mercury wrote about, the one that picks your singles, writes your headlines, and decides who you are before you do.
And The Writer Is... Adam Lambert!
In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:
The AMA kiss that blew up a $500,000 single launch — "everyone was going, oh shit"
Quitting Wicked — and losing his health insurance — to audition, then refusing the judges' no
Why Kara DioGuardi 'busted his balls all season'
What Brian May says "Play the Game" was really about
Signed before the finale even aired: why losing Idol never mattered
and much more.
Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.
Follow us on socials: @andthewriteris
A special thank you to our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association.
0:00 Intro
1:09 The album is out — why self-titled, "first name basis"
2:35 Meeting Pete Nappi through a pandemic song still in the vault
3:39 "Am I Okay" — written one week after the breakup
6:02 Singles made him "crazy" — the label picks that flopped: "I told you so"
7:04 Leaning into what fans expect vs. challenging them
8:16 Proud of the flops, indifferent to some hits
9:34 Theater kids: every album is a character, every record a world
11:28 The dystopian cover — "I want it blasted into the future"
13:55 Adam Lambert or Freddie Mercury? "I feel like it's me"
15:35 Coffee with Freddie — what Brian says "Play the Game" was really about
16:56 "The music industry is a big old game, isn't it?"
17:43 A college-DJ dad, a Sly Stone mom, and a kid screaming through the house
19:46 The Fiddler note where everybody went "oh, wow"
21:03 San Diego to LA at 19 — math knocked him off the college path
23:00 Weed, poetry, and GarageBand
25:49 Wicked: six months, burnt out, and a new plan
29:20 Inside the Idol machine — two camps, two agendas
32:49 The Burning Man epiphany that vanquished the fear
34:39 No job, no insurance, and judges who didn't get Rock With You
35:11 "I didn't really ask" — the second song that changed everything
36:22 Why Idol can't break artists anymore
38:04 Honey water: the whiskey story behind Kara DioGuardi's grudge
41:21 Justin Timberlake tells him to remake A Night at the Opera
42:06 Losing the finale — already signed before it aired
47:20 The blog photos drop: "Yeah, that's me. Get over it."
51:53 The AMA kiss and the $500,000 single
53:22 What Do You Want From Me — the P!nk demo
56:00 Singing uncredited on Avicii's "Lay Me Down"
59:03 "It takes a village — bring them with you"
60:26 Max Martin: "When you get on stage, I don't have to worry"
61:26 How Queen actually made the call
62:07 Trespassing hits #1 — a first he didn't know he'd made
62:48 The poster-child years: "the headline is that I'm gay, and no one's talking about the music"
66:11 Trespassing, the "bipolar album" — his half vs. the label's half
67:20 Two months with the Wolf Cousins — why his songs didn't make the cut
70:05 The Ghost Town gamble — "you've got to do something drastic"
72:44 Songs with no home — "throwing my ideas into space"
76:03 Velvet dies to Covid, two weeks in
76:52 A Telefunken, YouTube tutorials, and teaching himself Logic
77:51 The secret musical: 20 songs written over Zoom
82:45 Identity vs. brand — "the personality precedes the skill"
83:35 Songwriters don't get paid for their time — the union conversation
87:37 Giving his co-writers master points — "it's just classy, man"
88:28 Where the stage presence actually comes from
90:13 The hardest part of fame
93:06 "I nitpick the negative" — showing the uglier side for the first time
96:28 Is Ozempic killing LA nightlife?
Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Edited by Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry .
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's episode is a rewind to our conversation with Benny Blanco.
To hear the rest of this episode, join our Patreon, where you'll find our full library of archived episodes with legends like Babyface, Shania Twain, Sabrina Carpenter, Benny Blanco, and many more. Members also get access to our monthly Writers Room on Zoom, where we play your demos and answer your biggest industry questions.
We hope to see you there.
Thank you for listening to And The Writer Is.
And The Writer Is...
is presented by the National Music Publishers' Association
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's guest is the frontman of Bush, one of the defining voices of '90s alternative rock and the "feral," self-flagellating songwriter underneath them, who still claws through every blank page 30 years in and can't tell you how he does it.
From a broken home at 12 to painting dentists' offices after he'd already made 16 Stone, Gavin carries three things simultaneously that most rock legends never figure out how to hold at once: the craft of a lifelong student who still writes out scales to get better, the conviction to bet on analog human perspective in the age of AI, and the contrarian refusal to romanticize any of it — "it's a perpetual UFC octagon."
This is one of the more honest conversations about longevity, survival, and what it actually costs to keep creating after the era that made you has moved on — and buried some of the people who defined it. When the confidence and the insecurity are the same engine, who do you become?
And The Writer Is... Gavin Rossdale!
Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.
Follow us on socials: @andthewriteris
A special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.
Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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