Do you remember your first record? Your first concert? Your favorite artist from when you were that pizza face in sixth grade? Well this isn’t about that. This Long and Winding Road is about three artists/records that impacted/influenced you over the years – you as a musician, (The National plays on Monday.) So letap talk about your road.
“There was a little more expectation (with ‘High Violet’). But in the way we worked, it didn’t change that much. At one point we were trying to write some more upbeat pop songs as an experiment, but obviously the record didn’t turn out that way. Matt was challenging himself to sing in a different range, not so low-low-low, and that worked out. And that worked out in that we still sound like we do. It was an interesting experiment.”
8 years old
“I really wanted Quiet Riotap ‘Metal Health,’ and I got that on my birthday. But my mom made me take it back because she didn’t like the cover and it had a song called ‘Slick Black Cadillac.’ And so we took it back to the Gold Circle, a department store that doesn’t exist anymore. I exchanged it for a cassette copy of ‘Synchronicity,’ which was awesome. My parents liked it. It was easy listening. My parents were big music fans. It could be considered yacht rock, I guess, but itap still great.”
14 years old
“At that age, I was skateboarding and listening to punk rock. I was playing guitar in a band with my brothers, still, and he was more into classic rock and I was listening to early Chili Peppers, ‘Mother’s Milk.’ We formed our high school band listening to Led Zeppelin and the more emo side of punk rock at the time. But the Chili Peppers were one of those bands that was spastic and different, like the teenage mind. It was complex and the playing was athletic. After high school I wasn’t into it so much. It was a time-and-a-place kinda thing. But we were getting tacos at a place in Hollywood not that long ago, and all they played was Chili Peppers, and I was like, ‘This sounds really good right now.’ ”
37 years old
“I’ve been really into electronic music in the last few years – this new wave of dance stuff, which is opposite of what we do. I like LCD Soundsystem and the other stuff from the last six or seven years. Itap a nice break from all the guitars. What attracts me to them: The heavy rhythms and basslines. Our music is dense, and it changes a lot. Itap great, and I like doing it, but getting outside of that and doing something different would be fun.”
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Ricardo Baca is the founder and co-executive editor of and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post.
