“I’ve always been a fan of vinyl. There’s just something more ritualistic about putting on a record and you’re generally more inclined to listen to the whole thing.”
“I used to pore over my parents’ record collection as a kid. They had a lot of Beatles records and I remember immediately becoming enthralled. That was sort of the entry point to the rest of the music for me. I remember actually bringing in Rubber Soul to my pre-school for show and tell. It was just the coolest thing to me. They didn’t have a record player there so all I was doing really was just showing off the artwork. I was especially interested in John Lennon. There seemed to be a darkness underlying his writing that both frightened and fascinated me.
I also remember bringing in a Spike Jones record that my grandparents gave me. It was a sort of comedy record with crazy orchestration and noisemakers. It was definitely weird but so was I. I loved it.
Among my hunt for other music in their collection, I found and became really into The Slider by T. Rex. I still think the recordings on that record stand up and have a place in today’s musical climate. I love the use of strings and the way that Mark Bolan would almost whisper-sing and draw you in, which was a cool contrast to the guitar/drum heavy grooves.
I was born at the tail end of the cassette tape era. I definitely popped a few tapes in my Walkman before upgrading to a Discman. Among those tapes, I had early greatest hits of The Kinks and The Beach Boys that I played on repeat. I also had Beck’s Odelay and strangely enough, the Joan Osborne tape with “What If God Was One Of Us” on it. Say what you may, that song really has an undeniable hook.
When searching through my parents CD collection, I stumbled across Nirvana’s Nevermind which altered my young brain. It lived in my Discman where it became my lullaby most nights. Kurt Cobain seemed to have a similar dark honesty and ear for melody that I remembered from those John Lennon songs I loved.
From there I started seeking out my own music. I think the first 3 CDs I picked out for myself when I was around 7 years old were Third Eye Blind’s self titled album, Smash Mouth’s Fush Yu Mang and Green Day’s Nimrod. From then on growing up, Green Day were my modern rock heroes. They were someone I could still see live, and I did after American Idiot came out. To this day, that was probably the best concert I’ve ever seen.
Once the new millennium rolled around, music started popping up that seemed to incorporate everything I was into, new and old. I called those bands the “The” bands. I fell in love with the likes of The Vines, The Hives, The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Shins, and more. I still love a lot of those bands.
Some other early influences that still find their way to my ears are Ben Kweller, Phantom Planet, Weezer, Queens Of The Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Spoon, Elliot Smith, and too many more to mention.
There are tons of great new bands out there now, and I’m really happy to see that vinyl has made a comeback as a viable means for listening to it all. I’ve got my little collection and I’m always looking to grow it.”
—Henry Chadwick
Henry Chadwick’s second single, “Guest at Home,” is in stores now.
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