Posts in Bloodshot Records
Lydia Loveless
Lydia Loveless

Want to be in a Lydia Loveless song? It's easy: sit next to her at dinner. Well, don't sit at her table, because she might not listening to you. Instead, she's listening to the tables next to her for a line or two that she can put in a song. "It's a bad habit. I'm always eavesdropping on people. If I'm out to dinner, I'm always listening to the other tables and not paying attention to mine. I'm not even doing it consciously. But I get some great song ideas from those conversations," Loveless told me.

Loveless's songwriting process involves a few rituals. She journals every day, and she's been doing it ever since she was a young child, even though her first journal was nothing but lower case e's because that was the only letter she could write. Now that Loveless is an adult, there's one part of her process that cannot waver: she must use a Pilot Precise Extra Fine Pen with black ink. Any other pen "ruins the process," she said. 

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Country, Alt Country, Punk, Bloodshot RecordsBen Opipari Comment
Cory Branan
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.

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Bloodshot Records, Alt Country, Folk Rock, RockBen OpipariComment
Rhett Miller, Old 97's
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.  

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Alt Country, Rock, ATO Records, Bloodshot Records, New West RecordsBen Opipariold 97s, rhett miller, alt country, Americana Comments
Adam Turla, Murder By Death (2011)
Adam Turla, Murder By Death (2011)

If you go back to the first interview on this site back in June 2010, it was with Adam Turla of Murder By Death.  We talked backstage at Lincoln Hall in Chicago as he lay on a couch in the green room, the victim of a pinched nerve in his back (though you never would have known it a couple hours later watching him play).

I am an unabashed Murder By Death fan.  Turla writes some of the best lyrics around, and the band's music sounds like no one else (Turla describes them as "a rock and roll band with a little bit of country.  There’s a cello, a guy with a low voice, and some piano.  It’s music that can exist at any time. And we tell great stories.”).  I have enormous respect for the reverence with which he treats his creative process. Here's a look into that process after the video as he talks about writing for the upcoming album.

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Indie Rock, Indie Folk, Indie, Vagrant Records, Bloodshot RecordsBen Opipariadam turla, magpie, murder by death Comment
Brian Roberts, Ha Ha Tonka
Brian Roberts, Ha Ha Tonka

This is not an album review site, since I do that for the Washington Post.  I try to maintain some sense of objectivity when I write these short pieces before my interviews.  But for this, my second interview with Brian Roberts of Ha Ha Tonka, I am suspending that practice to say that Ha Ha Tonka is one of the best bands making music now.  Their new album,Death of a Decade (Bloodshot Records), only futher reinforces my opinion.  It's beautiful, it's soulful, it's energetic.  And the four-part harmonies from these guys from the Ozark mountain region are mesmerizing. Predictably, the reviews for Death of a Decade are overwhelmingly positive.   Their music has been described as indie, roots, alt-country, bluegrass, southern rock, among other label.  It's hard to pin down, but that's probably why they are so good: it's got all those influences.

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Bloodshot Records, Indie, Indie Folk, Indie RockBen Opiparibloodshot, brian roberts, death of a decade, ha ha tonka, lennon bone, mark twain, ozarkComment
Adam Turla, Murder By Death (2010)
Adam Turla, Murder By Death (2010)

We'll get the obvious out of the way.  Murder by Death is not a metal band. Not even close. In the words of songwriter/singer/guitarist Adam Turla, it's "a rock and roll band with a little bit of country.  There’s a cello, a guy with a low voice, and some piano.  It’s music that can exist at any time. And we tell great stories.”

There you have it.  Murder By Death—named after the 1976 Neil Simon movie—is a rock n’ roll band.  And a damn good one. Turla and his bandmates met at Indiana University.  A religious studies and English major, Turla has been obsessed with the craft of writing since his college days, when he started writing poetry.  A self-professed lover of the classics, Turla can dish about everyone from Hemingway to Gabriel Garcia Marquez with the best of ‘em.

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Bloodshot Records, Vagrant Records, Indie, Indie Folk, Indie RockBen Opipariadam turla, bloomington, cello, dagan thogerson, matt armstrong, mbd, murder by death, sarah balliet, turla, vagrant, vagrant recordsComment