Taste Test: The Shins

THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT
WITH MY OWN MONEY
Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. It would've been 1982, I was 11, I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I bought that record and Steve Miller's Abracadabra at the BX, the Base Exchange at Kirtland Air Force Base. That Pink Floyd album was like my introduction to music; listening to it by myself, and being into it by myself. I had a friend from Germany who'd introduced me to it, to just sitting in a room and listening to records.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
The album I've actually been listening to a lot, which I'd never really gotten around to listening to at all before, is Neil Young's Zuma record. That's literally what's sitting on my turntable at the moment.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
You know what's a great party album? Kool & The Gang, Emergency. It's kitschy '80s dance R&B at its absolute best. It's got Fresh on it! That's one of my favourite songs.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
A comedown album? Like off of acid? [laughs] Like after I dose, after I'm raging on acid, when I'm coming down? Actually, you know what's a great record like this? The first Real Estate album. The one that doesn't have a name, the one with Beachcomber on it. Let's comedown to that!

THE MOST SURPRISING RECORD
IN MY COLLECTION
Oh, man, I've got tons of them. There's a lot of shit that I buy that I'm just curious about. In my hand right now I've got the Lionel Richie album, Can't Slow Down, which I bought because it has his big hits on it, and the cover's hilarious. But would the world really be surprised that I have a Lionel Richie album? Would they be surprised I own Black Sabbath albums? I buy most of my vinyl from the thrift store, where everything's like a buck, so you just end up picking up the most random shit. Like: 'It's a buck! Fuck it!' But, wait, you know what's actually a really great record that people would be surprised to know is a really great record? The Cyndi Lauper She's So Unusual record. I bought that for a buck and there's so many really great songs on it.

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
It was either Kiss on the Lick It Up Tour, or Van Halen on their 1984 tour, when it was still the David Lee Roth glory days. Both those shows were at Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque. You can't even imagine the riff-raff. Albuquerque is a metal town; it's still a metal town.”

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE
I'VE EVER HAD
The weirdest gigs to play are when you're accidentally way too high on stage. Like you're playing a show where you're super stoned. Those would technically be the weirdest. But if you're talking about a weird show for everyone else, one time we played after Snoop Dogg in Chicago. Like fucking Snoop Dogg played, then on came The Shins. And half the audience left.”

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET
Well, first we have to define what cool actually means. We have to define the indefinable. I think what you guys really want to hear about is the most famous person that I've met. And Zach Braff doesn't count. So, okay: I met Ricky Gervais. He'd be the most famous person that I've ever met. And he was actually pretty cool. He's certainly not the coolest person, so I'm not actually answering this question, but he did use to manage Suede, or so I'm told. So, y'know, he likes bands. And he seemed to know who we were.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH
I'VE EVER HAD
Probably not longer after I bought Dark Side Of The Moon, I watched the movie Splash, with Daryl Hannah, and I fucking fell in love with Daryl Hannah. I was screwed up for a whole month. I was, like, lovesick for a whole month. I'd pine for her. She was a mermaid, her boobs fell out, I think that was all it took at that age. But looking back, it's pretty hilarious that I would end up in a funk – literally in a funk! – because of this mermaid. When mermaids don't actually exist.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY
Whenever I think about this question, I always think about the past. There's nothing to say that any time and place in history couldn't be in the future, but I tend to think about the year, like, 1300. Although, I have this weird fascination, that must be driven by nostalgia for my very early childhood. Where I really want to just walk down the street in, like, 1972. It sounds pretty lame. I don't think I'd actually learn much, at all, but it would be so fascinating to me, to just see this world that I once inhabited, and to see what that made me feel. To walk down the street and just look at the cars, and the storefronts, and to see what it's actually like to be there, in this place of all my earliest memories.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I think I would be very happy if I was a furniture designer. That was, a long time ago, what I was actually learning how to do, before I got signed and all that stuff. I'd bought equipment, I was studying. That was what I was going to be doing before this Shins thing happened.