Songwriters on Process

Nils Lofgren, Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band

When talking about his songwriting process, Nils Lofgren, guitarist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, espouses a view shared by successful long-form writers. To many of them, writer's block is merely a failure of courage: it happens when writers expect perfection whenever they put pen to paper.  They're afraid to write badly. But any good writer will tell you that you cannot be afraid to write badly, because writing badly makes you better.  Some writing is better than no writing, and with work you can turn bad writing into better writing.  If you wait for perfection, you won't get much accomplished.

Lofgren follows this precept in his own process.  He has two modes as a songwriter: amateur mode and professional mode.  The amateur mode comes first; it's when he writes ten or so what he calls "stupid, corny love songs" to prepare for the real songwriting. Because he can't get much writing done on the marathon Springsteen tours, this amateur mode helps him clear the cobwebs and shake off the rust.  After amateur mode, he enters professional mode to write in earnest for a new album, and by this time his skills are razor sharp and kink-free.

Though he's been a member of the E Street Band since 1984, Lofgren has been a solo artist for almost 40 years.  He fronted Grin in the early 1970s and was a member of Neil Young's Crazy Horse. After talking to Lofgren, I've concluded that his longevity is the result of two factors.  One, he's an artist, but he treats songwriting as a job, according it the proper discipline.  And two, while he's an artist and a songwriter, he's got enviable work/life balance.  If he's out in the studio recording and his wife Amy (a professional chef) calls him for dinner, it's time to eat.  He recognizes that his family life is one of the reasons he's still so prolific.

Nils Lofgren's new album Old School, his first album of original material in five years, is out now. Read my interview with Lofgren about his songwriting process after the video for "Too Many Miles." But I warn you: if you're looking for questions about the E Street Band, you can stop reading.  As a guitar legend and supremely talented songwriter, he deserves to be viewed through his own lens.

 

Toure

NOTE: When I first started this site, it was called Writers on Process, and I interviewed writers across the spectrum (not just songwriters, as I do now). Today, I return to my roots to interview Toure. For a list of my non-songwriter interviews, scroll down the left column.

Sure, Toure is everywhere.  He's a television host, a regular contributor to MSNBC, and was the first pop culture critic for CNN. He's written four books and writes for magazines and newspapers everywhere. His new book, Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness, is receiving considerable critical acclaim. And in the ultimate endorsement of his intelligence and clear-headed, rational thinking, he recently attracted the ire of Rush Limbaugh.

But nowhere is Toure more visible than on Twitter, where he is a reliably consistent poster.  Twitter is a part of his writing process; he told me that he uses it to "spark some idea and . . . unpack something further." He uses it in the invention phase of his process.  He told me, "I Tweeted something recently that I thought for sure people were going to attack me for, about how 9/11 nostalgia was weirding me out. And all these people agreed with me, and this gave me the courage to further unpack the idea.  I didn't realize other people were feeling that too.  But you have to use Twitter as an interactive media, not just as a passive audience relationship. If you do it that way, you won't come up with many original ideas." In other words, he sees Twitter as a place to hold a conversation, not just spew random thoughts.

Watch this interview with Toure as he talks about Twitter.  Then read my interview with him about his writing process.

 

Meshell Ndegeocello

What do John Bonham and Meshell Ndegeocello have in common?  They've both used hotel rooms for creative expression through some unique rearranging of the furniture. Ok, so there is a bit of a difference. Bonham and the rest of Led Zeppelin trashed their rooms in the name of hedonism. But Ndegeocello tastefully moves the furniture in her hotel room to reclaim the space as her own.  By doing so, she's able to create her ideal writing environment, an environment that often gets its best use at 3am. To craft her song lyrics, Ndegeocello draws on what she calls the constantly moving "image factory" in her mind.

The ten-time Grammy nominee has a new album, released November 8, called Weather.  She's on tour now supporting it. Ndegeocello's creative output is staggering in its excellence, and the critical acclaim throughout her career is universal in its praise. Read my interview with Ndegeocello after the video.

   

Chuck Ragan

Man would I love to take a look inside Chuck Ragan's piano bench.  Songwriting for Ragan is an intensely personal act, a type of therapy.  It's something he has to do, and he really doesn't care whether anyone sees or hears what he writes.  The last thing he's thinking of is turning a piece of writing into a song. That's why, according to his estimate, probably three quarters of the stuff he's written you'll never see.

And this is where the piano bench comes into play.  Ragan is always writing down ideas and thoughts everywhere he goes, usually on a notepad he stuffs in his back pocket. Then when he gets home, he opens up the bench and adds those scraps of paper to the growing pile already there.  Some of those scraps have been there for over five years. And that's where a lot of his song ideas originate.

Chuck Ragan's new album Covering Ground is out now on SideOneDummy Records, and he's touring behind it.  To read more about Ragan's songwriting process, read my interview after the video for "Nomad By Fate," a track off the new album.

 

Franz Nicolay

After reading this interview with Franz Nicolay, you'll want to do two things: brush up on your classic works of literature and practice your detective skills.  Because according to Nicolay, his songs are like puzzles: he fills them with literary references waiting to be discovered and word games waiting to be solved.  Nicolay is a voracious reader, so it comes as no surprise that his lyrics contain many references to works of literature, and he's constantly mining those works for a line or a reference he can stick in a song. Given the methodical nature and intensity with which he approaches his songwriting, the depth of his lyrics comes as no surprise.

Nicolay was the keyboard player for The Hold Steady from 2004 to 2010, and last year he released the solo album Luck and Courage. I interviewed Nicolay a couple of weeks ago one sunny day on the deck of his mother-in-law's house here in suburban DC. Read my interview with Franz Nicolay after the video.

 

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.

 

Kurt Vile

In his own words, Kurt Vile runs around like a "headless chicken" when he's on tour, so it's hard for him to write.  Given that he needs a clutter-free environment ("Open space and open air in my head," he says) this is hardly surprising.  Vile works best when he's away from all of his comfort zones, which explains why a trip to the countryside can often be a salve for any songwriting rut he might be in. Vile's new EP So Outta Reach comes out November 8.  The EP contains five songs recorded during the sessions for his latest LP Smoke Ring for My Halo.  Read my interview with Vile about his songwriting process after you watch the video for "Jesus Fever."

 

Eric Bachmann, Crooked Fingers and Archers of Loaf

Sure, Eric Bachmann is strong: he benches 240 lbs, according to his bio on the Merge Records site. But what I'm more impressed with is his mental strength.  The Archers of Loaf and Crooked Fingers frontman has been known to exist on a torrid two-week writing schedule, aided by lots of coffee and easy-to-prepare food: 40 hours of writing followed by 6 hours of sleep, then repeating this cycle for up to 14 days. And it's not like he's looking over a wonderful vista while he's writing, since his ideal writing environment is a small room with confining walls painted in a dark color.  But this desire for confinement is at odds with how Bachmann lives his life: he never stays in the same place for more than six months, always moving from place to place in his van. So while he's in Athens, Georgia now, he'll be gone by spring. This nomadic lifestyle is reflected in his creative process as well, because Bachmann never likes to stay too comfortable with the same method of creating songs.

Crooked Fingers has a new (and fantastic) album out called Breaks in the Armor that will be released October 11 on Merge Records. And they start a tour in mid Ocrober. Read my interview with Bachmann about his songwriting process after this trailer for the new album.

 

 

Matt Iwanusa, Caveman

Back in February, I got an email from Dylan Von Wagner of Linfinity.  I interviewed Von Wagner for this site a while ago and reviewed the band's album Martian's Bloom for the Washington Post.  His email carried a sense of urgency: You've gotta check out this new band Caveman, he wrote.  He told me how talented they were and that Matt Iwanusa, their songwriter, would be a good interview for this site.  I liked what I heard and filed that thought away.

The music blogosphere is littered with failed "the next big thing" or "these guys are gonna be huge" tags.  Most of these promises never pan out, of course, which is why I'll never say that.  But I will say this: Caveman are good.  Really good.  Their debut album CoCo Beware comes out September 13, and they are on tour now with The War on Drugs.  Read my interview with Matt Iwanusa after the video, where he talks about how both walking the streets of New York City and the video game Galaga influence his songwriting process.  Naturally, he talked to me while walking those streets.  

 

Craig Finn, The Hold Steady

The Hold Steady will begin writing material for their sixth album over the next few months. But Craig Finn, the band's lyricist, has probably been writing that material for a long time.  As any good writer knows, the key to become a good writer is daily practice, just like the key to being good at anything is practice.  So Finn makes a point to write every day in his journals.  Though he tries to write a song each day, a lot of what he writes is reflection: what he did that day, his thoughts on the movie he saw, or what he thinks about the book he just read. When he does write a song, he does what good writers do: he lets it sit for a while, untouched, then comes back to it later when he has a new perspective.

The Hold Steady just began a short tour, so check them out.  And read my interview with Craig Finn after the video to learn all about his songwriting process.