Songwriters on Process

For George Clarke and Kerry McCoy of Deafheaven, it’s not the ritual of the process itself that’s important as much as the preparation before the process. Both use a meditative and repetitive activity to prepare their mind: for McCoy it’s surfing, and for Clarke it’s often running or driving.Clarke writes the lyrics for Deafheaven, while McCoy writes much of the music. For both men, it’s all about putting themselves in the best possible headspace to make something. Surfing is a big part of McCoy’s creative process; he tries to go every morning because it’s one of the few times in his life where he can purely be in the moment. “No watch, no phone,” he says. More than a few Deafheaven riffs have emerged from his time on the water. Clarke says that a workout—either the gym or running—is a good way to prepare, as is the drive to the LA studio in all its glorious monotony. Both also cite their manager Cathy Pellow’s strong cold brew coffee as an important part of the ritual. 

Walter Martin’s most efficient writing process involves not sitting down with the intent to create. Also: being hungover helps. Like most songwriters tell me—Britt Daniel of Spoon was the last one—Martin does not sit down to write a song. “When that happens, it comes out the wrong way. I start to sound too smart or like poet,” he says. Instead, he’s writing all the time by constantly observing his surroundings. Song ideas come to Martin throughout the day, like when he’s mowing the lawn, and that’s when he whips out the phone to record those ideas. So when he finally sits down to write, there’s a wealth of source material. Martin does find one state of mind to be especially productive: hungover. More than a few songwriters have told me that having a hangover is a great state of mind to write in. Most tell me that it’s because the pain gives them a sense of serenity. But Martin’s theory is pretty simple: the residual alcohol gives his head just enough looseness to spur his creativity. Walter Martin’s latest album The Bear is out March 23. Listen to our interview below!

Morgan Wade gets more done by 8am than you do. "The more active I am, the more energetic I feel. And that's when I get my best ideas," she told me.If you want to schedule a meeting with Wade,  do it early. I mean really early. She's usually up and ready to go by 5am. "I get emails from people who want to schedule meetings at 10am, and that is way too late for me. I'm thinking 8am is a much better time," she told me. In fact, on those rare occasions when she’s slept in until 8am, her day is ruined. (Trust me when I tell you how unique this is. To many songwriters I’ve interviewed, getting an early start to the day means 10am at best.)Wade's debut album Reckless is out now on Thirty Tiger Records.

For the uninitiated: Debbie Gibson is still the youngest female to write, produce, and perform a #1 single, with "Foolish Beat" at age 17. I think I was just learning how to make toast at that age. She wrote all the songs on her debut album Out of the Blue—at age 16. The album had four singles in the US top five and sold more than five million albums. Gibson's second album Electric Youth was the #1 album in the US for five weeks. It contains three singles in the top 20, including the #1 song "Lost in Your Eyes." With that song, Gibson came home from school, started playing the piano, and the song just poured out in real time. "I wrote it in ten minutes and never changed a note," she told me. "I have no idea where it came from."

Some artists create because they like the process and the product. They like what they do and they’re good at it, whether they’re amateurs or professionals.But other artists create because they need to create. They have to write songs. It’s a self-actualizing and at times even a survival instinct, a primal drive. Because of this, external forces like love or relationships or world upheaval aren’t always drivers. These artists create because they must create. And at times, it may not even be enjoyable. This is what I thought about after my interview with Julien Baker and Matt Nathanson. It struck me in the metaphors they use to describe lyric writing: words like “shitting” and “puking,” images of violent expulsion that can also bring a tremendous sense of relief—and that are intertwined with instinct and drive. But there’s also genuine anxiety, and at times fear, attached to the songwriting process for both artists.

No matter if she's writing great music or great books, Michelle Zauner goes by one credo: first thought, best thought. It's always garbage before the good stuff. "Raw source material is supposed to be crap,” Zauner says. “You have to allow yourself to be terrible," she told me. Zauner is the singer, songwriter, and founder of the band Japanese Breakfast. But she's also the author of the bestselling memoir Crying in H Mart, which ended up on many 2021 year-end "best of" lists and is also being made into a movie. 

Spoon's Britt Daniel finds that success as a songwriter comes when he's not trying to write songs. The less organization, the better. "When I try to write with intention, I come up empty," Daniel says. But if I'm not trying to do anything, I've been more successful. Trying to be organized can be a dead end." He told me that he likes to start writing without any direction. And Daniel often finds crowded bars and restaurants to be inspiring. Not only does he like the energy of the crowds, but he also uses what he hears and sees as source material. So if you happen to spot Daniel in a bar and he's scribbling away in a notebook, the man may be writing the next Spoon record!

Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches has an impressively organized songwriting process that involves spreadsheets, Pinterest boards, and a jar full of paper. For Mayberry, that organization involves writing every day. She has the jar to show for it, a jar full of cut out words and phrases that she collects for inspiration or future lyrical Ideas. She also keeps notebooks. "Writing is very therapeutic for me," Mayberry told me. Mayberry has a keen and precise take on her creative process. She doesn't write much on tour. "Sad, soft, worried me doesn't go on tour, but she's the one who writes better," Mayberry says. When she does write, it often helps to be doing something else, like riding public transportation, driving, and chopping vegetables. Yes, chopping vegetables. "It helps when the conscious brain and subconscious brain are doing different things. The hubbub is meditative," explains Mayberry. "The conscious mind checks out so that the subconscious can do the work."Mayberry's creative process is impressively organized. It involves spreadsheets organized by tabs with themes like horror, anger, and sadness. She's a big fan of Post-It Notes, and she loves hotel pens. Pinterest mood boards filled with images help her when she's stuck. 

For Mia Berrin of Pom Pom Squad, how a song looks is as important as how it sounds. And her latest album Death of a Cheerleader  looks and sounds red. Pom Pom Squad’s video for  “Head Cheerleader” is fantastic. (The song itself is amazing and one of my favorites of 2021.) It’s rife with colors, images, and symbols. But what Berrin did with the video is not surprising if you know her background: she first moved to New York to study acting at NYU. And while the video is awash in vivid colors, red stands out. That color played a big part of the songwriting process for Death of a Cheerleader. In fact, she surrounded herself with it during recording, “Lots of red velvet and red vinyl. I had red curtains and wore red gloves,” Berrin says. It was important for her to carve out a physical space during writing that “looked like the internal space of the record. And red is what I wanted the world of the record to look like.”Berrin cites John Waters and David Lynch as influences in the making of her videos, which she says are heavily stylized representations of the world.

For Yola, songwriting is all about the colliculus. And sometimes a good vacuum.There’s a common motion many songwriters make when telling me where their songs come from: they start grasping in the air, mere conduits pulling songs out of the ether. But if you ask Yola, she’d probably tap her head. “I have an obsessive neurological approach to songwriting,” she told me. The most important part of Yola’s process is her colliculus, a midbrain region. And that’s why this interview was part songwriting, part science lesson. “I farm out my work to my colliculi. It’s the part of the brain that takes things in from the periphery, like that billboard that you barely notice as you zoom by,” she said. Yola doesn’t want her songwriting process to be too analytical. “If I muscle something with my conscious mind, I might fabricate something based on issues I’m dealing with at the times," she told me. It’s why so many song ideas come to her when she’s doing something mundane like driving or vacuuming: she’s not thinking about songwriting. “It’s a state of being unconscious but extremely aware,” she said. Yola has been nominated for two GRAMMYs this year: one for Best Americana album (Stand for Myself) and the other for Best American Roots Song (“Diamond Studded Shoes.”)