Music
Hrishikesh Hirway talks about the successful podcast where musicians deconstruct their tracks.
One of the best music podcasts to have come out in the past decade has been Hrishikesh Hirway’s Song Exploder. Simplifying the complex process of making music, the Los Angeles-based host gets musicians to dissect their own songs, giving way to a whole new understanding of music, the artist’s vision, the creative process, and the song itself.
Having interviewed some of the biggest, names in the music scene worldwide – Björk, U2, Iggy Pop, Wilco, Grimes, Andrew Bird, Odesza, KT Tunstall, Courtney Barnett, Chet Faker, Death Cab For Cutie, Tycho, The National, and many, many more – the musician, composer, and podcast host leads an enviable life.
Below Hrishikesh tells us how Song Exploder came to be.
Why did you chose podcasts as your medium over videos or text?Since music is audio, it made sense that Song Exploder should also be audio. The point of the show was to reveal the sounds and sonic ideas within a song. Text can't communicate what those sounds are; and I subscribe to the saying, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Videos add a layer of information that distracts from close listening. When you're working on a record, in order to take in how the mix sounds, you're supposed to turn off your computer monitor, or close your eyes, so you can focus more intently on what you're hearing. The other, more pragmatic reason for all of it is that after ten years of making music, I knew how to record and edit and it was something I could do myself. Even though I'd never made a podcast before, I already had the tools and the basic skills.
Did you experiment a lot with your podcast format before you got to Song Exploder as we know it? I made what would become the first episode with The Postal Service about eight months before the podcast actually launched. It didn't change in terms of concept, but the format and structure did evolve a little bit before it finally went live.
You don't see yourself as a music journalist, right? I'm not a writer and I'm not a critic. I don't pretend to be. Song Exploder is just a very specific presentation of music and musical ideas. I enjoy the editing process, and making each episode feels more like making a remix, built out of parts of a recording and parts of an interview.
Which were the albums steered you to this direction? The albums that first turned me onto the idea of production – and the fact that how a record sounds is as much a part of it as the words and the notes – were probably Dummy by Portishead, Entroducing by DJ Shadow, and a bit later on, a lot of songs by Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Björk and Yo La Tengo.
Some musicians don't listen to any music to avoid being influenced by others' works. Being a musician yourself, does the love for the craft and need to understand it overpower the need for originality? I think that's a false dichotomy. There's too much great music, film, and art that was created inspired by or reacting against whatever came before it to believe that one is better off trying to create in a vacuum.
How long does each episode take to produce? The interviews take somewhere from 60 to 90 minutes, generally. The editing and mixing process takes me about two and a half to three days per episode. The booking, though – that's the indeterminate variable. Sometimes, getting a guest on board is fast and easy, and sometimes it takes months and months. I recently put out an episode with Grimes, and that came over a year and a half after I first started trying to put it together.
Who are some of your dream guests for Song Exploder? There are countless artists I'd love to have on as guests. Everyone I mentioned earlier: Portishead, DJ Shadow, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Yo La Tengo. It was amazing to get Björk, and I still can't totally believe that happened. Plus: Kanye West, Beck, FKA twigs, and many, many others.
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