And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan

And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan is a close-range music show about how songs get made, sold, protected, misunderstood, and lived with. It starts with craft. Then it keeps going. Recent episodes treat pop, country, alternative, and singer-songwriter careers as long arcs shaped by instinct, timing, business pressure, and luck. Dermot Kennedy’s story moves from street performance to worldwide attention, with hard questions about representation, dealmaking, and the uneasy jump from streams to rooms full of people. Madison Beer’s conversation centers on early fame, public criticism, being dropped young, and learning to make music that feels personally true. Melanie Martinez brings the discussion into world-building, major-label uncertainty, television’s limits, and the discipline of protecting a creative identity. Charlie Puth’s two-part appearance gets technical fast, with talk of tuned 808s, modulation, samples, studio habits, AI, and the pressure to make songs safer than they need to be. Megan Moroney’s episode shows a country career forming through injury, guitar, music-business classes, internships, TikTok, radio, and a steady willingness to keep asking how the industry works. Jesse Rutherford reflects on acting, The Neighbourhood, fan intensity, time away, and success that did not feel the way he once expected. Philip Lawrence’s episode brings the focus to survival, collaboration, and the long road that led to Bruno Mars. The show also runs industry update episodes. Those segments are brisk, opinionated, and plugged into the machinery around the songs. Topics include rap lyrics in court, AI licensing negotiations, Universal Music Group valuation, Ticketmaster resale tools, global girl-group strategy, publishing moves, and songwriter advocacy. The tone is informed rather than distant. It knows the vocabulary of sessions, labels, publishers, managers, DSPs, radio, touring, and rights. It also keeps returning to a quieter question: what does a career cost the person making the work? For listeners interested in songwriting as craft, career, and leverage, the show offers unusually specific access to the conversations behind the catalog.