Twin Peaks' Top Five Essential Albums For Being On The Road

Chicago-based garage heroes Twin Peaks are presently lighting up stages in Australia as part of their current tour, presented by Budweiser — they're set to hit Sydney's Oxford Art Factory tomorrow night — and The Music was fortunate enough to catch up with band members Cadien Lake James and Clay Frankel while they were visiting Brisbane at the weekend.

Being so far from home, small comforts are always a welcome feature on any interstate, national or international tour so, with that in mind, we asked the band about the albums that keep them going when they're away from home. Here's what they told us…

townes van zandt — townes van zandt

Cadien: "It's good driving music … the Townes Van Zandt record, we just kinda got into him the last year, year-and-a-half or so, and it's just beautiful poetry, beautiful tunes.

"I was talking to my dad about this in the car actually … he was dropping me off at [drummer] Connor [Brodner]'s house before we went to the airport, and we were just talking about, like, George Jones, Townes Van Zandt; there's just something about the music, and the melody… some of that stuff just makes you kinda wanna cry. There's just something about it. It's just heavy. It just hits you."

link wray — link wray

Clay: "Link Wray's a little more party. Well, not 'party', but a little… I mean, his better songs, I think, are the really sad songs."

Cadien: "Yeah, Fallin' Rain's kinda heavy."

Clay: "Ice People..."

Cadien: "But that whole record's great. Link Wray… A lot of people know Link Wray for, like, [1958 instrumental hit] Rumble and just the instrumental stuff, and then it was Matthew from Fat Possum who was like, 'You gotta get Three Track Shack', which is a compilation of three records, one of them being the self-titled Link Wray record. But it's just… the stuff he made that nobody picked up on in the late '60s and early '70s … just out at his parents' farm with his cousin and his brother or something, and it's just, like, beautiful. He's got tuberculosis, can barely sing, three tracks on a tape machine — solid shit, kinda Stones-y.

Clay: "Yeah. Real simple, kinda honest music. It's really good. Real 'merican."

the beatles — rubber soul

Cadien: "Not a tonne any more, but for a long time Rubber Soul was non-stop on in the car. We love The Beatles, obviously; I haven't listened to them much as of late.

Clay: "For a long time, it was my favourite Beatles record."

Cadien: "I got back into the trippier stuff lately, but Rubber Soul was great on the road just because it was kinda the first Beatles record where production became really sick and they started panning shit crazy … but it's, like, good pop songs, before it got too crazy in production too. It's just solid; first time they're using fuzz on the bass guitar. Great record."

Cut Worms — Home Tapes

Cadien: "Well, this is not really a record — it's an EP — but Cut Worms… on dumpstertapes.bandcamp.com there's a Cut Worms EP called Home Tapes, and it's, like, five songs."

Clay: "It's a Chicago band."

Cadien: "It's a guy from Chicago, he's in another band called The Sways, and he then he started this project called Cut Worms. And, speaking of The Beatles, the closest I've ever heard to early-Beatles harmonies, even though he records it all himself. It's crazy. Beautiful songs."

Clay: "Reminiscent of, like, really early Bee Gees stuff. It's really beautiful; it's this kid, man, and it's unbelievable. So we listen to that. I really love Cut Worms."

AC/DC — Back In Black

Cadien: "You could just say Greatest Hits or whatever, but AC/DC a lot in the van after a show. When someone has to drive in the night, just that [imitates stomp-beat] — and everybody knows all the words, and will sing along. Back In Black, great album to listen to in the van. And fuck Axl Rose and fuck all of them for doing that. But still — great legacy until that."

Twin Peaks play their last Australian show tomorrow night in Sydney. Their third album, Down In Heaven, will be released this Friday, 13 May, and is available to order now.

See another chat with Cadien and Clay (and please ignore the clusterfuck of a slip-up early on — Wild Onion, not Wild Onions, is their second album, not debut — hey, it was late on a Friday and you're not perfect either) with our Periscope capture below.