Upon first impression, Sam Beam of Iron & Wine’s got a wildly endearing trait: he laughs even when something’s not explicitly funny. Even through Zoom, the man most of us know for aching, desolate folk songs will give you a tremendous lift.

"I like to joke around and stuff with my friends," the beardy and serene Beam tells GRAMMY.com — those friends including fellow mellow 2000s favorites, like Andrew Bird and Calexico. "Honestly, it's harder to be serious than it is to joke around most of my friends."

That’s partly what spurred the four-time GRAMMY nominee to make the shimmering, whimsical Light Verse. While it follows 2023’s soundtrack to the documentary Who Can See Forever, and 2019’s Calexico collaboration Years to Born, in relatively short order, it’s still the first proper Iron & Wine album since 2017’s Beast Epic.

Getting to the space to write waggish songs like "Anyone’s Game" ("First they kiss their lucky dice and then they dig themselves a grave/ They do this until it’s killing them to try") wasn’t easy. In conversation, Beam mentions "the pandemic that put me on my ear." In press materials, he expanded on exactly how it did.

"While so many artists, fortunately, found inspiration in the chaos, I was the opposite and withered with the constant background noise of uncertainty and fear," Beam wrote. "The last thing I wanted to write about was COVID."

"And yet, every moment I sat with my pen," he continued, "it lingered around the edges and wouldn’t leave. I struggled to focus until I gave up, and this lasted for over two years."

Thankfully, a Memphis session with singer/songwriter Lori McKenna relaxed his "creative muscles" and a series of tours and collaborations loosened him up even more. Beam assembled a dream team of musicians in Laurel Canyon, and the rest is history — Light Verse is a sumptuous delight.

Read on for how it came to be — and much more.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Light Verse is the first non-collaborative Iron & Wine album since 2017. I imagine there’s sometimes pressure to just put music out for the sake of having it out. Whatever the case, I appreciate that you put time and thought into it.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I just like making records with other people. You can only smell your own breath so long. I enjoy putting out records, but I feel like I grow more as a musician and person by working with other people. So, I’ll probably be doing more and more of that.

I don’t feel a whole lot of pressure, one way or the other. Maybe I’m just deaf and those things are screaming at me. But I just don’t listen.

What pressures have you faced in the music industry?

Oh, there are certainly lots of pressures. One is, I should probably be on top of my social media game, but I just can't seem to engage with it. I don’t know. That's how people make their entire careers these days, but I can't find a way to sustain it.

I can't think of a way that I could, because I definitely go through days without picking up my phone at all, so I just can't. I think if I could figure out a way to make it fun, I would do it.

What do you do with the time most people spend on their screens?

Playing guitar, or I do a lot of painting. I’m not saying I never pick up my phone, but I don't think about what could I share about my breakfast to the world, I just don't think about it. I'm private.

What was the germ of the concept behind Light Verse?

I don't really usually go in with a specific idea in mind. I just like to stack the deck with people that I like to play with, or that I like what they do. And so just see what happens, throwing a bunch of ingredients that you like individually, and just seeing if it makes a soup that you like.

My idea was to go in with these folks from L.A. that I had met along the way. David Garza, I'd been wanting to play with for a long time. I'd met Tyler Chester, who plays keys, when he was playing with Andrew Bird. Griffin Goldsmith plays with Dawes.

The songs were all developed. They were a bit lighter than some of the fare that I've put out before, far as just silly rhymes. They're a little more off the cuff.

I'm kinda mining the territory of the early '70s, where the folk writers were playing with jazz musicians. It just becomes a little more orchestra, or however you want to describe it. Not quite so straightforward.

But I had these off-kilter tunes and I got an off-kilter, talented band from LA, and I was just going to see what happened. And this is what happened.

Naturally, my mind goes to Joni Mitchell playing with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. What are your touchstones?

Well, those Van records — Astral Weeks and stuff. All the stuff in that time when people started playing cluster-y chords. I love that music. It’s so expressive. Ron Carter playing with Roberta Flack, even. They’re gospel-blues sorts of tunes, but they’re also folky [in their] structures and melodies.

Are you a super technically proficient guitarist? Can you play those crazy chords?

[Grins] I wouldn’t be able to tell you what chord it was, but I might be able to get my hand in the shape. I don’t read music. I just learned to play by ear, but I like to play guitar a lot, so I end up stumbling on most stuff.

I also fool around with a lot of open tunings, so you end up with some cluster-y, bizarre stuff with that, for sure.

Even just paying attention to Brian Wilson — he’s not a guitarist, but I feel like his work can teach guitarists a lot about voice leading and stuff.

Definitely. A lot of those jazz voices have been absorbed by pop music. You can hear Bill Evans all over pop music, especially in the ‘90s.

**Can you take readers through the orchestration on Light Verse? It’s so shimmery and rich and unconventional.**

Thanks. Yeah, we were borrowing from some of those jazz ensembles we’re talking about, and also Brazilian music.

Honestly, that Gal Costa tune, "Baby" — it’s the most famous one — it’s my spirit animal for this record. Just between the strings and the way the guitars and rhythm section work — the sparse way it comes and goes.

We approached it fairly intuitively. But I do feel like Paul Cartwright, who did a lot of those strings and charts and stuff, played a huge role as far as the identity of this record. Outside of the lyrics and the forms and stuff, just the way that he interpreted in this really expressive way. His charts and stuff were really great — and a lot of it's him playing, stacking stuff on his own. He's really, really talented.

He also grew up in Bakersfield, and since the violin is strung the way a mandolin is, he rocks a mean mandolin. He had all these different bass mandocellos and all this stuff. He was just, "What are we working on now? Hand me that thing," and just did all kinds of coloring. It's great.

Can you talk about approaching your work with more whimsy and color?

I feel like for some reason, for the longest time when I sat down to write a song, it was a time to say what I mean. And so when it came time to write a song, it ended up being really somber. Some of it is acidic, but somber for the most part.

Whereas for this one, I was just looking for more balance. Maybe I'm just too old to be impressed by that stuff, so I like balance — something that can resonate on something that people recognize but also is fun at the same time. 

You can embrace both things at one time, that life is hard and also silly. And so that was the MO going into this one, and a lot of the songs that I chose to record were because they had both of those things going on at one time.

You’re a three-dimensional artist, but marketing can flatten musicians. Growing up with Iron & Wine, it tended to be packaged as "chill music for rainy days" or some such. Primary colors.

We all do that. We always try to define something. You know what I mean? You want to understand it, and by understanding, control it and define it.

All artists deal with that, for sure. It's frustrating when you want to be recognized. You want them to pay attention to other things, but it's also that we just want to be appreciated. Artists want to be appreciated for every little gesture we make, and it's not realistic. We do our best.

I feel like if you work hard, hopefully the stars will align and people will appreciate what you do.

What do you remember about the atmosphere of the music industry, back when big songs I don’t need to name came out?

You mean the vampire song and stuff?

Yeah.

It's definitely a lot different. The internet upended everything. I squeezed and slipped in the door just as the door was closing on the closed circuit of records and stuff.

It was more of a monoculture, where everyone was having the same conversation about the same groups of musicians. Now, [you can have] the entire history of recorded music at any moment of the day. It's hard to have the same conversation about things. That's been a big difference.

When you hang out and collaborate with friends like Andrew Bird, is there ever a sense of "We survived, we’re the class of 2000-whatever"?

Well, for one thing, it's hard to realize that you've been making music that long. Most bands don't even last that long. It's insane.

But it's also, I just feel really blessed. Maybe it's because I never studied music — my career feels like a fluke. I still feel blessed that people are still interested, blessed that I'm able to do this. I never thought it was in the cards, and so I just feel really lucky.

Sam Beam of Iron & Wine. Photo: Kim Black

I feel like one route to longevity is self-containment. Namely, self-production, which you’ve done forever. Where are you at with that journey?

I like autonomy. I see the musicians who are also producers in their own right, so usually I have a room full of producers and I don't end up using them. We all think everyone should get a producer credit, but I take it because I'm selfish.

But I like having the autonomy. That's why I still release on an independent record label. I like steering the boat. We're all steering around the same fog, but I don't like to have someone else to bitch about. I just bitch about myself.

It releases you from those moments where it’s like, "Sam, sales are down. We’ve got to get you in with Danger Mouse," or something.

Well, hell, man, I’d do that. But I know what you mean. The idea committees I imagine for most artists are really brutal.

Trend-wise, there’s pressure to chase trains that can lead to all music sounding the same.

The things that you're offered, really teach you a lot about what you're in it for. Or it's also after a while, your reasons for doing it change. I don't fault people for reaching for the ring, but I also feel like I was lucky in the sense that I was just doing it for fun.

And all the songs that have been popular were a surprise to me. The songs of mine that were embraced in a way were a surprise. I felt like there were others that might've been more popular or something, or I would've chosen to promote.

So, the lesson I learned is you have no idea. Just put your best into each one and see what happens because you really can't predict what's going to happen. In that sense, if you're trying to be popular or record something that sticks, you're trying to emulate something that's proven to be popular. And for me, that seemed like a recipe for disaster from the beginning.

I feel like if you wrote a really great song in the ‘90s or 2000s, it’d get heard. Not so much in 2024. You need to take it to market and bother everybody about it.

Yeah, it's a tricky thing. The internet has been wonderful as far as we have access to all kinds of stuff that we didn't have access to before, but it just also disperses all the attention. It's hard. There's a lot of great music happening right now — but like you say, you might never know.

What are you checking out lately that you’re really connecting with? Past or present.

I heard a great tune the other day by this woman named Barbara Keith, "Detroit or Buffalo," from 1972. Obviously not contemporary, but it was incredible. I'd never heard it before. I'm checking out stuff, trying to keep up. It's hard.

What do you like that would make people say, "Sam Beam likes that?"

Oh, in my case, it’s all over the place. I’m not real proprietorial with music. It’s something to experience. I’m not so much into dance music, but I like a lot of really intense electronic music. That might be surprising. Who knows?

Everything’s out there for the taking. It’s the universal buffet.

I think everyone can recognize a musical omnivore, and then not be surprised.

Anything else about Light Verse you’re raring to talk about?

We did get to sing with Fiona Apple, which was really a treat. That was unexpected, but a very welcome experience. And she turned a regular song into an incredible duet, which was really a surprise and a blessing.

What was it like working with Fiona?

I never actually met her. Because of the way technology works these days, she was in a whole other state and sent us the track. But a lot of the people that were playing and a lot of people in the room; we share band members like Sebastian Steinberg, and David Garza plays with her a lot too.

One of the reasons that I recorded there in LA with Dave Way is because they had made their last few records with Dave, and Sebastian had been in my ear about, "You got to go record Dave." And it turns out he was right. It was great. She had a lot of friends in the room, so it wasn't too hard to convince her.

Beirut's Zach Condon Lost His Sense Of Self — Then Found It Within A Church Organ

Prolific might be an understatement when it comes to Andrew Bird's work across a myriad of mediums. In addition to his own work, the GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter is a renowned whistler, and was a member of Squirrel Nut Zippers for several years. Bird's 1996 debut album, Music of Hair, was followed by about 16 solo records (some with/as Bowl of Fire), not to mention a variety of collabs. And let's not forget the live albums (six), EP's (10) and film and TV projects, including acting on the FX drama "Fargo."

So it's perhaps unsurprising that Bird has managed to follow up an album — the somewhat winkingly titled My Finest Work Yet — with a record that might be even finer. Inside Problems, released June 3, offers 11 often poignant, quietly passionate songs produced by Mike Viola (who has also worked with Mandy Moore, Panic! at The Disco and Jenny Lewis). Bird will support his LP on a tour that kicks off June 15 at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre.

Via phone from his L.A. home, Bird, a low-key and thoughtful native of Lake Bluff, Illinois talks about pandemic-inspired "inside" stuff (his brain, his home) and the resultant songs that populate his latest, and maybe, greatest work.

When did you start writing the songs that would become Inside Problems — before, or during the pandemic?

Some of them started before that. There are always things that have been kind of simmering for five or six years that I just find the moment to organize. It was strange; I was wondering if just being in one place was going to affect my writing, because I always thought that traveling and performing informed my writing. Going from one place to another, just the act of leaving your home can give you perspective that kind of triggers things. And then being on stage, that sort of sense of a dialogue with an audience; I thought [that] was part of my process, too. But it turns out it wasn't that essential, and I needed the songwriting process to sort of keep my sanity and sense of purpose.

**Was there a song that ended up on Inside Problems that set the tone when you realized, OK, this is where this record is going?**

I think of "Underlands" as a sort of template for the album. But the one that I spent the most time on was "Faithless Ghost." And that's kind of an outlier. It started, I think, when my son — during the pandemic, we just all hung together — started being the DJ around the house. And he was playing a lot of John Cale. And Velvet Underground, but the John Cale, "Paris 1919," particularly, that song was just on every day.

I was listening to lyrics about this ghost that is sort of a coy ghost, it doesn't ever show up when you expect it to, doesn't stick to appointments. And I thought I'd take that idea and kind of expand on it. I guess it's the way you feel when you're sort of chasing down things creatively too. But that one was a very specific melody that I'm trying to just point in the general direction of this idea about this coy ghost.

May I ask how old your son is? 

He's 11. He was 9 I guess at the start of the pandemic.

That's still a pretty interesting song choice for a kid to play, right? 

I mean, it's kind of funny. He lives in our universe. So from an early age, I never understand when people would  say 'Oh my kid listens to this horrible pop music and I can't do anything about it.' Like, why can you do anything about it? They're living in your house.

Not like we're militant about anything. He complains about going to birthday parties and having to listen to Post Malone or whatever. He's like, 'Why do they think kids like that music?' Anyway, that's a rant. But if I play one Nick Drake song, he starts  playing it all the time. And I don't really listen to music that much. So he's actually influencing me. And he's actually becoming a pretty good guitarist.

There are so many beautiful references and lines in your lyrics. I was curious about "Lone Didion," —  and I'm wondering if you read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking about losing her husband and then daughter? 

Actually before I read it, I was talking to a friend who used to host at a restaurant where Joan Didion and her husband [John Gregory Dunne] used to come in as regulars, and they would get the same table and order the same thing. This is around 2003. Then she didn't come in for like several weeks. And she came in one more time, alone. That story struck me and then I read the book.

You explore what you call the "threshold" of who we are in the moments "in between"? A liminal space might be one term.

I just want to acknowledge that internal world that we all have, that is usually not known to anyone else. It can either drive you insane, or it could be the best companion. If you can cultivate that internal world in the right way, you never have any good reason to be bored or lonely sometimes.

I just became more acutely aware of that during the pandemic, during insomnia…and it was like, Okay, I'm here, I'm stuck here. I can't sleep for two hours. I can either spiral — as we tend to in the middle of the night — or I can try to put everyone to work, and pull out a melody and play it back in my head. While I was working on these songs, it really, really helped me get through that. Once I was done, those demons came roaring back.

I watched the Nexflix film The Bubble and enjoyed it. You were a composer on the movie; how did you get  on board? Did that work affect this record?   

I did that after the record was finished. I know Judd [Apatow] and he asked me to play a bunch of his Largo shows. They were doing once-a-month charity shows, and I would do those and hang out and I got the sense that he might have been kind of circling me and waiting for a project to offer up. [He did] I came in, in the final two months of the score work to work with Mike Andrews. Mike is his longtime composer and I was sort of artist-in-residence, I guess. It is a very complicated score because you have to score the movie within the movie. And I luckily didn't have to deal with…

Dinosaurs?  

Yeah [laughs]. He's very exacting and has very very strong ideas about music, Judd does. So, it was a long, long process. But it was good. I came at a good time: I was finished with the record; I needed a project. But you have to generate a tremendous amount of music to satiate Judd. So it was five or six weeks, just churning out many, many cues.

I know you had a song in Orange is the New Black and other visual projects. How often do you write a song that you feel is super cinematic? Or are there times when you're watching something and you feel inspired to write? 

Writing a song for a movie is the ultimate challenge for me. Doing [an] instrumental score is cool, but writing a song with lyrics specifically for movies…. I'm thinking like Harold and Maude as the ultimate project that I hope would someday come along.

It's just so challenging to try to do; to address what's happening in the movie without leading the viewer and hitting it too close. I feel like I would be well suited to that because my lyrics, they can be a bit ambiguous sometimes. When I was writing "Underlands," at first it was simply a melody. I was like, wow, this sounds like a film score scene. I was working with T-Bone Burnett at the time on [HBO crime drama] True Detective and I played it for him. He said, 'that's like the theme to a great '70s movie.'

When I first came out of music school, that's what I thought for sure wanted to do; film score work. But then I got a conversion van and a band, and hit the road and started playing rock clubs around the country. And that became the buddy road movie of my 20s.

I understand there's an unusual guitar on Inside Problems, the one that starts out "Underlands"?  

My good friend Reuben Cox has the guitar shop Old Style in Silverlake. When I was working with Blake Mills on [Bird's 2006 LP] Are You Serious, he was working with Blake. First we had these electric banjos that we were all collecting. And then they're very weird, rare harmony, electric banjos. And then Reuben started putting rubber bridges on these strange old guitars. It's not that radical to mute the instrument, but it's like you commit to it.

Like permanent mute.  

Yeah, it's hard to explain but what Blake was looking for… Well, guitars can chew up so much space because they resonate so much, sonically. So you take all that and then it creates these weird overtones too, if you distort it in the right way. It sounds otherworldly. I found when I started playing these guitars that it was kind of like pizzicato, but not quite.

It's funny what started with Blake and me and during that time , you hear it a lot now. You hear it kind of affecting the music that's being recorded. It was this particular Harmony guitar called the Caribbean, kind of art deco and very cool looking. It's the thing I just reached for when we were recording; it just worked. From "Underlands" to "The Night Before Your Birthday," it can go from this beautiful pizzicato to a Keith Richards rock 'n' roll thing.

The album closer, "Never Fall Apart," seems to end things on a somewhat upbeat note.  

For "Never Fall Apart," my old guitarist, Jeremy Ylvisaker, sent me an EP he had done and [it] goes into the sort of Kevin Shields, My Bloody Valentine territory. He had this melody in there, and I thought it was so beautiful. And the song was called "Never Fall Apart," but it had no lyrics. I sat down, took the melody and over time it kind of evolved. I wrote that one fairly quickly, really inspired by that melody.

The last two songs on the album ["Stop n' Shop," "Never Fall Apart"] — from the title of my record, people are describing it as maybe not addressing all the upheaval that My Finest Work Yet was, but it really does have as many songs addressing what's happening in the world. "Stop n' Shop" is trying to understand what's missing in our lives that so many people need guns or walls or trucks to kind of fill a void in their identity. And then "Never Fall Apart" tries to answer that question.

Would you always keep those two songs connected in a live set?  

I do like to keep things [together.] The sequencing of the live set is a huge part of my job. Not just what key, what tempo and the segues in between, but then the scenes and everything. It feels like half my job is sequencing. Whether people pick up on that or not, I don't know, but it's  important to me.

Bobby Z. On 'Prince And The Revolution: Live' & Why The Purple One Was Deeply Human

Much like his famous father, singer/songwriter Jakob Dylan is a master of ambiguity and double meanings. For example, take the title of his GRAMMY-winning band the Wallflowers' first album since 2012, Exit Wounds.

"There's an image that people might have of the exit site of a bullet or an arrow, and I don't really feel that way about the title," Dylan, who has won two GRAMMYs and been nominated for six, tells GRAMMY.com. "I think that it's more about transition. I think anytime you transition from one thing to the other, you're going to have exit wounds, and you're going to give other people exit wounds."

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed//1zzru6EJyJM' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

As transitions go, Dylan recently made a big one into filmmaking: He produced the 2018 film Echo in the Canyon, which chronicled the history and lasting impact of the Laurel Canyon sound of the '60s and '70s. Despite branching off into new territory, his intention has always been to return to the band he started 30 years ago. The inspiration just had to be right.

"Once the dust settled, I waited. I don't feel compelled [to] make a record if I'm not inspired," Dylan adds. "I'm always inspired to tour and play. I'll do that as I wait for material to come." With the help of his band and producer Butch Walker, Exit Wounds, which arrives July 9, befits the band's legacy.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Dylan to discuss his return to the Wallflowers with a revamped lineup, what it was like working with singer Shelby Lynne and how the lessons from the band's self-titled 1992 debut still resonate.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed//1zzru6EJyJM' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

You got to record some classic songs for the Echo in the Canyon soundtrack. What lessons from that experience carried over to the album?

For those songs, I was able to be an interpreter. I wasn't the writer. I got to put most of the weight on being a singer, which I hadn't really done before. And I found that I could do different things with my voice than I imagined before. I knew that I still love being in a band and playing this music. 

You have times you feel like maybe you want to try new things but singing those songs, those great songs, Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, the Mamas & the Papas. It just got me excited to have my own songs to sing.

And we don't need any more songs, necessarily, but I want more songs for myself to sing. I want to be excited when I go out and play shows. I want new songs for those who want to hear new songs. In that regard, it was motivating to just keep doing what it is I do. 

I like being in the studio. I like creating songs. That rush never gets old. And if you've got a good song, you're off to a great start. That's what I've always tried to have when I begin.

Despite playing with a different lineup, you've said that it's very much a band record. Why do you think it feels like a Wallflowers record? 

That's up to you, but for me, what is the band? I don't know. Does a band have to be together for 20 years to be a band? Does a band have to only work within its own confines of each person to be a band for a length of time? 

I think if you put five people in a room and they make a record together for a month, that is a band. And you're working together, you're feeling each other out, you're leaning on each other's strengths and it's cohesive from the beginning to the end. 

And it has a particular sound that only those five people could create together, bouncing off one another. That's a band. Whether or not that band goes out and continues and tours the next four records, it might not. But for the time that it existed, that is a band, as opposed to making a record and having a grab bag of 50 different musicians coming and going. 

Five people together making a record: That's a band to me.

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed//Mj9J0zYyDKA' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

Does the Wallflowers' material have a special essence that the solo material doesn't have?

Yeah, I suppose it does. You could say it's instrumentation, but when I know I'm making Wallflowers records, certain songs occurred to me. I can't tell you why. But as much as I've worked on this band for 30 years or so, there are times I want to do something different. 

Sometimes, that just means if I tell myself it's a solo record, I'm free of accepting the guidelines of what I find the sound of the Wallflowers is. I'm able to do different things. And when I work on the Wallflowers, I have a sound in mind and it's a continuous sound that they've been carrying for 30 years, and I can change it and enhance it, but at its core, it does a certain thing. But it's usually led by the songs that start showing up to me. 

I don't start writing and thinking, "This is going to be a solo record or a Wallflowers record." Once the songs come in, they just kind of tell me what they want. And sometimes they don't want to be within the sounds of the Wallflowers. Sometimes they want to be more. There's room for everything. There's time for everything. If there's nothing else, there's time for more than I do. 

For the Wallflowers, it's something that I do, and I started that sound a long time ago. I had to do it with almost anybody. It's my voice and it's my song, and it's traditional instrumentation, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards. I can make that sound like The Wallflowers with almost any different group of people. That's the sound that lives in my head.

Read More: Butch Walker On His New Rock Opera, 'American Love Story,' And Making Amends For His "Complicit" Youth

What makes this particular lineup special or unique?

I always think it's the songs that get over or they don't. I think with this particular group of guys, I think that everybody understood that we're all here because if I'm not going to get over and these songs aren't reaching people, then there's no point in being here. And we had a good understanding of that.

You also got to work with Shelby Lynne on four of the songs. You've been a fan of hers for a while, so I imagine it was a special experience. What was it like to work with her and develop a musical chemistry?

It's not enough to just call in your favorite singer to sing with you. You have to have some kind of chemistry and purpose together. Sometimes you can just swallow each other up. So as much as I admire Shelby and I admire a lot of people, you run the risk of just not working, not sounding good, wasting each other's time. 

Shelby's a giant on her own. Her own records, she takes up a lot of space. She has a very unique voice, she's a contralto, and she has a really strong identity to the songs she writes. But she can wear a lot of hats, and she was able to switch gears and back me up versus what her normal ability is, which is to be the person out front.

I have a very strong kinship with her musically and I admire her greatly. And I appreciate very much that we sounded good together because I would have been pretty devastated had we not. I've done that before. I've had people come in and sing, and it's disappointing when you just have to face the fact that you don't sound good together. 

Fortunately, I think Shelby and I sounded great together when we started.

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed//nABsGPZvXD0' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

"Exit Wounds" to some might conjure a negative and unpleasant meaning, but you see it in a more positive light. Why do you think it's important to make that distinction?

I like words that are pliable. I like words that have multiple meanings. [The phrase] "exit wounds" to me is not negative. There's an image that people might have of the exit site of a bullet or an arrow, and I don't really feel that way about the title. 

I think that it's more about transition. I think anytime you transition from one thing to the other, you're going to have exit wounds, and you're going to give other people exit wounds. That's what life is. You don't get to be the same thing forever and not move along without some kind of pain. And sometimes that pain is required and it's necessary and it makes you a better person or takes you to a better place.

Collectively, I think you could probably say the entire planet has a lot of exit wounds. Whether you lost somebody or you changed in the last year, you're somebody different now. You got to say goodbye to whatever it was you were. And maybe you're better now. And maybe you're not, but either way, you're taking some exit wounds with you and that's how you evolve. 

That's how you change. And it's unavoidable, but it is not negative. It's not meant to be standing up on a battlefield and walking on after some horrific situation. That's not how I see it. I think you can attach that meaning to the current times, but I wouldn't. And I don't really mean to project that. I think it's more about transition.

How does songwriting help you make sense of the world?

I haven't yet. That's certainly not my goal. I just went by my songs, they're conversations, and you're working through them, but there is no end game. Nothing is resolved. I write mostly about the human condition and what I feel about it. 

I'm in the thick of it as you are or as anybody else. I explore those ideas in my songs, why we do good things, why we do bad things. Why do we do bad things when we know what the right thing to do is, we do the wrong thing. These are all things that you explore in the song, and these are conversations.

"Maybe Your Heart's Not in It No More" is one such conversation, one with your muse—your motivation. Why is that conversation important?

It's what's in your mind that keeps you moving and that drives you. It's possibly a conversation you could have with your own muse when you're asking yourself and your muse, if you're still in sync together and if you are still doing what you hope to be doing. Are you still inspired?

What were you hoping to convey on "Who's That Man Walking 'Round My Garden"?

It's tied in traditional music really, in that you're protecting something. You find something in your life that's worth protecting, your ideals, a person, whatever it is. And you find it worth protecting and you find that it's been toiled with or messed with or compromised. You might ask yourself: Who is that, or what is that, that is doing such a thing?

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed//NP1_mhefoTM' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

Next year marks the 30^th anniversary of the band's debut. What do you recall of those sessions?

We were very young, and we felt we were one of the greatest rock 'n' roll groups in the world. And although it turns out that, at that young age, we certainly were not, it's the right attitude to have. 

And we had a producer, Paul Fox, who allowed us to feel that way and have that kind of attitude, which is important in music and rock 'n' roll. And while that record is flawed, I'm very proud that we did it that way. I think just two weeks' time that we rehearsed and had our songs together and we sound like a band. 

And I'm glad we came up when we did. We played it live with very few overdubs. We just thought that's how bands do it. We thought that was the whole point. No one told us yet that you could spend six months in the studio exploring. It's good to have that experience where you're relying only on your own abilities and not the studio as an additional instrument.

What advice would you have for newer bands?

Records should not be a burden to make. There should be a lot of joy in making them. And you can have a good time making a record and do great things at the same time. 

I think a lot of young bands are taught that records are supposed to be really difficult to make, and that's totally inaccurate. They can be, and you can get great results doing that, but it's not required. You can have a good time making a record and do stuff that you find to be meaningful and deep.

Jakob Dylan Talks 'Echo In The Canyon,' Tom Petty & Why You Can't Define California Sound

By now, the reviews are in: critics are calling the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show one of the strongest in recent memory, if not the strongest. That’s partly because we saw history made in real time. Beyoncé became the most-awarded woman in GRAMMY history, Taylor Swift became the first woman to win Album Of The Year three times, and Megan Thee Stallion—our Best New Artist—acted as an empowering avatar for the female-led pop vanguard.

As GRAMMY season winds down, let’s examine the ways in which the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show was historic.

All Hail Queen Bey...

Now that she's won more GRAMMYs than the bluegrass great Alison Krauss, Beyoncé is now the most-awarded female artist in GRAMMY history. (At 28, she’s tied with Quincy Jones.) And at nine, she was the most-nominated artist at the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show.

...And Blue Ivy, Too!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Congrats Best Music Video winner - &#39;BROWN SKIN GIRL&#39; <a href="https://twitter.com/Beyonce?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Beyonce</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueIvy?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BlueIvy</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wizkidayo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wizkidayo</a> ✨ <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GRAMMYs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GRAMMYs</a> <br><br>WATCH NOW ⬇️––<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GRAMMYPremiere?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GRAMMYPremiere</a> <a href="https://t.co/b1dROc2jH3">https://t.co/b1dROc2jH3</a></p>&mdash; Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) <a href="https://twitter.com/RecordingAcad/status/1371178439697256454?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

At nine, Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy is now the second-youngest person to win a GRAMMY, for her writing credit on “Brown Skin Girl,” which won Best Music Video. (The youngest in GRAMMY history was eight-year-old Leah Peasall in 2001.)

Another Feather In Taylor Swift’s Cap

Taylor Swift previously won Album Of The Year for Fearless and 1989. Now, folklore marks a triage of wins in that vaunted category.

Fiona Apple’s First Win In 24 Years

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">With &quot;Shameika&quot; Fiona Apple won Best Rock Performance at the 2021 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GRAMMYs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GRAMMYs</a> <a href="https://t.co/qzKrwsSgBe">https://t.co/qzKrwsSgBe</a></p>&mdash; Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) <a href="https://twitter.com/RecordingAcad/status/1371231654442893318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Fiona Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters, a critical favorite of 2020, won in the Best Rock Performance (“Shameika”) and Best Alternative Music categories—her first win since “Criminal” won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance back in 1997.

A Step Forward For Electronic Music

Kaytrananda is the first Black artist to win Best Dance/Electronic album, for BUBBA.

Burna Boy Leads The Global Music Charge

Last year, the GRAMMYs changed the Best World Music category’s title to the more inclusive Best Global Music Category. Burna Boy just became the first winner of this award for Twice As Tall, paving the way for brilliant global artists in 2022, 2023 and beyond!

10 Must-See Moments From The 2021 GRAMMY Awards Show, From Anderson .Paak To BTS To Megan Thee Stallion

It's officially March and we're less than two weeks away from the 63rd GRAMMY Awards on March 14! As we approach the Biggest Night In Music, it's a great time to review the nominees list and revisit the songs and albums in the running.

So, for the latest GRAMMY.com poll, we want to know who you think Recording Academy voters will choose for Best Rock Performance. This year's nominees not only had major albums in 2019/2020, they also made history. They are a part of a category in which all nominees are women or in a band fronted by a woman, in the case of Big Thief.

The powerhouse tracks in consideration are "Shameika" by Fiona Apple, "Not" by Big Thief, "Kyoto" by Phoebe Bridgers, "The Steps" by HAIM, "Stay High" by Brittany Howard and "Daylight" by Grace Potter. Vote now in the poll below and read on to hear the tracks.

Make sure to tune in to the 63rd GRAMMY Awards on CBS on Sun., March 14 at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET and the Premiere Ceremony beforehand right here on GRAMMY.com at 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET to celebrate with all the big winners.

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/yM63Tzv-uZg' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/WKmD6-piK2A' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tw0zYd0eIlk' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/J2O_xa8cems' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/CfizQsGWOxI' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }</style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/__IYKRmIpHo' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

The Recording Academy Announces "Women In The Mix" Virtual Celebration: Cyndi Lauper, Ingrid Andress, MC Lyte, Sheila E., Tina Tchen And More Confirmed