Elizabeth Ziman invites me into her Brooklyn apartment for tea and ravioli. A New York native, Ziman talks about growing up in Greenwich Village and explains how a landlord battle forced her to reexamine a stack of old journals she found during the move. Combining their contents with imagery from fever dreams, she fashioned the songs for Elizabeth & the Catapult's fourth LP, Keepsake. She also discusses having an ex for a producer, why she still busks in the subway, and why it's important to acknowledge the real world while she's onstage.

elizabethandthecatapult.com

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Matthew Logan Vasquez revisits a changing Brooklyn as he joins me for a drink at the Williamsburg Hotel's lobby bar. After a decade of fronting Delta Spirit, Vasquez has been steadily releasing music as a solo artist since 2015's Austin EP. On his second album, Does What He Wants, Matt does just that, taking the listener on a stylistically diverse journey through rock and roll. MLV tells why he had to "strike out on his own" in order to keep making music for a living, and how he strategized his son's birth around touring.

matthewloganvasquez.com

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Americana artist Caleb Caudle joins me for a drink at Rockwood Music Hall in the Lower East Side before his show downstairs. Now sober, Caleb explains how his previous partying lifestyle had informed many of his lyrics in the past, but how he's looking forward to tackling new subject matter. Last year, he released his seventh LP, the critically acclaimed Carolina Ghost, which he describes as all love songs. With the woman from those songs now his wife, what will the tunes on his upcoming Crushed Coins be about?

calebcaudle.com

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Mike Savino a.k.a. Tall Tall Trees has a quick beer with me at The Magician in Manhattan's Lower East Side before his show at Rockwood Music Hall. Savino tells how he originally went to school to be a doctor before dropping out to pursue his true passion. He also explains why and how he built his trademark "Banjotron 5000," a Swiss Army knife of an instrument that allows him to create sounds you never thought you'd hear coming from a banjo. Having recording his first two albums as a band, Mike describes what it was like to write and record his third LP, Freedays, as a solo project.

talltalltrees.com

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Katy Frame and Marie Cecile Anderson of country comedy group Reformed Whores chat with me over handcrafted cocktails at the Shanty in Williamsburg. The bawdy duo explain why they gravitated to their unconventional instruments (accordion and ukulele), reveal how they relentlessly researched other comedy bands' careers as a blueprint for their own, and recount the whirlwind recording session at the legendary RCA Studio A in Nashville for their second album, Don't Beat Around the Bush.

reformedwhores.com

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