ifitbeyourwill Podcast #208 • WHY?

With WHY?’s new album, Oh Golly / Yes Lord, on the horizon, Yoni Wolf reflects on decades of making music that refuses to sit still. Moving between alternative hip-hop, indie rock, sampling, and richly layered arrangements, WHY? has built a catalogue that rewards listening to the whole record, not just the individual song.

Yoni talks about the long, sometimes uncertain process of making an album: four-track experiments, finding a record’s shape, sequencing songs, and working with collaborators who help bring ideas to life. We get into the self-doubt that follows a finished record into the world, why positive feedback doesn’t always quiet the inner critic, and the moments when music connects with someone who needs it.

It’s an honest conversation about songwriting as a way of documenting a life, making peace with uncertainty, and carrying on regardless.

https://whywithaquestionmark.com/

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #207 • Heavy Gus

Formed in California’s high desert, Heavy Gus make fuzzy, grunge-soaked indie rock that balances scruffy guitar noise with unexpected flashes of melody, humor, and tenderness. On their forthcoming second album, the trio revisit the loose, live-wire approach of Notions, but life has changed: Dorota Szuta and Stelth Ulvang are now navigating parenthood alongside the creative intimacy of being partners and bandmates. New singles “Super Soaker” and “Past Lives” reveal two sides of that tension, one sticky, volatile, and loud, the other reflective and bittersweet. Heavy Gus leave the contradictions intact.

https://www.heavygus.com/

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #206 • Julia Holter

Julia Holter has never been content to leave a song alone. Across a career spent blurring the boundaries between experimental composition and pop, she has built elaborate musical worlds, then found ways to unsettle them. On Materia, that impulse turns inward: old ideas are revisited, familiar structures loosen, and music becomes something fluid, open to revision.

On this episode of If It Be Your Will, Holter traces the path from her early experiments and studies in composition to the increasingly expansive, emotionally intricate records that followed. We talk about orchestration as a way of thinking, the strange relationship between control and intuition, and what changes when you stop treating a composition as a finished thing.

A companion to Something in the Room She Moves, Materia finds Holter continuing to question how music takes shape — and what might emerge when you return to it with fresh ears. Our conversation moves through creative uncertainty, the long life of an idea, and the possibilities that appear when you let a piece become something you didn't originally imagine.

Sometimes the most revealing way forward is to take things apart.

https://juliaholter.com/

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #205 • SHEAL

What if the things that scare you are also the things you need to move through?

On this episode of If It Be Your Will, SHEAL — the musical project of Toronto-based songwriter Sheilagh McNab — talks about stage anxiety, trusting her instincts, and learning to make room for both solitude and connection. We trace the path from Courage Again to golden hours and the new home-going chapter, exploring how motherhood, memory, and the quieter moments of everyday life find their way into her songs. It’s a conversation about letting go of old expectations, finding your footing, and figuring out what it means to feel at home in your own life.

https://www.instagram.com/sheal.music

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #203 • Natalie Shay

London singer-songwriter Natalie Shay joins If It Be Your Will for a chat about guitars, Taylor Swift, stage fright, songwriting, and figuring out how to become comfortable taking up space. From picking up her first acoustic guitar to playing for thousands of people, Natalie’s story is full of unexpected turns, big pop instincts, and a very human dose of nerves. We talk about finding confidence, learning to talk between songs, writing from instinct, and why sometimes the best way through your fears is simply to throw yourself into the deep end. A fun, honest conversation with plenty of music, laughs, and North London energy.

https://natalieshay.co.uk/

Natalie’s new EP, ATMOSPHERE, explores the emotional pull of love, self-awareness and the messy space in between. She describes it as a sonic diary capturing the electric obsession of new love, often tangled up in the chaos of trauma bonds. The title track, “atmosphere,” was written with long-time collaborator and close friend Kaity Rae (Remember Monday, The Shires), circling the question of whether the connection keeping you hooked is real love or simply something in the air. Each song reflects a different chapter, tracing the experiences and lessons that have shaped Natalie’s life since her last release. outloud culture

ifthisbeyourwill Podcast #202 • THAO

THAO returns with Show Me, her first album in six years, and it’s a record about what happens when you stop trying to keep parts of yourself at a safe distance. We talk about divorce, desire, queer identity, family, Vietnam, community, and the uncomfortable work of changing how you move through the world. We also get into collaboration, the many forms her storytelling has taken, and the difference between telling your story and actually letting someone see you. This is a thoughtful, funny, deeply human conversation with an artist still willing to question herself.

https://thaothaothao.com

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #201 • The Male Pattern

Will Schwartz spent more than a decade writing fiction before The Male Pattern brought him back to music. On If It Be Your Will, we talk about I Was Shot in the Heart! — a darkly funny, deeply human concept album about a bitter suburban dad who sees himself as the hero of his own tragedy. Will talks about growing up with music and writing, fatherhood, rediscovering the joy of making things simply because you want to, and why hiding behind a fictional character can sometimes reveal more truth than writing about yourself.

https://linktr.ee/themalepattern 

"I am absolutely head over heels in love with this record. It absolutely made my day. The lyrics, the narrative structure: it’s some Randy Newman-level shit. Just brilliant stuff all around." - Chris Ingalls (PopMatters)

“The Male Pattern (aka Will Schwartz) explores the darker side of straight white male consciousness in his upcoming concept album I Was Shot in the Heart! (out September 25.) Schwartz's ice-cold character sketch on "I'm a Solider" exposes the self-pitying paranoia behind the conservative mind, all while skewering country music tropes.” – Rainbow Rodeo

"We’re not certain a satirical concept album described as “Springsteen meets Ween” was on our bingo card of releases in 2026, but sometimes you only realise you’ve been waiting for something when it finally arrives...The undeniable irony and playfulness do nothing to undermine the heartbreaking loneliness running through its heart. An anthem of America in 2026, where vapidity, ridiculousness and mean-spirited self-interest feel like symptoms of some dark, cursed pathology lurking beneath the surface." 

– Various Small Flames

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #200 • Stornoway

Stornoway make the kind of indie music that refuses to sit still: folk one minute, orchestral, wild and wonderfully odd the next. After splitting, regrouping and finding their way back to each other, the Oxford band return with *Beyonder* — a record packed with birds, oceans, memory and big questions. Oli Steadman and Brian Briggs talk beginnings, breakups, folk songs, conservation, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and why, after all these years, Stornoway still sound gloriously like Stornoway.

https://www.stornowayband.com/

linktr.ee

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #199 • Jacob Brodovsky

Jacob Brodovsky joins If It Be Your Will to talk about Tell the Kids We Tried, the strange business of making art, and the increasingly ambitious project of keeping it together. We get into songwriting, fatherhood, community, climate dread, and why Canadian indie music seems uniquely qualified to make existential crises sound charming. There’s melancholy, wit, guitars, and just enough optimism to keep the whole thing from collapsing. A smart, funny conversation with one of Canada’s quietly great songwriters—and proof that “we tried” can be both a shrug and a pretty decent philosophy.

http://www.jacobbrodovsky.com/

In some cases, songwriters discover their writing is premonition only after living through the experiences their past-self penned. In 2025, Jacob Brodovsky lived through a loss of community that, at the time, he didn’t realize he’d foretold while writing his sophomore LP, Tell The Kids We Tried.

The award-winning indie-folk songwriter, based in Treaty 1 Territory, began recording with a group of trusted friends and heroes. He brought a batch of songs to producers Gavin Gardiner and Champagne James Robinson (Moonriivr), only to quickly discard many of them in favour of brand new songs stemming from a “Song Every Week” songwriting challenge that the Winnipeg music community takes part in every Winter. killbeatmusic

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #198 • Gvth Dvddy

Two records in two years, and GVTH DVDDY are clearly not slowing down. Their latest self-titled album pushes the sound even further into the dark—massive guitars, strange textures, raw emotion, and songs that hit with the weight of lived experience. On this episode, we go back to Kevin Robinson’s years in Viva Voce, trace the path that led to GVTH DVDDY, and get into what happens when a band keeps pushing forward instead of looking backward. Heavy, hypnotic, epic, and completely human—this is GVTH DVDDY at full volume.

http://gvthdvddy.com/

 

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #197 • Johanna Samuels

Johanna Samuels makes songs that can turn a tiny memory into something that suddenly feels enormous. On this episode, we get into Sorry, Kid, revisiting old songs, getting older, the weirdness of memory, and how the places and people in our lives keep finding their way into our music. Johanna is thoughtful, funny, and refreshingly honest about the messy process of making sense of the past while still moving forward. A great conversation with a songwriter who knows how to make the personal feel universal—and a lot of fun along the way.

https://www.johannasamuels.com/

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #196 • Rae Spoon

What happens when a non-binary, trans artist comes back to country music and refuses to leave anything out? On Assigned Country Singer At Birth, Rae Spoon puts trans lives, disability, harm reduction, religious trauma, solidarity and colonialism alongside the trucks, beer and heartbreak traditionally associated with the genre. On , we get into why country still matters, what happens when you make music outside the boundaries of expectation, and what it means to claim a genre—and a country—that hasn’t always made room for you.

https://raespoon.ca/

Rae Spoon is a musician, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and author. Rae has been nominated for two Polaris Music Prizes, a Lambda Literary Award, and a Western Canadian Music Award. They have toured internationally (Canada, Europe, the USA, Australia, Asia).. They just released their thirteenth album Assigned Country Singer At Birth.

linktr.ee/raespoon

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #195 • Darren Hayman

Darren Hayman's been at this for three decades, and he's still treating songwriting like a puzzle he hasn't solved. Best known for fronting Hefner — the band a record label basically forced into existence by asking "is this a band or just you?" — Hayman's gone on to release records governed by self-imposed rules: witch trials, place names, entire concept records where the research threatens to swallow the songs whole. On this episode, he talks getting jumped after a gig, turning a fractured skull into The Violence, and the mild indignity of people treating your trauma like content. Also: 10,000 unfinished voice memos, an "Archivist" untangling his back catalog, and a theory that bands should die young. Not a comeback story — a guy who never stopped.

https://hefnet.com/

"My digital back catalogue has been in a mess for some time, partly due to many records being released under different names, lineups, and labels. I'm very relieved to be having some help with the process now and can make one of my most important records available for streaming. It's so important to me to have this record available again. It's the hardest I've ever worked, and I believe it sounds like nothing else in my back catalogue. The Violence is a double album about the English Civil War and the East Anglian Witch Trials in the 17th century. I'm also pleased to include several previously unreleased tracks, which increase the scope of the work." – Darren Hayman (he/him)

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #194 • Kiwi Jr.

 

Four albums deep, Toronto's Kiwi Jr. arrive at Blowin' Up by doing something quietly radical: playing it live, together, in a room. Jeremy Gaudet traded the tight compression and Pro Tools tinkering of past records for the sound of four people breathing the same air—guitar solos left unswapped, drums left unmoved. The result opens up where earlier Kiwi Jr. records clenched, trading whimsical, pop-culture-soaked lyricism for something more spacious and unguarded. Gaudet talks candidly about writing from title first, riff last, and the Neil Young listening sessions that shaped the room-sound instinct. Out August 7th, it's the sound of a band trusting the take.

linktr.ee/kiwijrgroup

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #193 • Amelia Day

Amelia Day’s EGO TRIP is country music with the safety rails ripped off—part heartbreak, part self-interrogation, and part refusal to play by somebody else’s rules. Amelia isn’t interested in sanding down the messy edges: the songs move between country, indie rock, and pop while wrestling with identity, desire, ego, and what it means to be seen. On this episode of If It Be Your Will, we get into the emotional wreckage behind EGO TRIP, reclaiming country as a queer space, and the strange freedom that comes from making music on your own terms. It’s sharp, vulnerable, and unapologetically Amelia.

https://www.ameliadaymusic.com/

Amelia Day is a musical jack-of-all-trades. Standing at the intersection of folk, rock, and pop, Day blends heartfelt storytelling, raw delivery, and unforgettable melodies into music that feels both fresh and familiar — like rediscovering an old favorite. A self-described writer before anything else, her perceptive lyricism extends far beyond her 23 years, with lines reminiscent of songwriting greats like Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon. As the Spokesman-Review notes, Day has a signature style that features “wordplay, double-meanings and rhythmic variations,” with themes ranging from journeying into adulthood to climate change. Many of Day’s songs are also shaped by her intimate relationships, where her queerness and candor take center stage. 

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #192 • Monster Rally

For more than a decade, Monster Rally has occupied a curious corner of contemporary music, where faded postcards, forgotten library records, and golden-age hip-hop production dissolve into richly imagined landscapes. On Echoes of the Emerald Sands, Ted Feighan opens that world to other voices for the first time, inviting collaborators including LEISURE, TV Girl, Sessa, Jordana, Mei Semones, and even the timeless presence of Henry Mancini into his meticulously assembled sonic atlas. The result is less a departure than an expansion—a record that blurs collage, memory, and fantasy while asking how place can be conjured from sound alone. We explore the art of sampling, world-building, and the strange beauty of music that seems to exist outside of time.

http://monster-rally.com/

Venturing into uncharted territory, the upcoming record will be Monster Rally’s first that isn’t purely instrumental. He recruited not just one or two guest vocalists, but a whole fleet of artists and industry friends to sing over his recordings. The list of collaborators includes TV Girl, Jordana, Toledo, Mei Semones, X-Cetra, Leisure, Sessa, Nella, Miles Michaud (Allah-Las), Benét, Jordann, Munya and more. Ditching the tropical, sample-based plunderphonics of his past work, he decided to record everything from scratch in his Cleveland home studio — resulting in some of the liveliest, most vivid music in Monster Rally history. kale

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #191 • Mull Historical Society

Some artists write songs. Colin MacIntyre seems to collect entire lives. For more than 25 years, the man behind Mull Historical Society has turned grief, small-town stories, oddball observations, and big melodies into one of Scotland's most distinctive catalogues. Along the way he's become an award-winning novelist, playwright, and the kind of creative who somehow makes writing a musical seem like a perfectly reasonable side project. His latest album, In My Mind There's a Photograph, takes memories shared by some of the world's best writers and transforms them into songs that are funny, moving, and deeply human. We talk about memory, storytelling, growing up on Mull, and why the best songs often begin with someone else's story.

http://mullhistoricalsociety.com/

http://www.colinmacintyre.com/

Building on from the critical success of In My Mind There’s A Room, Mull Historical Society take an interesting approach to this new album; combining lyrical contributions from world-leading authors (including Irvine Welsh, Ali Smith and Louise Welsh) with the lush musical creations of MacIntyre to produce 12 songs of interesting textures and emotional leaps. Standout Charing Cross Canyon is a pop perfect, Prefab Sprout-esque tune for 2026 and Wish We’d Taen Mair, with minimal electro over spoken words, showcase the range of ideas and sounds. With a new book out this year, and a musical in pre-production, MacIntyre really is on a creative high. Excellent. NARC

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #188 • Max Subar

Chicago singer-songwriter Max Subar joins If It Be Your Will to discuss his stunning debut album, Anything Could Be, released on Merge Records. We explore the quiet power of solitude, trusting instinct over perfection, and how a frozen lakeside retreat became the foundation for an intimate, expansive record. Max reflects on collaboration, vulnerability, and embracing uncertainty, revealing how the album became both a personal transformation and the beginning of an exciting new chapter in his career. 

linktr.ee/maxsubar

Anything Could Be was recorded across ten days of solitude, but featured additional sessions with his brother Sam Subar on drums, Case Oats bandmates Spencer Tweedy (additional drums),Jason Ashworth (upright bass), and Scott Daniel (violin), as well as frequent collaborators Chet Zenor (electric guitar), Kelly Hannemann (piano), and Sarah Weddle (vibraphone, organ, and electric piano). thelineofbestfit

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #187 • Jaco Jaco

Jaco Jaco's music exists in that rare space where groove and introspection become inseparable. Formerly of the Oklahoma indie-rock band Sports, Jacob Theriot has steadily carved out a solo identity rooted in warm bass lines, psychedelic textures, and songs that wrestle with uncertainty without ever losing their sense of joy. On the heels of his new album, On the Levee, Jacob joins If It Be Your Will to talk about leaving behind the only band he'd ever known, rebuilding his life in Philadelphia, finding confidence as a vocalist, and why the meaning of his songs often reveals itself only after they're written. It's a conversation about creative reinvention, trusting instinct over certainty, and discovering that the best records aren't built on answers—they're built on curiosity.

jacoja.co

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #186 • Widemouth

Chicago's Widemouth joins the podcast to explore the friendships at the heart of their remarkable debut, No Gasoline. Mak Carnahan and Jamie Eder reflect on finding collaborators through a simple flyer, writing songs rooted in memory and community, recording with trust instead of perfection, and why the quiet moments between people often make the most enduring music. It's a thoughtful conversation about growing up, staying grounded, and building a band that feels like home.

https://bfan.link/no-gasoline-album