A Cape Cod carpenter who writes his best songs before 8 a.m., one line at a time.

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Greg Loftus sat down with Jason on a Saturday morning at his first AmericanaFest, a week out from releasing No Kings in the Wild. He splits his life between a Cape Cod wood shop, where he builds tables and bars under the name Narrowland Woodworks, and the guitar he picks up every morning from 7 to 7:45 to chip away at new songs. He talks about trading Austin for the Northeast, the divorce and early-COVID stretch that filled a record, and why he has never been in a hurry to quit the day job. What does taking the leap even look like when the stable thing and the calling both feel like home?

🎵 Greg Loftus's latest: No Kings in the Wild (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
0:43 First AmericanaFest, Fresh Album
1:00 The Dream Festival Lineup
2:51 Scoping the Scene and Bloodshot at 30
4:02 A Music Life on Cape Cod
4:29 From the Cape to Austin and Back
6:52 Narrowland Woodworks and the Day Job
9:17 Songwriting as Therapy, Woodworking as Meditation
12:21 Divorce, COVID, and the Songs That Followed
14:55 What "No Kings in the Wild" Means
17:34 Castaways and Wash Ashores
20:47 The Steve Earle Camp and Meeting Anders Osborne
23:20 Show Up and Do the Work
25:11 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 artists and fans told us about music, money, and AI → State of Music summary

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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

Ten years producing for other people. Now he is learning to be the artist.

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Elis Cole grew up just outside Nashville, grandson of Don Winters, a yodeler who once held a world record for holding a note. His own path ran through a decade of production long before it ever reached a microphone. At a songwriter retreat, he sits down with Jason English to talk about stepping out from behind the boards and into the role of artist, and about the sound he calls upbeat sad boy: driving pop built on the melancholy of growing up. His 2023 album Wrong Person, Right Time set that identity, and a new teaser called "2003" hints at where he is headed. What happens to the music when the sadness starts to feel less like a wound and more like home?

🎵 Elis Cole's latest: Wrong Person, Right Time (2023)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome From the Songwriter Retreat
0:39 Inside the Ari Retreat
2:51 A Moment That Sticks: Sitting on the Artist's Side
3:56 Growing Up Just Outside Nashville
6:23 A Grandfather and a Yodeling Record
7:36 Defining "Upbeat Sad Boy"
8:20 Why the Lyrics Lean Sad
9:02 Where the Sound Is Headed
10:12 Influences and Hyper-Pop
11:39 Is Nashville the Right Place
13:44 The Underground Scene
14:44 The Melancholy Behind the Music
16:41 Wrong Person, Right Time
17:32 60 Seconds of Curiosity
19:14 Live Performance: "2003"

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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

His angsty breakup songs aren't about a person. They're about leaving the religion he grew up in.

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

Tawnted spent a year sidelined by injury, lost a relationship, and moved to a new city, and he turned every bit of it into songs. On this episode he tells Jason English about growing up a gay Jehovah's Witness, working as a missionary at nineteen, and walking away at twenty into a kind of shunning. He explains why so many of his tracks sound like breakups but are really about leaving a faith, and how his Seven Deadly Sins project, including the single "You're So Fake," channels anger into something he can release rather than become. Raised to be certain about everything, he's now most at home being unsure. What happens when you're finally allowed to ask the questions you were never permitted to?

🎵 Tawnted's latest: the single "You're So Fake" (2024), from his Seven Deadly Sins project

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
1:43 A Year of Setbacks: Injury and a Breakup
3:07 Anger as Fuel for Songwriting
3:56 "Unwell" and the Jenga Video
5:41 Raised a Gay Jehovah's Witness
7:53 Leaving the Religion at Twenty
10:25 Writing From the Dark, Not the Happy
11:13 Going Independent and the Seven Deadly Sins
15:42 60 Seconds of Curiosity
19:00 Live Performance: "Start a War"

📊 FREE REPORT: Our research on how artists really make money in the age of AI and streaming → State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Stories behind the episodes, in your inbox → 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 went viral with one song, then chose to build a career with no backup plan.

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

Kaia Jette dropped a single called "Medusa," watched it cross twelve million streams, and used the momentum to chase a sound she calls Fantasy Rock. Recorded at a Nashville songwriter retreat, this conversation traces her path from Utah's underground venues through LA to Music City, and gets into why she runs the whole operation, marketing included, on her own. She is blunt about the cost of going all in: she refuses to keep a backup plan, because a backup plan is where you end up. Her EP Apollo turns Greek myth into something cinematic and loud. What does it take to bet everything on the one thing you can't not do?

🎵 Kaia Jette's latest: Apollo (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Meeting Kaia at the Ari Retreat
1:04 How She Landed at the Songwriter Retreat
2:11 What "Fantasy Rock" Actually Means
2:54 Greek Mythology and the Rise of "Medusa"
3:05 Growing Up in Utah's Underground Scene
4:11 Utah to LA to Nashville
7:13 Dating and Settling Into Nashville
8:35 Where She Stands as an Artist Today
8:42 Going Fully Independent and Learning Marketing
10:56 The "No Backup Plan" Philosophy
11:54 60 Seconds of Curiosity
12:19 Where Her Songs Come From
12:53 What's Next

📊 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

He has a million followers. The break that mattered most was a call he nearly ignored.

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

Philip Bowen sat down at Eddie's Attic in Atlanta, between tour stops and just off a run of late-night recording sessions back home in West Virginia. He talks about building an audience of more than a million through years of nightly livestreams, and why the invitations that meant the most were the Bluebird Cafe and NPR's Mountain Stage. His debut album Old Kanawha is named for the river near his childhood home, holding both the beauty of Appalachia and the weight of the opioid crisis. He is candid about burnout, about a December when he nearly walked away, and about the phone call that came two days after Christmas. What does success look like once you already have the thing everyone else is chasing?

🎵 Philip Bowen's latest: Old Kanawha (2023)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
1:02 Mid-Tour and What Success Looks Like
3:50 Making Space to Write on the Road
5:10 Finding Balance with Family
6:42 Beyond the Follower Count
9:00 The Bluebird and Mountain Stage
12:16 Leaving the Corporate Job
13:00 The Daily Create and the Lockdown Livestreams
16:42 60 Seconds of Curiosity
21:40 Almost Quitting and the Call That Changed Everything
25:00 Old Kanawha and the Stories of Home
28:14 Getting the Americana Fest Spotlight
29:00 The Misconceptions About Appalachia
33:00 "A Murder" and "Vampire in Appalachia"
40:00 The Story Behind "Sweet Honey"
44:48 Live Performance: "Sweet Honey"

📊 FREE REPORT: Get the State of Music summary.

📬 NEWSLETTER: Subscribe free to Chords of Curiosity.

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's an introvert who built an extrovert to do the job. The album is his argument with himself.

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

Axel Flóvent still lives in Husavik, the small fishing town on Iceland's north coast where he grew up writing songs in the quiet. A few weeks after releasing his second album Away From This Dream, he sat down with Jason English to talk about the tension the title names: the more he wants to be an artist, the more he has to be a businessman to fund it. He's candid about being an introvert who built a more outgoing version of himself for the work, about writing dozens of songs to find the ten that made the record, and about how "Forest Fires" took off almost by accident. He traces his whole sound back to growing up with a lot of empty space and learning to get inspired by nothing. What does it cost to keep the thing you love from turning into the thing you dread?

🎵 Axel Flovent's latest: Away From This Dream (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
1:39 Studio Versus Stage
3:22 The Introvert Behind the Persona
5:25 "Forest Fires" and Millions of Streams
9:09 "Away From This Dream": Artist Versus Businessman
15:31 From Thirty Demos to Ten Songs
19:05 Why He Never Recycles a Song
20:50 "Wash It Away": Overthinking and Doubt
24:55 "Don't Wait for Summer"
27:22 "Honesty": Choosing Solitude Over Settling
36:00 Iceland and the Sound of Nothing
41:18 60 Seconds of Curiosity
43:00 What's Next: Husavik and Festivals

📊 FREE REPORT: Our research on how artists really make money in the age of AI and streaming → State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Stories behind the episodes, in your inbox → 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

He left Knoxville for a Mexico City commune, chasing a different kind of faith

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Tyler Anthony, who records as Cereus Bright, moved from Knoxville to Mexico City and a creative community called Casa de Copas. He talks about losing patience with rigid binaries, his struggle with faith, and the new album "Anything," including songs like "Boys" and "Don't You Fake It Too." He closes unplugged. What do you find when you stop needing the world to be either/or?

🎵 Cereus Bright's latest: Anything (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 An Existential Crisis
1:43 Tyler Anthony's Journey
2:39 Moving to Mexico City
3:27 Casa de Copas
5:57 Challenges and Hopes for Artists
20:25 The New Album, Anything
29:54 Themes in the Album
32:20 Influences and Inspirations
35:59 The Stories Behind the Lyrics
44:13 60 Seconds of Curiosity
59:56 Upcoming Plans

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

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, and one curiosity prompt each 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

A label founder and lifelong artist on taking her own album apart and building it again.

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

Rachael Sage has built a whole life in music, as an artist and the founder of her own label. She talks about "Another Side," a reimagined version of her 2023 album "The Other Side," what she's learning from co-writing, and the emotional connection she's after on stage. She performs two songs. What do you hear in your own work when you take it apart and build it again?

🎵 Rachael Sage's latest: Another Side (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
3:33 Recent Activities and Collaborations
5:15 The Album "The Other Side"
10:58 Connection with the UK Scene
20:07 A Multifaceted Career
27:06 Challenges and Inspirations
36:35 Navigating the Industry
38:07 Track-by-Track Insights
52:50 Upcoming Projects
55:51 Live Performance

📊 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 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

The Jackopierce frontman on sobriety, a 35-year partnership, and finally calling himself a songwriter

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Jack O'Neill of Jackopierce talks about getting sober, his military upbringing, and the 35-year friendship with Cary Pierce that started at SMU. He gets into quitting his day job to fully claim being a songwriter, the stories behind new singles like "Airport Bars and Air Guitars" and "Weight of the World," and recording with T Bone Burnett. He closes acoustic. What does it take to finally call yourself the thing you have always been?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 A Life-Changing Decision
1:48 The Story of Jack O'Neill
2:33 Jackopierce, the Duo
3:47 Jack's Solo Journey
8:16 The Music Industry Today
11:09 Creating New Music
15:49 The Impact of Streaming
24:17 The Art of Songwriting
40:47 A Military Family's Influence
51:55 "Weight of the World"
1:03:02 60 Seconds of Curiosity
1:25:31 Live Performance

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

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, and one curiosity prompt each 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

An indie songwriter on sobriety, self-forgiveness, and a debut called I Might Be Grown

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Mae Krell came up in New York's indie scene and writes straight from her own struggles with mental health and sobriety. She talks about her debut album "I Might Be Grown," what the title means, and tracks like "Apollo's Song" and "Grown." She's thoughtful about building real connection with fans in a noisy industry. She closes with two songs. What does it take to forgive the version of yourself you're growing out of?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Self-Forgiveness
1:45 Discovering Mae Krell
3:00 Her Musical Journey
5:21 Touring and the Album
10:02 The Independent Hustle
22:52 New York vs. Nashville
32:25 The Album: I Might Be Grown
42:58 Sobriety and Reflection
47:13 Music as a Lifeline
52:45 60 Seconds of Curiosity
54:50 Live Performance

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

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, and one curiosity prompt each 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