Episodes
We're very happy to welcome Craig Thomas onto the podcast for the final episode of this season. Craig is a writer and producer perhaps best known as the co-creator of the comedy, How I Met Your Mother, but he's written lots of other things as well, including for David Letterman, American Dad and Oliver Beene. It was as a young writer living in New York City that Craig became a big Elliott Smith fan. And, in this interview, he shares a great story of hearing his song pick live during that...
Published 11/18/21
Our guest today is the musician and podcaster, Hrishikesh Hirway. Hrishikesh is the creator of the excellent Song Exploder podcast - where musicians dissect their songs and discuss how they were made - which has recently been made into a TV show by Netflix. He's also involved in other popular podcasts including West Wing Weekly, Home Cooking and Partners. But music is Hrishikesh's first love and he has been working as a musician on and off for the last 20 years or so. From 2002 to 2011, he...
Published 11/04/21
Today, we're joined by Elliott Smith's close friend and publicist, Dorien Garry. Although they had already known each other for a little while, the two cemented their friendship when Elliott moved to New York City in the late '90s and stayed for a while at Dorien's apartment. At this time, Dorien was also working at Girlie Action, the PR agency that represented Elliott. So, in this interview Dorien talks about their friendship, how it developed over the years and how another one of their...
Published 10/21/21
Joining us today is the musician, mehro. mehro is based in Los Angeles and has spent the 18 months or so of the pandemic amassing a huge following online. He hadn't released a song before February 2020 and has since put out a handful of singles as well as a debut album, SKY ON FIRE, which came out earlier on this year. He came to Elliott Smith's music relatively recently too, having been introduced to him by an engineer he was working with. He has since dived deep into his back catalogue...
Published 10/07/21
Joining us today is musician Johanna Samuels. Johanna is a singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles, who put her first full-length album, Excelsior, out earlier this year. She's also a huge Elliott Smith fan and recently appeared singing Elliott Smith's Single File on a Kill Rock Stars cover record. In this interview, she discusses that tribute show, connecting with a good friend of Elliotts and of course we discuss her favourite song pick, which is one we’ve never spoken about before....
Published 09/23/21
Our guest for this one is Steven Page. Steven is a musician, who is perhaps best known as the lead singer and a guitarist in the band Barenaked Ladies. He was one of the founding members of the group and was with them for just over 20 years until 2009, when he left to pursue other projects. Steven is now a solo artist and is soon heading out on a solo tour of North America.  He’s a big Elliott Smith fan too, of course, and joined us for this interview to talk about his song pick, his...
Published 09/09/21
Our guest today is the musician Matthew Caws.  Matthew is the lead singer and guitarist in the band Nada Surf, a band he formed in New York City in the early ‘90s with his friend, Daniel Lorca. In total, Nada Surf have put out nine studio albums, and their most recent, Never Not Together, came out in 2020. Nada Surf also had the pleasure of touring with Elliott Smith and the band Quasi in 1998, and in this interview we discuss Matthew’s memories of that tour, why he decided to turn down...
Published 08/26/21
Today, we're welcoming Phil Elverum onto the podcast. Phil has been releasing music for over 20 years now. First, through his band The Microphones and then under the name Mount Eerie - a project he started in 2003 and is still running today. Over the course of his career so far, Phil has put out more than 40 albums.  Phil discovered Elliott Smith’s music in the mid-'90s and even saw him play live a couple of times. He has lots of interesting perspectives to share - so hopefully you enjoy...
Published 08/12/21
Our guest today is the writer, Maggie Smith. Maggie is a poet and author based in Columbus, Ohio. She has published several collections of her poetry, including most recently Goldenrod, which came out in July 2021. After seeing her tweeting about Elliott Smith, I got in touch with Maggie to invite her on the podcast. We had a lovely chat about Elliott's music, her favourite song pick and why it might be a good choice to walk down the aisle to. Hope you enjoy listening to this...
Published 07/29/21
Our guest today is the musician Ed Harcourt.  Ed has released six studio albums - one of which was nominated for the mercury music prize - and has written songs for lots of other artists too, including the likes of Marianne Faithful, Paloma Faith and Sophie Ellis Bextor.  Ed also counts himself as a big Elliott Smith fan. And in this episode, he talks to Elizabeth Withstandley about his favourite song pick, Elliott Smith’s enduring influence on songwriters and we talk about an Elliott...
Published 07/15/21
Our guest today is the musician Rebecca Gates. Rebecca is based in Portland, Oregon and was one half of The Spinanes before she left to release music as a solo artist. The Spinanes were a firm fixture on the Portland music scene and it was there that she met Elliott Smith for the first time and established a friendship that would lead to her recording backing vocals on the song St Ides Heaven, which appears on his self-titled album. That makes Rebecca - as far as I understand - one of...
Published 07/01/21
Our guest for the opening episode of Season 4 is Mike Doughty.
Published 06/17/21
Musician Aaron Espinoza joins us for the final episode of season three.
Published 10/29/20
Our guest today is the musician, Charlene Kaye.
Published 10/15/20
Our guest today is the writer and poet, Catherynne M. Valente.
Published 10/01/20
Joining us today is musician, Jessica Dobson.
Published 09/17/20
Our guest is visual artist, Bunny Rogers.
Published 09/03/20
Released on what would have been Elliott Smith's 51st birthday, our guest today is musician, Steve Holmes.
Published 08/06/20
Here's a bonus episode with the photographer and music manager, JJ Gonson.
Published 07/23/20
In this episode, we’re taking a bit of a two pronged approach to the song we’re looking at.  First up, we have our main interview, which is with the musician Sammy Brue. Sammy is a musician based in Ogden, Utah, in the United States. Sammy released his first album at the age of just 16, and now at only 18 he’s just put out his second record, Crash Test Kid. He’s also quite new as an Elliott Smith fan, having only recently delved a bit deeper into Elliott’s catalogue on a recent tour to...
Published 07/09/20
Our guest today is the musician, Josh Burgess.
Published 06/25/20
Our guest today is the musician Ben Gregory.
Published 06/11/20
Our guest today is the writer and podcaster, Merlin Mann.
Published 05/28/20
Welcome to a season three bonus episode! Our guest today is the actor Joe Gilgun, who's been in films and TV programmes such as This is England, Misfits and Preacher, and you currently see him on screens in the UK in Brassic, a show he also created.
Published 05/21/20
Our guest today is Joan Wasser (aka Joan as Police Woman). Joan is a musician, who started off her career playing with several bands including the Dambuilders, Antony and the Johnsons and Those Bastard Souls. Since the early 2000s, Joan has principally released music as a successful solo artist, releasing five regular studio albums, plus an EP and a couple of collections of covers. She's lived in New York City since the '90s, and it's there she met Elliott Smith - playing the same shows and...
Published 05/14/20