And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan

Today's guest is a musician's musician who co-founded The National, the Grammy-winning band behind Boxer, High Violet and Sleep Well Beast.
He co-wrote and produced Taylor Swift's folklore and evermore, including cardigan and willow. folklore won Album of the Year at the Grammys.
He worked on The Tortured Poets Department and produced Ed Sheeran's Subtract.
He's behind Gracie Abrams' I Love You, I'm Sorry and Noah Kahan's Porch Light.
In the last year alone, he's made records with Mumford & Sons, Florence + the Machine, Brandi Carlile, Sam Barber, Kevin Morby and Suki Waterhouse.
He's one half of Big Red Machine with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon.
And he built Long Pond, the Hudson Valley studio where many of these songs were made.

And The Writer Is... Aaron Dessner!

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0:00 Intro
1:00 Cardigan, willow, Porch Light — and eight albums in a year
5:26 Why "I Love You, I'm Sorry" was never the single
7:27 Secretly rooting for the weird song
8:17 When a pop star needs a single right now
10:25 Don't fill the space: how he walks into a session
12:12 Long Pond and "you never make a mistake investing in your creativity"
17:24 Twin brothers and their dad's jazz drums
22:48 "We faked it": how The National got signed
26:48 Playing to no one — then 500 strangers in Michigan
30:05 "Did you lose yourself?"
33:14 When one bandmate starts writing hits for other people
35:38 On stage with Taylor: "You're playing a stadium. It's okay."
37:27 "Hey, it's Taylor": the text in 2020
40:34 The Dropbox folder — and cardigan by 3 a.m.
47:45 The thank-you note that became willow
51:49 Meeting Gracie Abrams — and 2–3 songs a day
57:47 How an instrumentalist became the storyteller's whisperer
1:01:11 Why his albums don't get shelved: finishing Prizefighter
1:04:23 Studio stories: Gracie, Brandi Carlile, Florence, Sam Barber
1:11:40 Noah Kahan arrives burnt out — and Porch Light
1:15:41 Live Q&A: finding the corners, his first key change
1:18:24 Advice for musicians with day jobs
1:20:07 What all the greats have in common

Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's guest is a Grammy-winning songwriter, bandleader and activist who has spent four decades inside the most famous name in reggae — but whose real story isn't the inheritance. It's the set of rules underneath it, the ones the family actually lives by, which turn out to have almost nothing to do with music.

And The Writer Is... Ziggy Marley!

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Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.

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Chapters:
0:00 He inherited a legacy and built a voice of his own
0:45 Why reggae heals
4:53 What makes the Marley family so consistent
6:43 Seven kids, and the family business that isn't music
8:36 Why the whole album is tuned to 432
12:32 The one song he left at 440
16:06 What makes this album different from the other fifteen
18:11 Finishing the songs before going into the studio
20:37 Why he wrote "Many Mourn For Bob" 45 years later
24:54 Umbrella or shadow: being a Marley
26:39 The funeral, and the drive to Nine Miles
30:54 NMPA + Splice
33:15 Breaking the four-bar on "Racism"
36:03 "It sounds light, but it's heavy underneath"
38:37 What "Beach in Hawaii" is actually about
43:37 How he found out "Tomorrow People" was a hit
46:14 The Melody Makers, and the line you don't cross
49:15 "Create your own space"
53:45 Advice to the next Marleys
55:27 "You can't just ChatGPT life experience"
59:12 "When the fridge was empty, I was happy"
1:00:26 "I know my value"
1:03:07 "It's always new. Still a kid."

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 an artist and songwriter whose career has taken him from teenage YouTube covers to working with Beyoncé, Tyler, The Creator, Brockhampton, Miley Cyrus and Jack Antonoff.

But this conversation is really about something bigger: How to build a career in music without losing yourself along the way.

Ryan talks about learning to trust his own taste, being grateful he never had a hit record, protecting what makes an artist special, and refusing to let success, algorithms or other people's expectations define him.

We also get into Boy in Jeans, Brockhampton, Tyler the Creator's unexpected DM, writing four songs on Cowboy Carter, the making of "Bruises Off the Peach," and his new album Sweet Fortune.

And The Writer Is... Ryan Beatty!

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A special thank you to our sponsors:

NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association
Splice — the best sample library on the market. Period.

Chapters

0:00 Intro
1:36 The Greek, Hollywood Bowl & Pokémon evolutions
3:08 Being made fun of for singing
4:09 “I refuse to continue just being one thing”
8:32 Why being hard to define is freedom
9:52 How Ryan approaches a songwriting session
11:52 Teach people how to treat you
13:43 “I’m grateful I’ve never had a hit record”
14:12 What success feels like vs. what it looks like
20:08 “I didn’t feel smart enough to be a songwriter”
20:55 Boy in Jeans — finding his voice as a songwriter
26:42 Jack Antonoff and an unexpected Broadway placement
27:30 NMPA + Splice
29:19 His advice for artists going viral
31:55 The moment he decided to do it his way
34:06 Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract & finding confidence
37:05 Why Ryan never pitches songs
40:43 Tyler, The Creator’s unexpected DM
42:35 Dreaming of David, touring & burnout
44:52 Making “Bruises Off the Peach”
48:17 Finding his actual singing voice
50:30 Cowboy Carter — four songs, told nobody
54:30 Making Sweet Fortune & chasing timelessness
57:32 How he wants listeners to see themselves in his songs
59:36 Amy Allen, Clairo & making the studio a place of joy
1:04:25 “Doing this is scary for me”

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.

Today's guest is the drummer who took punk out of the garage, put it on your radio, then on MTV, then on your body. But his real story isn't the discography. It's what he did with everything that was supposed to end him.

From a four-piece kit in Fontana to the center of the album cover, Travis carries three things simultaneously that most musicians never figure out how to hold at once: the craft of writing a drum part as a hook — singing it in his head before his hands ever get there; the conviction that no genre gets to own him, and no one else gets to write his ending; and the contrarian edge to ban Auto-Tune, editing, and drum samples from his own studio at the exact moment the rest of the industry is sprinting toward machine-clean.

And The Writer Is... Travis Barker!

Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.

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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.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro
1:51 Why the documentary sat for nine years
3:18 The producers pitch an ending: "Can you just walk onto a plane?"
4:51 Survivor's guilt: "They wouldn't want me to sit here and not fly again"
6:33 "The doc was dead to me" — and living your life like it's a movie
9:41 "I don't make beats." "Now you do. I need it in two days."
12:23 Beastie Boys, Bad Brains, Buck Owens — refusing the box
15:28 The drums are a hook, not a timekeeper
15:54 "That's not music" — the teacher who wouldn't teach him rock
17:25 How he actually writes a part: "I sing it in my head"
18:21 Learning the whole blink-182 set in an hour
21:29 Trash men in Laguna, and one store that sold their tape
22:52 The untitled album, and the day the process changed
25:57 The lyrics he wrote: "We'll have Halloween on Christmas"
27:15 "I Miss You" — the loop he had to convince them to keep
28:07 "You have to put your ego away to be a drummer who's a songwriter"
35:46 The burn center: "How am I going to play drums?"
36:25 The hand he couldn't feel, and why he told no one
43:20 "Too heavy for blink" — Boxcar Racer, and Mark
56:30 "There was no therapy for what happened"
1:10:19 What drummers should actually practice
1:19:29 AI: "I hate it" — no Auto-Tune, no editing, no samples
1:31:20 "All the Small Things" — the day Tom told him to open the valve
1:33:33 "Where's all the hits?" — the note that made Rock Show and First Date
1:35:15 "One More Time": writing about your own band breaking up

Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.