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.

Jamie Webster joins Kieron Banerji on The Hardest Part to break down the writing, meaning and performance of his song “Small Town Life.”

Jamie explains how years spent touring through towns across the UK inspired him to write a song celebrating the people, characters and communities that exist beyond the country’s biggest cities, places that might look imperfect from the outside, but mean everything to the people who call them home.

Jamie takes us inside his songwriting process, from keeping fragments and ideas in his phone to beginning “Small Town Life” with a musical manifesto: make it anthemic, make the chorus immediate and write something people can sing together.

Jamie also discusses how growing up in Liverpool shaped him as both a person and songwriter, the passion and defiance he associates with his hometown, his working-class identity, and why speaking from the heart remains central to his music.

This episode also features an intimate live performance of “Small Town Life.”

Subscribe for more conversations and exclusive live sessions from The Hardest Part.

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00:00 Jamie Webster on Working-Class Life
01:16 The Story Behind ‘Small Town Life’
05:20 Turning Where You’re From Into a Strength
08:50 Jamie Webster’s Songwriting Process
09:36 Building the Perfect Chorus
11:12 Finding the Idea for ‘Small Town Life’
12:37 Don’t Play the Game, Change It
14:38 The Characters That Make a Town
15:12 A Wild Small-Town Pub Story
18:18 Liverpool, Football and Finding an Audience
21:15 How Liverpool Shaped Jamie’s Songwriting
24:30 Paddy Pimblett and the Scouse Mentality
25:27 Writing About Working-Class Life
28:18 The Hardest Part of ‘Small Town Life’
33:21 Why Jamie Won’t Comp His Vocals
34:06 ‘Small Town Life’ – Full Performance

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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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#jamiewebster #musicpodcast #smalltownlife

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Le Ren almost threw this song away. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up "Die Inside" from her album Don't Be Funny Without Me, a song that was easy to write but hard to sing, about a crush that was never going to be reciprocated, and the strange courage it takes to perform the plain, un-metaphored truth.

It's a conversation about honesty in songwriting: why singing it live once made her "feel like a loser," how Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" gave her permission to be vulnerable, why she tests every song live before recording.

Guest: Le Ren
Host: Kieron Banerji
Song: Die Inside
Creative: Callum Baker
Audio: Max Walker

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00:00 "Easy to write, hard to sing"
01:51 Writing the truth, not the revenge song
03:21 Bonnie Raitt & choosing to be vulnerable
04:55 The hard part: making it public
05:42 Why she tests every song live first
08:09 "Long hair's better": brutal honesty
10:05 How she actually writes
12:51 Her heroes: Prine and Dolly
18:20 Inside "Die Inside": the story arc
20:03 Live Session: Die Inside
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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.

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.

Rosa Walton spent over 18 months getting one song right.

On this episode of The Hardest Part, Rosa opens up "Halfway Around the World" from her album Tell Me It's a Dream, her first attempt at a "straight-down-the-line" love song, and the hardest lyrics she's ever had to write.

It's a conversation about craft: why literal songwriting scares her more than abstract imagery, how she knows the moment a lyric is finally right, why she refuses to explain what her songs are about ("it takes away the magic"), and the new ending she wrote just the day before this stripped-back session.

Rosa performs "Halfway Around the World" live and stripped back for the show at the end of the episode.

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Guest: Rosa Walton
Host: Kieron Banerji
Song: Halfway Around The World
Album: Tell Me It's a Dream
Creative: Callum Baker

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00:00 Intro
01:43 Why "Halfway Around the World" was the hardest
02:22 18 months to get the lyrics right
03:33 Her first "straight-down-the-line" love song
04:48 A song that works on one instrument
06:06 What the song is really about
09:48 How she knows when a lyric is right
13:00 Why she won't explain her lyrics
16:51 The new ending she wrote for this session
18:09 A song as something that lasts forever

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The Hardest Part is a podcast and live-session series where artists open up the one song that cost them the most, the story behind it, and a stripped-back performance. Hosted by Kieron Banerji.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tenderness didn't find "Playing Country Roads" hard to write, she found it almost impossible to hold. On this episode of The Hardest Part with Kieron Banerji, she opens up the closing song from her album: written on her late father Ivor's guitar, built on a voice memo she couldn't bring herself to re-record, and carrying two griefs at once.

It's a conversation about turning loss into art without letting the performance swallow the feeling — the "healthy middle place" every songwriter has to find. Along the way: the hidden thread of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (via the Mountain Man version), the ELO "Mr Blue Sky" memory from just before her dad's funeral, and why she refuses to change the line "it's been three months since the funeral," even six years on.

Tenderness performs "Playing Country Roads" live and stripped back in full at the end of the episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Julia Cumming to discuss “Please Let Me Remember This,” one of the most personal songs from her debut solo album Julia. 

What began as an attempt to write about the smallest possible moment gradually became something much bigger. Julia describes songwriting as visiting her subconscious, placing a cup into a flowing river, and seeing what comes back. But while writing this song, she found herself confronting thoughts she wasn’t ready to face. 

As the writing process intensified, so did the pressure. Weeks of obsessive thinking, creative paralysis, and mounting anxiety eventually culminated in a moment that changed everything. The experience led Julia to seek help, receive an OCD diagnosis, and better understand what had been happening beneath the surface for years. 

Rather than abandoning the song, she returned to it months later with a new perspective. The result became not only one of the defining songs on the record, but a reminder that sometimes the hardest songs reveal something we weren’t ready to know about ourselves. 

Guest: Julia Cumming

Host: Kieron Banerji

Creative Team: Callum Baker

With thanks to Emily Connick at Toast Press and Crista Simiriglia

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In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Ava Joe to break down the making of “Am I a Dreamer”, a song inspired by one of the most complicated emotions she experiences: nostalgia.  

Unlike most of her songwriting, which begins with a specific experience and the feelings that follow, this song started with an emotion. Ava set out to write about nostalgia itself, drawing together memories, places, films, relationships, and moments that all carried the same emotional weight.  

This episode explores why nostalgia can feel more painful than comforting, the strange experience of feeling nostalgic while living through a moment, and the fear of time passing too quickly. From watching the sea in Greece to reflecting on her teenage years, Ava explains how “Am I a Dreamer? became a meditation on memory, growing up, and the moments we know we’ll miss before they’ve even ended.  

Kieron and Ava also talk about songwriting, collaboration, creative blocks, and why some of the best artistic breakthroughs happen when you stop forcing them.

Guest: Ava Joe
Host: Kieron Banerji

Mix Engineer: Max Walker
Recording Engineer: Giovani Alimonte
Creative: Callum Baker

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00:00 Intro
00:55 Why nostalgia is so difficult to write about
02:00 Starting with a feeling, not a memory
02:45 Why nostalgia feels painful
03:40 Feeling nostalgic in the present moment
05:25 The memories behind the song
07:10 Why time is her biggest fear
08:40 Building a song from emotion
10:15 Writing with producer Eddie George
11:00 Finding the right collaborators
12:30 The writers who ask the right questions
14:00 Why she chose the nylon-string guitar
15:00 Creative blocks and losing her voice
16:20 Learning to stop forcing creativity
18:20 How listeners hear the song differently
19:50 Full session

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In this episode of The Hardest Part, Kieron Banerji sits down with Metric to break down the making of “Victim of Luck”, the opening track from their latest album and the song that took longer to finish than any other. The challenge wasn’t writing it. The challenge was knowing when it was right.

Emily and Jimmy Shaw tell Kieron how the song was intended to introduce the entire record, setting the tone for everything that followed. But as the album evolved, so did the song. Lyrics changed, arrangements changed, production choices came and went, and even the title itself didn’t arrive until the rest of the album was complete.

At the center of the track is a deeply personal realization. What began as a fictional story about a band’s rise gradually became something much more direct: a reflection on success, anxiety, self-criticism, and the strange feeling of becoming a “victim of luck.” 

This episode also features an exclusive stripped back acoustic version of the track recorded for the show. 

Guests: Metric

Song: Victim of Luck

Host: Kieron Banerji

Creative: Callum Baker and Giovanni Alimonte

Produced by: Palm Tree Island

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.