The Little Ones were formed in Los Angeles in early 2006. The summery-sounding band wear their influences (the Beach Boys, the Zombies) on their sleeves while composing some of the brightest indie rock of the new millennium.
Elbow / On a Day Like This
We were in the UK when this record won the Mercury award. We finally picked up Seldom Seen Kid and were just floored. The whole record is really great and has such fantastic ideas going on. This song is so beautiful, lyrically and sonically. It’s been a permanent fixture in my morning routine. It just has that ‘I’m gonna take on the day’ vibe to it.
Bird and the Bee / My Love
These two never cease to amaze me. Those melodies, jazz chord voicings, harmonies and instrumentation. Geez! Inara’s voice is so disarming and lyrically endearing. It’s the kind of songwriting that inspires you to be better.
Bill Withers / Use Me
This song is ridiculously sexy. I love playing the acoustic guitar part. It’s only two chords and I’ve been completely obsessed with muted guitar lines for the past year. I love the simplicity and soulfulness of it. Yes, it conjures scenes from Anchorman, but it’s such a great song about those codependent, mutually destructive relationships and the idea that those around you don’t see what happens behind closed doors. Oh, and those claps in the middle. Yowza.
The Band / Chest Fever
Two Words: Levon Helm. Whoops, and the keyboard line, of course.
Ennio Morricone / Man with a Harmonica
One of the things Sergio Leone captured so well was that sense of vastness and isolation. Morricone’s scores obviously contributed a lot to this. I love listening to Morricone when on tour in general, but there was this pretty funny moment when we were doing an in-store and Man with a Harmonica came on. Our drummer, coincidentally, was playing a breakbeat-ish beat at the same time and the two overlapped in a cool way. Right when I got home I set up a kit and cranked the song in my living room and played drums to it for hours. We’re on tour now, so it’s already on rotation.
Fleetwood Mac / Rhiannon
I get chills every time I hear Stevie Nicks sing that line, ‘All your life you’ve never seen a woman, taken by the wind’. True story.
Esquivel / Night and Day
Esquivel in general makes me want to run around my house jumping on things and sliding around in socks.
Beach Boys / In My Room
Every time we return from a long tour, I fall so in love with my room. Not in like a hermit, agoraphobic kinda way, but in a movie watching, laying in bed with a book, laptop and guitar kinda way. Cozy. This
song is the perfect soundtrack to being on ‘your time’. Not to mention the classic Wilson melody and harmonies.
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