- They’d like to show you something in the basement
Really smart scientists have proven that our taste in music mostly comes from our memories. Daniel J. Levitin says in his book This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession that we lump things into categories (or genres) to help distinguish what something sounds like. We also have a distinct ability to pull together the melody of a song from our past, regardless if it’s in the right key. All these memories help determine what we grow to like over time.
So when artists create, they’re actually grasping at the sounds of their pasts. Eric Earley — the frontman for Portland, Oregon’s Blitzen Trapper — probably doesn’t think about how or why his brain’s synapses react to certain sounds. But one listen to his band’s music, and it’s obvious that years of musical influences drive his songs.
Bob Dylan, John Denver, and Creedence Clearwater Revival are some of Earley’s childhood favorites. He didn’t have many records growing up, so instead of huddling around a record player, he spent a lot of time playing music with his dad, learning to play the banjo when he was six.
When Earley first got together with the five other guys in Blitzen Trapper, they began harvesting their influences into a sound that’s all over the place. Their 2003 self-titled debut is a complete mish-mosh of ideas — it’s neither cohesive nor very listenable as they jump back and forth between genres within single songs.
In a way, Blitzen Trapper is still the kind of band that doesn’t stick to one type of song (you’ll probably never hear another group called Blitzen Trapper-esque). But as they progress, they uncover more consistency in their music. For the most part, 2008’s Furr sticks to a reflective brand of Americana.
But writing material for the band’s fifth and latest album, Destroyer of the Void, wasn’t quick or easy for Earley. He collected more than two dozen songs written over the past couple years and eventually whittled them down to the 12 that made it on the album. “I did a batch of songs in 2009 and then another batch in 2010,” he says. “I was sort of realizing what songs I wanted to use from that first batch, and the next songs were sort of making sure it all fit in the same world.”
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2010.