Switched on Pop - Lizzy McAlpine summons Nick Drake & Joni Mitchell

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Lizzy McAlpine opens up about her 4th album Angel alongside collaborators Mason Stoops and Taylor Mackall. Recorded live at Power Station at Berklee NYC.  Songs Discussed Lizzy McAlpine "Anybody's Fool" Lizzy McAlpine "A Car Wash and a New Pair of Pants" Nick Drake "One of These Things First" Lizzy McAlpine "Two Elevens" Adam Guettel "Through the Mountain" Lizzy McAlpine "Our Strange Ways" Joni Mitchell "Hejira" Lizzy McAlpine "Soldier of the Road" Lizzy McAlpine "Peach" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now. for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. Welcome to switch on pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I'm so overjoyed to be here with you all these wonderful students here at Berkeley and most of all with Lizzie McAlpine, Mason Stoops, Taylor Mackle. Thank you for being with us. Yay. It is a really wonderful day. We are about a week out from you releasing your fourth album, Angel. I have had the privilege of spending the last week living in it. It's been so wonderful. It has been in my ears everywhere. I've been in the city. And so I'm so excited to get to share about it today. So we're going to talk about the process of making it, which we've been through, and highlight a bunch of tracks from the album.

I want to begin with the song Anybody's Fool. Let me take a listen. Bombs overhead, streamers of light, driving your street, looking for life, looking for life, for you as you walk to hear i thought it feel different but it still felt hard oh wow it's some very powerful imagery to begin we've got bombs overhead do you mind setting the scene for us where are we what's going on i wrote this song on the fourth of july yeah so that's okay i was hoping it was fireworks yes yes are we like in new york city looking at over the skyline no i was in i was in l. i was in my house i had just gone to like a fourth of july party and it was like high up in the hills. And I was just thinking about my ex and how, you know, if we were still together, we probably would have been hanging out right now. And that was making me sad. And then I went

home and I wrote this song. And in the original voice memo, you can hear the fireworks in the background. Oh, really? Yeah, it's pretty cool. The holidays are the worst time to spend alone. Yeah, it was tough. There's sort of this like tongue twister of desire that goes on in the chorus here. Let's take a listen to it. Yeah. What is right? And I know that it's sad. What is it to not be? This is right, but it's hard to explain.

Want you to want me to want to change? What is it to not be anybody's full? I knew that this, that breakup was correct for me and my life journey. and at the same time it was really sad. Even through the sadness, it felt like I was finally like free. I was finding my independence again. A lot of themes of freedom and how it feels to be free.

Definitely. All throughout the album. Yeah. And this song specifically, we started the album process in January of 2025. And we were going to make the whole record in this story. studio that Mason was building in his backyard in Altadena, California, and we were in there for a day and a

half and then the fires happened. So we had to leave. And this song we recorded there during those, during that day and a half. And it's so, it's, I haven't listened to this, the recorded version of the song. And in a minute, because we've, you know, been playing it live for these little shows that we've been doing and we're playing it like kind of almost like how it would have been if we had actually produced it out but this the recorded version is just the demo that we made that day yeah it was unfinished it literally you can hear like the wind um knocking against the garage door it's really crazy i mean we can hear in the opening man i love how this song begins so this is this is the second song on on the record i believe and we can hear ambience and rustling at the very

The fire's about to start. Like the wind was crazy that day. Hey, let's listen to it. So crazy. And I just did one vocal pass. And we were like, yeah, we'll come back to this later. Yeah, we thought we'd have more time. Yeah.

I'm so sorry that you all went through that. Yeah, me too. It was crazy. It was not ideal. The last thing I grabbed out of the studio, the neighbor's house was on fire, and the one across the street was on fire, and the firemen that were there,

they basically told, you know, me, my brother, my dad, who were there to grab what we could. Like, you guys had, like, two minutes. I had to Sophie's choice on guitars, which is pretty awkward going back and seeing some of them because they know now. And it's like, you can't really take that back, you know? The relationship's different.

Do you name your guitars? No, thank God. That would be, yeah. Not anymore. Yeah. In so many ways, it's an amazing thing that happened to the record, not the fire itself, but what we got from it, the people we met because of it, the engineers that we work with now who are on tour with us, we wouldn't have met.

The album wouldn't have been the same because the album initially was going to be, I had a little fostex tape machine that I loved. and a $500 Mackey board that me and Jesse had hot rodded or mostly Jesse and I watched him. And the record was going to be so cool because it was just going to be the three of us in that little studio just really leaning into Lizzie's incredible guitar playing and Taylor's incredible piano playing and my incredible pushing the record button on the fostext. And that was going to be the record. And that was a really stressful day.

Lizzie and I got into a big argument. And, you know, the only reason that kick drum that's going there throughout was just so that there'd be tempo for us to play to on the tape machine. Because you can't, there's no click to turn on in the pro tools. Are you hearing like a tape machine begin at something? Yeah. Yeah. All this was to say the last thing I grabbed just out of like panic. I was so ready to like have all my friends like sign their names and get to know this new space.

And then it was like, here we are kind of saying goodbye to it. but the last thing, I was like, I got to have something to take from this place, and the song was that. So I grabbed the tape reel. And we tried, when we were back in the studio, we thought, okay, we should finish it. We should put like double Lizzie's vocal or, you know, whatever it would need. And everything we tried, it was like a ghost or something. We just couldn't make anything stick that made the song better. It's really special.

It's hard to listen to, but it's really special in its bareness. its intensity and like the lyrics and the storytelling that happens to go along with it. That's part of why I think we picked it in that moment because there's no soundproofing and the shaking and the wind. We'd started another song, which was, what, lighten the painting? And it wasn't working. So it was like, okay, we got to play into this theme of these winds and the chaos and the anxiety and like anybody's fool seemed like the right song for it.

So it's amazing to have that captured. really grateful that we have it and I'm grateful for everything that came from it. Now, it would have been cool for that not to have happened. That would have been really a better story in a lot of ways, but the album is defined by what we couldn't have done because of what, you know, we couldn't have controlled. So it's pretty special in that way. It's much bigger. I'm profound and meaningful than I had assumed. It's heavy and I appreciate you sharing about it because obviously I can't imagine having to listen to that day over and over again. I mean, I remember that day.

I wasn't in Los Angeles, but my friends were sending me pictures of that day. I remember those wins. When I had heard those sounds, I was like, oh, this is really interesting. You all, like, decided to leave these,

like, little artifacts in there. But it is, it is its own painting that you've created. I want to talk about the three of you. You all worked together on the last record, older and wiser. Clearly something magical happened in that record. I know,

you've talked about it at length about how that album took a minute to find itself. There was a lot of stripping it down to its most raw form is my understanding. And you all found something as a group. You've all decided to continue together for this album, Angel. Could you speak to why you wanted to keep this special trio

and what that contributed in this new album? When I was making older, I first, I started it with a completely different production team. And we got like almost done, I would say. And then I just felt like something was missing. And I wasn't really sure what it was. And so I made the decision to kind of find something else and find someone else to make it with and kind of redo it. I just knew that it wasn't right.

I didn't really know what I wanted. And then I went to the Ryan Beatty show at the Ford in L.A. and Mason and Taylor and the rest of the band was playing with him. And I was just blown away. I was like, wow, these musicians are incredible. I need them. Like, I need these people. I spent the whole concert just like thinking.

I was like, how can I get them to play on my record? Really, really easily. I mean, it was like somehow we were all available at the same time and everyone was like so down and we made older in like two weeks. Yeah. Which is crazy. But I guess we were very much like of the vibe of like we're going to make this like a band record. We wanted, we stripped it down.

We kept some of the stuff that I did with the original producers. But for the most part, we started over and found something that was so, I felt like it was so human and it felt like so real. And that's, I think, what I had been missing about the first version. And so when we were starting to think about this album, it was just very clear that like we would make it together again. And we kind of just wanted to start with the three of us and approach this record differently because the songs, the songs felt different. The first try where we wanted it to be on tape and stripped down, the universe said, nope. So when I got back from doing Broadway in New York, we just started with the three of us and added people when we needed. But we really wanted to keep it like the core of us because I feel like we found something really.

I want to hear from you and what are some of the sounds you feel like have from that experience on the third album coming to the fourth album What is progressed? What is what feels fresh and interesting happening this time around? I mean, it's got to be Lizzie's writing, right? Like it's changed so much and And getting to know each other over the last few years and seeing all of us grow as individual artists and players and And writers. But Lizzie and I like we were listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell and a lot of James Taylor and and just a lot of artists that, you know, kind of looking back at all the great composers that have come before and Lizzie just like took to it like the Bible.

She was just like, all right, let's learn every Joni tuning ever. And then she would learn these songs and then write her own from some of those similar shapes and just send it to the group chat. We'd be like, dang, there's another one, you know? So I think just the level of, of sorts, songwriting has just been so inspiring. And we got, I feel like when we worked on the deluxe for older, we got to see like what we could do with completely kind of fresh songs, right? But this was just a

whole other echelon for us to kind of bring in our individual voices as players and producers. We just had so much fun kind of sharing what came naturally and like having the trust with one another because we knew each other so well to just lean into what we do naturally. And like you're saying, there was a beautiful natural chemistry, and I feel like this record is a good example of it. Of the many songs that might capture that feeling, you talked about in the album release that you were inspired by the sort of 70s Laurel Canyon scene,

Joni, et cetera. I feel like we can really hear that on the song, a car wash and a new pair of pants. It's always sounds so good. Blind it by, hold it in your hands, see if you can take it. Get a car walk Oh, I love the specificity of these words.

You tell me a little bit about this metaphor. It's not really a metaphor. It's just my real life. I wrote this song about just feeling like someone only wanting to be close to you because of what you can give to them. And I wrote the song about my ex. And I just felt like every time we were like going to an event or something for me he was going to come with me, be my plus one.

He was like, oh, I have to like get it. I have to like get a new pair of pants. Like I need to get a car wash. Like I can't show up like that. And I'm like, but. That's very Los Angeles. But also like, I don't care. It's definitely not a metaphor.

It's just like a thing that happened to me. It's been interesting to write more about like my relationship to fame. Because it's weird. And meeting people, sometimes it's. very easy to tell when they only, like, want to be close to you because of, like, who you are. And so that was interesting to write about us. Right. Thank you, everyone for being here.

Let's hear a little bit more of that. Yeah. What are some of the lessons about having to be in the limelight that you've taken from this song? I feel like I've just gotten better at being able to tell when someone is being genuine and when someone isn't. But I feel like sometimes people slip through the cracks. Sometimes it's hard to tell and try to trust my gut with that kind of stuff. Also, I did take it as a metaphor only because I came back, I've been away from the city for a minute. My car was very dirty.

And I was like, should I get a car wash? I'm like, I don't have time. I hadn't listen to the song yet. And I literally did it. I was like, I got to go teach. I should like go get some new pants. And I'm not joking. And I went and I went and I could not find a pair of pants that fit.

Oh my God. And so I'm really glad I did not get that glow up because now I think I would feel very uncomfortable sitting here. Oh my gosh. You're wearing new pants. Well, these are good old ones. Wow, that's so funny. But let's talk about the sound. I mean, I love this sound.

It reminds me certainly of the world of Joni. It reminds me of a little bit of the album Brighter Later by Nick Drake. I love these sounds. Why did you want to evoke this place and this? this time. It wasn't really like a conscious thing. I think I was just listening to that a lot and it was seeping into my writing. I think that's just like what happens. I am so inspired by something that I listened to and then it just kind of creeps in to my writing. This song specifically though, I wrote this song and I was listening to a lot of Pink Moon by Nick Drake but I hadn't really like listened to

Brighter later yet and I wrote this song. I showed it to my friend and he was like oh this sounds like a a Nick Drake song. I was like, oh, God, which one? And he played it for me, and it's called one of these things first. And I was like, oh, so it's the same key. And the intro chord progression is the same. And I was like, oh, gosh, because I never heard that song before I wrote it. And so it felt like I, like, channeled something.

It felt like really kind of spiritual, honestly. And then we reached out to his estate. And my label was like, it's a little too close. And I was like, oh, okay. So I have two options. I could either change the key, which we couldn't have done at that point, scrapped it or like reached out. So I wrote them a letter and I was just like, I am so inspired by Nick Drake.

I think he was one of the greats. And they allowed us to credit him on that song. So now his name is next to mine, which is so crazy. But it's just like so special because he inspired a lot of, of this record and I was listening to him a lot. So it was really, it was really special. Let's listen to that for just a second. It's literally the same thing.

Isn't that crazy? Beautiful track. And then yeah, we tried to add, we added some thing that was close to that piano part at the, in the end of Car Wash. Yeah, the descending chromatic thing on like a little mini butterfly piano, I think. Oh, that was the butterfly piano.

Just like a really tiny piano. Get a car wash and a new pair of... You can kind of hear it. It's hidden, but... Once you get permission, you go all in. It was really... I feel so honored that, like, they said yes, and it was just cool to, like, almost pay homage to him in that way.

How does it feel to get to be in that extended universe? Really awesome. You can add so much meaning into a track by letting it be a part. of a larger web of music, acknowledging that all music descends from somewhere else. Yeah. Lizzie, too, more than anybody that I've worked with songwriting-wise, you're writing all of the time, so that's a lot, quantity-wise, but it's also a vehicle for, like, I don't know that it's like, it's exhaling. It's like, it's part of how you process what's happening in

your life. It's part of how you come to terms with things. It's like, it's, I've learned that it actually is like a necessary part of you existing as a person. So Lizzie's just writing all the time. There's no goal and there's no like, oh, you know what would be cool is if we did like a 70s kind of record or we should do that. So whatever she's listening to, whatever we're sending each other, she's going to write three or four songs at the end of the day probably or throughout the week. And it's just this flow state of songwriting and songs and the amount of stuff that doesn't end up on the record is overwhelming because there's so many, what's the one that I'm obsessed with that you refuse to.

It's called nobody. Oh, that song is so good. And nobody can hear it. Yeah. And so like in the case of this one, that's just like, we just loved that song. And it's coming out similar to a Nick Drake tune is almost like, that's like almost cooler in a way that like the like the monkey at the typewriter thing. Like you've written so many songs now that you accidentally wrote a Nick Drake.

song. And then like, so yeah, we're going to lean into that and double down on that and like make sure like they, they, that the estate like knows and it's cool with it. There's artists that we've worked with who are scared of like, oh, wait, but this is this in the same key? It's like other songs on the record. Is this the same tempo? It's like, man, like, if you lean in. Yeah. Just like. And get credit, then everything's fine. I'm really interested in this, the constant practice of writing. Why do you write and has it changed over the time? It feels like therapy, honestly. It's like how I, it's, it's my journal entries. It's really how I, like Mason said, how I process the world around me. I just have so many feelings that they need to come out somehow.

And I've just been writing for so long that this is like my form of therapy now. I also go to therapy, but then on top of therapy, I am writing songs. How do you protect time for it in your life? It just kind of happens. Even if I'm like, I don't have time. I don't have time. I'm not going to write a song. I'm in a dry spell and then suddenly a song will appear and it will just happen. Like I can't really force it and I can't predict when it's going to happen. It's just I feel a song brewing maybe for a couple days. I'm like I know a song's about to happen. And then one day I'm like, and it's here.

That's really it. Like I don't know. It's just kind of like a part of me. Are you a pet owner? Every six seconds. A pet owner. in the U.S. gets hit with a vet bill over $1,000. Always an unwelcome surprise.

That's where Fetch comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats, according to consumer advocate.org. You get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the U.S. in Canada, with claims paid back in as a little as two days. Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. Okay, so we've got this amazing

some 1970s references here, but we also have some really contemporary, very modern sounds as well. I'll listen to the song 2-11s. Super rich, high-fi, large production, and even like audible auto-tune artifacting that I find really curious

I want to hear about, but let's listen to the song. Sit on the couch and you held my face. Don't rim it feels to kick. You put a day. It's so pretty. I love the lovel or eight hours, man. We call it the woodpecker.

We call it the woodpecker. Would you tell me about this one? I was in New York, rehearsing for something, and my phone was in my bag. It was a couple hours. I went to check it on a break, and my house alarm was going off in L.A.

And I was like, oh, no, what's going on? And then I also had a text from my ex-boyfriend, And I was like, okay. And he was like, hey, is everything okay? And I was like, what? And it turns out my alarm company had called him because they still had his number, I guess, for some reason. This was like almost a year, a year plus out from our breakup. I was like, I should have changed that.

And then I just like started like reflecting on that relationship. And then I just felt really solid and that I had like given myself the closure that I needed. And I felt like I had no more like beef. with him. I was like, I feel really solid and I can see like from your perspective why this ended and why you did what you were doing afterwards. And like I understand from all perspectives and it's all good. And so I kind of wrote this song. Just being like we had, um, there was love once. Um, and that's really all that matters. Like we had a beautiful relationship that I think back on very fondly.

And it ended. And that's okay, because at least we had those moments together. And then you sent it to him. I did send it to him. Yes, and he liked it. So that's awesome. Crazy move on my part. But that's kind of like my vibe.

I don't know. I like to be messy sometimes. When we went to record this, we recorded the guitar and the vocal first. And we didn't really, like, have a direction. No plan. No plan at all. The guitar that we had recorded was feeling a little slow. So we were like, let's just speed it up a little bit.

We sped it up a couple BPM and then the vocal kind of got all like weird with it. And we were like, oh, we'll just replace it later. And then we added ham bone. Got to add the handbone. What is the handbone? Three, four. Liddy. Literally them doing.

I don't know how to. Lidtie. Okay. When you don't know what to put on a song. Yeah. Just do that. And so we put that on there. And then.

And then eventually, like, I don't really remember how the auto tune happened. I feel like the auto tune was kind of like maybe a joke at first. It definitely was a joke at first. We had like a celebratoryish dinner, which is in hindsight strange because the album wasn't done yet. No. And then, yeah, we all went out to dinner near the studio and like kind of celebrated, I guess, like, the album being almost. done which like fuck it take the winds while you can and then we came back and we decided to have auto tune karaoke auto tune karaoke so i made everyone who was not me um go into the booth and we put

hard auto tune on everyone's focus and everyone and everyone got to choose a song on the record and then we would they would sing it through with auto tune because we all know these songs so well by this working on it so i made my man i tried to it and shing out of wines of kianti the mukacchano Tarousie. And then it was like, all right, get in the booth. And Amelia did an incredible rendition of Peach. Of Peach. Taylor, you did a...

A song that didn't end up on the album. Oh, shoot. What did I do? Car Wash? Yep. I did Car Wash. And I still think about the way he sang one of the lines every time we do alive. I'm being so honest. Me or Taylor?

Oh, cool. Oh, really? The auto tune became just like a... Like, it's crazy. That plug-in. You could just ruin a song at any moment. for fun. Lizzie's in the other room.

She's kind of in a bad mood. Like, you know, would make it worse? Throw some auto tune on her vocal real quick. Or better. Yeah, it was just kind of like... It was so fun. I think, yeah, I was just, I was probably not having a great time in the booth.

And Omar, our engineer was like, let me just put some auto tune on this. Yeah, we'd surprise auto tune Lizzie just to see, maybe make her feel better. Maybe she'd hate us more. 50-50. But it was really fun. And I was having a great time. I was so surprised. I have to be honest, when I was first listening to the song, and again, I got

this record a few weeks before. anyone else to listen to it. I was very lucky. And the very first moment of the little auto tune artifacting where it jumps between notes, I was like, oh my God, I need to email them. But they didn't tune the song right. I mean, correct. But then I was like, but

Lizzie does not need tuning on her vocals. And then as you go deeper into the song, like more and more of it happens. And it reminded me of like, wait a minute, you all leave all of the artifacts of recording in your recording. Everything is very intentional. I don't think we would do anything that like wasn't was a mistake or we wouldn't leave it in there but also mistakes are always

usually good so yeah they're cooler like as soon if you take everything out then all you're left with is like almost just like what you started with like just an empty grid of of nothingness so like any humanness you can leave into the computer yeah uh is good write that down and with the the story of the song and what lizzie's singing about this this idea of like kind of like remembering something better than it was. I wanted the song to feel like a memory. And so I felt like the auto tune was lending itself to that because when you think back on a relationship,

you tend to romanticize it and think about the great parts and leave out the not so great parts. And autotune was accomplishing that storytelling piece. Just to be clear, so we had a track that was sped up, there was a vocal that was on it. Did you auto tune that vocal? You auto tune the one that had been sped up. So it was already weird.

Yes. You made it weird. Put a bunch of stuff on it. I feel like that's kind of a theme where we will put a scratch vocal down on a track and be like, we'll come back to this later. And then I try to come back to it later and I literally like cannot. It doesn't work. I'll try to re-record the vocal and I'm just like, this sucks.

And then we just end up with the scratch vocal as the main vocal that happened so many times on this record. Scratch is special. The inhibition of it all is special. Just the no pressure. I think when there's pressure on me, like the last week we were in the studio or, yeah, it was the last week we were in the studio and we were trying to like get all this stuff done and cram it all in. And I was so stressed even if I wasn't really like registering that that every time we would go to do a vocal, my throat was like tense. I like couldn't, I felt like I couldn't sing the way that I normally sing. And I was like, what is wrong with me? Like something's wrong with me. I think I need to go to the ENT or something. And. And I like, I felt like I couldn't, I felt like I couldn't sing the way that I'm normally sing. And I was like, I was like, like, I And I think it was just the pressure and the stress. So the scratch vocal is so chill because it's just like there's no pressure at all. It's like, yeah, we're going to redo it later.

But then we never do. Can we go from auto tune and imperfections to Broadway briefly? Sure. Because I really enjoyed watching some of your vlogging about your Broadway experience. And you have some behind the scenes footage of doing vocal warmups. And so you spend much of 2025 doing theater and, you were in Floyd Collins. You demonstrated a vocal that I had no idea was in you.

Obviously, it's always been there. Her musical theater voice when she does that. Is it okay if I play? Yes, please. We recorded the cast recording in this room. That's awesome. Here in Studio A at Power Station. Yeah, that's awesome.

This is Through the Mountain from Floyd Collins. You men go under, always scooting around and a running thing. That's always going around. Dick me talk. What's wrong? That's amazing. So that was recorded right here. That's so cool.

I was standing like right around there. Do you want to do it again right now? Nope. No, that's okay. Obviously, I think a lot of us know your voice as like the quietest. Like only can be heard when you're recording with a beautiful microphone and your head can's on. And you can hear like all the grain and whisperer in your voice. And obviously you belt as well in your own music.

But this was something I. I didn't know. And you did a lot of vocal lessons in the process of warming up to audition. I'm curious what performing on Broadway did for your voice and how that has carried into then going and recording a Lizzie record. So many good things. Doing a show eight times a week was so hard and challenging. And also like really worked the muscles of my voice, like just even physically.

And I feel like I came away from that experience. feeling so much stronger in my vocal abilities. And I feel like when I came back from that experience and we really started the record, I think you can definitely hear, like, there's a couple songs. Like, I have a friend I recorded right before I started rehearsals. And then like, like, the moon I recorded right after we did it.

Like, you can hear almost the difference if you listen closely. but I feel like it really gave me so much strength and new technique to pull from that I didn't have before or maybe I had it just I didn't know how to use it and singing that stuff eight times a week was like so fun and also like an exercise. It was it was like a workout for my voice. So in addition to what it did for your voice, I'm curious how just living and breathing that music every day even maybe informed you're going into the studio. I mean it definitely informed my writing. I wrote Soldier of the Road when I was about I wrote it backstage during tech rehearsal over country while I was in New York I wrote so many of the songs while I was there it was so inspiring because the music was very like full blue bluegrass with like a little bit of opera like what is that that's crazy the song actually is a lot more yeah yeah hearing that and singing that

every night was definitely inspiring to my writing and it was it's so Adam gettle his writing is so complex and like harmonically dense sometimes and like sometimes it doesn't really make sense you listen to it and you're like what is going on um and i was like wow i want to it just challenged me to like want to write more complex things speaking of complexity uh the song are strange ways is this like seven minute long epic on the album i hear a lot of themes about displacement being away from home as you were here in new york city you live in los angeles can we take a listen to that for a second yeah And I'm singing for a man who did me wrong. Nobody sings along.

I am free but lonely. I have nowhere to go. No commitments, no obligations. And no soul. Powerful. The vocal melody here, wandering. And it's so gorgeous. But this line, I am free but lonely.

I have nowhere to go. no commitments, no obligations, and no soul. Yeah. I cried the first time I heard that one. Wow. We speak to it. Well, I was listening to a lot of Hajira when I was writing this, this song specifically, but also this album.

I just was so inspired by the long, winding songs that, like, kind of just repeat the same chords over and over again, but the verses are different every time. And it was just, that was really inspiring to me. So I wrote this song while we were on tour in Europe. I wrote this song, like, about imagining. an alternate reality. So like the first verse is this reality. And then when it switches to like somewhere in a greyhound station, I'm singing for change.

I'm like imagining a world where this person is not in my life. And I'm not, I'm not who I am. I'm just like busking at the bus station. And I have no people who are singing along to my songs. And I'm free but lonely. I have nowhere to go. no commitments, no obligations, and no soul. I was just imagining like a world without this person that I was writing about.

I want to go through a little tour of this song. Someone's playing piano far away, so instead we have these sort of degraded old guitars that eventually come into the chorus, which is very, very crisp in contrast. Tenor ukulele. A world without you is not one. It's not one I want to know I want to hold

It is so sad And then in the second verse We go into a forest With like bird sounds That's our woodpecker You live in the forest With your guitars And your lover

What is the woodpecker? That's just A. Brown's woodblock You know when he did that on 2-11s We're like, dude, we're going to need that in the forest So I don't mind And then this song makes this wild modulation. Sounds like you're slowing down the tape maybe. I can hear this sort of dreamy quality in your voice as it's like dropped down.

Two steps. It's wild. And then at the end we have what is, I assume, a voice note memo. Yep. Watch the sun coming through. Open up. You say. So this is like Christopher Nolan.

is the Odyssey, you do have to go to experience the full thing in IMAX. But I'd like to hear a little bit about these sonic landscapes that you were creating and the bold choice of making this epic long song. We just really wanted to make sure that each section had a different world because the song is so long that I didn't want it to feel like repetitive or boring ever because the chords are the same the whole way through. and the melody is wandering and free but also kind of the same in every section a little bit and we just wanted to really make sure that we were delineating each section that's why we like have the forest

in the second verse to really like bring it closer and then it opens up in the second chorus and then yeah butterflies what are butterflies I was Taylor with these ukulele like on to I'm picturing the two of you running around the studio picking on every instrument

I'd be like, what does this do? Swing up from vine to vine to finding instruments. Yeah. A little ace tone that creeps in before the second chorus. Belzuki is real important. What's the Belzuki? Here we go. Don't get him started.

I'm so glad you left. Thank you. What a great question. And I know we've all been wondering, but it's the original electric 12-string guitar, like the first one made by Dan Electro in the late 50s and early 60s. And Vincent Bell was a famous New York. session player who worked closely with Dan Electro and a bunch of what are now considered like

standard in the world of guitars. You know, he was kind of pioneering like the bass six or in this case, the electric 12 string. He wanted something that could emulate. He'd roll into a session with his collection of crazy instruments from around the world. And one was a bazuki, like a Greek instrument. And the Belzuki was Vincent Bell's. Like, oh, I want to be able to play an electric guitar. that kind of has the double-course string thing,

like a bazuki does, and so that he worked with Dan Electro. So it's basically like the prototype for the electric 12-string guitar, as we know it now, but it doesn't have that bright, jangly, Rick and Bacher, you know, the birds and the Beatles sound. It's much more film-scory and cinematic sounding, much more like wrecking crew and pet sounds,

like single note, and the strings are backwards from a normal 12-strel. enough differences about it. No one's used them in a long time. They don't play very good. They don't sound very good, but they sound cool. And I love finding anything that's, like, obsolete and, like, surprise, like, you're the main character now. And, like, get back in there.

Amazing, congratulations. You've passed your audition. Thank you. We are starting a guitar history podcast. I can go much deeper. Yes, right. Oh, my God. All right.

So, obviously, we've got to go back to the beginning. Doc Hoffman, Neil Fender, 19. 1838. Maybe there's some really cool guitar sounds. If we can pivot to, you mentioned a song you had written while you were on the road, it sounds like. You were writing Soldier of the Road. Yeah, I was in New York. I was doing Broadway.

So this is a collaboration you did with Fleet Foxes as well. Let's take a listen to it. Soldier of the road, I am trying to break free. Looking for a little love. Looking for a little early. I obviously want to talk about frontless banjo maybe. Oh, so close. So close.

Actually, yeah. I don't really know what, my old landlord, who's like this kind of guitar guru, he lives in a cave up in Griffith Park. But he still has his old house. His name is Georgie. And he's like my spiritual guide on guitars and what's actually cool. And he taught me so much, but his house is just full, it's a history of bizarre guitars. Of course, he doesn't live in the house because of the cave of it all, but he still has the house,

and I lived there for a few years. And this is just kind of what it's like. It's like one of those coats that you just kind of pull things out of. He was telling us about street food, which is where he goes out on his bike and then sees what food the grocery stores are throwing away, and that's like free food. Heck yeah, and then he makes a meal about that with all that at home. and he needed something and he reached behind the fridge to he was going to look for like a spatula, but he actually grabbed a guitar.

And he was like, oh, here, you take this. And it was this weird little tiny like 1920s or 30s. It's got anything homemade that someone, the dream that he taught me that I'm obsessed with now is symbolically what the guitar means to people and someone making one themselves in the 20s or 30s. It's like they wanted that sound. They think of country music on the radio. They think of their favorite singer-songwriters. They think of sitting next to a crush and playing them a song.

So like making your own guitar, like the desperation and the dream of like wanting to play something. It's just so romantic. And so he got me hooked on anybody's old homemade guitar. And whoever made this one was really bad at it. But it only had three strings and it had no friends. and there's this whole thing of if someone gives you a guitar, you shouldn't change the strings and you shouldn't change the tuning because it's like that. I mean, you know, you should tune it. Lean into what it is. And so here I am with this weird fretless three string guitar.

And then the next day we went to record this song and it just was like, huh, like this could be something. So it's these huge old strings, tiny little guitar and it's so dead and so bad at being itself and it sounded so cool on a microphone and Lizzie liked it. I think it was your idea. We should put that on Soldier. It sounded so cool. It just sounded so like old school, like Western. Yeah. It was so sick. And it felt so right for this song. And especially like once we put Robbins vocals on the track, it kind of opened up the whole song for us. And we were like, okay, we know what to do now. Thank you for indulging my guitar romance with Mason. I really appreciate this. But I want to to go into this sort of road warrior anthem you have made. I mean, it does, it definitely has the

feeling of like driving through the desert with the windows down in between two really distant tour dates. Will you tell me about the making of this, this track? Yeah, well, Taylor actually gave me the inspiration for the title. He, well, he gave me the title. I think you were on, on some tour. It was on a long tour. And Lizzie was checking in with us. And she was like, how's it going? I was like, man, I'm just a soldier of the road right now. And I was like, I'm writing that down. Inspiration comes everywhere. And I didn't, I like kept it in my notes for a long time.

And I was like, I don't know what to write with this. And then I was backstage at New York. And I think I was just like experiencing stability doing Broadway, like eight shows a week. It was just so nice to have one spot that you go to every day. And it's just, I loved that routine. And I was really, it made me reflect on how chaotic touring is. And so I pulled up that note that had the title in it. And I was like, let's, let's write this song finally. I was just writing and thinking about how like vicious this, the touring cycle is. Like I feel like so many, I see so many artists. They're just constantly touring. Like, when do you guys have a break? It's just nonstop. I'm like worried for their like health and mental health. And I'm like, are you guys okay? And the answer is probably no. Because I've been on the other side of it. it. Like, it's so tough. And I was just thinking, reflecting on that and really grateful that I wasn't

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Keep climbing with Delta Airlines, the official airline of the WNBA. You have a song which feels almost like a response song to Soldier of the Road. I think it's the next track. It's called Peach. And it's from the other perspective. It's from the perspective of the person who's not on the road. Mm-hmm.

Cutting a piece for dinner. You're playing in the band. Somewhere, the crowd is going wild in the stands. I stand in the kitchen one step closer to myself. Somewhere in Kentucky, a song for some... That's a really tense slow burner. I feel like the music behind you almost is like a ticking clock. of just like letting time go by.

I love how you connect these two people here where you have from fans going wild in the stands to standing in the kitchen. It's almost like I can see both sides of the scene or the stand connecting the two. Would you speak to the simple joy of cutting up a peach and what this is doing in our song?

I wrote this song like in between, like I just gone through a breakup and I just started seeing someone knew and we were about to leave for tour and I was in that in-between area where my ex had just moved out of my house and I was living there by myself for the first time since I moved in and so I was like really like lost I was like what do I even do by myself like I don't know and one day I was just kind of like I have free will like I can do whatever I want and I feel like I kind of forget that sometimes I get so locked in to like one routine or, you know, thing that I forget that there's like a whole other world out there that I can just kind of go and do whatever I want.

So I was like, I'm going to go and eat this peach before dinner because why not? And it was such a small moment, but it just really felt like so grounding. And I was like, wow, I have control over my own life and I am free and I can do whatever I want. And I was like starting to get back my independence that I felt like I had kind of lost in the relationship. And it was just a very profound moment that I really felt like I needed to write about. I want to let everybody hear the moment of profundity when it really hits. It's a lovely moment. Thank you.

I really wanted this song to feel like up until that bridge moment, the vocals just dry. I really wanted to feel intimate and like we were just there in the room together. And then as the bridge continues and that big note comes up, the reverb slowly like gets bigger. And then it like, you know, peaks at that high note and just feels like a breakthrough almost. It's like catharsis. This song, I love this song so much. We recorded the song using only pianos. There are some strings in there, but everything else is all piano.

Piano symphony. No guitars. Yeah, when Lizzie first played me the demo, especially with how simple and sincere and special. Also, like, so glad that your freedom moment was with the peach and not like Hot Fudge Sunday Pop-Tarts, because that wouldn't have sang as well. It's still like those NASCAR-shaped Fritos they did.

What? Just that like it's really musically convenient. It was a peach. Yeah. And the demo, you wrote it there, the piano at your house, and just something about the space that the song occupied and the story that Lizzie was telling. It was like, we should grow this song like from the source,

almost like a, it's like a, the song becomes like a dream that it had. Like, where the piano is like, in the, the, like, it's just Lizzie and the piano at her house, but the same way that we imagine, like, us playing at a show or imagine all these things, like the piano itself is imagining, and there's, like, a big bass hit here, and there's, like, these strings that come. Like, what would the piano dream for this song, too? And how do we grow that from the source of just Lizzie's piano at home? And so the idea of the piano symphony that starts just with, like, you and me doing the ding,

ding, dink on the, I was on the little, your tiny piano, you were on the grand. Lizzie was on the upright. We're all just playing at the same time. We just tracked it all the way through. And my piano had some tissue stuff between the hammers to make it sound worse. And that's like the kind of percussive brushy thing that comes in slamming the bottom of the grand piano. So there's just this boom, boom, and all the strings resonating. full expression of just a piano like a Dave Grusen score or something just like just this let's see

what this one piano can do or these three pianos can do it gets so big and dramatic like right when Lizzie's vocal explodes and the reverb and then like to me the the the best part is like when the song kind of wakes up there's one note did you play it someone play you might have played it on the on the mini piano it's like in the halfway through the outro it just like it just sucks away And it goes right back to Lizzie and just tiny and small. And it's like the piano woke up. It's just like, oh, it was crazy. What was that back there?

Yeah, what was that back there? It pops you out of the dream. The first time Lizzie played it for me, I kept hearing this as a sad song, and then it wasn't so much that I wasn't listening to the lyrics. I wasn't, but that's not the point. It just that there's such a sweet human, like the self-realization of it all that like a little is enough.

and so like instead of doing a whole world of like our crazy instruments and the Belzuki and whatever it was like just what can you get away with with the piano play the song yeah I also feel like

Soldier of the Road is the perfect halfway point of this record because the first half of the song feels more in line with the first half of the record which is like darker a little bit and more brooding and then the second half of Soldier of the Road or the outro

turns major and it feels like lighter and more sparkly and then the second half of the record kind of feels that way as well. March the shift, yeah. I think, yeah, it's, it felt like the perfect halfway point. Peach is the beginning of the second half. So it felt like appropriate. It's a wonderful moment of transformation. I'm, I'm a father of young children.

And like the number one act of defiance is to have a snack before dinner. You can't, you can't do that. And so you took this tiny act of defiance and turned into this magical moment. the transformation into the second half of the album. I'm curious about I asked you about why you write songs and maybe to close things out. I'm curious what has transformed for you in the process of making this work. So many things. I feel like I have really grown just as like a human through this whole process of making Angel.

It started with a breakup and it just like catapulted me into this season of growth and change. and discovering myself again, which was really healing. And yeah, I learned so much about myself. I feel like I got my light back through this whole process. Making this album and writing these songs was so cathartic and allowed me to process all of that stuff in real time. And also just the process of making this record was so much fun. Like we just had so much fun.

We were experimenting. We weren't tied down to anything, anything that we had in our mind before we came into the record, we were just like, let's just see what happens. And that was really fun and satisfying. I'm really proud of what we made. And yeah, it's like been the joy of my life so far

to make this album. Can we all thank Lizzie, Mason, and Taylor? Sponsored by Deep Grimmons. the leader in voice AI, so you can use voices like mine.