"If you're writing alone, you're still collaborating," Devendra Banhart says on this episode of the podcast. I love that idea: even in solitary writing, you're always running ideas by yourself. Is it the unconscious against the conscious? Reminds me of the time Matt Nathanson told me that he calls his writing partner "The Assassin."

What you can't see in the podcast is that behind Banhart was an entire wall of floor to ceiling books as we talked.  You can't be a good (song)writer unless you read. No exceptions. And I loved our discussion of why poetry is so important.

Banhart's latest album Flying Wig is out September 22.