It might take a decade before you’re ready to make a record. Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson, and Macie Stewart, multi-instrumentalists and stalwarts of the Chicago experimental music scene, have been playing and recording together since the late 2010s, in duos and on each other’s respective solo LPs. But 2026 sees the trio finally release BODY SOUND, their improvised debut, for International Anthem. Aquarium Drunkard spoke with Kohl, Stewart, and Johnson about friendship, the sacred, Yoko Ono, tape loops, surprise, improvisation, and more.
Category: The AD Interview
Bruce Hornsby :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Near the end of his latest Indigo Park, Bruce Hornsby sings something of a conclusion—or perhaps a belated introduction: “I’ve been seeking magical thinking/I think I detect a trend/This could be the start of something/Or this could be an end.” The lyric isn’t cited to suggest the 71-year-old songwriter is going anywhere. If anything, Indigo Park speaks to the hot streak Hornsby’s been on since 2019’s Absolute Zero. Aquarium Drunkard caught up with him to discuss the album, basketball chants, his work with The Grateful Dead, literary fiction, and much more.
Cosmic Music: The Life, Art and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane | In Conversation with Andy Beta
Andy Beta’s new book, Cosmic Music: The Life, Art and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane, sheds crucial new light on Alice Coltrane’s incredible journey. Through deep research and keen insight, Beta uncovers a story that spans decades and continents, painting a portrait of a remarkable musician, composer and spiritual leader. AD recently talked with the author to learn about how it all came together.
Rachel Love :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Originally a founding member of the pioneering all-female trio Dolly Mixture, musician Rachel Love has launched a solo career forty plus years later. Ahead of indie pop purveyors Slumberland repressing her recent solo LPs such as Lyra (a tribute to her late husband/producer Steve Lovell), the musician also plays in new band Railcard with fellow English guitar-pop veterans, a BBC-inspired instrumental project with Martin Newell of Cleaners from Venus and more. Love joins us from her home in Brighton to discuss her career and prolific late career surge.
Iron & Wine :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Sam Beam thought he had writer’s block as he entered the studio post-pandemic. But it turns out that wasn’t the case at all: the sessions produced so much music Beam had to split it into two different albums, 2024’s Fiona Apple-featuring Light Verse and his eighth album, Hen’s Teeth, released by Sub Pop in late February. “Deciding on which ones go on the record is just an intuitive thing,” Beam says. “There’s no right or wrong answers, you just try to find ones that flow into the next, keep you on your toes.”
Scout Gillett :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
“I don’t want a record to sound like what everyone else is trying to sound like,” Scout Gillett says, and that means keeping her various inspirations close, allowing Neil Young, Lucinda Williams, and The Deftones to share space in her imagination. Gillett joined us virtually on a sunny Wednesday morning from her home in Los Angeles to discuss her new album, Tough Touch.
Even If It’s Flawed or Crooked :: Catching Up With Buck Meek
Buck Meek joins Aquarium Drunkard from his LA-based studio Ringo Bingo, to discuss his latest album The Mirror, his relationship with collaboration and solitude in songwriting, giving himself permission to be uninhibited in frankness, a childhood obsession with Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind and more.
Matt Valentine :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
The latest Wet Tuna LP is called Vast — and you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better title for this collection of strange and funky flights. It’s a wide-open, far-flung album, deeply textured and ridiculously detailed, but somehow spacious and inviting. A psychedelic micro-galaxy/macro-dose that teems with life and imagination. Close to a decade in, this is the fourth proper Wet Tuna offering (not counting an array of more “under-the-counter” situations), but the project is just another whistle-stop on the Matt Valentine express.
Bill Frisell :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
For Bill Frisell, music at its best feels dreamlike. It bends and manipulates time, contracting and expanding. On his latest, In My Dreams the guitarist is joined by longtime collaborators for a spectral set of tunes, including a sterling cover of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.” He joins us to discuss the record, dreams, and Gary Larson’s The Far Side.
Ron Carter :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
In more than a half-century of activity, the legendary bassist has played with nearly everyone in jazz, from cult heroes to celebrated titans to forgotten mavericks. but longevity and dedication as a sideman, along with his stint in Miles Davis’ fabled Second Great Quintet, tend to obscure his many other major accomplishments. For his Aquarium Drunkard Interview, Carter talked about the inspiration behind his latest project and his hardscrabble and illustrious past, and went into his philosophical outlook and practical methods. Breaking down music as an art, a profession and a discipline, Carter shows that a life spent keeping time has not prevented him from existing in the present moment.
Bill Callahan :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
My Days of 58 is the latest record from singer-songwriter Bill Callahan. What does this record show? It is not only a document, but, as the title states, also an accounting of Callahan at a certain age, portraying who he is as a writer, a musician, a father, a partner, and a human being at a specific moment in time. He joins us to discuss a recent cancer scare, repetition, and visiting his musical heroes in his dreams.
Peter Stampfel :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Peter Stampfel’s Song Shards features a whopping 46 songs. Despite struggles with dysphonia, it’s clear the 87-year-old artist, Holy Modal Rounders founder, one-time Fugs member, and solo artist has no trouble gathering up material. He joined us to discuss the record, his spiritual practice, and reflect on artists like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Smith, and Irving Berlin.
Tucker Zimmerman: In Memoriam (1941-2026)
On January 17, 2026, the world lost the great Tucker Zimmerman and his wife of more than fifty years, Marie-Claire, to a house fire in Liege, Belgium. He was 84 years old. Though born in the United States, he had been a resident of Europe since 1966. A novelist, poet, folk singer, classical composer, & electronic musician, Zimmerman had a deep and restless career with more than a dozen albums to his name. However, because of his status as an expat, he was largely overlooked in his birth country for most of his lifetime.
The Sha La Das :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Sometimes a photograph can transport you back in time. On the cover of Your Picture, the second album from Staten Island soul combo The Sha La Das, appears a picture of the family matriarch, Linda. It was the same case with 2018’s Love in the Wind. The photos were taken by the 79-year-old Bill Schalda, who fronts The Sha La Das with his sons, Paul, Will and Carmine. Though aged by time, these images present a different world, but one that Schalda says feels as real and immediate to him as the present.
Wilder Maker :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Songwriter Gabriel Birnbaum’s latest with Wilder Maker, 2025’s The Streets Like Beds Still Warm, leans into sophisto-pop shaded indie pop noir, careening from rootsy swagger into bursts of digital space jazz and ambient funk. Birnbaum narrates like a streetwise-type who’s been up way too long, finding warped and engaging hooks around every corner. He joins us to discuss.