Songs can serve as musical touchstones that we return to when we want to remind ourselves what we want music to be. For White Denim’s James Petralli, that song is the Grateful Dead’s “That’s It For the Other One,” which helped him realize how he wanted to approach both the guitar and recording. With the song as a starting point, Petralli goes on to explain why drummers are the most important members of the band, why all musical expression is valid and what it was like to record the bands’s new record “Stiff” with Ethan Johns.

Then Bayonne explores how The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”   showed him how powerful openness and vulnerability in music could be and  explains how he approached his new record “Primitives” with that same openness.

Watch White Denim perform “Ha Ha Ha Ha Yeah” on VuHaus

Check out White Denim’s Tour Dates

Watch Bayonne, who previously went by the name Roger Sellers, perform “Waves” from him new record “Primitives” Live in Studio 1A.

Check out Bayonne’s Tour Dates

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Listen to the songs featured in episode 33 of This Song.

In this episode of “This Song,” musical partners Shawnee Kilgore  and Joss Whedon  explain how they’re inspired by Ani DiFranco, the Grateful Dead and each other.  And Daisy O’connor recalls how grudgingly going to see Gregory Alan Isakov perform in a friend’s living room changed the entire course of her life.

Check out “Big Giant Me” on iTunes

Check out the Kickstarter video that inspired Joss Whedon to reach out to Shawnee Kilgore.

Listen to Daisy O’connor’s Studio 1A Session

Subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher to get the new episodes of  “This Song” delivered to you as soon as they come out.