“From birth, I was surrounded by vinyl. My father was/is a huge audiophile, with thousands of records. He is utterly obsessed with sound quality. What was for most families a TV room was our listening room. He always had high-end stereo systems, with state-of-the-art speakers and vintage tube amps. They knew him by name at Hawthorne Stereo, the local audiophile shop in Seattle, where I grew up. Nearly every week he was swapping out speakers and amplifiers to A/B the sound. His record collection was constantly growing; our shelves always running out of space.”
“From my earliest age, whenever I would cry, Dad would sit me on his lap and play a record to get me to stop. And as I got older, he would have me sit in the “special seat” (the central cushion on our living room sofa, perfectly aligned with the speakers for optimal listening) and play a song he was excited about at the moment. He got so much pleasure out of watching me listen to the songs. Jazz, blues, classic rock, that’s the music I grew up on. I didn’t have to create my own record collection because he already had one. He’d put on a jazz record and say things like: “Hear the stand-up bass? You can tell it’s in the back right corner of the studio where they recorded. And the keys? You can hear he’s sitting front left.”
I quickly learned about the power of music. With my dad, I didn’t just listen to music, I visualized it, felt it. When I moved to LA a few years ago, he bought me a turntable and lent me a bunch of albums from his collection. Every few months, I trade them back in for a new batch. My own little vinyl library, it’s amazing. Most recently I’ve been spinning Burnin’ by The Wailers, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Moondance by Van Morrison, and Music From Big Pink by The Band.
Last year, when we released our debut album Portrait, I was so excited when we found out it was getting a vinyl release. I couldn’t wait to give a copy to my dad. At first we wanted to get a cool paint-splattered clear vinyl, but we found out that that actually takes away from the quality quite a bit, so we went with white instead. Warner Bros. Records is my dad’s favorite legacy label, so watching him open that sleeve for the first time, with the classic palm tree WBR seal was really special.
Our newest single, “Bad Boys,” has a total retro vibe and as we were working on it, I was thinking back to those memories of the “special spot” on the sofa in my parent’s basement, listening to classic records. Oftentimes, when writing for Cardiknox we call on nostalgia—both lyrically and sonically. In this case, we fully embraced the vintage feel and just went for it. For me, it’s definitely a nod to a childhood surrounded by vinyl and love.”
—Lonnie Angle
“Bad Boys,” the new single from Cardiknox is in stores now.
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