Describe your sound in your own words.
I feel kindred to musicians through the ages who make music that is attuned to the elements, and whose sound is like this attunement coming out of their own heart. It's not really of a particular modern style.
How did you start playing professionally?
I made my first recordings in the attic of a former stable on a four-track cassette machine. These, and other early recordings, make up 'A School of Secret Dangers,' my first solo album. Along with recording, I started traveling, and writing a zine, and writing more songs. Once I had enough songs to play a set, I got on a stage. A wonderful whirlwind of roving around, creative people, and curious circumstances ensued.How did your band form?
We are a kind of supergroup of backing singers. Darkus was a singer for Annie Lennox, I sang for Wyclef Jean and Mike sang for Norah Jones.
What are your musical influences?
Nirvana, Pavement, Beatles, Neil Young, Breeders and David Bowie.
Describe your sound in your own words.
It sounds like pop music, and it has a dreamy melodic quality to it.
How did you meet the musicians you play live with?
I met them in different ways. My keyboard player [Adam Campagna]and I actually went to college together, and we met in New Orleans at a bar one night. The other two guys I play with I hooked up with in Brooklyn. One of them saw me playing a solo show and had heard my music, and he really liked my record. He [Zak Fishman] is a drummer and it ended up working out. The bass player [Eric Davis] is also affiliated with the college I went to in New Orleans.How did you guys form the band?
I first met [singer] Lee [Spielman] and [guitarist] Garrett [Stevenson] through mutual friends from going to shows and such. They were forming a band with [drummer] Sam [Bosson], and they needed a bass player, so I joined them. The musicians fit together randomly, but it worked out and the band was formed.
How would you describe your sound?
It's kind of an amalgamation of everything we listen to. We listen to a wide variety of bands, and we're influenced by all of them. Some might call it metal, some might call it hard rock. I call it aggressive punk rock.Describe your sound.
The Clash playing Kinks covers is probably the best way to put it. There are a lot of influences, though. It can be described as having retro, old soul and reggae influences.
How did the band form?
I knew the drummer and guitar player for a long time socially. We met the bass player at a skateboard shop; he didn't even know how to play bass at the time. We just started jamming and we thought, 'hey, we've got a band.'Describe your music.
Lavish.
How did your band form?
It still hasn't. I'm a third of the way there for a three-piece, and around a quarter if I form a four-piece.Describe the Laurel Collective's sound in your own words.
Skronky melodic art-pop, with little detours into weirdness.
How did your band form?
It was a classic case of meeting people as friends and realising we really liked the same music, which at the time was mostly post-rock and hip-hop. We all happened to have instruments and too much time on our hands.Could you describe your sound in your own words.
Electronic dance music from Iceland.
How did your band form?
We formed in 2006, we had all been working on separate music projects before. It's a close family project, my brother and my girlfriend are in the band too. It was not planned, it just came about after we put a song on MySpace. It's just evolved into this bigger thing.Describe your sound.
Superficially happy. Probably a bit sadder the deeper you delve. But it's certainly pop music.
How did your band form?
We all met as English Literature students at the University of Sheffield, but soon started writing songs together instead of doing the work we were supposed to be doing.Describe your sound in your own words.
I think we have a lot of different sounds. It's kind of all over the place some of the time, but we tend to put ourselves under some sort of combination of pop music, '70s and '80s rock, somewhere in there.
How did your band form?
It's kind of a meandering story. I started the band with a guy that's not in it anymore. I graduated from college, and then Bill, our singer, was in. We moved to New York, added some guys, changed drummers, changed some things around.Where does the name of your band come from?
One of the guys who was in Camper Van Beethoven for about three months, he was working on this standup comedy character that would tell these jokes. They had all the rhyme and the rhythm of a joke, but they would never make sense, and that's what was funny about them. It was pretty much pothead humor, and so that was his idea of a band name, was it sort of sounded like it means something, but it didn't, really. And you know we loved it, of course.
How did the band form?
It was a side project for everybody in the band. Everybody was in other bands that were more successful. The idea that I had for the band was that everybody would play a new instrument. I was kind of the bass player around my town. But in this band, I decided that I would learn guitar and sing. Jonathan Segal was a guitar player, so he had to play violin. He also had to learn keyboards. Victor Krummenacher -- I basically taught him to play bass, and Chris [Molla] was a really excellent guitarist but we made him learn drums, and after about a year we actually got good enough to play shows. And it just had a really different sound than all the other bands, and suddenly it became more popular than our other bands.Describe your sound in your own words.
My music is my own kind of jazz. It's got the jazz rhythm but with a twist to it. A lot of my lyrics come from politics, feminism -- you know, real issues with jazz to back it up."I have no interest in supporting her in any way, shape or form. You can't throw enough things down the abyss with a person like that." --Billy Corgan
The Smashing Pumpkins' frontman recently reinforced his no-contact policy for former friend and collaborator Courtney Love. Tell us how you really feel, Billy.
Describe your sound in your own words.
That's a difficult question. I don't know what it is. I don't really think about it too much. When we're working on songs with instruments we kind of let whatever wants to come out, come out. Different kinds of music -- kind of psychedelic, freestyle, electronic music. It just comes out in a nice way. We're not really going for a specific sound.
How did your band form?
I was recording by myself. I knew Chris through friends so I asked him to play guitar. He really liked the music so he was into it. I put something on our website about needing a bass player and John Pena emailed me that he was interested. It's really good -- we have a really tight core, we hang out and we're best friends. It all worked out really well.
What are your musical influences?
Um. I take it from all over. I like Don Cherry. I like Parson Sound a lot. I've recently been listening to a lot of Bach music done with a harpsichord. I'm influenced by whatever I'm listening to at the time and sometimes what I'm reading influences me more than what I'm listening to. I'm reading some Vladimir Mayakovsky right now and a lot of poetry.
I come from a line of musicians. My grandfather is a Cuban percussionist. My mother and father had musical projects together when I was growing up. They have a studio now. My mom is working on her album. There were always instruments around the house. I would pick them up. No one ever told I should do it or I had to do it but I would pick them up and play. I realized it was what I really loved. It's probably in the DNA.
How did you come up with your band name?
Whenever I'm reading I make a list of words I like. Usually they're words that aren't as clear as Beach Fossils, but when you're choosing a band name it needs to be something that people can remember. It's kind of unfortunate because at the same time there was a lo-fi beach theme going on so we ended up getting lumped in with that. Now that's phased out some maybe people will stop associating us with that genre.
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