Why Not Both

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Kae Tempest has an obsession with words, the way they flow on the page, the way they tumble around on the tip of your tongue. Speaking to them just before they launched into a series of tour dates celebrating the release of their brilliant new album The Line Is A Curve, we were struck by just how passionately they loved stitching words together across media from poetry and plays to books and songs. It's beautiful to witness someone delve into the deepest parts of themselves to craft connections with others through their art but as Tempest puts it, they don't know how to lead life any other way.

Listen to Kae's latest album The Line Is A Curve

Read Kae's wonderful book On Connection

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

What if our sensitivity is actually our greatest strength? Chatting with BANKS, we discovered that sometimes the best thing to do is tune out the other voices so that we can actually tune into our own. We loved getting to hear about her outlook on creativity and living life with beautifully attuned emotions.

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Listen to BANKS' new album Serpentina. 

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus. For our fourth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Neurodivergence and music and mental health are all topics near and dear to our hearts so we loved getting to chat with Carmen Elle aka Gay Hollywood about all of the above. From their role as the front person of DIANA, to their own heartfelt musical project they've covered a lot of musical ground. After you hear the episode, be sure to say hi on Instagram and Twitter, or swing by TikTok to enjoy their clips on mental health, music, and laughing at life.

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

John Vanderslice is really onto something that we should focus on the important things in life, like being in love, petting our cats, and spending time with our friends. We chatted with the duality between creativity and ambition as well as personal versus societal responsibility when it comes to how we navigate our increasingly chaotic world. As he put it, "maybe we need to simplify and wise up as external notches aren't going to do it" when it comes to how we play the game of life. 

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Yoni Wolf found himself missing the connection to his audience that he usually gets from being on tour and recording his podcast so he decided to do the most vulnerable thing he could think of: document the creation of his songs in real time for his dedicated listeners. Our conversation took many turns, from the importance of cultural and historical context of religious texts to the particular mortification of isolation when swiping through dating app profiles. Wolf poignantly reminds us that it's our flaws and peculiarities that actually bring us together and overcome the fear that we are all drifting apart. 

Listen to Yoni Wolf's music

Check out his podcast The Wandering Wolf

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Our guest Hrishikesh Hirway embodies the ethos of Why Not Both: he just released his debut solo EP "Rooms I Used To Call My Own" after spending the better part of the last decade crafting the brilliant podcasts Song Exploder, The West Wing Weekly and Home Cooking while executive producing The Jump with Shirley Manson. What surprised us most was learning that he started his podcast and writing journey in reaction to his music becoming his main source of professional success. After chatting with countless creatives, Hirway found his way back to songwriting with a nudge from his friend Jenny Owen Youngs and a renewed sense of personal purpose, proving that exploration and expression are the most important ingredients after all.

Enjoy Hirway's new EP 

Check out Song Exploder

Tune into our episode with Hirway's tourmate and cowriter Jenny Owen Youngs

Listen to our episode with Shirley Manson, whose podcast The Jump he executive produces

Have fun listening to The Jump

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Rebecca of Self Esteem chatted with us about what happens when you stop having FOMO and start trusting yourself as an artist. After having to cancel her appearance at SXSW in 2020, she crafted her latest body of work while writing music for theater as well. In the process, she came to the conclusion that it's cool to care about what you are doing and give it the energy it deserves when all the other distractions are taken away. Two years later, she made it back to SXSW with a brand new album and we are more than delighted to be cheering her on. 

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Jenny Hval wasted no time hopping straight into a conversation about the dream like state we enter when performing and creating, musing that perhaps that dream feels more real than reality. After spending time studying dog barks and behavior to better understand her new furry pandemic companion, Jenny moved on to the work of crafting an album between walks and forest explorations. It's been a fascinating time for collaboration and creation and we are delighted that Jenny crafted a time capsule of her particular experience.

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

Although he never set out to be a musician, avowed film nerd and English Lit scholar Dan Smith, of the band Bastille, has found himself singing his songs for millions of people over the past decade. His love for storytelling has certainly influenced his artistic trajectory, as he likes to smudge the lines between real life narratives and universal emotional experiences. Sometimes we understand ourselves best by hopping into someone else's shoes--so we are all for sparking empathy across all genres.

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter 

Why Not Both is an exploration of how our multiple passions shape our identity, hosted by musician and therapist Pam Shaffer and produced by writer and photographer Laura Studarus.  For our fifth season, we partnered up with Under The Radar to explore the lives of musicians, writers, actors, and creatives.

While chatting with Jensen McRae, we discovered that we were kindred spirits, two native LA artists who went to the same high school a generation apart, both in love with the magic of our city. It takes a special flavor of absurdity and determined ingenuity to channel the momentum of a viral clip into a whole album, yet it somehow makes perfect sense that Jensen's take on fellow Los Angeleno Phoebe Bridgers would spiral into her own brilliant song. Jensen is a brilliant model for giving yourself grace with a dose of introspection and humor so you can embrace all the plot twists that life may throw your way.

Thanks again for listening! We appreciate your support and would love to hang out with you on the internet.

Join our community on Patreon

Come chill on Insta

Chat with us Twitter