Musician Damon McMahon on Processing Family History Through Music

Musician Damon McMahon on Processing Family History Through Music

How much of who we are is shaped before we ever have a say? In this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers sits down with musician Damon McMahon, formally Amen Dunes, to explore how family history, inherited trauma, and cultural identity shape who we become.

Damon reflects on growing up between two very different worlds: his mother’s side of European Jewish Holocaust survival and his father’s working-class Irish American roots. He shares stories of how these legacies lived quietly in his family — sometimes spoken, often unspoken — and how they influenced his sense of self from an early age.

The conversation moves through complicated family dynamics, childhood instability, and the ways creativity can act as a private space for processing what’s difficult to articulate. Damon talks candidly about how his music has long been a way of exploring identity, releasing emotion, and trying to understand the forces that shaped him. They also discuss how becoming a parent reshaped his understanding of family — not as something inherited, but something actively created.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(63)

Thursday's Geoff Rickly on Why His Band Is Like a Family

Thursday's Geoff Rickly on Why His Band Is Like a Family

Two days before Thanksgiving, on the night of Thursday's first sold-out headline show at New York's Roseland Ballroom, Geoff Rickly got off the subway to the news that his nana had died, peacefully, i...

15 Okt 22min

Vagabon on Musical Beginnings and Moving from Cameroon to New York

Vagabon on Musical Beginnings and Moving from Cameroon to New York

Vagabon has lived in America most of her life, and still feels like she's from somewhere else. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, she traces why: born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, moved to Harle...

8 Okt 21min

Song Exploder's Hrishikesh Hirway on Honouring His Family Through Music

Song Exploder's Hrishikesh Hirway on Honouring His Family Through Music

This is a special reissue from Season 1 of Identified. Hrishikesh Hirway has spent a decade getting artists to take their songs apart. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, the Song Exploder...

30 Sep 36min

Dawn Richard on How New Orleans Taught Her to Fight.

Dawn Richard on How New Orleans Taught Her to Fight.

At the peak of her musical career, Dawn Richard lost her city. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, the New Orleans-born artist traces where she comes from: born and raised in the Ninth War...

23 Sep 22min

Chad Clark | What I Learned From My Father’s Role With Martin Luther King and Jimmy Carter

Chad Clark | What I Learned From My Father’s Role With Martin Luther King and Jimmy Carter

Chad Clark's father was Martin Luther King's lawyer, a man who, as Chad puts it, "changed the 20th century." On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, the Beauty Pill and Smart Went Crazy music...

14 Sep 21min

Silversun Pickups' Brian Aubert: "Family Is Where You Don't Have to Perform"

Silversun Pickups' Brian Aubert: "Family Is Where You Don't Have to Perform"

Brian Aubert of Silversun Pickups doesn't believe in perfect families, just ones where you feel safe and loved. Everything else, he says, is colouring. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, ...

7 Sep 21min

X Ambassadors and The Story of the Band Two Brothers Never Meant to Start

X Ambassadors and The Story of the Band Two Brothers Never Meant to Start

Sam and Casey Harris of X Ambassadors never meant to be in a band together. They were two brothers making music separately in the same house, until Casey started sneaking downstairs to jam with Sam's ...

31 Aug 34min

Jon Ronson on Family and the Extraordinary Story Behind The Castle

Jon Ronson on Family and the Extraordinary Story Behind The Castle

Jon Ronson joins Nabil Ayers on Identified for a conversation about family, fatherhood, growing up in Wales, finding his identity as a writer, and the strange series of events that ultimately led to h...

24 Aug 30min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
konspirasjonspodden
aftenpodden-usa
popradet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
wolfgang-wee-uncut
min-barneoppdragelse
grenselos
synnve-og-vanessa
alt-fortalt
fladseth
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-lilli-isabelle
rss-herrepanelet
opptur-med-annette-og-ingeborg