"I'm so much more prolific when I exercise."

Tim Burgess of The Charlatans admitted to me during episode 55 of the podcast that "rock stars aren't supposed to exercise, but we all have our secrets, don't we?" Well, the cat's out of the bag. Burgess loves to exercise, and it's an important part of his songwriting process. Many of his song ideas come to him at the gym as he's listening to music and watching whatever is playing on the television there. But physical activity as way to stimulate creativity underscores a bigger theme in his process: "When I'm preoccupied, that's when the ideas come," he told me. His best ideas happen when he's not thinking about writing songs.

In this episode, you'll also learn why Burgess needs a white room when he writes (no, it has nothing to do with Cream) and what  Van Gogh painting he saw more than 20 years ago inspired him to write a song that, to this day, he still hasn't been able to finish.