Lower Dens leader Jana Hunter is a frequent Talkhouse contributor and a fine writer — in April of 2015, she wrote a widely read piece for Cosmopolitan titled “What It’s Like to Be a Female Musician When You Don’t Identify as a Woman.” And Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, has said he’s pretty fluid with gender too. But that was only one reason why we invited these two to sit down and chat for the Talkhouse Music Podcast. Lower Dens and Perfume Genius make some of the most interestingly beautiful music around, and Hunter and Hadreas are two intriguing, well spoken people.

Sure, they talked about “gay/gender stuff” but they also just related as musicians — and talked candidly about inspiration, how to conduct yourself on stage, the perils of social media and dealing with hate mail. And they related as people too — they talk about dealing with email, the awesomeness of Rihanna, their methods for quitting smoking and why Clark Kent is hot.

Hadreas and Hunter had met only briefly once before, but they’re fans of each other’s music, and when they sat down at the Talkhouse Music mikes, they hit it off immediately — in fact, almost from the start these two very thoughtful people were giggling like teenagers. They do have one big difference, though: Hadreas believes in everything, but Hunter doesn’t believe in anything.