NBC’s newest music-themed competition series launches this month, and its compantion podcast has gone live. NBC’s Songland Podcast launched early this morning, with four intro episodes released simultaneously on the iHeartPodcast Network.

Once the TV series premieres on May 28, the podcast’s regular episodes will go live each Tuesday night right after the show airs. It will be available from all the usual podcast outlets, and you can listen to the premiere episode below.

The Peacock’s Songland series focuses on the intimate and mysterious art of songwriting. Viewers will get a rare look behind the curtain to see how hit songs are born. Four up-and-coming songwriters will compete to have their song chosen by a guest star recording artist and will be aided by a songwriter-producer panel. The pros are Ryan Tedder, who has written songs for the likes of Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, U2; Ester Dean, who has penned tracks for Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry); and Shane McAnally, who has amassed 36 No. 1 country hits. Songs will be transformed in real time, just as they are in today’s top writing rooms.

Three of the introductory episodes of The Songland Podcast, co-produced by iHeartMedia, feature the above-mentioned producers, with the fourth starring Dave Stewart. The Eurhythmics founder also is an executive producer of Songland and has a string of hits as a songwriter; Tom Petty fans, for example, know him from their collaboaration on “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” He and the other tunesmiths walk listeners through a song of their own: Stewart talks about writing and recording “Sweet Dreams” with Annie Lennox in their practice space in less than an hour; Tedder discusses about finishing the track for Beyonce’s “XO’ on an airplane and coming up with the final hook on a jog through an Australian park. Dean describes getting a middle-of-the-night phone call from Minaj to work on “Superbass,” and McAnally talks about writing from a very personal story for Kacey Musgraves’ “Mama’s Broken Heart..”

Have a listen to The Songland Podcast here: