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.
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.
"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)
Some debut albums arrive with the urgency of a first statement. Chinook feels different—it carries the weight of years spent listening, collaborating, and quietly becoming. On this episode, Mallory Hawk reflects on a childhood soundtracked by records and military helicopters, the winding road through New York's DIY underground, and the moment she stopped writing for everyone else and trusted her own instincts. It's a thoughtful conversation about memory, resilience, and the beautiful uncertainty that fuels great songs.
To produce Chinook, Hawk tapped like-mindedly omnivorous musician Sam Acchione (Alex G, Jessica Lea Mayfield), whom she’d befriended during her tenure in Customer. The two often spent hours trading liner notes minutiae, resulting in a collaboration that weaves songwriting idiosyncrasies with two lifetimes of radio scholarship. Hawk joined Acchione in Philadelphia to track at storied Headroom Studios (Hop Along, Algernon Cadwallader). There, she contributed tons of layers to Chinook—bass, drum machine, organ, rhythm and lead guitars—while Acchione encouraged unexpected overdubs like flugelhorn and djembe.
Evan Redsky grew up on Mississaugi First Nation, on the north shore of Lake Huron, between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury — a small community of maybe 500 people, and a history much larger than that. Four generations of his family attended the Cecilia Jeffrey Residential School. His great-grandfather James was the last elder to hold their community's birch bark scrolls before they were dispossessed by the Glenbow Museum. Redsky carries that lineage into everything: the punk fury of Indian Giver, and the quieter, harder work of his solo music — Canadiana-rooted folk that sits closer to Neil Young than Nashville, and closer to truth than either. His 2024 album The Language of Fishermen and the recent single "Red Dress," drawn from losses he witnessed working at a Toronto First Nations youth centre, are artifacts in the fullest sense — stories left behind for the next generation to find.
"...an unfeigned country ballad about his indigenous bloodline and life on the reserve...an allusion to the residential-school system and its effects on his kin. Warm acoustic tones are cut with Redsky’s sandy drawl...a record showcasing a rugged sound that’s interspersed with whining lap steel and palatable twang.” - The Globe & Mail
“Though the songs' content is rooted in Redsky's Indigenous heritage, the sound is pure Americana, equal parts Springsteen and Petty…” - CBC
