Twenty years and nine albums in, the goal shifts from surviving to thriving

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers opens up about the band's ninth album, "Caught Light," and an instinctive way of writing that has kept him going two decades. He gets into recording in a converted farmhouse, the strange new logistics of touring, and how family life and loneliness both shape the songs. What does it take to keep a band thriving, not just lasting, after twenty years?

🎵 Great Lake Swimmers' latest: Caught Light

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Songwriting Instincts
1:36 Meet Tony Dekker
1:40 The New Album "Caught Light"
3:29 Touring and Feedback
5:13 Songwriting Process and Themes
7:40 The Logistics of Touring
12:28 Recording in Unique Places
19:37 Loneliness and Connection
21:19 The Pandemic's Impact
28:50 60 Seconds of Curiosity
31:31 Future Outlook

📊 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 Americana legend on aging, sobriety, gratitude, and a record called Hillbilly Speedball.

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Webb Wilder has been an Americana fixture for decades, and at AmericanaFest he's reflective: about getting older, his sobriety, and the gratitude that comes with both. He talks about the album "Hillbilly Speedball," the Webb Wilder persona, and the Elvis and Tom Petty threads in his DNA. What does a music lifer learn about himself once the noise quiets down?

🎵 Webb Wilder's latest: Hillbilly Speedball

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Reflecting on Life and Mortality
3:04 AmericanaFest and Career Highlights
6:01 WMOT Roots Radio
8:46 New Music
16:30 Farewell With Four
20:28 Southern Roots and Elvis
21:56 Tom Petty and Rock 'n' Roll
23:51 The Webb Wilder Persona
26:15 Sobriety and Growth
32:16 Hillbilly Speedball
37:57 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 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

A married duo on scheduling creativity, dodging AI, and maybe moving to New Zealand.

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Dani and Nick of South for Winter make genre-bending roots music and a marriage work at the same time. They talk about scheduling creativity, their take on AI's limits in roots music, and the big life questions: relocating to New Zealand, starting a family. They close with "This Man Will Be the Death of Me" and "All I Want to Do." How do you keep a marriage and a band healthy when they're the same thing?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Creative Struggles
1:37 Meet Dani and Nick
1:55 Managing Marriage and Music
4:39 The Evolution of Their Sound
12:33 Musical Influences
14:35 Creative Process and Future
19:03 AI in the Music Industry
23:03 Life as an Independent Band
27:47 Future Aspirations
36:36 Live Performance: "This Man Will Be the Death of Me"
39:46 Live Performance: "All I Want to Do"

📊 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

Memphis's pride returns with new confidence, a new album, and an engagement ring

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Cyrena Wages comes back to the show with more confidence than the first time around. She talks about her growth since "The Vanity Project," an upcoming album, the new single "Miss Melancholia," and an engagement that is reshaping her life. The Memphis-Nashville pull runs through all of it. What changes in the music when you finally trust yourself?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Self-Confidence
1:24 Reintroducing Cyrena Wages
1:54 Her Journey and Growth
6:59 Memphis and Nashville
11:51 Looking Back at The Vanity Project
17:54 The New Album
18:10 The Story of "Miss Melancholia"
20:23 Future Singles
23:16 Engagement and Personal Life
29:31 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 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

He left the medical field for Nashville, and wrote about the veteran suicides nobody talks about

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Matt Rogers traded a medical career for a songwriting one in Nashville. He talks about the writing behind "Camouflage," a song about veteran suicide, along with "You Are My Hallelujah" and "White Trash Royalty." He is candid about dating in the music business and the fiancée who steadied him, and he closes with "Camouflage." What keeps an artist chasing greatness without losing himself in it?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 The Philosophy of Songwriting
1:36 Meet Matt Rogers
3:00 The Journey to Nashville
4:11 The Songwriting Process
8:10 Songwriting as Therapy
12:06 The Story of "Camouflage"
14:47 "Hallelujah" and "White Trash Royalty"
22:00 The Realities of the Industry
27:37 The Engagement Story
31:46 60 Seconds of Curiosity
33:15 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

From American Idol to a Wrigley Field anthem on her own terms

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Gina Venier traces the road from Midwestern roots to Nashville, with a stop at the mic singing the national anthem at Wrigley Field. She is honest about her American Idol run and the pressure to turn a personal story into a product. Authenticity, curiosity, and community keep surfacing, and she closes the episode with "Nora Jane." What does it take to tell your own story instead of the one the industry wants?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Embracing Growth
1:38 Meet Gina Venier
4:11 A Love for Baseball
5:46 The Anthem at Wrigley Field
12:13 The Power of Connections
19:46 Midwestern Roots
22:38 Identity and Faith
27:40 The American Idol Experience
37:35 The Pressure to Exploit Your Story
45:18 Authentic Connections
49:29 60 Seconds of Curiosity
1:09:39 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

The voice and fiddle of Old Crow Medicine Show on trains, Dylan, and tending country's roots

Get the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

Ketch Secor, the voice and fiddle of Old Crow Medicine Show, talks about his solo album "Story the Crow Told Me" and his role as a steward of country music's history. He gets into trains and wanderlust, the long story of "Wagon Wheel" and Darius Rucker, and what Ken Burns' documentary stirred up. He is part historian, part trickster. What do you owe the tradition you inherit, and what do you get to reinvent?

🎵 Ketch Secor's latest: Story the Crow Told Me (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 The Power of Music
2:00 The Interview Begins
4:06 Railroad Revival Tour Memories
4:53 The Magic of Trains
11:34 "Wagon Wheel" and Darius Rucker
17:05 60 Seconds of Curiosity
20:28 Nashville's Musical Legacy
25:36 Ken Burns' Country Music
37:03 The Making of "Story the Crow Told Me"
45:27 Legacy and Mentorship
51:20 The Trickster's Wisdom

📊 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

Fourteen number-one hits, and he still calls a great song "magic" he can't fully explain.

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

Roger Murrah moved from an Alabama farm to Music Row in 1972 and spent five decades writing songs you already know, from Alabama's "High Cotton" to Al Jarreau's "We're in This Love Together." At 78, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer and BMI's Songwriter of the Decade for the 1980s, he is still writing and still pitching, including a new one he hopes lands on Alan Jackson's final album. He walks Jason through the line between a good song and an exceptional one, the kind of magic he can recognize but never quite explain, then lets Jason hand him raw lyrics to edit on the spot. What separates a line that is merely good from one that stops you cold?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 → Cold Open: Good Songs vs. Exceptional Ones
2:50 → From an Alabama Farm to Music Row
5:34 → Still Writing at 78, Still Pitching Alan Jackson
7:52 → Selling the Catalog, Keeping the Unheard Songs
9:11 → The Anatomy of Magic
11:34 → Lyric, Melody, and the Hook
13:45 → Fourteen Number Ones and Songwriter of the Decade
18:00 → "High Cotton" and the Autobiographical Lyric
22:21 → "We're in This Love Together" and "Ozark Mountain Jubilee"
25:46 → The Songs He Wishes He'd Written
29:00 → Rick Hall, Muscle Shoals, and the Magic
39:06 → Waylon Jennings and the Audiobiography
42:19 → A Room Full of Icons: "What Are We Doing Here?"
45:44 → Writer or Co-Writer: What Counts
48:02 → Can Songwriting Be Taught?
50:52 → Faith, Divorce, and Where Emotion Comes From
56:16 → Putting the Editing to the Test
1:05:21 → 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: Get the data behind the music. Grab the State of Music summary.

📬 NEWSLETTER: Stories behind the songs, every other week. 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 came back to her grandmother's piano during the pandemic, and the family songs started arriving.

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

Claire Holley sat down at the childhood piano her grandmother made her learn on in third grade, and a record's worth of family stories came back with her. On this episode she talks with Jason English about her new album Where I Lived, the slow patience behind songs that can take fifteen years to finish, and why she stopped trying to move to Nashville and built a creative life in Los Angeles instead. She is candid about inheritance, the kind that runs through cancer and mental illness and also through grace. What do we carry from the people who made us, and what do we get to set down?

🎵 Claire Holley's latest: Where I Lived (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
3:18 Thirty Years and a College Cassette
8:45 Timeless Songs and Hymns
11:43 Family as the Center of Gravity
16:24 Nashville Versus Los Angeles
23:28 Film, Theater, and Faith Out West
28:18 Becoming a Songwriter
31:10 The New Record: "Where I Lived"
34:11 "Beauty School": Dolly and Tammy
38:32 "Night Air" and Letting the Music Lead
43:43 Where She Is, Where She's Headed
48:36 60 Seconds of Curiosity
53:08 Live Performance: "Bluebird"
55:38 Live Performance: "Night Air"

📊 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

Holding onto hope and love in dark times, written on a frozen Canadian coast.

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

Shayfer James called in from Calgary to talk about a new album, his devoted fan base, and the balance between performing and the business behind it. He's thoughtful about staying authentic on social media and about writing toward hope and love when the world feels dark. A secluded month on Canada's frozen coast shaped a lot of the new songs. How do you keep making hopeful music without lying about the times you're in?

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
0:46 Touring the New Album
1:56 The Challenges of Social Media
3:09 Balancing Art and Business
4:29 Staying Authentic in Dark Times
6:47 Connecting with Fans
8:15 60 Seconds of Curiosity
11:02 The Making of the Album
14:58 The Frozen Coast
19:40 Songwriting Insights
24:12 Themes of the Album
29:16 The Artistic Journey

📊 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