Loon Lake's playlist

Fri 12th Aug, 2011 in Features

Melbourne lads Loon Lake have just released their debut EP Not Just Friends, a “short and sweet collection of summery jangle pop that’s almost instantly accessible and scarcely forgettable – an impressive debut, with considerable lasting quality.”

Before they head out on tour this weekend, we asked the band to share some of the albums that have soundtracked their lives – from Motley Crue to The Avalanches, it sure is an interesting mix!

FIRST ALBUM YOU BOUGHT
Blood Sugar Sex Magik – Red Hot Chili Peppers. Brilliant album, huge influence on my youth. John Frusciante is definitely one of the major reasons I persisted with guitar. Also I remember when I was about 16 and all my mates and I saw these guys for the first time at BDO, we were so excited, like little girls. It’s hard to get that feeling at gigs as you get older, I wish I still got it.

FIRST ALBUM HANDED DOWN TO YOU
Maybe not handed down, more shared or stolen. Probably something by Tom Petty or John Mellencamp. My oldest brother had every tape of those two artists. I’m guessing it would have been Southern Accent or Into The Great Wide Open for Petty, and American Fool and Scarecrow for Mellencamp. Both great artists though aren’t they?

FIRST BREAK-UP ALBUM
I remember when I broke up with my first girlfriend I was listening to the Elliot Smith song Waltz No 2 a lot. Can’t say I was listening to the actual album very much, but that song for sure. I also remember just starting to hear Eminem around that stage, I guess I might have been relating my shit to his with Kim. I was never going to tie her up and drive her off a bridge though.

GUILTY PLEASURE ALBUM
This is hard, because I don’t think anyone should really have guilty pleasure with music, if you like it then listen to it, who cares if it’s not cool to like or whatever. So I’m going to say Dr Feelgood by Motley Crue. Not sure if it is cool or not to like them, but our band really likes that album. One album I am ashamed of having was a Kid Rock album, disastrous purchase.

FAVOURITE AUSSIE ALBUM
I’ve answered this question different every time, but today I’m going to go with The Avalanches – Since I Left You. A timeless listen in my opinion. It is one of those albums that whenever I listen to it, it takes me straight back to a time and place. That place is Denmark. I was living there for a while and my best mate and I had a job where we had to hand pamphlets out, we got payed by the amount we handed out. We didn’t hand many out, most of them went straight in the bin, but when we did, we rode around on our pushies with the diskman on. This album was on repeat for about 6 months over there.

ALBUM YOU WISH YOU MADE
Is This It – The Strokes. In my opinion without a doubt the most important band of the last 10 or so years. I have played this album to absolute death and there is not one thing that sits out of place for me, everything is perfect, drums, guitar sound, structures, melodies, energy, attitude, track listing, lyrics, everything is just great. Personally there are not many albums that will excite me all the way through every time I listen to it, this does. It hasn’t dated. When you hear Julian Casablancas talk about this album the thing that strikes me is that he knew exactly what he wanted. That is so hard to do in music I believe. A great quote he said to the producer was that “we want to sound like a band from the past that took a time trip into the future to make their record”.

ALBUM YOU ONCE LOVED
A Guide To Better Living – Grinspoon. I heard one of the tracks off the album today and I thought shit ‘I use to thrash this album’. Probably still a pretty good album if I went back and listened to it.

LAST ALBUM YOU BOUGHT
Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I heard the band pop up a couple of times on the radio and both times I thought ‘gee those drums sound great’. So I went and bought it. The album has a great sound, and also some great pop elements to it. However it hasn’t completely grabbed me yet. I must admit I haven’t given it enough time, usually the albums I love take a little time. It has been super hyped though, I hope I can catch the live show when they are out here.

YOUR EP – NOT JUST FRIENDS
It’s alright, you should take the time to have a listen to it. You might like it you might not, either way you can say you heard it to someone who may not have. Then they will hear it and the same thing will happen and so on, then suddenly heaps of people have heard Loon Lake. All works for us doesn’t it?

Check out Loon Lake on their EP tour this month:

Saturday 13th August – The Toff In Town, Melbourne
Thursday 18th August – Goodgod, Sydney
Friday 19th August – CBD Hotel, Newcastle
Saturday 3rd September – Edinburgh Castle, Adelaide
Wednesday + Thursday 7th-8th September – BigSound, Brisbane