When did you each start playing music, and what were your first instruments? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nJN:<\/strong> Viola was my first instrument, which I began playing in fifth grade. I was good friends with my neighbor who was a year older, and she played the viola when orchestra club began in fifth grade, so I wanted to as well. She stopped after that first year, but I really liked it and continued playing. I spent a lot of time hiding out in my closet (I\u2019d kill for a closet this size in NY) when I was growing up, especially in middle school because I was socially awkward and got teased a lot. Sometimes I would sneak my dad\u2019s old acoustic Ovation guitar out and pretend to play \u201cWild Thing\u201d and imagine a different life for myself, which, in retrospect, seems a lot like my life now. I got my own guitar in high school and wrote dozens of awful sappy emo songs. I was also very active in my youth group and sang in the band. I sort of played the bass, too, but I was just borrowing it and didn\u2019t really know what I was doing with an electric instrument yet. I finally got my very own bass when Sic Tic formed!<\/p>\nFR:<\/strong> I learned the trumpet from my grandpa when I was 8. When I was 12 my uncle gave me a guitar and I started a band with my friends in my basement. We would write a ton of songs, record them to tape, then never play them again. I still have all those tapes.<\/p>\nAF: Was there a particular band, song, or genre that drove you each respectively into the music sphere? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n JN:<\/strong> I was really into Rickie Lee Jones when I was in preschool. I would carry this ragged record cover around with me, even to the grocery store. It\u2019s a picture of her wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette. Pretty sure I knew all the words to this album. I remember being afraid the first time I heard music with screaming in it – but the kind of glittering fear that drives you toward the thing. It unlocked something inside me that had been bottled up for a long time, or started to at least. I wanted to learn how to evoke this feeling, to feel powerful.<\/p>\nFR:<\/strong> When I was in 3rd grade the high school band, orchestra, and drum line came to our school. I remember feeling moved by the drum line.<\/p>\n