Wheels Off with Rhett Miller

Aaron Lee Tasjan joins Rhett for a conversation about joy as armor, the craft of songwriting, and the long game of staying creatively alive.

Tasjan talks about why he does his best work from a higher, more positive frequency — and what that actually means for writing songs. He unpacks why creativity gets harder with age, the books that shaped his process, and why the most powerful thing a young artist can do is realize they have more time than they think.

Pre-order Get Over It Underdog. 

Follow Aaron Lee Tasjan @aaronleetassjan

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Aaron will be joining Rhett at his Songwriting Is Magic retreat in September. Learn more here.

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on YouTube and Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

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Author Emily Franklin joins Rhett to talk about her 25th novel, Love and Other Monsters — the untold origin story of Frankenstein and the monsters we create on the page. They get into what it takes to sustain a prolific creative life. Emily also opens up about shedding critical inner voices, why poetry is the structural foundation of everything, and what it means to take bigger creative risks later in a career.

Emily Franklin is the bestselling author of twenty-five books including The Lioness of Boston, now in its eleventh printing and recently a Jeopardy! clue. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, and JAMA, and been featured on NPR.

Follow Emily @emilyfranklinauthor

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. 

Watch the podcast on YouTube and Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anthony Horowitz, one of the world's most prolific and versatile storytellers, joins Rhett for a conversation about creativity, craft, and the enduring power of the mystery novel. Horowitz reflects on a career built from the most unlikely of beginnings: a miserable boarding school, a library that became a refuge, and a boy who learned to make friends by telling stories. The two discuss his new book A Deadly Episode, and what it was like to write a book about filming a TV episode while simultaneously writing the TV episode itself. Drawing on decades of experience across every storytelling medium, Horowitz makes a compelling case for why murder mysteries aren't mere entertainment — they're a meaningful antidote to a world increasingly short on truth. 

Horowitz has written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty; three James Bond novels, Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day, and With a Mind to Kill; the mystery novels featuring book editor Susan Ryeland: Magpie Murders, Moonflower Murders, and Marble Hall Murders, and the Detective Hawthorne novels: The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, A Line To Kill, The Twist of a Knife, Close to Death, and now A DEADLY EPISODE. He is also the author of the teen spy Alex Rider series, which has sold more than nineteen million copies worldwide and has become a hugely successful show on Amazon Prime TV. His breakthrough murder mystery, Magpie Murders, and the follow up Moonflower Murders, were both adapted for TV and aired on PBS – the Marble Hall Murders series will air in September 2026. He lives in London with his wife and dog. 

A Deadly Episode is out now. More on Anthony at anthonyhorowitz.com.

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. 

Watch the podcast on YouTube and Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells joins Rhett to talk about making music for 17+ years, trusting instinct over trends, and navigating anxiety, identity, and the pressures of the modern music industry.

Follow Alexis @alexiskrauss

Follow Sleigh Bells @sleighbells

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rhett catches up with Kevn Kinney, frontman of Atlanta roots-rock institution Drivin N' Cryin, one day after his 65th birthday and on the eve of a new album. Recorded while Rhett's the Old 97's are deep in sessions at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, the conversation is a warm, wide-ranging exchange between two lifers. Kevn talks about the new record (produced by former bandmate Sadler Vaden, with Peter Buck on guitars), why he's likely done making full albums after this one, five years of sobriety, and the philosophy that has kept him performing with genuine joy for four decades.

Pre-order the new Drivin n Cryin album here

Follow Kevn @kevnkinney312

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Theater director, playwright, and multimedia artist Jared Mezzocchi joins Rhett for a conversation about what it means to make ambitious, technology-forward work without losing the human heart of the story.

Mezzocchi shares how he’s drawn to projects that seem “impossible” on paper—from a pandemic-era play about content moderation, to a site-specific production about the 1944 Hartford circus fire. He explains why impossibility isn’t a deterrent, but an opportunity for experimentation.

The conversation moves into the emotional reality of creative life: the grief of letting go after opening night, the dangerous pull of people-pleasing, and the long work of strengthening what Mezzocchi calls a “sense of self.” He reflects on losing his father at 19, how that shaped his relationship to theater and film, and why mortality, impermanence, and presence sit at the center of his work.

Rhett and Jared also talk about AI, technology anxiety, and why friction between machines and humanity may actually clarify what makes art—and people—matter. 

Follow Jared @jaredmezzocchi

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rodney Crowell, often called a “songwriter’s songwriter” and a foundational voice in Americana, joins Rhett for a conversation about intention, craft, and the long game of staying creatively alive.

Crowell shares hard-won lessons about process: how spending time on memoir pages puts him in a “workshop of words,” so that when he turns back to the guitar he’s already thinking in language. He talks about patience as the difference between forcing a song and letting it reveal itself, his approach to collaboration, the discipline of revision, and how creative confidence is built the unglamorous way: by showing up for the work, again and again.

His new album “Airline Highway” is available now. Follow Rodney @rodneyjcrowell

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams, Stewart Copeland, Jennifer Egan, Nick Hornby, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lizzie No makes music rooted in the traditions of blues, folk, and country, filtered through an indie sensibility that resists easy categorization. Often compared to Allison Russell, Rhiannon Giddens, and Adia Victoria, she moves easily between musical worlds, collaborating with artists including Brian Dunne, Pom Pom Squad, and Domino Kirke.

In this episode, Lizzie joins Rhett to talk about why folk music is a process rather than a style, and how songwriting, community, and organizing intersect in her work. She also gets practical: how she works through self-doubt, why making records is financially unsustainable for many artists, and how those constraints are pushing musicians back toward live, imperfect, human performances.

The conversation also touches on her latest album, Halfsies, an immersive, narrative-driven record that follows the character Miss Freedomland from isolation toward liberation, confronting personal grief alongside an increasingly volatile American political landscape.

LIzzie is on tour with the Old 97s beginning in March.

Follow Lizzie @lizzie.no

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hayes Carll joins Wheels Off for a wide-ranging, deeply reflective conversation about songwriting as a lifelong practice rather than a race. Speaking candidly about his early obsessiveness, creative doubt, and eventual comfort in his own voice, Carll traces the evolution of his process—from locking himself in a room chasing melodies to learning how to trust silence and timing.

The conversation explores how Carll writes songs today, why collaboration has become central to his creative life, and how working across different mediums has sharpened his instincts as a songwriter. He discusses the freedom that comes from not playing it safe, and the idea that creativity is not about speed or output, but about staying curious, present, and willing to be vulnerable.

Follow Hayes @hayescarll

Follow Rhett @rhettmiller

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer is Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, The Milk Carton Kids, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Johnson joins Wheels Off to talk about making Diamond City on a four-track cassette recorder, touring with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, and building a creative life that spans music, painting, and writing. A conversation about patience, fearlessness, collaboration, and why the quiet stretches matter just as much as the work.

Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer Kirsten Cluthe, Studio Kairos. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Watch the podcast on Spotify, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it.  

Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, The Milk Carton Kids, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices