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Contest Tue Jul 01 2014
A Pre-Pitchfork Interview with Twin Peaks (and Contest, Too!)
Pitchfork Music Festival is swiftly approaching. With stellar acts across the board, you can't go wrong with which musical acts you see throughout the fest's reign. Sunday's tickets have now sold out, with other individual days sure to follow suit. To get you prepped for your festival music choices, we got the chance to speak with one of Pitchfork's local acts, Chicago's own Twin Peaks. With their energized rock'n'roll riffs and haze-infused sound, they will easily draw a great crowd during their festival set. I asked guitarist and singer, Clay Frankel, for some insight into their signature sound and their unique identity as a band.
The sound of Twin Peaks is so unique and full of wisdom beyond your years. Where do you draw your inspiration from when writing and creating your music?
All sorts'a things. Women mostly. You might think it sounds wise because of its good-natured honesty, which is rare in music today. But that's funny, though. Wise, ha ha.
Your style is extremely eclectic in a wonderful way. How would you define your sound for first time listeners at Pitchfork?
I'd tell them we sound like the Rolling Stones if they smoked weed more often and went to the beach and ate some hot dogs. The "rolling stoners," haha.
Where does the origin of name Twin Peaks stem from?
From the show. We hadn't seen it beforehand though, turns out to be really good.
In your opinion, how does Wild Onion compare to Sunken, and what was the process like in crafting your sophomore album?
Well, as a joke we said we wanted to make our own Exile on Main Street. It was gonna be a double LP and we even looked up the producer to see if he wanted to work on our album. Turns out he's dead; rest in peace brother. So then we just did the album in pretty much the same way we did Sunken, by ourselves, only this time we had some friends to help us and a little more cash. We kept it Chicago, and although it stretched out a bit timewise in the mixing process the actual recordings only took about two weeks. Which makes a lot of sense because Sunken took one week and had nine songs and this album has eighteen songs. Just like Exile on Main Street! Except all of our songs are two minutes long so it all fit on one LP. We like short songs. If it takes you 10 minutes just to get the feeling across that you wanna kiss a girl, I think that's too long and she isn't gonna want to kiss you anyway.
What is your favorite thing about the Pitchfork Music Festival and what are you most excited about regarding your performance at the fest?
We're big fans of the fest. Our friends always have such a hard time sneaking in. I'm glad that finally I can just go up to a buddy of mine and say, "here ya go" and give him a free pass. That feels pretty damn good. As for the performance we'll just play like we always do and I hope people dig it.
What are the three albums you find yourself listening to most these days?
It'd be different for which one of us you ask. For me it's Mind Games by John Lennon, the first Troggs record, and S/T by Ne-Hi. Yeah, that's good stuff.
Now it's your chance to win a three-day pass to the Pitchfork Music Festival, so you can go see Twin Peaks and their live performance! Comment on this post (with a valid email address!) by 8pm today (Tuesday, July 1), and we'll pick two winners at random. Best of luck! [Update! We've emailed our two winners!]
Nick B / July 1, 2014 10:08 AM
Commenting on this post with a valid email address and an eye toward Sunday--Slowdive reunion FTW!