Caropop

This conversation with Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist-songwriter Tom Morello took place immediately after the final preview of the new punk-metal-hip-hop musical, Revolution(s) at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. Little did Morello, whose music propels the show, and playwright Zayd Ayers Dohrn know when they began work on Revolution(s) that it would be opening in a freshly militarized Chicago. With characteristic passion and insight, Morello reflects on his history of writing politically charged music and weighs the impact it still might have. He also digs into how he got such mind-bending sounds from a guitar and became an artist in the process; what he learned from touring and recording with Bruce Springsteen; how he spearheaded Black Sabbath’s final all-star “Back to the Beginning” show just 17 days before Ozzy Osborne died; and what happened when Morello told off Cubs ownership from a benefit concert stage in 2014.

Peter Guralnick, an author I've long admired, wrote the definitive Elvis Presley biographies Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love and has returned with The Colonel and the King. Drawing on fresh research and volumes of previously unseen letters, the author casts new light on Colonel Tom Parker, an identity-changing Dutch immigrant who became Presley’s manager for life. Guranick’s complex portrait of Colonel (not “the Colonel”) will surprise anyone who thinks of him as an all-controlling ripoff artist. Here, Guralnick discusses his own relationship with Parker and bats around questions such as how Colonel’s constant deal-making affected Elvis’s artistry. Was Colonel exploiting his client or doing what he had to do to keep the free-spending singer afloat? What roles did each of their addictions play in their professional relationship? Guralnick’s expertise and enthusiasm on these topics is unrivaled. (Photo by Mike Leahy)

I’ve been a Peter Orner fan for a long time, appreciating how—whether he’s writing short stories, novels or essays—he makes every word count. Stories and chapters are short, sentences lean, zero fat. His justly acclaimed new novel, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, springs from the apparent 1963 murder of Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet, the real-life daughter of Chicago Sun-Times columnist and TV personality Irv “Kup” Kupcinet and his wife, Essie. The narrator is an author whose grandparents had been close to the Kupicinets, as Orner’s grandparents were. The Chicago Tribune’s Christopher Borelli calls The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter “the most Chicago novel I’ve ever read.” What drove Orner to blur fiction with fact in this particular past? How much is he messing with us? Has anyone reacted about the real-life figures portrayed, not always complimentarily? In this lively conversation, Orner still makes every word count. (Photo by Ricardo Siri)

Emma Swift is a sublime singer of her own songs as well as those of Bob Dylan, as she demonstrates on her new album, The Resurrection Game, and the previous Blonde on the Tracks. She says The Resurrection Game is about “how art can get us through quite brutal experiences by making them beautiful”—i.e. what a lot of us need right now. Swift tells of her Australian upbringing and influences, how she wound up in Nashville and what her musical and personal life is like there with her husband, singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock. She describes him as surreal and nihilistic, herself as languid and romantic. Do their sensibilities rub off on one another? Do they sing and write together at home? How did she wind up running their record label, Tiny Ghost Records? And which new song was inspired by a Wilco title?

Scott McCaughey returns to Caropop as busy as ever. He’s currently on the Baseball Project/Minus 5 September Doubleheader tour, with each band consisting of Steve Wynn, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Linda Pitmon and McCaughey. This comes after a three-week jaunt in England with Luke Haines and Buck and another Minus 5 variant. He also has recorded an upcoming Young Fresh Fellows album on the heels of the Minus 5’s Oar On, Penelope, which delivers jubilant power pop in contrast to the disorientation of 2019’s Stroke Manor. McCaughey tells of how he writes differently since his 2017 stroke, what it’s like to tour two bands with the same personnel at the same time and whether they all take turns choosing the music in the van. He also shares a couple of illuminating anecdotes about what it’s like to travel this country at this very moment.

Robbie Fulks released his debut album back in 1996, and here we are in 2025 with him, at age 62, still on the rise. His awesome guitar-picking skills and singing drew the attention of Steve Martin, who added him to his bluegrass band for performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, at the Hollywood Bowl and beyond. Fulks also has a brilliant new album, Now Then, that covers much stylistic ground while digging deeper than ever into his memories and the past's impact upon the present. The sharp-witted Fulks is a freewheeling conversationalist who tells how his move from Chicago to Los Angeles affected his life and career, how he got connected to Steve Martin, what happened the first time he went to Martin’s house and why he continues to hit artistic peaks in his early 60s. Has Robbie Fulks become an overnight sensation at last? (Photo by Beth Herzhaft.)

Squeeze’s Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook are one of rock’s greatest songwriting tandems, with Tilbrook crafting indelible melodies around Difford’s emotionally detailed lyrics. Here Difford digs into the evolution of his and Tilbrook’s partnership. When Difford hands over his lyrics, does he suggest a musical direction to Tilbrook? Did Difford know that “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)” would be a rocker, “Labelled with Love” a country song, “Slaughtered, Gutted and Heartbroken” an old-timey shuffle? Was he surprised that "Hourglass" became their biggest hit? When they write together now, is there tension over tackling more political topics versus pursuing Difford’s brand of personal storytelling? Difford also discusses singing in octaves and taking the occasional lead, the impact of producers such as John Wood and Elvis Costello (and the song he co-wrote with Costello), why so many keyboardists joined and left Squeeze and the reasons the band broke up and regrouped the first time.

We're going on summer recess--for a good reason: Caropop is getting a long-awaited tune-up. We’ll be tweaking the presentation and improving the way we let you all know about episodes. In addition to keeping them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the RSS platform and caropop.com, we’ll also be posting them on a new Caropop YouTube channel. Stay tuned for more details, and please subscribe to all of the above.

We encourage you to explore any of the 191 Caropop episodes you may have missed, and we’ll be back after Labor Day with more great conversations with artists you love about their creative work. Happy end of summer, everybody!

No surprise, talking music with Craig Finn is stimulating and a lot of fun. The Hold Steady’s frontman/lyricist recently released his sixth solo album, the character-driven song cycle Always Been. He also hosts the podcast “That’s How I Remember It,” which explores the relationship between memory and creativity, and writes the Substack “Versions of Security.” Finn has thoughts on the power of his own memory and how it fuels his songwriting. As someone who formed the band Lifter Puller in Minneapolis and the Hold Steady in New York City and recorded his new album in Los Angeles, he also considers how a sense of place factors in. How much back story does he conceive for his characters? Does he write the songs in the order of the plot? Did Finn ever consider becoming a short story writer, poet or journalist? And what’s with the Randy Newman nod on the cover of Always Been?

Bassist Gina Birch is a founding member of the legendary British post-punk band the Raincoats, whose self-titled 1977 debut album is an off-kilter classic. More Raincoats albums followed, as did stints with Dorothy and the Hangovers, but it wasn’t until 2023 that Birch released her first solo album, the acclaimed I Play My Bass Loud. Now she’s made Trouble, which again draws on dub, reggae and electronica textures while exploring the intersection of art and the often-troublesome outside world. Birch is fierce, funny and down-to-earth as she tells how she approaches and creates her art, which includes painting, filmmaking and an appearance in the Tate Gallery’s “Women in Revolt!” exhibition in London last year. She also reflects on Kurt Cobain’s Raincoats fandom—and his death a week before the Raincoats were slated to open Nirvana' 1994 UK tour—and the power of female artists “Making Trouble Again.” (Photo by Dean Chalkley.)