The band Albert Hammond Jr called “my Beatles”
There were plenty of acts that influenced Albert Hammond Jr to become a musician. The Strokes guitarist grew up with easy access to a musician mentor: his father was a notable singer-songwriter in his own right. But if there was one act that the younger Hammond has consistently cited as an inspiration, it would be Ohio indie rockers Guided By Voices.
The connection between The Strokes and Guided By Voices has been well-established. They appeared together in the video for The Strokes’ 2002 single ‘Someday’, where the bands played against each other in a game of Family Feud. The two bands also shared a brief residency at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York, that same year. Hammond’s love of Guided By Voices stretched all the way back to his teenage years.
“I remember reconnecting with a friend of mine. We were friends in lower school,” Hammond recalled to Consequence in 2015. “He was a year or two older, like 15 or 16. He was really into music. He was this guy that would get into music and not tell people about it, but if he told you, it was like you earned the right to know about it.”
“He was playing Vampire on Titus. There was this one night at his house where we played ‘Donkey School’ 100 times in a row,” Hammond recalled. “I was listening to Alien Lanes last night on my drive home because I knew I was going to do this, and it reminded me of a time that felt so long ago. When you’re younger, you have your older idols. But they were like my modern idols who made me feel like I could do it.”
“To me, it was more about melody. They were like my Beatles. I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize that bands were still doing melodic things.’ It was so pretty to me, that’s the thing. I didn’t know who they were or what they were. Up until I saw the video for ‘Watch Me Jumpstart’, I didn’t really know much about them. Then you found out they were from Ohio (laughs).”
For Hammond, knowing every little detail about Robert Pollard and his rotating cast of musicians wasn’t really as important as the effect that the music had on him. Hammond barely knew anything about the band outside of the CDs in his car, but that was enough to start a lifelong obsession.
“There are some people that look up everything and know everything (about their favorite bands), and there are other people who took a little longer,” Hammond said. “I was in that latter category, so, to me, for a long time they were like these mythical characters. But they had incredible melodies. I couldn’t believe it.”
Check out ‘Watch Me Jumpstart’ down below.
