I hope you’ve been enjoying the last few weeks of the Talkhouse feed as we’ve been throwing some new shows your way. If you haven’t checked out Summer Album/Winter Album yet, please do, and look out for new episodes of Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That, featuring my esteemed colleague Nick Dawson, in the coming months, too.

Today’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast features a pair of incredible songwriters in a lovely chat about the thing they love to do the most: make music. We’ve got Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith.

Tench, in case you don’t recognize the name, is a founding member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and a guy who helped shape rock music for decades with the distinctive sound and feel of his piano, organ, and much more. Tench made music with Petty from the time they were 11 years old until Petty’s death in 2017, but he’s also contributed to songs and albums by a dizzying array of other artists, too, from Roy Orbison to Fiona Apple to U2. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Tench is always playing music because he loves it so damn much. He recently released his second-ever solo album, The Melancholy Season, and it includes some playing from his friend Taylor Goldsmith. Check out the title track from The Melancholy Season right here.

Goldsmith is best known as the singer of the band Dawes, whose Laurel Canyon-inspired folk-rock has been caressing our ears for the past 15 years or so. Dawes has gone through some personnel changes in the past couple of years, paring back to Goldsmith and his brother Griffin and releasing a new album, the fittingly titled Oh Brother just last year. Both Goldsmith brothers were hit hard by the Los Angeles fires, losing their homes and the majority of their beloved instruments. But Goldsmith, as you’ll hear, is taking it in stride.

In this conversation, Tench and Goldsmith talk about, again, their love of music: Tench even recalls telling his daughter that he loves her more than he loves music—the highest compliment he can pay. Both of these guys are pretty recent fathers, too, which comes up. And of course they can’t get around talking about the genius of Tom Petty—and the accidental genius of Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell’s shirt. Listen and you’ll understand. Enjoy.

Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

2:24 – Start of the chat

Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!

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On the latest episode of this new Talkhouse Podcast spin-off series, host Nick Dawson sits

down with veteran actor, director, producer and writer Griffin Dunne, who is currently starring

in the family drama Ex-Husbands. Deviating from the usual, well-trodden interview path, the

two talk about uncertainty, mortality, the complex nature of grief, driving cross country at times

of great change, that time Griffin scared the living daylights out of Neil Simon, Nick’s idea for a

secret eighth day of the week, how Chekhov changed the course of Dunne’s life and career,

and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at

talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse

Podcast.

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Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

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Dylan Tupper Rupert is a music writer, podcast host, and producer in Los Angeles. You might know her as the host of KCRW's Lost Notes: Groupies, or as the producer fka Producer Dylan of Bandsplain.

This spring, her new show Music Person is coming to the Talkhouse Podcast Network—where she'll have in-depth conversations with musicians and brilliant people in the greater music ecosystem, and will sometimes maybe even go on an adventure.

So here's a sneak peek—Dylan's diary of her week in Austin for South By Southwest.

Tonight on Summer Album/Winter Album: Modern Vampires Of The City. Vampire Weekend. 2013. 

Our special guest: Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker.

Jody Avirgan is arguing Winter, Craig Finn is arguing Summer.

Craig won the coin toss. He is presenting first.

This episode was recorded live at the On Air Fest in Brooklyn.

Weigh in and find lots more on Instagram, and clips on our YouTube page.

Get in touch through our website.

Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

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In this bonus chat, Talkhouse host Josh Modell speaks with the guys behind the great new Summer Album/Winter Album podcast, Craig Finn and Jody Avirgan. After our conversation, stick around for an episode in which they vociferously debate whether Vampire Weekend’s classic Modern Vampires of the City belongs to warm or chilly weather.

Subscribe to Summer Album/Winter Album

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This week's episode of the Talkhouse Podcast came together by way of my colleague and friend Keenan Kush, who jokingly referred to the music of today’s guests as "Keenan-core." We’ve got a conversation between the duos Kit Sebastian and Pearl & The Oysters.

Kit Sebastian came together in London, but their musical (and even geographical) pedigrees are spread much wider. Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, now based in Turkey and France, play music that reflects their locations. Tropicalia and psychedelic pop flirt with an array of other influences to create something that sounds almost out of time. Their latest album New Internationale came out last year on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label, and it adds Azerbaijani and some funk to the mix. Check out the track “Faust” right here.

Pearl & The Oysters is also a duo with international roots, having moved from France over a decade ago to Florida, but ending up in Los Angeles. Jazz and Tropicalia also inform their indie pop, and they also ended up on a hip label run by another musician: In this case, Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw. Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack—sometimes known as Juju and Jojo—put out a great album last year called Planet Pearl. Check out “Side Quest” from that album right here.

In this wide-ranging conversation, these two duos talk about their geographic moves and sounds, analog vs. digital recording, favorite filmmakers, and how one cold email kickstarted Kit Sebastian. Enjoy.

Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

4:34 – Start of the chat

6:43 – On Influences

13:02 – On Creative Processes

19:27 – On Recording styles

29:09 – Why did Pearl & The Oysters leave France?

31:56 – The DIY scene in Gainsville, FL

36:51 – On Musical Communities

44:22 – The London scene

51:38 – How one cold email kickstarted Kit Sebastian

54:32 – On musical educators

59:21 – Finding your voice

1:03:34 – On cinema and their favorite filmmakers

1:12:28 – How to interact with your audience

Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Pearl & The Oysters and Kit Sebastian for chatting. If you like what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and arranged by Keenan Kush, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

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On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters with plenty in common, but who came up on opposite sides of the world: Sharon Van Etten and Nadia Reid.

Sharon Van Etten will be very familiar to Talkhouse listeners; we’ve been huge fans of her music from the very beginning, and have followed her—as many of you have—through her early days of more spare guitar songs to the fully fleshed-out music she’s been making in the past few years. Her latest album was Van Etten’s first to be written and recorded with a band, and that band has a name that it shares with her latest album: Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory. Working out songs with her band has resulted in a looser, somewhat more experimental Sharon Van Etten, but it’s still unmistakably her voice and vision, which is to say it’s fantastic. Check out "Idiot Box" from Sharon and the Attachment Theory's new record.

Today’s other guest, as you’ll hear, is a friend of Sharon’s from New Zealand, Nadia Reid. Reid has been making music for about a decade, and her latest album, called Enter Now Brightness, came out about a month ago—on the same date as Van Etten’s new record, as a matter of fact. Though Reid is from New Zealand, you might hear bits of what could be described as Americana on her records, which are overarchingly gentle, subdued, and deep. Enter Now Brightness was recorded while Reid was pregnant with her second child, and these two talk a fair bit about motherhood in today’s episode. Check out Nadia Reid’s “Changed/Unchained” from Enter Now Brightness right here.

In this chat, Van Etten and Reid talk about parenthood, including bringing your kids on tour—and Van Etten’s son makes a brief appearance as well. They also get into how your band is truly like family and who’s given them great advice over the years. Enjoy.

Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

1:59 – Start of the chat

4:07 – "I feel like the cards are stacked against [musicians]"

5:40 – On bonding with your touring band

8:37 – The making of Nadia Reid's 'Enter Now Brightness'

11:00 – Sharon Van Etten on good and bad days in the studio

12:47 – On writing "Seventeen"

14:49 – On parenthood

19:05 – Balancing kids and careers

22:25 – Bringing your kids on tour

25:09 – A special guest

26:28 – Who did you look up to (bands who brought their kids on tour)?

29:10 – "You're one of my heroes"

Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sharon Van Etten and Nadia Reid for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

On today's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got one of those episodes pairing an artist you’ve surely heard of, pun intended, with one you likely haven’t, but will. It’s Shirley Manson and Stephen McAll.

Manson is of course the singer for the long-running, Grammy-nominated, chart-topping, Bond-theme-performing band Garbage, which hit it big right out of the gate in the mid-1990s. Manson and her bandmates have assembled a varied catalog since, including the biting 2021 album No Gods, No Masters. As you’ll hear in this chat, Garbage is still going strong, working on a new record that goes in kind of a different direction than the last one. Manson has always been a great talker; she even hosted her own podcast for a few years called The Jump, on which she talked with other musicians about the song that provided their breakthrough. She’s a huge fan of music, so it’s no surprise that she was excited to chat with today’s other guest, Stephen McAll.

McAll, like Manson, is Scottish—that’s hard to miss—though he hasn’t been making music nearly as long. His debut album under the name Constant Follower came out in 2021 and was met with loads of critical acclaim in Scotland for his quiet, heartfelt, frequently intense songs—think Bon Iver or Low or even McCall’s favorite, Talk Talk. This week sees the release of the second proper Constant Follower album, called The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, another intense set that covers some of McAll’s intense personal journey, including addiction, fatherhood, and the violent attack he suffered that still affects his memory. Check out the song “Almost Time to Go” from The Smile You Send Out right here.

In this lively but deep conversation, Manson and McAll talk about that awful attack and how it led, eventually, to Constant Follower. They also talk about longevity in the music business, the creative process—including The Artist’s Way that’s become a frequent topic in Talkhouse chats—and lots more, including the time that Rivers Cuomo laughed in Manson’s face—in a helpful way. Enjoy.

Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

2:25 – Start of the chat

Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Shirley Manson and Stephen McAll for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!

Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

In this new spin-off series of the Talkhouse Podcast, host Nick Dawson introduces a new conversation format by setting out to ask questions that his guests have never been asked before in an interview. On the inaugural episode, he talks with Vera Drew, the writer-director-editor-star of The People’s Joker, one of the most acclaimed and talked-about films of 2024. In this wide-ranging chat, Vera and Nick talk about dreams, shoplifting, addiction, recovery, first love, self-love, self-care, polyamory, anxiety … as well as horny audiences, toxic yoga instructors and idyllic meetings with Elijah Wood and Lilly Wachowski. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

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Josh Modell sits down with Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury to preview the new season of Aquarium Drunkard's podcast, Transmissions.

Subscribe to Transmissions

Read more at Aquarium Drunkard

If you’re a regular Talkhouse Podcast listener you know that we most often feature musicians on the show, but we’re always happy when creative people in other fields share a chat, too—especially when they’ve had the kind of interesting careers that today’s two guests have.

Haley Joel Osment made a permanent mark on pop culture when he uttered the words “I see dead people” in 1999’s The Sixth Sense, made when he was just 10 years old. The line still reverberates today: Just listen to Kendrick Lamar’s "Not Like Us." Osment was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a psychic kid, and he has had a fruitful, relatively low-key acting career since—no scandals, no blockbusters, just a bunch of really interesting work. As you’ll hear in this podcast, he’s fully down to earth about his unusual journey—even ready to find a tiny bit of positivity in the recent L.A. fires, which completely destroyed both his and his parents’ house.

He’s chatting here with his actor-comedian friend Matt Walsh, who’s probably best known for playing Mike McLintock opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Veep. It was the perfect vehicle for Walsh, who made his name as an improv comedian in Chicago before his troupe, Upright Citizens Brigade, which also features Amy Poehler, took their show to New York. Walsh is one of those guys who brings the funny to every movie and TV part he’s in: If you don’t recognize his name, you’ll certainly recognize his face.

The reason these two came together today is that a movie they co-starred in is just coming out: It’s called Not An Artist, and it’s an ensemble comedy about a group of artists who gather at a mysterious retreat—organized by no less than The RZA—to decide whether they’re actually cut out to be artists. It’s available on demand now.

These two chat not only about that funny film, but also about Osment's experience with the L.A. fires, about Walsh’s Chicago background, weird Airbnbs, the magic of David Mamet’s dialogue and lots more. It’s a good one, enjoy.

Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

2:04 – Start of the chat

2:18 – Osment on evacuating during the 2025 LA Fires

13:00 – Walsh and Osment on making 'Not An Artist'

20:32 – Osment on early career and David Mamet 

28:19 – Walsh on UCB and early career

37:17 – Walsh on challenging himself as an actor

43:08 – Osment on working with Steven Spielberg

Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Haley Joel Osment and Matt Walsh for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and be sure to check out all the great stuff on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.

Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.