“My relationship with vinyl started long ago, when I was a young child.”
“My father had a record player with a large EQ. As a toddler I gravitated towards the system, more fascinated by the EQ rather than the record player. I suppose it was the mass amount of knobs, buttons, and faders that just looked far too tantalizing. I was constantly in trouble for messing with the faders.
When I was bit older, I looked forward to whenever my mother would leave the house for an extended period of time. That’s the time when my father and I got to do all the things we normally wouldn’t be allowed to do when she was home, like blast music or play computer games she didn’t know about. Many times we would go into the family room, he would throw on a record, usually The Rolling Stones or something of the like, and we would dance around the room like idiots.
As technology changed, like most Americans, so did we. We moved on from records to tapes and CDs. I never looked back until my father passed when I was a teenager. I was given the arduous task of going through much of my father’s belongings, deciding what I wanted to keep and discard. I knew his record collection was quite possibly the most important thing to keep. It stood out more than anything else.
As I grew up and moved from one city to another, his large collection of vinyl stayed boxed up in a closet at my mother’s house, collecting dust. During a recent visit home, I started going through the boxes after many years, and realized what a musical badass he was. For instance, he had every single Fleetwood Mac record ever made, including pre-Stevie and Lindsay.
I started packing as much of it as I could possibly fit into my suitcases to bring back to New York. My luggage probably had more records than clothing stuffed in them. Since then I’ve been getting to know a different side of my father, long after his death, just through his record collection.
Within the band, we’re all vinyl lovers. We all have growing record collections and love to trade with each other and our other friends. Peter is constantly bragging about some new record he’s picked up. We love hitting up local record stores and scouring thrift stores when we travel. So far, the midwest seems to have some of the best hidden gems.”
—Whitney Broadstreet, vocals, synth
Empty Chairs’ first full-length, Caveat Emptor, is available now.
