T
here’s an honesty to the music of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, an honesty akin to the kind only achievable at birth – or rebirth. It’d be the latter that
Alexander Ebert, lead singer and founder of Edward Sharpe would have arrived at after his transformation in perspectives when he left power prog rock group Ima Robot as a drug addict, moving house, leaving his girlfriend, checking in to rehab and finding consequent solace on a friend’s couch. Writing a novel about a messianic character in the throes of a fall from grace, he unearthed an alter-ego Edward Sharpe. Stumbling serendipitously upon the figure of Jade Castrinos outside a coffee shop, sounds began to flesh out the character, until we get the cherished band who have spoken directly into our hearts with their now two albums. You know the kind of story – it’s the magical mystery kind…
What’s making your heart quicken this evening? It’s our friends Crash’s birthday so… we’re doing a little thing today, we also had a really good sort of recording interview today in which I declared the difference between pessimists and optimists, the difference between cowards and courageous folk and that was a pretty intense moment. And that’s about it - just another grey day over here in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
12 /June 2012/
outlineonline.co.uk
Alex it seems only right that it’s 11.30pm in the evening in Norwich and we have been drinking and getting tattooed and it made me wonder what your perfect Friday night was? Oh boy, well it depends on what kinda mood I’m in, sometimes the perfect Friday is just resting in bed watching Netflix or something, or sometimes some of the best times are hanging out with friends and
playing music and laughing and telling stories, y’know, just smiling a lot, probably my favorite past time.
You’re playing Latitude Festival, which is very close to us. You had to call it off last year but I imagine – and I haven’t gotten to see you live yet - but I imagine your set works just perfectly for a festival atmosphere? Yeah, the Latitude folks are awesome and super creative, so it sort of pushes our limits and in general the festival atmosphere is very fun for us to participate in and I think the music plays well too.
And are you fully integrated with the UK festival tradition of rain, mud and booze? I know that it’s an all or nothing experience so I know that in order to really get down I have to throw myself in entirely. But y’know, I can do that, I know that festivals are at their funnest when they are experienced full tilt and not in the VIP section or something.
Now talking about your relationship with the UK, I was really heartened to read that your favorite album is ‘Sandinista’ by the Clash, has your musical spectrum always stretched across continents? Yeah, the first thing I was really exposed to when I was little was
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