“I was in the 4th grade. I lived in Littleton, CO. I worshipped Janet, Whitney, and Mariah. They were the very beginning of my musical awareness and I have great respect for their talents. That was the summer my aunt came to town.”
“She lived in LA, but hailed originally from Seattle like the rest of my mom’s family. She saw Nirvana play in small clubs. She gave me the album that served as the catalyst that brought me into the world where the music was raw, emotional, and tough. Where the guitars expressed as much as the vocals. Where there was no discernable pretense, nothing was polished. I was the weird kid and I had found my home.
It was 1993. I listened to Nevermind countless times on my little bedside table alarm clock/tape deck. It would be almost a decade before I seriously started exploring my own musical voice. When Kurt Cobain died, my aunt wouldn’t leave the house. My grandparents laid flowers on his driveway. And my young self struggled to make the connection between the artist I admired and the person in enough pain to kill himself. I still do. And, every once in a while, I stop to think about how deeply rooted my musical expression is in my own pain. And then I stop and go about my day.”
—Anne Warnock, vocals, guitar
“I remember finding my dad’s old records in middle school and being blown away by the sound compared to my CDs.”
“I remember Dark Side of the Moon being a completely new album and scaring the shit out of me. Records made it fun to shop for music as well. Finding Petitioning the Empty Sky and blasting that is another wonderful memory. Nothing beats the warmth you hear on vinyl. How’s that?”
—Mike Sullivan, bass
“Guns N’ Roses is just a rock n’ roll band, and Appetite for Destruction is just a rock n’ roll album.”
“When I was 10, I needed an album that fit neatly into a genre to grab me and pull me in a direction, any direction. I’d listen to anything back then.The catchy, melodic, tough, and epic songs on Appetite drew me in, then shot me out along the rock n’ roll path.
For a time, I needed rock—I needed to focus on a single type of music that would teach me to discern good from bad. Or, perhaps I now judge all music by similarity to Appetite. Name an album I’ve heard, I can tell you whether it’s like Appetite or not. Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black is very Appetite, AC/DC’s Back in Black, also very Appetite. Metallica’s Black album, on the other hand, not so Appetite.
Other very Appetite records: Kanye’s Yeezus, Coltrane’s Love Supreme, and Isis’ In the Absence of Truth. Other not so Appetite albums: Guns N’ Roses’ Use your Illusion I, Guns N’ Roses’ Use your Illusion II, and Guns N’ Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident.
I was late to the vinyl party. I only bought a player to listen to the test pressings of a record I put out a couple of years ago. On the tour to support that record, the Lord smiled upon me; I found a used copy of Appetite (complete with small nugget of weed in the outer sleeve!) for $10 in Pittsburgh.
I now refresh my album quality measures fairly frequently with that record.”
—Oliver Hinds, guitar
“I learned to love Soundgarden in reverse, chronologically speaking.”
“I grew up enamored with ’90s alt and grunge rock, but listening to Superunknown for the first time was like hearing a message from my future self on my answering machine and mistaking it for my next-door neighbor; I didn’t understand its significance, and so I dismissed it.
When Soundgarden’s fifth album Down on the Upside dropped, I think my body was finally ready. Many argue that DOTU is too great a departure from what made them great, and that it’s their most creatively unfocused album, but that’s partly why I was drawn to it. There was a scope to that album I had never heard; it was haunting and erratic and beautiful and heavy as lead all at once. I devoured it, bones and all.
Over and over I played that record, until one day I realized I wasn’t even paying attention to Soundgarden anymore—I was really listening to Matt Cameron on drums. That was the day I knew that was what I wanted to do. Still to this day, I’m striving for a level even close to what he achieved with his performance on that album. I played that damn vinyl until it was absolutely unplayable.
Years later, my parents, without knowing the influence the album has had on my development as a musician and, subsequently, the effect it’s had on my life, gifted me a new copy… signed by the whole band.”
—Steve Shannon, drums
“Make the Fonz Bleed” is taken from Harris Hawk’s full length release, Mutes which is available now. On vinyl.
