Aaron Dessner
American musicianWikipedia
65
MENTIONS
34
EPISODES
24
PODCASTS
Search complete. 65 mentions across 34 episodes found for "Aaron Dessner".
Sep 23, 2026
Anthony MasonHOST
Yes.
Sara BareillesGUEST
I did it with Aaron Dessner at-
Anthony MasonHOST
Yeah
Sara BareillesGUEST
...
Kristen RobinsonHOST
[upbeat music] Welcome back to On the Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and Sickbird Productions.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
I'm your host, Kristin Robinson, and I'm thrilled to welcome Aaron Dessner to the show.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
As I already noted, Dessner has made his name first in The National, an indie rock band that he shares with his twin brother Bryce Dessner, among others.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
The group emerged from the Brooklyn scene in the early 2000s and have been putting out critically acclaimed projects ever since, notching four top five albums on the Billboard 200 in the process, including my personal favorite, Trouble Will Find Me from 2013.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
He created a side project with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver called Big Red Machine.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
And then around the time that the pandemic hit, he started working on this little album that you might have heard of called Folklore by Taylor Swift.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
This album suddenly made Aaron Dessner the most sought-after songwriter and producer in pop.
Kristen RobinsonHOST
He now has credits across four Taylor Swift albums, as well as Noah Kahan's The Great Divide, Gracie Abrams' Daughter From Hell and The Secret of Us, Ed Sheeran's ÷, and Mumford & Son's latest, Prize Fighter, and will surely be remembered as one of the collaborators that shaped the sound of popular music in the 2020s.
MollyHOST
The Life of a Showgirl was exclusively Max Martin and Shellback with Taylor.
MollyHOST
So will they be on this Patient Zero track? Will they be the producers? Or will it be someone else? Could it be Jack Antonoff? Could it be Aaron Dessner? Are they in the mix on this? You may remember that Midnight's was an album that Taylor wrote exclusively with Jack Antonoff and produced with him.
MollyHOST
But then when she had the 3AM edition of Midnight's, the songs that were on the 3AM edition included songs with Erin Dessner as well.
MollyHOST
So once she bridged out from the original Midnight's tracks, there were other producers.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
That was Renegade by Big Red Machine and Taylor Swift.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
Big Red Machine is actually a band with, I believe, Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
It's such a fall song, don't you think? It's a great song.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
They actually have another really good feature with Taylor Swift called Birch.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
And it's just the song.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
And so that does get a little confusing.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
I do remember Aaron Dessner telling us about Big Red Machine and how it's a band with him and Justin Vernon and Ohio-based.
Audrey Tintle and Jayne TintleHOST
The name takes after Ohio, I believe.
Niall StanageGUEST
You would have to keep me right on.
Davie FureyHOST
Aaron Dessner.
Niall StanageGUEST
That's right.
Niall StanageGUEST
I think that's right.
Ross GolanHOST
My head looks huge.
Ross GolanHOST
But we just released an episode with Aaron Dessner.
Ross GolanHOST
He's awesome, and there's been a great, great support for that.
Ross GolanHOST
So we're very excited about that.
Ross GolanHOST
Wow, what a run.
Ross GolanHOST
Anyway, thank you, Georgia Webbush, for the excellent notes.
Ross GolanHOST
Thank you all for checking out that Aaron Dessner interview.
Ross GolanHOST
Thank you, Amazon, for the support in Times Square.
MorganHOST
And it is pretty much Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff the full way through.
MorganHOST
We have Dessner on some of the 3AM edition tracks, but for the most part, we're mostly looking at Jack here, which is...
MorganHOST
I like that.
speaker_3UNKNOWN
I
6 MINS LATER
MorganHOST
So yeah, just getting into the behind the scenes and album creation and all of that, we're going to have Antonoff as the main partner here.
MorganHOST
He is the sole collaborator for the main section of the album.
MorganHOST
No Dessner, no Merz Martin, Shellback on the main part of this.
MorganHOST
Swift called him her co-pilot and she said this was the first album done just the two of them despite nearly a decade of collaboration going all the way back to 1989's Out of the Woods.
Shay OmiHOST
And it was something that she really had to, like, chafe against throughout a lot of her career.
Shay OmiHOST
But getting, like, Justin Vernon, uh, aka Bon Iver on board, getting Aaron Dessner on board as well, you know, those people, I think, kind of made people take her work more seriously as-
Aubrey LittleHOST
Totally
Shay OmiHOST
... you know, misogynistic as that might be.
LucasHOST
No.
LucasHOST
A lot of times you turn to Aaron Dessner and you are making pop bullshit with people.
LucasHOST
I just think it's funny.
LucasHOST
It's funny to be like at this exact time in history to be like, yeah, we're linking up with Brian Eno.
Ross GolanHOST
Anyway, we are live in Brooklyn, New York at National Sawdust.
Ross GolanHOST
[clapping] And the writer is Aaron Dessner.
Ross GolanHOST
[clapping]
speaker_1UNKNOWN
[clapping] Whoo.
36 MINS LATER
Ross GolanHOST
Um, and, you know, you...
Ross GolanHOST
This is a huge change from, uh, from The National to, to working with Taylor.
Ross GolanHOST
How do y- how does t- how does Taylor Swift call Aaron Dessner and say, "Hey"? And what was that phone call like?
Aaron DessnerGUEST
[laughs]
24 more episodes mention Aaron Dessner.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.