Bill: The other night when you and I were working on demos, we talked a bit about your parents and the musical influence they had on you. I’ve never met your folks and had no idea about this side of your musical development.

Chris: Yeah. I grew up in D.C. My dad used to listen to WHFS, which is a really commercial station now, but at the time they played what they called "progressive rock," which was new wave and punk. I remember driving around with my family with the radio on, looking at houses, and hearing Hüsker Dü for the first time.

Bill: So your dad was into post-punk, underground rock?

Chris: He didn’t know a lot about it, but he liked anything different. I remember he bought two Devo albums after seeing them on Saturday Night Live. Freedom of Choice and Are We Not Men? He loved their originality. He said: "These guys are doing something that no one else is doing, and it’s so refreshing." So I started listening to that. Those records were incredible to me; that was a turning point.

Another big influence was the time a friend of mine, Jeff Simons went to Florida on vacation and let me borrow four albums: Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade, Sonic Youth’s Evol, True Sons of Liberty’s Revenge, and Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime.

Bill: What did you listen to before these epiphanies?

Chris: Basically pop radio, top-20 hits, stuff you’d hear on the way home from school. Kiss’s Love Gun was my first ever music purchase and the first time I listened to something specific. When I was 13, I think, I asked for two albums for Christmas: Abba, and Shake it Up by the Cars. I got the Cars album. It was a kind of crossroads – was I going to go pop or rock ‘n’ roll?

Bill: When did you first start playing music?

Chris: I got my first bass for my 15th birthday. My parents bought me a Fender Precision. It’s still my main "ax" today, as they say. I originally wanted to play drums, but changed my mind after seeing the Psychedelic Furs for the second time. Their bass player, Richard Butler’s brother [Tim], he wasn’t the best bass player, but he looked extremely cool.

Bill: When did you play in your first band?

Chris: Fall of ‘84. Jeff Simons was in it, too. He taught me how to play, where to put my fingers. The first song I ever learned was "Wild Thing."

Bill: What were you called?

Chris: SFX. I believe it stood for "sound effects." Oh, to be 15.

Bill: Did your parents come to your shows?

Chris: Definitely. We went to a private school, and there were maybe 100 kids total, grades 9 – 12. It was big deal anytime we played; the whole high school was there, parents came out. We’d play these dances in the school gym, and we’d play for three hours. Mostly covers. We actually put out a record on 12" vinyl. Funded by our parents, once again.