The Hardest Part

"When you're at a low point, there's nowhere to go but up — and when you're down there, you might as well hit record." 

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Naya Yeira opens up "hit record" — a song written at rock bottom, about refusing to be embarrassed in pursuit of something, with sad lyrics deliberately hidden inside an upbeat beat.

It's a conversation about an artist building herself in real time: creating in a vacuum while searching for her sound and her message; writing from a beat up with producer Sean Hamilton, and why uncovering a song with someone feels safer than bringing one in; the Doja Cat-inspired vocal versatility (talking lows, singing highs) and the stacks and stacks of harmonies to listen for; Ed Sheeran's "clearing the tap" and writing through the ideas that don't stick; and a genuinely distinctive vision beyond the music — projector installations, 2am park shoots bathed in red light, fabric and fans on stage — because she wants you to enter a world, not just hear a song. Plus the line of the episode: "If I sing about boys until I'm 40, have I lived?"

Then Naya Yeira performs "hit record" live in the studio.

00:00 "You might as well hit record"
00:54 Rock bottom, pointing up
01:48 In the room: a beat, a melody, a vacuum
03:48 Hiding behind upbeat beats
05:16 Doja Cat & vocal versatility
06:33 Clearing the tap: ideas that don't stick
07:51 The multidisciplinary vision
10:09 The nuance: the delicate pre & stacked harmonies
11:21 Projectors, red parks & entering a world
13:21 Live Session: hit record

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

🎧 Follow the Podcast: https://linktr.ee/thehardestpart

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#NayaYeira #songwriting#musicpodcast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Saltwater stings a wound... and heals it. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Troy Javelona opens up "SALTWATER" from his two-sided EP No Healing Without Heartbreak: one side written inside a relationship that treated him badly, the other written on the way out, and this song, from the healing side, about the new love that stings with the past even as it mends it.

00:00 "The saltwater that heals me"
01:00 Introducing "SALTWATER" & the two-sided EP
01:57 The saltwater metaphor
02:51 Journaling a breakup into songs
04:30 First collaborations & learning to say no
08:12 Trust: the thing every artist names
09:45 Ocean towns, London & how place shapes sound
13:50 Writing straight to the person
16:45 The intro: a song for the beach
17:44 Full Track

The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

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#TroyJavelona #Saltwater #musicpodcast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dan Croll spent seven years on "Hail Mary," a song about last chances, time running out, and coming to terms with a career that didn't keep the shape it started with. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, he opens it up with rare honesty: the early success he feels he squandered, the full-time job he works outside music now, and why everything, ideas, songs, deals, and touring, feels like one more throw of the ball. And why he's still here, still giving it a go.

They talk about craft as persistence: the archivist's method of reopening a session every few months for years; a full notebook per song and "murder-map" lyric walls; the voice-notes ritual that makes sure no good idea slips the net; collaborating for the first time in his career; and the influences behind the album Winning Streak — a rekindled Burt Bacharach obsession ("Budget Bacharach": real vibraphone, coffin-sized studio), Frank Sinatra endings, Glen Campbell, and country's unapologetic honesty. Then the nuance that changes the song: the bridge line that surprised him as he wrote it — "and I'm praying you won't forget me." His biggest fear, out loud.

Then Dan performs "Hail Mary" live in the studio.

00:00 "Everything's a bit of a Hail Mary"
01:04 Seven years, one song
02:22 Last chance saloon
03:51 Chords first, chorus first
07:46 Voice notes & keeping ideas alive
11:00 Collaborating for the first time
12:38 Budget Bacharach & Sinatra endings
17:12 Country, Cohen & honest simplicity
20:36 "Praying you won't forget me"
22:54 🎸 Live: Hail Mary

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

🎧 Follow the Podcast: https://linktr.ee/thehardestpart

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#DanCroll #HailMary #MusicPodcast #TheHardestPart #Songwriting #LiveSession

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Luke Hart wrote "Biding" about seeing someone, an infatuation that felt amazing and awful at once. Then he posted it online, people found it, and strangers started messaging him that the song holds their grief, their old cities, their goodbyes. 

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, he opens up the song that's done more than he ever intended.

Kieron and Luke talk about the song written on the couch of his old Manchester flat under a salt lamp, the diminished chords he learned from listening to his friends, the inspiration of Adrianne Lenker, and why songwriting is the only way he knows to process anything.

Luke also performs an exclusive stripped back version of the track for us live in our studio.

00:00 "It's done so much more than I intended"
01:20 Introducing "Biding"
01:48 An infatuation, in the cold
03:42 The salt lamp & the Manchester flat
05:06 Diminished chords & learning from friends
07:43 Songwriting as the only way to process
11:33 Pinegrove, Laura Marling & peers who push you
14:09 Open D, Chris Smither & Adrianne Lenker
14:42 The song that outgrew him
16:24 Live Session: Biding

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

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#LukeHart #Biding #MusicPodcast #TheHardestPart #NewMusic #Songwriting #LiveSession

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maddie Zahm was watching Meryl Streep deliver "that is all" in The Devil Wears Prada when she had a realisation: "that's gay." 

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up "Meryl," a flirty, joyful, proudly queer song about loving older women.

It's a conversation about honesty as a superpower: how she came out through a song she accidentally sent to her mom, why she writes hyper-specifically, as though no one will ever hear it, and why the songs that scare her most always resonate most.

At the end of the interview, Maddie performs an exclusive stripped back version of the track. 

00:00 "That's gay": the Meryl Streep moment
01:14 Introducing "Meryl"
01:57 Coming out through a song (by accident)
02:55 Writing literally — & the eyelash story
05:00 Writing like throwing up
05:45 Editing on gut instinct
07:39 Griffin, Summer & turning the car around
10:21 Does Meryl know?
11:40 "I've never done a thing that I'm told"
12:20 Live Session: Meryl

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

🎧 Follow the Podcast: https://linktr.ee/thehardestpart

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#MaddieZahm #Meryl #MusicPodcast #TheHardestPart #Pride #QueerMusic #Songwriting #LiveSession

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, the band's songwriter and frontwoman opens up "Serpent," the song that fought her hardest on The Bestiary: the one where every band member hated a different part, and the only fix was to scrap everything but the lyrics and start again.

It's a conversation about ego and letting go, the first genuinely collaborative Castle Rat album, tears in the rehearsal space, the heart-to-heart that revealed her bandmates wanted to write too, and the fear that sharing even 10% of a song would void her contribution, sharpened by years of being a woman in metal whose riffs get credited to "the boys." Plus: the "creepies and crawlies" joke that killed the old chorus, a Dio-style rebuild, a 10-foot rat puppet with the wrong wings, and the "Riley filter" through which everything still passes.

00:00 "That's my riff"
01:32 The hardest song on The Bestiary
01:57 Tears in the rehearsal space
03:39 Everyone hated a different part
04:39 Scrap it, keep the lyrics
06:03 "Creepies and crawlies"
09:21 The 10-foot rat puppet
14:09 Being a woman in metal
15:15 The heart-to-heart & Franco's blindside
19:27 Serpent: Full Track

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

🎧 Follow the Podcast: https://linktr.ee/thehardestpart

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#CastleRat #Serpent #TheBestiary #TheHardestPart

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of these songs took Gently Tender three years. The other took two minutes. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Gently Tender's Sam Fryer and Francesca Brierley opens up "Staring at Fields" and "The City of the Beast," both from their upcoming album ,This Was Once Fields.

It's a conversation about a lifelong Londoner mourning the city's lost magic, think the Astoria and Madame Jojo's, and about why he keeps escaping it on foot: the hyperacusis that makes city noise painful, the walks that became meditation, the "I'm staring at fields" mantra sung alone in a dark London studio. 

They talk about craft: the song he nearly binned and fought the whole band over, sneaking it onto the album after delivery, why the band always finds his real chorus, and the two-minute drum-machine stream of consciousness that produced one of his favourite lyrics he's ever written.

Gently Tender perform also play both songs live and stripped back exclusively for The Hardest Part.

00:00 Two songs, one walk
00:14 "City of the Beast": London's lost magic
00:57 "Staring at Fields" & the walk
01:43 Why the city hurts his ears
03:51 Three years, many versions, nearly binned
07:36 Best idea wins: how the band edits Sam
10:42 "I don't understand my own songs"
13:55 The Mountain Goats & concept albums
15:27 Writer's block: bail the water out
17:33 Mussel shoals & stream of consciousness
22:52: Staring at Fields
28:10: The City of the Beast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Izzy Steele had a full-time job acting on a TV soap, and left it to chase music before she knew if it would work, one of the hardest decisions she ever had to make. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Izzy opens up "Something Infinite," the title track of her EP: a song about the frustration that comes with ambition, that awkward middle part between leaving something safe and arriving anywhere at all.

Izzy talks about how honesty is a job description: years of bottling emotions and saving them for the camera, then suddenly writing songs where the character is you; teaching herself guitar because her new London flat had no piano; writing the bones of the song in half an hour and finishing the second verse on the bus home; and the chorus lyric, "you want something infinite and need it in an instant," that came out before she understood what she was saying. Plus her cure for creative block: too much writing, not enough living.

00:00 "Why am I like this?"
01:29 Introducing "Something Infinite"
02:44 New to guitar, needing real sound
07:19 Leaving the soap for honesty
11:30 Half an hour in the studio, finished on the bus
13:09 The lyric she didn't understand yet
14:58 Too much writing, not enough living
17:27 What acting taught her about being watched
20:21 Editing: addicted to the demo
26:54 Full Track: Something Infinite

#LittleDogStar #SomethingInfinite #MusicPodcast #TheHardestPart #NewMusic #Songwriting #LiveSession #IzzySteele

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Pixie McCann convinced herself in a toilet that everyone hated her, and filled her Notes app with the evidence: "literally everyone here is rotten." 

Then she woke up, read it back, and decided... this is good content. 

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up "Rotting," the song that came out of that night, and the debut EP it belongs to.

It's a conversation about the pocket between beautiful and horrible things: her first year making music professionally while her personal life fell apart, the pre-chorus that turned into an apology to her best friend ("I'm not that strong, I'm really sorry, take me back home"), working with her producer Joel, part wizard, part therapist, and the easter egg buried in the track: the word "rotting," sung in reverse, embedded into its veins.

Then Pixie performs "Rotting" live in the studio, and tells you exactly how to listen to it: back against the door, outside the party, cigarette lit, calming down.

Guest: Pixie McCann
Host and Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji
Photography and Creative: Callum Baker
Audio Engineers: Max Walker and Liam Jackson
Recorded at Palm Tree Island Studios, London.

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00:00 "Everyone here is rotten"
01:32 Why "Rotting" is the hardest part
02:27 The toilet, the Notes app & the spiral
03:58 The morning after: "this is good content"
04:39 "Take me back home" — an apology to her best friend
05:42 The pocket between beautiful & horrible
06:45 Joel the wizard: producer as therapist
10:03 Drum illiteracy, Logic Loops & Espresso
12:09 The reversed-word easter egg & how to listen
13:24 🎸 Live Session: Rotting

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, Julian Pratt opens up "See You Again," from the band's new record: a song whose chorus, "I'll see you again, no grave or cemetery can keep you from me," was written for his mentor, San Diego hardcore legend Mike Down. 

After it was recorded, Julian's close friend passed. Now the song belongs to both of them.

It's the rawest conversation this show has had: on belief, and what happens when grief shakes it; on riding motorcycles with Noble and refusing to regret the best memories of his life; on being "terrified" of the most honest record he's ever made; and on why he sings the chorus to himself now, to remember that he'll see them again, whether he can believe it yet or not.

00:00 "I've never been so honest on a record"
01:02 The hardest song: "See You Again"
01:45 For Mike Down
03:33 Then, Noble
04:31 A father figure, and a son
05:25 Motorcycles, blame & the best memories
07:15 Grief across the whole record
08:09 "Tonight is the first time I'll play it"
10:16 His friend is on the record
11:39 See You Again - Full Track

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The Hardest Part dives deep into the most emotionally complex songs ever written. Every two weeks, host Kieron Banerji sits down with artists to unpack the creative process behind their hardest songs—exploring songwriting breakdowns, emotional storytelling, cultural influences, and moments of personal growth. Each episode ends with an intimate, stripped-back performance—raw, real, and sometimes heard this way for the first time.

Produced by Palm Tree Island, a London-based creative studio known for standout music documentaries and original voices.

Kieron Banerji is a seasoned producer and engineer based in London with extensive experience in music, media, and entertainment. He’s worked with Grammy and Academy Award winners, and has recorded sessions with Portugal. The Man, Jason Isbell, Katie Melua, Rae Morris, Jason Mraz, BROODS, Baio (Vampire Weekend), and more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.