On Songsmiths, a six-song EP of mostly covers, Nathan pays tribute to both sides of his musical heritage, covering power pop classics like ELO's 'Do Ya' in stripped down songwriter style, and treating Ludwig von Beethoven's 'Fur Elise' to a garage-surfy, Big Lebowski reinterpretation. Nathan and long-time steel guitar collaborator Mike 'Slo-Mo' Brenner (Slo-Mo, ex- of Marah, Jason Molina, and The Low Road) worked out lo-fi arrangements to songs including 'All or Nothing' by the Small Faces and 'Mia' by Chris Malcarney of the Philadelphia power pop band, The Donuts.

Even the song credited to Nathan and Brenner is, in some ways, a cover. In the movie Descent, filmmaker Talia Lugacy pointed out a scene where actresses Rosario Dawson and Nicole Vicius are singing a song a capella. From this fragment, Nathan and Brenner wrote 'Old Man Time' a menacing, funk-tinged cover in a low vocal range reminiscent of Mark Lanegan.