I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.
American rock was, and still is to some extent, a closed shop. REO Speedwagon, Toto, Boston, Foreigner all those bands, and I wouldn't be able to tell which from which.
I know that starting out as a young band, it's really easy to get lost with bands that sound the same or with the plethora of music that's out there.
Actually, if you listen to the vocals on my grandfather's records, you will hear we sound similar. We both sound kind of dry. We have a dry voice, and we both love harmony - he was a man of harmony, I'm a man of harmony. I think it just runs in our blood.
The bands that we've found we have something in common with are bands like The National or Tegan And Sara, and I feel like that's because all three of us come from more alternative rock backgrounds.
There are so many times I turn on the radio, and I hear a guy, and I have no idea who it is because it sounds like four other people.
A lot of the songs are pretty unmasked. If you listen to "As Cool As I Am," it's not all that different from what you were hearing from Ani DiFranco and some of the other indie women artists of the time. It was still in that context, still seen as folk music.
Probably my favorite piece of music, as an album taken as a whole, is Bruce Springsteen's 'Greetings from Asbury Park.' I just think it's incredibly pure. It's a sound that sort of broke new ground, and I think it paved the way for a hundred people that sound very similar.
When I go on and listen to the stuff on the websites, I can't tell, it all sounds like the same band, like they should all be in one band together.
People have been telling me for years that I sound like Freddie Mercury.
Everybody was on the same page. Nobody has really gone out there on a different musical journey. When we got back together again, we all wanted to do the same kind of music.
