My New Band Believe is Cameron Picton's new band after his time as the bassist and sometimes frontman for black midi. We go deep into his songwriting process, including a discussion of how sounds outside the studio affect his songwriting.

My New Band Believe's self-titled debut is on Rough Trade Records.

It's the return of Carl Newman of The New Pornographers! We were just kids back in 2015 when I first interviewed Newman and we discussed his love of the 10cc song "Dreadlock Holiday." We return to that song in this episode, and we span the entirety of Newman's songwriting process, including a great discussion of why writing badly is so important and why gibberish is a great way to jump start the process.

The New Pornographers' latest album is The Former Site Of on Merge Records.

"I'm a jacket man," King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas) told me as we discussed why feeling good is important to the songwriting process. I had mentioned a writer who told me that he must wear a winter coat when he writes--even during the Washington, DC summers where he lives. This is not a complicated idea: if we're in a good headspace, we're more likely to be productive and write good songs. "I want to feel like I'm sparkling and then want the songs to feel like treasure, like candy," Thomas says.

But touch is not the only sense that puts King Tuff in creative mode. Like most of us, the primitive sense of smell does it for him. "I love the smell of hose water on cement and of wood smoke in the frozen air," he says.

King Tuff's latest album is Moo.