“Vinyl has been around me for as long as I can remember, and I do mean ‘around me’ literally. My dad had a small room in our family’s first house where he kept all his vinyl and musical equipment. The records were stacked all the way to the ceiling (at least that’s what it seemed like to me) in wooden fruit crates. They felt simultaneously comforting and imposing, which I suppose is a decent metaphor for a life spent trying to create music that holds up to those first impressions.”
“I never owned a turntable of my own until I was 19 or 20. Our family friend Bill McGurn gave me his old Marantz direct-drive table when we were visiting one Christmas, and I hooked it up to my dad’s amp and speakers that he purchased with his first paycheck from the local record store. That’s still my setup to this day.
I’m sure the first thing I played on that table was one of my dad’s old records—Led Zeppelin II or CCR Live in Europe—but the first brand-new LP that I purchased for myself was Mike Viola’s Just Before Dark. I have very vivid memories of peeling away the shrink-wrap and dropping the needle on that record for the first time in my parents’ basement on a snowy December night. It’s a beautiful, intimate album, recorded live at Largo in Los Angeles, and something about the experience of listening to it on vinyl is so intoxicating. I must’ve listened to it 10 times that night, and it’s still a favorite to this day.
My most recent vinyl purchase was All Your Favorite Bands by Dawes, which gets better with every listen and sounds particularly spectacular on vinyl.
The crown jewels of my collection are definitely my original pressings of Plastic Ono Band by John Lennon, Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield, and The Gilded Palace of Sin by the Flying Burrito Brothers, the latter two having been found for me by my roommate (I told you he was good).
Secret Someones are currently working on pressing our debut album on vinyl. I understand that production is a bit backed up these days due to the overwhelming demand for new vinyl, which, in my mind, is a wonderful thing.
We’ll have it on wax soon enough, but check us out on iTunes and the like in the meantime, and come see us on tour throughout the US this November. We can talk about records.”
—Zach Jones
Secret Someones’ brand new release, Headfirst is in stores now via Interscope/Cherrytree.
