News

On Sunday July 8, 2018, we sat down at the inaugural Birmingham Podcast Festival for a chat about making Sodajerker On Songwriting. With questions from our gracious host Jon Hickman, we had a fun time talking about our experiences so far in making the show.

Thanks again to Mark Steadman and everyone involved with the event, and cheers to the audience for listening and asking questions! Mark and the team have kindly made the raw audio available so we’re posting it here in case you’d like to listen in.

Simon and Brian recently guested on the excellent, Paul McCartney-based podcast Take It Away. They joined hosts Ryan Brady and Chris Mercer for a fun (and lengthy) dissection of Macca’s 1997 album, Flaming Pie.

Check out part 1 and part 2 of their special in-depth discussion.

For more insights in Macca’s solo oeuvre, visit their website, or subscribe in Apple Podcasts. Thanks to Ryan and Chris for having us on!

Earlier this year, we were delighted to be asked to join the judging panel for Song Academy’s Young Songwriter 2018 competition alongside some of our former guests like Guy Chambers, Imelda May, Tom Odell and Eg White. Now in its 7th year, the competition is the leading international songwriting competition for 8-18 year olds that champions the creative talents of young people, gets their songs heard and unites young songwriters worldwide.

We were recently asked by ICMP, the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London, for our top songwriting tips gleaned from the now 100+ conversations we’ve had on the Sodajerker podcast with world-leading songwriters. We’re nothing if not obliging, so we rustled up a few thoughts in response to their questions.

You can read the results here.

In March 2018 we did our first ever podcast recording in front of a live audience. It went really well and we were delighted by the whole experience.

The event was a success for two reasons: firstly, we were working with a wonderful organisation, APRA AMCOS, which is an Australian royalty collection society for songwriters and composers. They have over 95,000 members and do great work on their behalf. Their London office is based at the famous RAK Studios, and we couldn’t resist the opportunity to record there with a special guest.

To celebrate the recent second issue of the popular music journal Riffs, which Simon guest edited, Simon and Brian sat down with researcher Dave Kane for a chat about The Beatles. You can listen here:

Catching up on some kind mentions in the press this week, we thought we’d post these two recent shout-outs in The Guardian.

The first of these appeared in October 2017 and was written by esteemed music journalist David Hepworth, who selected us as part of ‘the week’s best radio’.

The second appeared in November’s Guardian Guide, recommending the Sodajerker podcast as one of the ’10 best things to do this week’.

Thanks to them for taking notice of our homespun show and for including it alongside coverage of BBC Radio programmes, and some of our favourite artists.

In late July of 2011, during a break from demoing a new song, Simon and I sat in our little loft studio in the Liverpool suburbs and tentatively discussed the possibility of doing a podcast. A songwriting podcast, to be precise. Our motivation was thus: we’d been plugging away, writing songs under the Sodajerker sobriquet for a while and, to put it bluntly, were looking for ways to attract some attention to ourselves and the music we were making. Podcasting was becoming increasingly popular medium, so we figured that this could be one small way to put ourselves on the map.

For Christmas 1989, when I was 10 and a half, I got my first Sony Walkman (still one of the best presents I’ve ever received) and a cassette to play on it – Prince’s soundtrack for Tim Burton’s Batman movie, released earlier that year, with which I was obsessed at the time. It was the first album I ever owned, and the only one for a while, so I would play it on a near-constant loop until the tempos slowed and vocals deepened as the Walkman’s batteries ran out of juice. Admittedly, this listening frenzy was as much to do with my childhood Batman obsession as the soundtrack, but now I realise my future musical tastes were being subtly shaped too.

Our shared love of Al Jarreau goes back almost two decades. We were introduced to his music via the track ‘Roof Garden’ while studying at the Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts in late 1997 and were immediately drawn to his remarkable, elastic voice and the sheer joie de vivre it exuded (not to mention the quite irresistible funkiness of the song in question).

We are very happy to have contributed some thoughts on podcasting to this NewStatesman article.

The piece, which includes some kind words about us from Caroline Crampton, looks at how podcasts are reinventing music journalism by examining two of the most popular music shows, Sodajerker On Songwriting and Song Exploder.

Hope you’ll check it out!

Following the broadcast of our BBC World Service documentary The Secrets of Songwriting (available now on BBC iPlayer), BBC Music showcased us on their homepage. Thanks guys!

You can see BBC Music promo while its live, and listen to The Secrets of Songwriting online. The programme is also available as a podcast via the World Service on iTunes.