Joining us for the final episode of the season are Will Taylor and Nick Hill of Flyte. Will and Nick are very talented songwriters based in London. As Flyte, they have released three studio albums so far - with their most recent record, called Flyte, coming out towards the end of last year. They've also worked with some well-known names too, includ…

Joining us today is Claire Rousay. Claire is a musician and composer based in Los Angeles. She describes her work as 'emo ambient' and is just preparing to release a new album, Sentiment, which is out later in April 2024. The record is a follow-up to Claire's last studio album Everything Perfect Is Already Here, which came out in 2022. Claire says …

Joining us for episode 10 of the season is musician, Mikaela Davis. Mikaela is a harpist and songwriter based in Catskill, New York. Mikaela credits Elliott Smith with helping 'spark' her professional music career, as it was her cover of Twilight that helped bring her to the attention of a booking agent while she was still a college student. She's …

Our guest for today's episode is Rey Villalobos, who releases music under the name The Coral Sea. Rey started out as The Coral Sea back in 2004 and has released several albums since then - including Golden Planet Sky which came out last year. Before he went solo, Rey began his music career as a drummer. Playing in bands in Los Angeles and Portland …

Today we're joined by musician, Spencer Fox. Spencer is the guitarist in the New York-based band Charly Bliss. The band have released two albums to date with Guppy coming in 2017 and Young Enough in 2019, and they've recently been in the studio recording their third record too. We had a great time chatting to Spencer. He's a self-confessed major El…

Our guest today is Violet Mayugba. Violet is the guitarist and a founding member of the band, Destroy Boys. The group formed back in 2015 in Sacramento, California and have gone on to release three studio albums, with one more on the way - in fact, they had just finished recording it the day before this interview was recorded. Violet is a huge Elli…

Our guest today is Lily O'Farrell, who you may know by her online name @vulgadrawings. Lily is a cartoonist and writer based in London. She began publishing feminist cartoons on Instagram in 2018 and has since reached more than 300,000 followers. She's also published a book, released a podcast (her recent series No Worries If Not is well worth list…

Welcome to our first episode of 2024 with Shannon Lay! Shannon is a solo musician based in Los Angeles, who's released four solo albums, as well as a collection of covers that came out last year. And on that covers album is a version of Angeles (by Elliott Smith), which you can hear at the very end of this episode. Before that though, we have the f…

Joining us for our last episode of the year is musician, Margaret Glaspy. Margaret, who is based in New York City, released her latest album - Echo the Diamond - in August this year. The record is Margaret's third full-length album, and follows on from 2020's Devotion and 2016's Emotions and Math. Margaret says Elliott Smith has been a big influenc…

Our guest today is John Vanderslice. John is a musician, producer and the owner of the legendary Tiny Telephone studio, which initially began in the Mission district of San Francisco. Bands who've recorded at Tiny Telephone with John include the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, Okkervil River, the Mountain Goats, St. Vincent and many, many more. Embar…

Our guest today is Kimbra. Kimbra is a musician originally from New Zealand but is now based in New York City. You may have first heard of her when she sang on the track Somebody That I Used To Know in 2011 alongside Gotye, who wrote the single. The pair went on to win two Grammys for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. These two…

Our first guest of the new season is author, Paul Rees. Paul has had a great career as a music writer. He's held senior positions at magazines such as Q and Kerrang, he's written several books including a best-seller on the life of Robert Plant, and most recently, penned a biography of Elliott Smith titled, Shooting Star. In this interview we discu…

Our guest for our final episode of this season is Lauren McCarthy. Lauren is the Executive Editor of Nylon, a publication that covers fashion, entertainment and music. Through her work, Lauren has the enviable opportunity of interviewing some of the most exciting artists working today - people like Phoebe Bridgers, Beabadoobee and Snail Mail. One i…

Our guest today is Julia Shapiro. Julia is a musician who is perhaps best known as the lead singer and guitarist in the band Chastity Belt, which formed in Washington state in 2010. Chastity Belt have released four studio albums, including, most recently, 2019's self-titled record. Julia's work isn't just limited to that band, though, she's also pa…

Our guest today is Elise Okusami. Elise is a New York City based guitarist and vocalists who performs under the name Oceanator. As Oceanator, Elise has released three albums so far, including, most recently Nothing’s Ever Fine, which came out earlier on this year. Elise has covered a couple of Elliott Smith songs during her career, including and th…

Joining us for episode nine is musician Aaron Powell. Aaron is based in Newfoundland, Canada and plays under the name Fog Lake. He’s been recording music for the last 10 years or so and his work has been referred to - quite interestingly - as ‘harrowing nostalgia’. Aaron’s released several albums to date, including 2021's Tragedy Reel, which reflec…

Our guest for episode eight of season five is Nilüfer Yanya. Nilüfer is a musician from London. Nilüfer's first ever release came back in 2016 when she put out her debut EP Small Crimes/Keep on Calling and, since then, she's released two full-length albums: 2019's Miss Universe, which was then followed up by Painless earlier on this year - a record…

Joining us today is the musician Joshua Burnside. Joshua is a singer-songwriter based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He’s released five albums across his career, with his first record, Ephrata, winning the Northern Ireland music prize in 2017. Joshua is known for incorporating a wide range of influences into his work, from Colombian and Indonesian m…

Joining us for episode six of this season are Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten from the band Momma. Etta and Allegra have been playing music together since they became close friends while at high school in Los Angeles, California. Since those early days, they've gone on to record three studio albums, including most recently, Household Name whic…

Our guest today is the multi-talented, Lola Kirke. As an actor, Lola has starred in the TV show Mozart in the Jungle and the film Mistress America, as well as many others. And, as a musician she has released two studio albums - most recently Lady for Sale which came out on Third Man Records earlier on this year. Her favourite song pick is a great s…

Our guests today are Dan Alvarez and Jordan Dunn-Pilz, who together make up the band Toledo. The pair have been making music together since they were 11 years old, growing up in Newburyport in Massachusetts After parting ways for college, Dan and Jordan are now reunited and living in Brooklyn, New York, and are steadily building a big following, wi…

Our guest for episode three of season five is Orono from Superorganism. Superoganism are a band now based in London, though they started out more geographically dispersed. When the group formed, Orono would record her vocals separately from Maine, where she attended boarding school. After finding prominence with their debut single Something for You…

Our second guest of this season is Carmen Perry from the band Remember Sports. Remember Sports formed back in 2012, when Carmen and her bandmates were studying at college/university. Since then, they've released five albums, most recently Like a Stone, which came out last year. It was as a teenager that Carmen became an Elliott Smith fan. She disco…

Our guest for the opening episode of season 5 of My Favourite Elliott Smith Song is Ruth Radelet. Ruth is a musician based in Portland, Oregon, who has recently started a solo career, after a long and successful stint with the band, Chromatics, a group she joined back in 2006. One of her first releases as a solo artist was, in fact, a cover of Twil…

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 …

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 Pa…

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 tha…

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 mu…

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,…

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 s…

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 …

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 …

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 Elli…

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 talk…

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 record…

Mike Doughty is a musician and the founder of the band Soul Coughing. Mike set up the experimental group in 1992 and they released three albums before going their separate ways in 2000. Mike has since gone onto pursue several solo projects. Already an established fan, he met Elliott Smith during the 1990s and Elliott also recorded some vocal tracks…

We're delighted that musician Aaron Espinoza joins us to round off our third season. Aaron is a producer, who owns his own studio in Los Angeles called The Ship. He's also in the band Earlimart and it was when he was starting out with that group in the early 2000s, that he became friends with Elliott Smith. Aaron, Elliott, the members of Grandaddy,…

Musician Charlene Kaye joins us for our penultimate episode of season three. Charlene is a solo artist, who goes by the name KAYE. She's preparing to release her new album, Conscious Control, which comes out in November 2020. You may also know Charlene as the lead vocalist of the band San Fermin, which she was part of for five years. She's a big El…

Catherynne M. Valente - or Cat - is a writer of fantasy and science fiction books. Her work includes the novels Palimpsest and Space Opera, and the Fairyland and Orphan's Tales series of books. Cat heard Elliott Smith for the first time in Miss Misery and immediately set about saving the money she needed to buy the film's soundtrack. In this interv…

Joining us today is musician, Jessica Dobson. Jessica Dobson is a musician based in Los Angeles. She's the lead singer and guitarist for her band Deep Sea Diver, a group she formed in 2012. Before starting that project, Jessica played and toured with the likes of Beck, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Conor Oberst, and was a member of The Shins for a couple of …

Joining us today is the visual artist, Bunny Rogers. Bunny is a contemporary American artist that creates installation, video and sculptural works. She told us that Elliott Smith has been a big inspiration in a number of her works, sometimes consciously and other times subconsciously. Bunny has exhibited her work at many significant art museums and…

This episode is released on a special day - what would have been Elliott Smith’s 51st birthday. We’ve been saving this interview to put out today because our guest Steve Holmes, who plays in the band American Football, has quite a strong personal connection to the song he picked. He talks us through one of Elliott’s rare and unreleased tracks becau…

Joining us for this bonus episode* is the photographer, JJ Gonson. JJ had a big impact on Elliott Smith's career - particularly in the earlier stages. She was the manager of Heatmiser, she lived with Elliott in the house he recorded his first solo album in (a record she had a writing credit on), and she took countless photos of him and their friend…

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 T…

Our guest today is the musician, Josh Burgess. Josh plays in a band from New Zealand called Yumi Zouma. The group have been making music since 2014 and have put out three studio albums, with their most recent record - called Truth or Consequences - coming out in March this year. The band’s sound is a lot poppier than Elliott Smith’s, so it was inte…

Our guest today is the musician Ben Gregory. Ben is the lead singer and guitarist from the band, Blaenavon. Last year the band released their second album, Everything That Makes You Happy, and a collection of demos called Demoitis. And Demoitis has, Ben says, some of his most Elliott Smith-influenced work. So, in this interview, we discuss that rec…

Our guest today is the writer and podcaster, Merlin Mann. Merlin is the man(n) behind shows such as Do By Friday, Reconcilable Differences, Back to Work and Roderick on the Line, with a former guest on this show, John Roderick. He's also a big Elliott Smith fan too, and in this interview he talks about seeing him play live, how he still turns to hi…

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. It's a bonus episode because Joe had so many different Elliott Smith songs he wanted to pick, we dec…

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 …

Kicking off our third season is the musician, Christian Lee Hutson. Christian is a singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. He's currently preparing to release his third album, which has been produced by his friend and collaborator (and former guest on this show) Phoebe Bridgers. Keeping that kind of company, it's perhaps unsurprising that he is a b…