Moshe Kasher on Deaf Parents, Hasidic Summers & Subculture

At sixteen, freshly sober, Moshe Kasher sold ecstasy at raves — greeting customers he recognised from his Tuesday night recovery meeting. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, the comedian and author of Subculture Vulture unpacks a childhood that explains it: two deaf parents who met at t…

August Ponthier on Coming Out, Texas, and Chosen Family

August Ponthier came out to the world in an article, messaging their mom the day before it dropped: "I just want you to read it before you react… I hope you can love this about me."  On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, they trace the whole road there: a nuclear-family childhood in a co…

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, in her favourite chair, logged into the band's website. He played the show.  On this special reissu…

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 Harlem at nine when her mother, a lawyer,  brought the whole family along to chase her own ambition, the…

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 host takes his own story apart instead. Growing up the child of Indian immigrants in a Massachuse…

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 Ward, daughter of a Creole mother from New Iberia and a father who fronted the Allen Toussaint-produce…

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 musician talks about what it means to make art in the shadow of that kind of legacy, including the thin…

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, he traces where that idea comes from: a childhood in Los Angeles shadowed by his mother's brain tum…

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 band.  On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, they trace how brotherhood became the band.…

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 his new book, The Castle. Jon traces his story back to Cardiff, where he grew up feeling like a squ…