LSQ

“I just remember being fascinated by language, it felt like this treasure I was discovering,” says Arlo Parks, of her childhood affinity with words. “I remember being obsessed with the word ‘pebble,’ and the sense of different shapes. Maybe it’s because I learned French before English, so my approach to the English language was quite, like, seeking and grasping and understanding as I went along. But the dictionary, I remember being obsessed with it.” If you’ve been a fan of Arlo Parks’ music over the course of her three beautiful albums, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to learn that the British singer-songwriter has been obsessed with words since childhood. In episode 137, she shares more about her early life explorations of poetry and song craft, memories of hearing Otis Redding from the backseat of her father’s car, discovering Miles Davis and Prince in her uncle’s vinyl collection, downloading Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs onto her iPod, trying to play all of Elliott Smith’s XO on guitar, and eventually beginning to make her own music near the end of high school. We also discuss her approach to her wonderful new album, Ambiguous Desire, and how going out to dance clubs and DJ nights brought new inspiration. And I especially loved that Arlo came over to my little LA bungalow to do this interview in person! Get tickets for her upcoming shows here.

“I had never played a concert until I got a record deal with Sub Pop and they were like, ‘Well, you should consider going on tour,’" says Iron & Wine's Sam Beam. "I was like, ‘Oh shit.’ It’s a very atypical story, and it also made me suffer from a lot of imposter syndrome for a long time. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, that I had fooled someone along the way and they were gonna find out and the gig was gonna be up.” Some 24 years later, the gig is nowhere near up for Beam, who’s been releasing beautiful music as Iron & Wine ever since his 2002 Sub Pop Records debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle, and his latest, his 8th studio album Hen’s Teeth is another wonderful collection of music. It came out in late February and we talk about the making of the album in episode 135, and we also delve into his earlier creative history, how he began in visual arts (drawing and filmmaking) before getting his first four-track, and the inspiration he got from artists including Sebadoh, Cowboy Junkies, R.E.M., Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, among others. We also discuss a future project he’s excited to develop — a Broadway musical! You can hear more about that near the end of the interview. Iron & Wine will be playing shows in Hawaii later this month and then embarking on a full-scale North American tour in late April. Get tickets and further info here.

In episode 133, Sudan Archives's Brittney Parks shares the story of her creative evolution, beginning with falling in love with violin when she was in fourth grade (thanks to a school visit by Canadian fiddle group Barrage), how playing in church led to learning songs from the MTV countdown to impress her friends, and eventually learning how to make beats and record her own songs using her iPad. She also talks about the influence of artists including Ibeyi, Santigold, Lykke Li and Corinne Bailey Rae, and how she began releasing her music (under the moniker Sudan Moon) more than a decade ago. And of course we also delve into the making of her excellent latest album, The BPM, and how "driveway beef" with her LA neighbors led her to finish the project with family in Detroit, where the city's rich history of pioneering dance music helped coalesce some of her sonic ideas for the LP. Sudan Archives is currently on tour in the U.S.; get tickets here.

An all-time favorite artist sits for an all-time favorite interview! Bon Iver's Justin Vernon is my guest in this episode of the LSQ podcast — the final episode of 2025 and season 8 of the show. We recorded this at his home studio back in June, shortly after the release of Bon Iver’s brilliant latest album, SABLE, fABLE, which recently earned him another couple well-deserved Grammy nominations. I loved this conversation so much, and I’m so grateful to Justin for his openness in a talk that explores his entire history as a creative person and music maker. Justin and I go back a ways and have done shorter interviews over the years. But this gave us a chance to go super in-depth, and I loved hearing stories about his early life and definitive creative experiences — about listening to John Prine’s “Hello in There,” on his Discman in the back of his my parents’ minivan and realizing music was his calling, about discovering music he loved by Fugazi, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Dave Matthews Band, and Baaba Maal, about his dad driving him and his friends from Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Minneapolis to see Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden, about the deep camaraderie of his high school band with friends he still collaborates with today, and the vital growth that came from moving the band to Raleigh, North Carolina when he was in his twenties. Oh, and you’ve also gotta hear the story about Prince coming to a Gayngs show at First Avenue, and nearly joining the band onstage.

It was awesome to finally get to interview Neko Case, whose music (both on her own and with New Pornographers) I've admired for ages. In late September she released an awesome new album called Midnight Grey, Neon Green, and in the interview she shares about the inspiration for the album, which she describes as a tribute to music and musicians, and "a tribute to joy, and the joy that music makes you feel." We also explore her creative evolution, early band experiences, learning how to embrace her talents rather than being self-deprecating about them and how she approaches writing nowadays. She also shares a bit about the writing of her beautiful best-selling memoir, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, as well as talking about the music she's been crafting for a long in-the-works Thelma & Louise musical. You can subscribe to Neko's Substack here and get tickets for her shows here.

"I got the writing bug very early," says Suede's iconic frontman Brett Anderson. "I was fascinated by the simplicity of what was in front of me: You have six strings, and a limited number of notes, and 26 letters in the alphabet, and all of these things simultaneously mock you and inspire you. And it became a sort of an addiction for me quite early on, trying to search for that song, trying to reach for those chords, trying to write that album, and it still is. I still love it.”In the lead up to Suede’s excellent new album, Antidepressants, which the Guardian has hailed as a “late career triumph,” I had the pleasure of connecting over Zoom with Anderson for a conversation about his creative evolution. One of my favorite things about our interview was hearing him describe his passion for the process of writing and the fact that, even though it can be torturous, it’s ultimately so satisfying. He said that he resonates with the famous Dorothy Parker quote, “I hate writing, but I love having written.” And so we talked about writing throughout Anderson’s life: as a kid, when he first connected with his urge to put pen to paper and evoke notes from an instrument, the early days of Suede and moments when he first knew he had hit on something so powerful, and writing of the new album.

I can still remember being in high school in the early 90s and having my mind blown by seeing the video for Fishbone’s "Sunless Saturday" on MTV’s 120 Minutes and going to my local record store (R.I.P., Twisted Disque on Jamaica Ave) to get their album The Reality of My Surroundings, and then walking around Queens with it blasting in my headphones, mesmerized by the way they melded genres like ska, funk, punk, metal and more. Fishbone is one of the bands that showed me what was possible, as far as breaking down both genre and racial barriers in music. SO! When I learned that Fishbone were getting ready to release their first full-length album in almost 20 years, their awesome new LP Stockholm Syndrome and that they would be doing interviews, I knew I had to make it happen. It was a blast connecting with Angelo Moore, who is the only permanent member of Fishbone — the only one who has been in the band for its entire 40 year history, while others have left or joined or left and re-joined — for the conversation in episode 125. We talked about his earliest experiences with creativity — he started out pop-locking and street dancing in Hollywood before he started playing music. He wanted to get a keyboard but his dad insisted on saxophone, and thus the seeds for Fishbone were planted. Angelo talks about meeting his bandmates in eighth grade and schlepping on the bus more than two hours each way from where he lived in the Valley to band practice in South Central LA, working up to their first show at Madame Wong’s and eventually scoring a major label deal that turned out to be a mixed blessing. We also delve into the ups and downs of their career, what he remembers about early encounters with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beastie Boys, and what inspired Fishbone’s new album, which is a true return to form — the sound of a band that has never been afraid to be completely themselves, in all of their bright, brash, political, genre-melding glory. (You might start by listening to the Stockholm Syndrome single "Racist Piece of Shit" to get a sense of the album as a whole.) One caveat: You’ll notice that the audio sounds a little rough. The band had just begun a run of dates on Less Than Jake’s Summer Circus tour, and when Angelo joined our Zoom, he was on the road. Literally. He called while driving himself to soundcheck for a show in Florida. So it was a little more chaotic than the usual interview, with him attempting to navigate while answering my questions. You’ll also hear him stop for a pee break, mid-interview, which was hilarious. Fishbone are on the road through late August and you can get tickets here.

Ben Kweller’s music first stole my heart back in the early oughts when he released his wonderful debut album Sha Sha, and I have been a huge admirer of his work ever since. I’ve also had the good fortune of his friendship for more than twenty years, so it was amazing to finally get together with him for the LSQ podcast. Episode 123 features a deep and poignant conversation with BK about his entire creative history, including his excellent latest album, Cover The Mirrors, which was written in the wake of the tragic death of his teenage son Dorian. In addition to sharing how that tremendous loss ended up inspiring him to reconnect with making music in the innocent way he’d done as a kid, he details what those early creative years were like for him — writing Beatles-inspired love songs on the piano as a little kid, starting his band Radish after hearing Nirvana, hustling to get Radish their first shows at Chauncey’s Place, a local billiards hall in Greenville, Texas, eventually getting rides from his parents to Dallas to play shows there, recording Radish’s demos and the ensuing bidding war to sign them, and more. I was also fascinated to hear about his family connection to legendary guitarist Nils Lofgren of the E Street Band and Neil Young’s Crazy Horse (as well as being a brilliant artist in his own right), and how Lofgren provided key support at multiple points during Ben’s early days. And then we get into his moves toward stepping out on his own as an artist, including how support from the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando helped catalyze his solo career. Ben also reminisces about the heyday of the New York City indie scene he was part of in the oughts, and how allyship with bands like the Strokes and Moldy Peaches and Kings of Leon (although not from NYC, the Kings regular touring companions of Ben’s and honorary NYC scenesters) created a vital support system. On more recent topics, Ben reveals that Radish’s lost sophomore album, Discount Fireworks, which includes early versions of songs like “Wasted & Ready” and “Harriet’s Got A Song,” will finally be coming out via his own label, The Noise Company. He also talks about the work he’s been doing recently to collaborate with Jason Schwartzman (who is among the guests on Cover The Mirrors) to record new music for Schwartzman’s long-dormant band Coconut Records.

“There was always a way that music could speak to me,” says Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers. “I was really shy as a kid and I had a lot on my mind that I didn’t know how to get out. And music felt like one of those cheat codes where I felt like what I could say through one song was a lifetime worth of what was in my brain that I couldn’t say any other way.” I was instantly captivated by Youth Lagoon’s music when I first heard it more than a decade ago: Trevor Powers’ plaintive, childlike voice, the dreaminess and heady sonic textures of his music, the candor in his storytelling. In the years since the Boise, Idaho artist’s 2011 debut album, he has continually deepened his ability to make music that soothes and haunts at the same time. His latest album, Rarely Do I Dream, is his best yet, and one of my favorite LPs of 2025 so far. In the conversation in episode 121, Trevor talks about how discovering a trove of old home movies helped inspire the new album, and remind him of the importance of finding the true feeling at the center of a memory. He also discusses growing up hearing artists like Elvis and The Beach Boys and John Denver while being homeschooled, before finally being exposed to bands like Korn and the Offspring and Blink-182 when he eventually attended high school, and later discovering artists like My Bloody Valentine and Oingo Boingo thanks to his uncle introducing him to more cutting edge music. “There’s always something that’s coming in that’s changing not only my thought process, but there’s something internally that’s awakening my spirit in these new ways and pushing me in all these different directions,” he says. “There could be an endless amount of lifetimes and I can’t get it all out, what’s up here.”Trevor also shares why he decided to "kill off" the Youth Lagoon Project several years ago, and to instead record under his own name for awhile, and why he chose to resurrect the moniker back in 2022. Youth Lagoon is on tour in the U.S. until mid-May. Get more info here.

In episode 119, I catch up with Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller, the noise pop duo better known as Sleigh Bells. I have been a massive Sleigh Bells fan since their first few singles back in 2009 — brash, genre-defying bangers like “Crown on the Ground” and “Infinity Guitars” that sounded unlike anything else, combining elements of pop, metal, hardcore, hip-hop and punk. They’ve continued to blow my mind with the leaps they’ve made since then. The three of us are also old friends at this point, and though we’ve done shorter interviews in the past, it was great to finally get to ask them some of the classic LSQ podcast questions about all the shit they were into as kids. In this episode, Alexis talks about what she learned from her experience in a teen pop band, revelations she had at the punk and hardcore shows she frequented during her New Jersey youth, and learning to integrate the diverse parts of her musical voice. Derek describes falling in love with the soundtrack to La Bamba as a kid growing up in Florida, and then discovering 80s pop greats like Janet Jackson and Cyndi Lauper before venturing into alternative and hard rock (Nirvana, Silverchair) and then having his mind blown by ground-breaking artists such as Radiohead and Björk, and then eventually joining metal core band Poison The Well in his later teens. They also share the story of how they came together to form Sleigh Bells, and how their current approach builds on the foundational principles they established for the band more than fifteen years ago.Sleigh Bells’ new sixth studio album, Bunky Becky Birthday Boy, comes out this week and it’s stellar. Find out more (and get tickets for their upcoming tour) at: tornclean.com

On the heels of the announcement last week of a much anticipated new album by indie folk band The Head and the Heart, I’m excited to be able to share the following conversation with the band’s Matty Gervais. This is one of your first chances to hear more about their exceptional new collection of tunes, Aperture, the band’s sixth LP, which will be out on May 9th. There are already a few beautiful introductory singles online now, including the anthemic "Arrow" and the newly shared album opener, "After The Setting Sun." It was a pleasure to connect over zoom with Matty to talk about the making of Aperture and how it heralds a new chapter of freedom and collaboration for THATH. We also talk about some earlier THATH history, how they have benefited in more recent years from band therapy, and his own personal creative process for this new album. And of course we start by delving into Matty’s early life experiences with music, growing up in Seattle during the grunge explosion, falling in love with recording his songs using a boombox technique he heard Dave Grohl describe in an interview, playing in bands with his brother and eventually joining THATH more than a decade ago. You can pre-order or pre-save Aperture, and get tickets for their upcoming shows HERE!Preview:3:30 - 13:00 - Early life experiences with music, learning to play drums, growing up during grunge, going to Bumbershoot with his parents, getting into Posies, Fastbacks, Supersuckers, The Presidents of the United States of America and other local bands13:20 - 21:00 - Writing and recording his own songs using Dave Grohl’s boombox technique, developing his sound, playing in various bands leading up to joining THATH21:15 - 31:00 - Observing THATH as a fan, joining the band, adapting to their fame:31:00 - 34:00 - Band therapy and its benefits35:15 - 40:00 - Aperture, how it started and the writing and recording processes that arose from there40:30 - 49:00 - "Forest Bath": Walking through the woods writing melodies and lyrics; the inspiration for “After The Setting Sun”

I learned a new word during this interview you’re about to hear with ⁠Big Thief⁠’s ⁠Adrianne Lenker⁠ and the deeply under appreciated singer-songwriter ⁠Tucker Zimmerman⁠: Numinous. It means “having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.” Numinous. That’s how Tucker described the experience of recording the album ⁠Dance of Love,⁠ with Big Thief as his backing band, and the album’s producer. Released in October, Dance of Love is a collection of absolutely gorgeous folk tunes, written and amassed by Tucker over many, many years. It’s beauty derives not only from what is actually on the album, but also from the spirit behind it — of kindred creative souls finding each other, across generations, across international miles, to make something gentle and singular and true. About twelve minutes into the interview, Adrianne tells the story of how she first heard Tucker’s 1980 album ⁠Square Dance ⁠while getting a tattoo in Colorado. She was instantly mesmerized, and introduced his music to her Big Thief bandmates. They were all baffled that they’d never heard of him before, baffled that he wasn’t more well-known, in general. Now 83 years old, Tucker began releasing albums back in 1969, and there are so many treasures to be discovered in his extensive catalog since then. In addition to discussing the collaboration and how it happened, they each share how they first connected with their own creativity as a child, and I couldn’t help but notice how profoundly their current artistic approach carries the long reverberation of their first, naive awareness of their creative side. It was a joy to get these two back together (along with Tucker’s wife, Marie Claire, who has a cameo at the beginning) for a conversation I feel honored to have witnessed. Tucker will be on tour in early 2025. Get tickets ⁠here⁠. Adrianne's latest solo album, ⁠Bright Future⁠, is nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.