Curious Goldfish Podcast

Sub Pop dropped her. That loss is exactly what made her new album possible.

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Shannon Lay says the day Sub Pop passed on her record felt like the rug getting pulled out. It also became the reason Past the Veil exists, and the first album she is releasing on her own label. She and Jason get into the punk band she left, the pottery wheel in her garage, and the coffee shop playlist that quietly pushed one of her songs past 68 million streams. Ten years and several records in, she still calls herself a beginner. So what does she think a long career is actually supposed to look like?

🎵 Shannon Lay's latest: Past the Veil (2026)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open: getting dropped saved the album
0:51 Welcome to Curious Goldfish
2:19 Past the Veil and its most surprising feedback
3:30 Punk to folk, and the record that feels most like her
4:39 Touring with Alela Diane
6:03 Ceramics, mugs, and hacking the system
7:31 What pottery taught her about mistakes
9:20 The vintage shop, Feels, and Sub Pop
10:21 Getting dropped and starting her own label
14:05 Direct fan relationships and social media
16:56 Leaving the band, COVID, and starting over
17:51 "I'm at the very beginning"
19:53 Recording 15 and 68 million streams
21:34 How playlisting changed
23:25 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free → curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue → curiousgoldfish.com

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

What's in the Muscle Shoals water? A New York soul singer went to find out.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

Days before releasing Forever Muscle Shoals, Chrissi Poland called in from the town itself, handing copies to the musicians who played on the originals. She's a New York soul singer who walked into FAME in 2022, couldn't stop crying, and knew she had to record there. She and Jason English trace where the Muscle Shoals sound comes from, why she finally stopped trying to fit a genre, and what it took to make an album of other people's songs. The conversation closes with Jason's curiosity question, and one thread runs under all of it: what makes one bend in a river produce that much music?

🎵 Chrissi Poland's latest: Forever Muscle Shoals (2026)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 A Final Visit to Muscle Shoals
2:00 From Massachusetts to New York to the Shoals
4:00 Choosing the Songs
7:00 Is It in the Water?
10:50 The Voices She's Shared a Stage With
13:17 Finding Craig Alvin and Noble Steed
15:48 Artistic Dysmorphia
16:15 Leaving the Lane Behind
18:35 How These Songs Shaped Her Writing
21:40 The Business of Covering Dylan and the Stones
26:00 A Three-Part Muscle Shoals Series
29:38 Motherhood and the Road
33:45 Curiosity Over Certainty
37:00 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

He can't hear the crowd, and he calls every song he writes a love song.

Get the stories behind the episodes → https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

Chris Pierce lost most of his hearing at fifteen and built a life in music anyway, down to the night his hearing aid quit in the middle of Newport Folk. The Los Angeles soul and blues songwriter joins Jason to talk about his new album, Songs for the Heavy Hearted, recorded live in the studio in one or two takes. He gets into the people behind the songs, from the farmworkers in Madonna of the San Joaquin to a sixteen-year-old named Kalief Browder, and why he tells fans that every song he writes, even the political ones, is a love song. He also stays after shows to talk with the people who came in ready to argue. What does he think we owe each other?

🎵 Chris Pierce's latest: Songs for the Heavy Hearted (2026)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open: the hearing aid that quit at Newport Folk
2:28 Eight albums, or nine?
3:43 Recorded live in two takes: Songs for the Heavy Hearted
5:39 Grief, anger, and shared humanity
9:00 Madonna of the San Joaquin and Kalief Browder
11:25 "Scrubbing your floor, picking your fruit"
13:58 "Brother, they're all love songs"
17:40 The conversations he has at the merch table
21:16 Turning fifty and the call from Neil Young
27:28 Going deaf at fifteen, and the scholarship he kept secret
32:00 The full Newport story, and listening with his heart
37:27 No setlists, and leading with your heart
41:10 60 Seconds of Curiosity
44:09 Music, connection, and scripture

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free → https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue → https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

One of American roots music's most singular voices, caught in a season of not knowing.

Get the stories behind the episodes →

Abe Partridge has lived three lives to get here: ten years preaching, ten in the military, and ten writing songs that don't sound like anyone else's. Jason caught up with him at the 30A Songwriters Festival in a season of new beginnings, with a new album called Pilgrim Song finished since June and no clear way to put it out. They get into the economics of making honest music, why he's never played a cover, and a faith he describes as waxing and waning like the ocean. He talks about a vow he made in the desert, the only churches he still attends, and where he wants to be as an artist. What happens to your peace when experience starts to weather away what you were once certain of?

🎵 Abe Partridge's new album: Pilgrim Song (finished 2025, not yet released)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
2:32 Why 30A, and a season of new beginnings
4:21 Three lives: preacher, soldier, songwriter
5:10 Making a living just above the poverty line
7:27 A new album, finished and waiting
7:49 Who really makes the money in music
9:06 Certainty, ambiguity, and raising kids in faith
12:43 A vow made in the desert
13:26 "If you could put God in a language, it would be a very little God"
14:13 Pilgrim Song, and writing in silence
15:56 "Fake It Till You Make It," and never playing covers
19:06 Where he wants to be as an artist
19:47 60 Seconds of Curiosity
22:48 The serpent-handling churches
25:54 Live Performance: "Western Stars"

📊 FREE REPORT: The State of Music in the Age of AI & Streaming → curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity, the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH

Curious Goldfish is a music podcast about more than music. Host Jason English sits down with singer-songwriters and bands across Americana, folk, roots, and country for honest conversations about the craft, the business, and the life behind the music. Inspired by Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

He ran a Fortune 500 company and hid that he was a musician; He tells me why he returned to his first love.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

George Barrett spent years as the CEO of Cardinal Health, a company of about 50,000 people, and for a long time almost no one he worked with knew he was a musician. He worried it would make him look less serious, or like he was showing off, so he stopped performing in public for decades. Then a chance encounter with Roger Daltrey pulled him back toward the stage, and the music came out into the open. Now he has two albums out, Not Alone (2023) and Rearrange Things (2025), and he is building toward small tours. What makes someone hide the thing they love most, and what does it take to finally let it back in?

🎵 George Barrett's latest: Rearrange Things (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 A CEO With Something Left to Say
1:00 Welcome to Curious Goldfish
2:22 Meeting George, and What He Wants to Be Known For
3:34 Running Cardinal Health: Burden or Privilege
6:00 Leading Through AI and Ambiguity
9:16 The Optimism Blind Spot and Authenticity
11:59 How Much of Life Is Music Now
15:39 Why He Stopped Performing in Public
18:05 Sitting In With Roger Daltrey
22:21 Were You Writing All Those Years?
23:46 Greenwich Village, Saying Yes, and Imposter Syndrome
26:11 The Stories Behind Not Alone and Rearrange Things
29:44 What He Loves Most, and Getting Back on Stage
33:56 Street Cred and Respecting Working Musicians
37:27 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: The State of Music in the Age of AI and Streaming. State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Get the stories behind the episodes. Subscribe free

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

She never sang a note in college. Now Shooter Jennings produces her.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Alicia Blue went to college to be a poet and had never played an instrument. She learned to sing from an aging soul singer in Hollywood, played her first paying gig in Thai at a restaurant, and got fired after three shows. Now she is on Thirty Tigers, produced by Shooter Jennings, out on the road opening for Charley Crockett, and releasing an album called Country Desire. She talks with Jason English about identity, the childhood memory behind her song "Incognito," and why she refuses to spend a second worrying about AI. How does someone with no plan and no training end up this sure of who she is?

🎵 Alicia Blue's latest: Country Desire (2026)

Chapters corrected against the accurate timestamps. Still a draft, number 145 and date untouched.

Updated Alicia Blue chapter map (no live performance; ends on the goodbye):

0:00 Cold Open

1:03 Welcome

3:06 The Album: Country Desire

5:49 On the Road with Charley Crockett

7:38 "That's What People Call the Real Deal"

8:54 Staying Authentic in the Age of AI

10:27 Lessons from Lucinda Williams

11:56 Who Is the Alicia Blue Superfan?

14:16 Country Music and the New America

16:33 A Mexican American Voice in Country

19:41 Learning to Sing on the Streets of Hollywood

23:49 The Story Behind "Incognito"

27:02 Where She Is, and What's Next

29:17 Shooter Jennings and Thirty Tigers

33:05 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> Subscribe here

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

A founding E Street Band bassist, fifty-five years in, still says he's no maestro.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

Garry Tallent came off a long run touring with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, then sat down in a makeshift Nashville studio for a conversation Jason English had waited a year to share. He is a founding member of the E Street Band and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, and he still calls himself no maestro. They get into fifty-five years on the low end, the twenty years he spent producing Americana records in Nashville, and why a rock and roll band was never a democracy. The episode closes on the curiosity question, then a live performance of "Adelaine" with Mike Delevante, the friend who first introduced the two. Garry's answer to that last question is not the one you would expect from a lifer in rock and roll.

🎵 Garry plays on Mike Delevante's September Days (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open: "It's not a democracy"
0:45 Welcome and intro
3:19 A Nashville "fishbowl," fresh off Europe
4:55 Playing Anfield with Paul McCartney
6:15 Cameos, tuba, and his influences
8:12 The many hats: live, session, producing
10:10 Why songwriting is the hardest part
10:59 The best job in the world
11:33 The role that still gives him a kick
13:09 "It's not a democracy"
13:47 A second act in Nashville, and Americana
18:02 Fifty-five years, and "I'm no maestro"
20:46 The Sphere, and Born to Run in the garage
23:45 60 Seconds of Curiosity
26:05 Live Performance: "Adelaine" with Mike Delevante

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

She wrote her funniest song while crying in a grocery store. A songwriter with a PhD in breakups.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Anna May got the breakup text on her way into a Los Angeles grocery store, and instead of falling apart she decided the moment was a song. She calls herself a PhD in Breakup Songs, writes them long enough to break the three-minute rule, and left school at fifteen to protect the part of her that needed to write. From under the redwoods in Northern California, she talks with Jason English about her new song "Crying at Erewhon," why she keeps stepping away from social media, and what an artist owes the algorithm. It leaves you wondering what it costs to guard your creativity when the whole world is built to interrupt it.

🎵 Anna May's latest single: "Crying at Erewhon"

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Calling in from under the redwoods
0:53 Seven homes, and where home is now
2:20 How New Orleans and the Bay shaped her songs
3:19 "Fireflies and Buffalo" and a PhD in breakup songs
6:02 Why her songs run long
7:40 Leaving school at 15: the emotional greenhouse
11:00 Social media, creativity, and AI
14:18 What the survey says about your best fans
15:42 "The Show" and the makeup industry
19:44 "Crying at Erewhon"
22:29 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free → State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue → Subscribe

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

Seventeen records in, she is not sure the eighteenth is worth making.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Michelle Malone got signed to Arista out of Atlanta in the late '80s, got told to be more like Joan Jett, and left. She has been independent ever since, roughly a decade before independent was a plan anybody bragged about. Jason caught her at the 30A Songwriters Festival in January, a few days after a fifteen-minute showcase in New York with the cover band she started for fun during lockdown, which now gets more attention than her own catalog. She talks about pulling most of her music off Spotify, whether a new record still adds up financially, and the drawing and painting she picked up two years ago that finally quiets her brain down. When the math on making albums stops working, what does a songwriter make instead?

🎵 Michelle Malone's latest: Southern Comfort (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome & Back at 30A
1:16 Why Songwriters Festivals Still Matter
2:19 Fifteen Minutes in New York
7:05 Three Bands at Once
8:24 Southern Comfort
8:51 Georgia Roots Back to the 1700s
11:02 The Cost of Writing About Your Family
11:20 Does Making an Album Still Add Up?
14:04 Independent Before It Was a Strategy
15:10 Pulling the Catalog Off Spotify
16:34 Painting, and a Quieter Brain
20:00 Where She Is, Where She Wants to Be
21:51 The House Concert for Two People
22:19 Lilith Fair, 1997
25:25 Mentors, and Passing It On
27:54 60 Seconds of Curiosity: What the Rest of It Looks Like

📊 FREE REPORT: I surveyed 573 people on where music is headed in the age of AI and streaming. Get the free summary: curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity is where the stories behind the episodes live. Subscribe here.

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
Curious Goldfish is a music podcast about more than music. Host Jason English sits down with singer-songwriters and bands across Americana, folk, roots, and country to talk about the craft, the business, and the life underneath the songs. Inspired by Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental.
New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

Rhett Miller got the lifetime achievement award. He almost dreaded the speech.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Rhett Miller has fronted the Old 97's for 33 years with the same four guys, and last fall they took home a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ryman with an introduction written by Rosanne Cash. Jason caught up with him at the 30A Songwriters Festival, a few months after the award and just after his ninth solo album, A Lifetime of Riding by Night, came together in a way he never planned. He talks about cutting his vocals a week before surgery and letting his bandmate finish the record while he recovered in silence, about the advice that turned a lifelong people pleaser around, and about the morning clarity that came with getting sober. What does a 55-year-old elder statesman still want, when the award is already on the shelf?

🎵 Rhett Miller's latest: A Lifetime of Riding by Night (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome & Cold Open
3:22 Back at the 30A Songwriters Festival
4:32 The Lifetime Achievement Award & Rosanne Cash
8:02 Writing the Speech: Sign to a Major Label in the '90s
11:49 Why He Still Makes the Wheels Off Podcast
14:57 The Best Advice: Your Superpower Is Saying No
18:54 Cutting a Record with Waylon Jennings
23:34 Waylon, Buddy Holly, and Being Human
25:55 The New Album: A Lifetime of Riding by Night
28:12 The Vocal Surgery That Reshaped the Record
32:38 What Makes a Song Magic: Kristofferson & Brandi Carlile
36:00 On Producers and Production
40:02 Where He Is, Where He Wants to Be
42:03 Choosing Sobriety
46:53 60 Seconds of Curiosity: Ted Lasso & What's Next
51:41 Live Performance: "Come As You Are"

📊 FREE REPORT: I surveyed 573 people on where music is headed in the age of AI and streaming. Get the free summary: curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity is where the stories behind the episodes live. Subscribe here.

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
Curious Goldfish is a music podcast about more than music. Host Jason English sits down with singer-songwriters and bands across Americana, folk, roots, and country to talk about the craft, the business, and the life underneath the songs. Inspired by Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental.
New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast