When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? You default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours.
This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
Next up, Heavy Lungs.
Fall Out Boy – Sugar, We’re Going Down
Danny: This was a big song for me. Think I heard it first on my second visit to England. I fell in love with this song. I thought I was very alternative at the time as none of my friends listened to any rock music. I was also obsessed with the music video. The bit where Pete Wentz licks his palm and then does a salute – iconic, aha. Also, all the around the world guitar moves were legendary as well. Most importantly, after all these years, this tune still slaps.
50 Cent – Candy Shop
Danny: 50 Cent’s ‘Massacre’ was the first CD I ever bought. Wish I kept it, you know. All my friends in my class got into this brand of hip-hop at the same time, and Candy Shop was one of the crown jewels, of course. Writing this is making me all nostalgic, so I’m going to go and listen to ‘Massacre’ cover to cover now.
AC/DC – Riff Raff
Oli: Again, I got into AC/DC at a very young age, but the obsession lasted right until I went to uni basically (and beyond, to tell the truth). I had an AC/DC pencil case at school, and I was a die-hard fan. This is one of my favourite songs of theirs; I play it every soundcheck now.
Primus – My Name Is Mud
James: This is one of those songs from one of those bands that I found so quotable. I once typed the entire song’s lyrics into a school computer login screen and left it for someone to find. Why? No idea. Quirky, surreal stories mumbled and trickled over tight drums and percussive strings like butter dripping off a hot biscuit. Primus videos are a thing of nightmarish deliciousness – you’re welcome.
Interpol – Evil
James: I find the bass intro to this song so effortlessly nostalgic. Angular yet almost sloppy guitars cutting in and out of arrangements that play with dynamics so nicely through a solid album, 100% influencing my early bands growing up. With a text-to-speech-like mundane vocal delivery that dials up its character and replayability, offering an after-dark story-time like something you’d get from those 70s British public safety videos at school. (Google them!). Banks has one of those voices that doesn’t always want attention, like a cat – maybe that’s why I find it so endearing. I’m a cat person. This band is still in my top Spotify listens, and that says it all.
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – A Perfect Teenhood
Oli: I heard this song on a skate video called Adio-One Step Beyond when I was 8, and I listened to it relentlessly all through my teenage years. Largely because of the bridge that screams ‘fuck you’ for about 30 seconds. I used to play it in the car with my mum driving; I think she secretly loved it, too.
They Might Be Giants – Boss Of Me
George: This song was the theme tune to Malcolm In The Middle. From the second I heard it. I was obsessed. At that age, I had no concept of what this style of music was; all I knew was that I liked it. I cared more about the theme tune than I did about watching the show. And I loved the show. This is about the time the internet dropped, and we didn’t have it, so finding the track still proved to be nearly impossible, but I managed to find a cassette copy in a bin at a charity shop. Still a hard-core banger. Probably the reason I got into rock.
Basement Jaxx – Where’s Your Head At
George: This is what we used to listen to in the car on the way to school with my mum. Upon hearing this track for the first time, I realised you can just repeat the same hook over and over again and turn that into a popular song. It was a moment where you think, “Omg. They’re getting away with it. I should do this.” Also, the bassline slaps. It slaps babies. It slaps everything in its path; it indiscriminately slaps everything. And it probably shaped my brain into having an insatiable thirst for low-end bangers.
Taken from the October 2023 edition of Dork. Heavy Lungs’ album ‘All Gas No Brakes’ is out 29th September.
