A light went on for Rob Straughn when he first heard The Beatles in 1964. He wanted to do what they did. Rob learned to play guitar, got in a band, and started writing songs. Over 40 years, his songwriting has made a large circle of stylistic and experimental forms. “In the end,” Rob says, “I’ve come back to just writing songs.”

Rob and I met at Iowa State University in 1987 and immediately struck up a musical friendship. We’ve written together ever since, for my rock projects, Rob’s acoustic projects, and for our collaborative projects as well.

We recorded three albums as the audubon society between 1989 and 1991. In 1992 we rebranded ourselves as misunderstanding, and released Ackworth later that summer.

In 1996 we rebranded again: this time as Smith & Straughn. We released Au Naturel in 2002, and have been working on Who We Are for the last few years.

In August 2009 we made I Think There’s Something Here, a collection of “living room demos” recorded over a two-day visit. We had a lot of fun recording it, and we hope you’ll have just as much fun listening.