My first two records were influenced by the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
The vocal arrangements are a big part of the formula for a Bad Religion song - layered harmonies and background vocals. So when I start to describe the elements of Bad Religion's sound, it starts to sound like a Christmas choir.
I was sitting on my mom's lap across from my father to see Kay Thompson at Ciro's. And I always remember this energy force, this woman flying around the room and singing these harmonies so everyone went, 'Wow!' So I thought, 'That's what I want to do.'
I'm touched by the Beatles. I want some of the music I do to reflect that. Here I am. I love Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, and I want my music to reflect some of that. Here I am. I'm touched by Jon Hendricks. I want some of my music to reflect that. And when I write, you're going to hear it.
A song like 'Loyal To Me,' for example, I originally wrote that for a girl band in mind, that's why it has so many harmonies and it's got that sort of '90s/R&B feel to it.
The same song can have drastically different feels and personalities just by changing some minor things. A different drumbeat or some vocal overdub could completely transform the song.
For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.
Guys like Clyde McPhatter used to sing their tail ends off!
I'm in R&B/Soul, and I feel like all my music is R&B driven. Even some of the songs that are more rap have an R&B feel, so I'm with that.
Our music is an answer to the early Seventies when artsy people with big egos would do vocal harmonies and play long guitar solos and get called geniuses.
I think if there's any one band that every member of Sons of Apollo has been influenced by, I think Van Halen is the common ground for all five of us.
I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.
With Rage, we wrote riff rock and had rap vocals, so we didn't really concern ourselves with melody for the most part.
Back in the old days, we were often compared to Led Zeppelin. If we did something with harmony, it was the Beach Hoys. Something heavy was Led Zeppelin.
Enya is a very matriarchal musical force. Her music is very feminine and she layers her voice a lot. It leaks into my music secretly on the side. There's a lot of lush layers of my voice hiding in the cracks.
When it came time to do 'One Hundred Years' I had been encouraged to really make a Styx album without the guys. I gave myself permission to do that. I set out to get people who sang with me who could make those harmonies.
In my vocal, I think you can hear something of my earlier times when I'd sing in subway halls for the echo and perform doo-wop on street corners. But I had a lot of influences, too - singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton.
We've recorded over our voices once and double the harmonies, make them thick. The Four Freshmen do that.
When we were first started we were doing a lot of Motown stuff, but actually playing it more in a rock way. Everybody in the band sang and we did a lot of harmonies.
What we're most known for is the catchy choruses and the big hooks.
I can't get enough of this guy called Baths. He's a total L.A. dude and really young as well. It's super-electronic, but with almost Hall & Oates-style songwriting. Without the context of the production, it could be super-cheesy, but it has amazing harmonies.
My sister and I - she's a musician - we jam all the time. We always play around for giggles with stuff that seem unconventional or stuff that seems funny. A lot of the stuff sometimes is just a response from jam sessions in her room, so she'll be on the guitar or the keyboard, and we'll just start singing and doing stuff.
I pay such close attention of the record making process that most people would assume are very little and wouldn't be that big of a deal; the packaging, the title, and the harmonies, I think, are arguably as important as the lead vocals.
I don't like rock opera with back beats.
I was obsessed with harmonies and how to put songs together in lush soundscapes. But I don't know what it was all about, really.
