Interviews
Long-form conversations with the artists and creators we're listening to.
Lucy Dacus, The Last Dinner Party, This Is Lorelei, & More Pick Their Favorite Album Of 2026 So Far
Last week the Stereogum staff listed our picks for the year's best albums so far . A few weeks earlier, during our visit to Salt Lake City for Kilby Block Party , our team posed the question to some of our favorite artists at the fest. Kilby performers including Lucy Dacus, the L
Indie Again: A Conversation With Death Cab For Cutie
The last time Death Cab For Cutie dropped an album that wasn't on Atlantic Records, The O.C. was TV's new sensation , and a portion of the band's fanbase had not yet been born. That album was Transatlanticism , an indie classic that launched Death Cab to real-deal rock stardom. N
BabyChiefDoIt Is Ready For His “Big One”
As distinct as he is today, BabyChiefDoIt’s first raps were a Frankensteinian masterpiece of cap. Using an instrumental from Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red , he recorded lyrics from 22Gz’s “Suburban” before playing the track for his impressed friends. While he knew the lyrics we
Kim Petras Takes A Detour Off The Pop Highway
Kim Petras begins with the end on her latest album. Earlier this year, the German-born, LA-based pop star parted ways with her major label, Republic Records. With Detour , self-released today, Petras steps into a new era of independent pop reinvention defined by risk, rupture, an
The Complex Thrills Of Jump Source’s Fold
The orbit of Francis Latreille (aka Priori) has long been at a simmer, shaping trends and moulding Montréal’s night life. Infatuated with ambient dub? naff recordings, from Latreille and Adam Feingold (aka Ex-Terrestrial), was among the earliest to champion Purelink and Cousin. R
Arturo Sandoval’s Trumpet Took Him From Cuba To Coachella
Sonny Rollins has died at 95. An absolute legend, he was the last man standing from his generation of bebop and hard bop players, and even though he retired from live performance several years ago due to illness, he remained a standard to live up to. The post Arturo Sandoval’s Tr
Rare DM Is Going Through The Fucking Ceiling
“I like to use the word ‘goth-adjacent,’” Erin Hoagg offers when contemplating the genre of her Rare DM project over Zoom in mid-May. She’s chilling in her home studio in the LES, ready to discuss her upcoming album Attention . "Bloghouse-influenced," she says. "Let’s go with ele
We’ve Got A File On You: Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien
We've Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc. The post We’ve Got A File On You: Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien appeared first on S
Crying Laughing Throwing Up With Getdown Services
"It’s quite funny talking about this,” Getdown Services' Josh Law jokes. “Like, if you overheard this conversation, you’d think we’d made fucking Kid A ." The post Crying Laughing Throwing Up With Getdown Services appeared first on Stereogum .
The Story Behind Every Song On Kevin Morby’s Masterful New Album Little Wide Open
Kevin Morby just released his masterpiece. Little Wide Open , out today, is the folk-rock singer-songwriter's greatest collection of songs to date. The album presents an interconnected batch of reflections: on Morby's Midwestern homeland and the adventures that have carried him f
We’ve Got A File On You: Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew
We've Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc. The post We’ve Got A File On You: Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew appeared
Artist To Watch: sadie
In 2022, New York-born Anna Schwab released “ 4am, ” her first song under the moniker sadie. It's a sleek, low-key bedroom-pop sprawl with a subtle trap beat and Schwab’s gently Auto-Tuned vocals singing about driving around with the windows down, talking to someone about mutual
“It’s Strange To Be Talking About the Flaming Lips In The Past Tense”: An Interview With Steven Drozd
Wayne Coyne's longtime musical partner on his decades in the Lips, his ouster from the band during addiction treatment, and his upcoming solo debut album The post “It’s Strange To Be Talking About the Flaming Lips In The Past Tense”: An Interview With Steven Drozd appeared first
The Story Behind Every Song On April + VISTA’s Masterful New Album Traditional Noise
Traditional Noise will go down as one of the most staggeringly beautiful collections of music this year. The album, out today, is billed as April + VISTA's full-length debut. But because the DC duo has been releasing music for close to a decade, it also works as a culmination of
Artist To Watch: Deloyd Elze
Deloyd Elze plays "not a lick" of fiddle, but he's practicing on a newly acquired instrument when we connect via video chat. "It's a learning curve for sure," says the singer-songwriter and producer, real name Jacob Henry Allen. "I'm honking and sawing." The post Artist To Watch:
Friko Are Emphatically Getting There
Friko's new album has a train song. It has a bicycle song. It even has a hot air balloon song. When the young Chicago combo said transit was a major theme of new album Something Worth Waiting For , they weren't kidding. The post Friko Are Emphatically Getting There appeared first
The Story Behind Every Song On Robber Robber’s New Album Two Wheels Move The Soul
Robber Robber made their new album Two Wheels Move The Soul under some particularly stressful circumstances. One afternoon in 2024, vocalist Nina Cates discovered a fire had broken out in the apartment building where she and drummer/guitarist Zack James lived together in downtown
We All Float On: A Weekend Aboard The Modest Mouse Cruise
"What's up, floaters?!" The post We All Float On: A Weekend Aboard The Modest Mouse Cruise appeared first on Stereogum .
On Highway To Hell, DIY Lifer Star Moles Is Learning To Hold Back
Gone are the albums of knights and dragons Gone are the kings and queens of Camelot We're going to Hel We're dying to be someone on a road to somewhere This album is what happens when we expire This album is a banned four loko This album is the burger king on Columbus st This alb
Immanuel Wilkins Comes Alive
The alto saxophone has long been the instrument of choice for many of jazz's most forward-looking players, composers and conceptualists. Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Greg Osby: all alto players, all musicians who stretched the boundari
Crash Of Rhinos Are Back With A New Album After 13 Years, And They Told Us All About It
Jim Cork describes Crash Of Rhinos as the ultimate democracy, with an obvious "for better or worse" caveat. "We've always had this thing where if one single person isn't happy with any element, we scrap that part of the song or we scrap that song entirely or we don't do that show
Band To Watch: Cashier
Cashier don’t make the type of music you’d typically associate with Cajun Country. As vocalist/guitarist Kylie Gaspard tells me over Zoom, most of the bands you’ll find in her hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana nod to the region’s rich cultural history — plenty of Creole zydeco, to
With F.I.G, Naomi Scott Is Finally Her Own Director
Midway through our February afternoon chat, Naomi Scott asks the sort of question that, frankly, should be unaskable: "What is she, where do we place her?" The post With <em>F.I.G</em>, Naomi Scott Is Finally Her Own Director appeared first on Stereogum .
Danny L Harle’s Music-First Manifesto
There are magical objects scattered around Danny L Harle's studio in Hackney. A small dark silver knight wedges himself between speakers and computer monitors; a star-cloaked figurine of Merlin holds a bright orange flame aloft. Nearby are relics from the producer's own pop mytho
Flying Lotus Talks Big Mama, Brainfeeder, And Flying
Last year saw the release of Ash , a sci-fi film Flying Lotus directed and scored in isolation in New Zealand. Afterward, he went straight to work on Big Mama , his first full Flying Lotus release issued solely through Brainfeeder, the label he founded in 2008. The post Flying Lo
Band To Watch: Suitor
It's a wintery Thursday night in Cleveland, Ohio — cold enough that I can see my breath, but not so cold that my nosehairs have stiffened and merged into one. We're huddled inside a crowded Superelectric Pinball Parlor in Gordon Square. The walls are plastered with local sports p
We’ve Got A File On You: Bill Callahan
We've Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc. The post We’ve Got A File On You: Bill Callahan appeared first on Stereogum
Lala Lala On How Oneohtrix Point Never, CrossFit, Iceland, God, & More Inspired Her New Album Heaven2
Here's the scene: I'm 18, I'm with my curly-haired, tattooed boyfriend, we're entering the music shop in Williamsburg by the water, I'm slipping two CDs into my jacket. After strolling suspiciously through the aisles and grabbing what we want, because we are young and hate capita
Cootie Catcher On How Girls, Electrelane, And Embracing Awkwardness Influenced New Album Something We All Got
Midway through my video chat with Cootie Catcher, guitarist/vocalist/beatmaker Nolan Jakupovski suddenly wields a prop: “ This , I think, is what we want to sound like.” He’s holding a copy of the Pastels’ 1998 remix album Illuminati , on which the Glasgow indie greats have their
Band To Watch: Cardinals
Cardinals speak about their songs as if they have a life force. For this band, though it can come off as evasive, creative ambiguity is a kind of protection for artist and listener alike. Vocalist-lyricist Euan Manning explains: "We like the ambiguity. If someone read there was a
The Story Behind Every Song On Ratboys’ New Album Singin’ To An Empty Chair
Every Ratboys album is good. The Chicago indie rockers have been in the game for six albums and 16 years, and they've only gotten better at their sound, which carries echoes of emo and pop-punk and alt-country and classic rock without fully steering into any of them. Their last,
We’ve Got A File On You: Maynard James Keenan
We've Got A File On You features interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc. The post We’ve Got A File On You: Maynard James Keenan appeared first on Ste
Antinoë, Black Metal Pianist
Teresa Marraco started taking piano lessons when she was five years old. The artist who now records as Antinoë couldn't reach the pedals yet, but she quickly discovered that she loved to play. Her teacher, Clara, taught her not just how to read sheet music but how to be creative,