VERSED: The ASCAP Podcast

Tony Award-winning musical, The Lost Boys, is a Broadway sensation that audiences are just dying to see! 
Based on the 1987 cult classic film about vampires, the rock musical features music and lyrics written by long-time ASCAP member Kyler England and her two bandmates in the acclaimed group The Rescues. The trio received Tony nominations for Best Score and Best Orchestrations and a Dorian Award for Outstanding Original Score of a Broadway Production. 
The story's protagonist Michael is played by ASCAP singer-songwriter, actor and rising Broadway star LJ Benet. Though LJ is no stranger to acting, with a resume that ranges from the Disney Channel to the Hollywood Bowl, his vulnerable and honest performance in The Lost Boys marks his Broadway debut.
Kyler and LJ joined ASCAP's Jules Ogden to discuss reimagining the story with songs for the Palace Theatre, the vulnerability that goes into LJ's character and songs that almost didn't make the final version of the show.
Visit the musical's website.
Listen to the cast recording.
Watch the cast performing in the recording studio.
Download the ASCAP Mobile App.

Hannah Marks is a bassist, composer and educator living in New York City who leads a risk-taking acoustic jazz quartet that features NYC's most in-demand sidemen. Her career is on fire. She tours internationally with NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater's project "We Exist!"  She was named to Downbeat magazine Critics Poll Rising Star Bassist list and just dropped a fantastic new album featuring her chops called Feed the Fire. 
Marks was also honored with a 2026 ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award and is set to perform with her quartet at the prestigious DC JazzFest in Washington DC on September 5. She'll appear alongside  jazz greats Kurt Elling, Yellowjackets, Lisa Fischer, Nate Smith and many more. 
Here she talks with VERSED about her many passions as a composer and musician, the power of playing live and the advice she shares with the next generation in her role serving on the faculty at Fordham University.
Visit Hannah's website
Listen to her new album, Feed the Fire
Watch Hannah Marks Quartet perform "Aggro" live at the Jazz Gallery
Download the ASCAP Mobile App

"Bugonia" is the ancient practice of leaving out the body of a dead cow, with the belief that bees would spontaneously generate from its carcass. That strange idea serves as an inspiration for the film Bugonia, the latest from visionary director Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Favourite, The Lobster). And in an abstract way it also inspired its score by British composer Jerskin Fendrix – the first original composer that Lanthimos ever worked with, and his collaborator on Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness.
Fendrix didn't read the script or see any footage before he began writing music for Bugonia. Instead, Lanthimos gave him just three words: "bees," "basement" and "spaceship." The bare bones of the film's metaphorical carcass, out of which Fendrix generated his score.
What resulted is a grandiose, oftentimes unhinged score that tracks the film's complex emotional terrain. It was recorded by the 90-piece London Contemporary Orchestra, which Jerskin praised for their adventurousness. "They're up for playing around, they're up for experimenting, they're up for embarrassing themselves musically," he says. "So being able to play with an orchestra…which I was able to draw some more unusual, more provocative sounds out of, was an absolute joy."
The same month that Bugonia was released in theaters, Fendrix released Once Upon a Time…In Shropshire, his first solo album in five years. It's a fascinating yin to Bugonia's yang, representing a very different side of this multi-faceted creator.
Follow Jerskin Fendrix on Instagram.
Bugonia is in theaters and on select streaming platforms. More info here.
Listen to Jerskin Fendrix's discography on Spotify.
Stream Once Upon a Time...In Shropshire on Bandcamp.
Get tickets now for the 2026 ASCAP Experience.

Lucius, the Grammy-nominated indie-pop quartet led by Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, have been crafting innovative, exciting and absolutely otherworldly music for nearly 20 years. Driven by Holly and Jess's intricately-blended vocals and backed by masterful musicians, drummer Dan Molad and guitarist Peter Lalish, Lucius's songs deliver provocative and soulful journeys into the human heart, all set in soundscapes that are by turns edgy and cinematic.
On the heels of releasing their fourth studio album, a self-titled work that is their most personal and purposeful work to date, and which Rolling Stone calls "The best album of their career," Holly and Jess took a break from their 2025 Gold Rush Tour to talk to VERSED about their roots, the art of collaboration and harmonizing and how their long-enduring friendship and partnership has carried them through music-making, motherhood and more.
We also share insights from singer-songwriter Alex Warren's appearance at the 2023 ASCAP Experience in LA that set him up for success with "Ordinary," Billboard's 2025 Song of the Summer.
Catch Lucius on tour
Listen to their new album
Watch the video for "Final Days"
Download the ASCAP Mobile App

Award-winning jazz pianist, composer and bandleader Jahari Stampley was born in Chicago and started playing piano at age 14. Within two years of exploring his instrument, he started winning competitions. By the age of 18, he was recognized and followed by such world-renowned musicians as Yebba Smith, Jill Scott, Robert Glasper, Jacob Collier and others. In 2023, Jahari won first place in the Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition, was named Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz, became the first non-classical musician to receive the Chicago Youth Symphony Alumni Award, and was awarded the 2023 LuminArts Fellowship for his debut album Still Listening. That album, by the way, rose to #1 on Apple iTunes in the first weeks of its release.
 In May of this year, Jahari released the single "To Be Alive" from his second album, What a Time, set to be released in the US in September.  Also this year, Jahari was presented with an ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award and was selected to perform at DC JazzFest as part of the Foundation's partnership with the festival.
As he geared up to take the DC JazzFest Transit Stage in August with his Jahari Stampley Family Band, featuring his mother, the Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist D-Erania Stampley, and some special guests, he shared what brought him to this moment in his career, what he has learned on his journey so far, and what he hopes to achieve with his music.
Also in this episode are excerpts from ASCAP's Etan Rosenbloom's interview with songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and Laufey collaborator Spencer Stewart about how jazz has impacted the way he makes music.
 
Visit Jahari Stampley online
Listen to "To Be Alive (Solo Piano)" from Jahari's forthcoming album, What a Time
Check out Laufey's new album, A Matter of Time
Download the ASCAP Mobile App