• Josh Tillman (Father John Misty)

“I think it took me a long time to work up the courage to admit to myself that I’m just a little narcissist who only wants to do his own thing, and that’s ultimately okay.” – Josh Tillman

“Sometimes it’s worth leaving one of the most successful folk bands in history in order to be true to yourself. This is just one of the lessons learned from the church of Father John Misty. He’s both loveable and erratic and, like all good spiritual leaders, his ministry started when he wrote a book. Father John Misty, of course, is Joshua Tillman (also known as J. Tillman). And the band that he recently left was Fleet Foxes.” – from “The Gospel According to Father John Misty” by Amanda Trent

• Katy Goodman ( La Sera)

“You’re only getting older all the time. You never know what’s going to happen, so you shouldn’t be unhappy. Sometimes you need to make drastic changes – or even not drastic ones. Sometimes things that seem small on the grand scale of things can have a huge impact in your life and make you a lot happier.” – Katy Goodman

“In her career as a musician, Katy Goodman is both an active band member (Vivian Girls) and solo artist (La Sera) at once. She’s refreshingly approachable, genuine, thoughtful and introspective – but for the most part just wants to have a good time, enjoy life and not take everything so seriously (since, after all, we only live once).” – from “La Sera’s Katy Goodman Explains It All” by Amanda Trent

• Joshua Epstein (Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.)

“…We wanted this video to be about people doing things in and around the city of Detroit. People who are on the job. People who have moved past ‘What happened?’ and are spending more time saying, ‘Let’s make things happen.’ These are the people who we feel represent the city of Detroit.” – Joshua Epstein

“Two musicians who have been creating some of Detroit’s best recent melodies are Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott, known by their national following as Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. They specialize in a nameless genre they created while experimenting with electronic sounds and folksy pop, anchored by slick production and a sweet-natured sensibility. Everything about the duo meshes: their joint vocal harmonies, Epstein’s production savvy and Zott’s singer-songwriter instincts, their mutual interest in stage theatrics – even in interviews they seem to finish each other’s thoughts. That’s a lot of chemistry for two dudes who were total strangers three years ago.” – from “Gaining Speed with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.” by Paul Kitti

• Matt Jones

“I actually let a lot of other people put their hand in it. It came out really good, but it came out as something I’m completely not used to. I thought you had to love your own album before you put it out, and I don’t think that’s true anymore. I’m gonna put it out and I know I’m gonna continue to like it even more.” – Matt Jones

“With a speaking voice appropriate for his six-foot six-inches frame and flannel-chested, bespectacled appearance, the voice that shows up in his songs can be unexpected. It’s a soft, almost crooning tenor, like how that little voice in your head would sound if it were to sing, but not without the ability to belt it out at times.” – Paul Kitti

• Andrew Bird

“[My live show] is a high wire act of sorts. I like to compare it to a very insane cooking show where I’m stumbling around, spilling things and forgetting to add some of the ingredients and throwing it in at the last minute.” – Andrew Bird

“In many ways, Andrew Bird is an enigma. In some circles, his name is synonymous with ‘musical genius,’ yet both his music and personality could be described as understated. His nine to five takes place in a barn (he’s not a farmer). He enjoys isolation when writing music – which (somewhat ironically) helps him create beautiful, flowing melodies that often end up bringing people together. And he is an excellent whistler.” – from “Barn Music at its Best With Andrew Bird” by Amanda Trent

• Orpheo McCord (of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros)

“You put 12 people together, and the alchemy of that combination is always going to be very unique each evening and very unpredictable.” – Orpheo McCord

“If you think Edward Sharpe is one of the members of the 10-plus member band called Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, you’d be wrong. Edward Sharpe is actually a fictional character created in the mind of group frontman Alex Ebert. And Magnetic Zeros? That’s a form of mathematics that Ebert came up with that has ‘no known application.’ We got the chance to catch up with drummer Orpheo McCord to hear about life on the road and what it’s like being a Magnetic Zero.” – from “The Magical World of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros” by Amanda Trent

• Michael Atha (Yelawolf)

“It’s in my head and it’s in my heart, so in a way it’s already finished. I know what I want it to sound like. Now it’s just a matter of getting me in the studio with my people.” – Yelawolf

“Drive about two hours northeast of the beautiful University of Alabama campus and you’ll reach Gadsden. It’s the kind of place where shotguns are toted as loosely as iPods, where you’re more likely to see a cockfight than a football game, a meth lab than a pharmacy, a junk yard than a recycling bin. Understanding this environment is key to understanding Michael Atha, the lanky, tattoo-covered MC known as Yelawolf.” – from “Yelawolf, the Redneck Poet from Gadsden, Alabama” by Paul Kitti

• Leah Diehl (Lightning Love)

“Ypsi’s pretty unpretentious. You can do anything and everyone is really supportive out there. Everyone, though – people working in very different genres – just hangs out and talk about music.” – Leah Diehl

“Sweet and exuberant, yet restless. Fun music with fretful lyrics. To-the-point-pop music. And, particularly, the sound propulsive and capricious but humble and self-deprecating songs on ‘Blonde’ bring a feeling of pensive escapism as though it were soundtracking my own Wes Anderson-esque slow-motion ride, pedaling barefoot on a rusty Schwin beach cruiser toward the incoming tide at sunset with an overcast sky behind me.” – from “Awkward. Catchy. Magical. Blondes on the ‘Blonde Album” by Jeff Milo

• Dan Haggis (The Wombats)

“There was never a mastermind plan. It just seemed like the best way to get through hangovers. Some people sink into the couch and slurp applesauce, others build an arena-worthy rock group.” – Dan Haggis

“The instant appeal of The Wombats is perhaps what made that first album so successful, but it’s their transparency that has kept them from burning out. Murphy, the lead singer and lyricist, battled depression and anxiety throughout adolescence and into adulthood. His struggles inform his writing, which is often easy to miss beneath the dance beats and hyped-up rhythm.” – from “The Wombats: Life on the Road with England’s Hardest-Rocking Marsupials”

• Saul Williams

“I felt like I was hearing from a lot of people who were kind of fed up that they were born inside of some box and had to take it upon themselves to either break out of or define it for themselves.” – Saul Williams

“Saul Williams is restless. As a slam poet, he can be kind, ferocious, funny, existential, dramatic and sensitive, all within the same minute. He had the sound of a man continuously searching and discovering, sharing and revisiting.” – from “Get Inside the Mind of the World’s Greatest Slam Poet, Actor, Author and Musician, Saul Williams” by Paul Kitti

• Zachary Saginaw (Shigeto)

“I like the listener to kind of decide what it means to them. I want people to hear it and create the story and have that music for whenever they want to be there.” – Shigeto

“Shigeto’s music is a product of heritage – of growing up on jazz in Ann Arbor and visiting Japan to connect with his roots, of making peace with the feeling of displacement. It’s a little closer to the sunlight than most of what you’ll hear in the electronic music landscape – like scrapbook music, with sounds bearing distinct memories assembled into a sort of musical narrative.” – from “Fusing the past and Present: Shigeto’s Journey Into Electronic Music” by Paul Kitti

• Victor Wooten

“One of the biggest things I like about performing is the feedback from the audience. If you think about it, it’s the only thing in the world that I can think of where everyone there is on your side. They paid money to come support you and what you love to do.” – Victor Wooten

“To say that Victor Wooten is a phenomenal musician would be a gross understatement. Not only is Wooten the bassist for the critically acclaimed (and five-time Grammy winning) jazz fusion / post-bop / progressive / bluegrass group of musicians known as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, but he also creates his own music – sometimes alone or sometimes with other musicians. Wooten was named “Bass Player of the Year” by Bass Player magazine three times in a row and was the first person to win the award more than once. Don’t believe the hype? A quick YouTube search will quickly put any doubts to rest.” –from “Talking Shop with Victor Wooten” by Amanda Trent

• Misty Lyn (Misty Lyn & the Big Beautiful)

“When it comes to this record and the hours put into it, I did it. I did it. That’s what this record was for me – now I know I can do what I have to do to be who I am.” – Misty Lyn

“Misty Lyn walked into the studio knowing this was who she was, feeling that this was where she was supposed to be. She’s spent the last two years working on her second album of songs, ‘False Honey,’ writing, recording, mixing and producing, putting herself into all of it and learning.” – from “Misty Lyn & the Big Beautiful” by Jeff Milo

• Jonathan Visger (Absofacto)

“We are purposefully sort of unpredictable. We’re a little outside of the mainstream. The independence of it is inherent to what is good about it.” – Jonathan Visger

“When you first meet Jonathan Visger, he seems like just the kind of guy you would expect to meet in the Ypsilanti / Ann Arbor area for many reasons – he’s smart and cultured with an understated way about him, a dry sense of humor and an appreciation for local microbrews. He’s the kind of guy you could mistake for either a computer geek in the best sense of the term or a doctoral candidate working on his dissertation in literature or creative writing. However, Visger is actually the mastermind behind Absofacto, which is simply his experimental-pop creating alias.” – from “The Secret Music of Absofacto” by Amanda Trent

• Stephin Merritt (The Magnetic Fields)

“I sit in a gay bar for a few hours each day with a cocktail, a pen and my little notebook I carry everywhere. I listen to the music playing in the bar – usually thumping disco – and eavesdrop a bit, socialize a tad and try to work on a song. Often nothing much happens, but sometimes I write three songs in a day.” – Stephin Merritt

“As Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields was sitting in an empty room in upstate New York waiting for a ‘75-foot moving truck,’ he pulled up his email and began responding to some questions I had sent him a week earlier. Receiving his responses was a pleasant surprise. Although they’re expectedly brief, they’re potent with the kind of dry humor and quirky details that have made his songs seem like the product of a legend in the making. Had the truck come any earlier, I probably wouldn’t be writing this. He’s notoriously …bothered …by journalists. As an MTV writer put it earlier this year, ‘interviewing Merritt is like trying to get car keys from a guy who has been drinking since noon.’” – from “Chasing the Voice of the Magnetic Fields” by Paul Kitti