NYC siblings poised for something big
By Peter Lindblad
In light of recent news of a possible reunion of The Kinks, it's interesting that another brotherly combination, The Raskins, is just starting to make waves in the world of rock 'n' roll.
Their self-titled debut album is out now, and it's a stylish, high-energy fireball of East Coast retro-rock, outfitted with surefire hooks, attitude to spare and an electric New York City vibe that's impossible to deny. Tracks like the first single "We Had It All" are impossibly catchy, owing to their ability to pen well-crafted pop-rock that sets pulses racing.
Twin siblings Logan and Roger Raskin, the sons of well-known Broadway singer Tommy Raskin and a renowned jazz/blues singer in Judith Raskin, have already made a name for themselves writing and recording music for TV and movies. Having established their own record label, MIRAL Records, they're now ready to unleash their turbocharged, guitar-driven sound on the world, performing on the same stages as Scott Weiland and Saving Abel.
In Part 2 of our interview, Logan Raskins talks about his influences, what it's like working with his brother, the making of their first record and their experiences creating music for movie and TV.
How long as brothers have you been making music and with the history in music of sibling combos, you’ve probably been asked this a thousand times, but does that make it easier or harder for you guys?
By Peter Lindblad
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| The Raskins - S/T 2014 |
Their self-titled debut album is out now, and it's a stylish, high-energy fireball of East Coast retro-rock, outfitted with surefire hooks, attitude to spare and an electric New York City vibe that's impossible to deny. Tracks like the first single "We Had It All" are impossibly catchy, owing to their ability to pen well-crafted pop-rock that sets pulses racing.
Twin siblings Logan and Roger Raskin, the sons of well-known Broadway singer Tommy Raskin and a renowned jazz/blues singer in Judith Raskin, have already made a name for themselves writing and recording music for TV and movies. Having established their own record label, MIRAL Records, they're now ready to unleash their turbocharged, guitar-driven sound on the world, performing on the same stages as Scott Weiland and Saving Abel.
In Part 2 of our interview, Logan Raskins talks about his influences, what it's like working with his brother, the making of their first record and their experiences creating music for movie and TV.
How long as brothers have you been making music and with the history in music of sibling combos, you’ve probably been asked this a thousand times, but does that make it easier or harder for you guys?
Logan Raskin: Well, I mean,
I grew up in a musical family. My dad was a big Broadway singer. He did all the
shows on Broadway. “West Side Story,” “South Pacific,” “Oklahoma,” “Annie Get
Your Gun,” “Damn Yankees” – my dad did all of those. I grew up going to see my
dad in all those shows, and my mom was a big jazz singer in the city, and she
traveled all over doing that. It was pretty much inevitable that we were going
to fall into the music industry, so the three brothers growing up … my mom had
three boys in one year. And the three of us just always grew up doing music
together, singing together. One of the first rock concerts I ever saw my parents took the three
of us to see Ray Charles at Eisenhower Park. That was the first show I’d ever
seen. I saw Ray Charles playing at that piano, man, I was just like, “Damn …
mom, you’ve got to get me a piano.” And she said, “Yeah? All right.” And she
stuck a piano in my room. I had a piano in my bedroom for the next 14 years.
So I was composing music from when I was six, just fiddling
around on the piano and writing these songs. So we grew up writing music
together, my brothers and I, doing little talent shows and acoustic shows for
the family. So we were raised on that, but getting the opportunity to do it on
this level with my twin brother Roger is pretty amazing. I mean we do
everything together. We live together. We write and record music together. We
bounce ideas off each other. It’s pretty amazing. It’s not always sunflowers
and sunshine and dandelions and roses. We go through our battles. We’re guys
writing music. We fight, we have our ups and downs, but at the end of the day,
it’s amazing. I always have someone I can rely on, and I always have someone I
can trust and we bounce ideas off each other, creatively and emotionally, and
it’s incredible. And he gives me his honest opinion.
That means a lot to me, especially as a songwriter. What’s
funny with Roger and I, our personalities, even though we’re twins, are so
different, and it shows in our writing styles and it makes for an interesting
combination when we combine our music. Sometimes we write music together,
sometimes we write music separately. Sometimes we have partially written songs
and we give them to each other and we finish each other’s songs. So it’s been a
very cool relationship in that regard, being able to do music with your brother
like that, and we’re starting to really make it work for us. We’re starting to
have a little bit of success, and who knows what the future is going to bring
for us? We want to keep it going.
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| The Raskins - We Had It All single |
LR: That’s a good
question. I think there’s a song on the album that we wrote, “Where Do We Go from
Here?” I was always playing two really simple chords in the song, and before we
wrote the song, I was always feeling around like a C or a D chord, and I was
just kind of playing with these opening chords, and I came up with this cool
melody with these two chords, and I was just, “It’s just so simple. I don’t
know if I want to write a song that simple. There should be more chord
structure to it.” So I just put it to the side, but I couldn’t get the melody
that I was singing over and those chords out of my head, and I just said, “You
know what? Let me bring it into the studio, and throw it up in a session and
see what happens.” And literally, I probably wrote the song and it took me a
matter of 10 minutes.
It trips you out a little bit to write a song that quickly,
and you say to yourself, “It can’t be that good to write a song that quick.” But I couldn’t
get it out of my head, couldn’t get the melody out of my head, so we put it
into a session and starting layering guitars over the thing, and I was just
blown away at the melody we were doing layering it. And then when we started
doing the vocals, the hair just started standing up on my neck, and it ended up
being one of my favorite songs on the record. We haven’t played it out yet, but
we’ve prepared it, we’ve prepared to play it out and we have it prepped for
this tour. We haven’t played it yet. I sure hope we get to play it, because
it’s just amazing. I mean, because we have a certain amount of time we have to
keep in for our set list, it’s a longer song, but yeah, it’s just funny. It’s
one of my favorite songs on the record. I love playing it acoustically, I love
playing it electrically, I love singing it. It feels so good to me, and the
song was written in an instant.
So there’s that, but I would also probably say that one of the
last songs we wrote, “Scream Out Loud,” was probably the last song that came to
the table, and it was actually a song that Roger and I got our bass player
involved in, and he had this really aggressive riff that I was just like, “Wow!
This is really different and really, really cool.” He was just like, “Yeah, but
it’s not really in you guys’ style,” and his name is Johnny Martin, and I said,
“Johnny, I tend to disagree with you on that.”
I mean, my whole concept behind this record is like, “Look, I don’t want
to … it’s a rock song. Just because the riff is a little different doesn’t mean
… Let me get my hands on it.” So I took the riff and we brought it into the
studio, and it took a long time for us, because the style was a little bit
different than what we were more used to, because it was a little more of a
modern-rock kind of a riff – almost had kind of a drop beat kind of a feel to
it. It’s just something we don’t do too much of, but I do like it. So, it took
a while, man. I sat with that song for honestly about a month, and failing with
different melodies, I wasn’t sure if I could go aggressive, but finally, it’s
just one of the songs we banged out and we just chipped away at it and got to a
point where it just felt so good to me (laughs). And I said, “Johnny,
congratulations. You’re making the record.” He couldn’t believe it, you know? I
love writing with other people, too. Roger and I, we’re open to that. We’re not
those guys where we’re like, “Well, we’re going to write all the music.” I’m
just a music lover, and on this second record, I tend to do a lot more of that
by the way.
What’s different about writing a rock song for yourselves as The Raskins as opposed to
what you were doing writing music for shows?
LR: Well, I mean, there’s a huge difference. And like I was
saying earlier in our conversation, when you’re writing for like a film,
basically they’re telling you what they want. You’re writing for someone else.
They’re giving you a scene to a movie, or something like for a movie like
“Middle of Nowhere” we did with Susan Sarandon, they basically … like the
trailer we did, they wanted like a love song, but they wanted something like an
up-tempo love song. And I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting,” because like
normally, you think of love songs, the first thing that comes to my mind is a
slower ballad kind of thing, which we have a lot of that. We get requested a
lot times for this slower ballad, love song kind of thing. They wanted the
up-tempo one, and I didn’t really have something like that, so we had to write
a song and we wrote this song called “Kiss You One More Time,” and it was
actually used as the trailer for that movie, “Middle of Nowhere,” which is
actually on Showtime right now. It’s airing on cable right now, and we actually
play it in our set. It’s a song that’s not off of our album, but it’s such a
cool song, like I love this song. And I showed it to the guys, and we played it
(laughs), and they’re like, “We’ve got to play that song.” We played it last
night. I was telling all the fans, “Hey, this song’s not on the record, but
it’s a song we wrote for this movie ‘Middle Of Nowhere,’ and we hope you dig
it.'"
And it went over really well. I got to play this song on the Scott Weiland tour. It was cool. It was cool, but yeah, so when you’re writing for someone else that’s a client, you kind of disassociate from it and just basically, it’s writing for them. You’re trying to please the client. And it took me a while to adjust to that, but at the end of the day, I loved doing it. It’s kind of a trip, but look, if the client’s happy, I’m happy. That’s the whole point of it. And it’s still very cool, I mean, to see your stuff on TV on “CSI” or on commercials or sitcoms, or on some of these reality shows or whatever, on the big screen, it’s so gratifying on any level, so just accomplishing that is cool in and of itself, but yeah, obviously, when we’re writing our own music, there’s a lot more emotion attached to it and I’m writing exactly what I want.
You know, my brother and I, we mixed this whole record. Not only did we record it, we mixed it ourselves. I just didn’t want to entrust it into the hands of … look, there are some killer mix guys out there. There are guys that’ll blow me out of the water. I know that. I pull my hair out with that concept sometimes, because trying to get across what it is I want or how I want it to sound, sometimes it’s a painstaking process. So, being able to mix a record on your own, some songs I mixed in a day, some songs it’s taken me three weeks and just going back with headphones at three o’clock in the morning, just really tweaking out on it. I love doing that, where if I’m writing for someone, I still put in that kind of attention, but when they’re happy with it, I’m happy, where they look at it like it’s like a product. They’re like, “It’s great, it’s done.” I’m like, “Well, I think we should …” And they say, “No, no, no. It’s done. This is perfect. It’s exactly what we want.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay,” where I would have done this, I would done this, I would have done that, but that’s not the case. So, yeah, there’s definitely a big difference between the two.
And it went over really well. I got to play this song on the Scott Weiland tour. It was cool. It was cool, but yeah, so when you’re writing for someone else that’s a client, you kind of disassociate from it and just basically, it’s writing for them. You’re trying to please the client. And it took me a while to adjust to that, but at the end of the day, I loved doing it. It’s kind of a trip, but look, if the client’s happy, I’m happy. That’s the whole point of it. And it’s still very cool, I mean, to see your stuff on TV on “CSI” or on commercials or sitcoms, or on some of these reality shows or whatever, on the big screen, it’s so gratifying on any level, so just accomplishing that is cool in and of itself, but yeah, obviously, when we’re writing our own music, there’s a lot more emotion attached to it and I’m writing exactly what I want.
You know, my brother and I, we mixed this whole record. Not only did we record it, we mixed it ourselves. I just didn’t want to entrust it into the hands of … look, there are some killer mix guys out there. There are guys that’ll blow me out of the water. I know that. I pull my hair out with that concept sometimes, because trying to get across what it is I want or how I want it to sound, sometimes it’s a painstaking process. So, being able to mix a record on your own, some songs I mixed in a day, some songs it’s taken me three weeks and just going back with headphones at three o’clock in the morning, just really tweaking out on it. I love doing that, where if I’m writing for someone, I still put in that kind of attention, but when they’re happy with it, I’m happy, where they look at it like it’s like a product. They’re like, “It’s great, it’s done.” I’m like, “Well, I think we should …” And they say, “No, no, no. It’s done. This is perfect. It’s exactly what we want.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay,” where I would have done this, I would done this, I would have done that, but that’s not the case. So, yeah, there’s definitely a big difference between the two.
You mentioned you
still have your vinyl. What would you say are the five most influential albums
on you?
LR: Ah, that’s
the best question in the world. It’s an easy question to answer.
I would think it’d be
tough.
LR: Let me put it
to you like this. The first rock concert I went to was, as I told you, Ray
Charles, but probably the one that made me want to be a rock ‘n’ roll musician,
my parents took my brother and I to KISS and Judas Priest when I was 8 years
old. And they took us to the Nassau Coliseum in New York to see KISS and Judas
Priest opened up, and we sat in the last row, but it changed my life. And being
in New York, it’s one of those bands coming out of New York at the time that
made me want to be a rock musician. One of the first vinyl records I ever
bought was KISS Alive, but actually,
this is kind of random, but these are the first two albums I ever bought on
vinyl – KISS Alive was the first,
with the Bay City Rollers (laughs) … I don’t know why, but I loved those guys’
image, man. I loved the image, I loved their sound (laughs) … I thought, “Man,
those guys are cool.” So, yeah, the Bay City Rollers. Queen, News of the World was it for me.
Foreigner, Double Vision – huge for
me. And then, of course, Meat Loaf, Bat
Out of Hell. Those are my first, and I think there may have been a Styx Grand Illusion in there, as well.
I think that was the
first album I ever bought with my own money was Grand Illusion.
LR: Right? Grand Illusion, man … I love that
record. Then it got crazy. Then I started getting into all my punk stuff, like
The Stooges, The Ramones, and then it just got crazy – the Velvet Underground,
The Plasmatics. Yeah, I went nuts for all that stuff. But I think those are the
biggest influences, yeah. I mean, like KISS, Styx, Queen, Foreigner, Meat Loaf
– I mean those are my biggest influences coming up. And that includes
everything from AC/DC to Van Halen to Zeppelin, although funny enough with me,
I didn’t get heavily into Zeppelin, and I didn’t get heavily into for instance
Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, which, of course, everybody knows
about. I don’t care. I mean if you’re a rock musician, you’re into those bands,
and of course, I am. But at that age, I didn’t understand the music – couldn’t
wrap my head around it. It didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t connect with
Zeppelin until later on. I didn’t connect with the Rolling Stones until … and I
love the Rolling Stones, love those guys, love the music, but until I matured,
I didn’t connect with it until a little bit later in life, but those are my
first albums, and then, of course, The Beatles. And the Beatles … I was
listening to them at a young age and I just didn’t get it. I used to say to my
friends, I was upset … my older sister was listening to them – The Beatles,
man! And I just didn’t connect with it at a young age. Of course, when I got
older, the Beatles were everything. But yeah, those were some of the first
bands for me.
And you two guys being songwriters, those are some of your favorite songwriters as well.
LR: No question about it. But I think like … Simon &
Garfunkel were a big influence on me. I like the simplicity of those guys, but
what really appeals to my brother and I were melodies, not so much bands that
were ripping out. I can’t say I was heavily blues influenced, though I liked
the blues. My mom was a real good blues singer and jazz singer, and I always
heard it from her growing up. To me, it was just like eating breakfast in the
morning. You eat your cereal in the morning? Yeah, I heard Mel Torme or Tom
Jones. I’m eating my cereal and that’s what I heard. So it was just something I
related to, but it just kind of reminded
me of when I was young and hearing those rock bands and those melodies … Roger
and I were so into melodies and people who had great voices and great
harmonies, which is probably why we love Simon & Garfunkel, hearing those
harmonies that they did. I loved it, and we try to do that to this day. We rock
out and we’re onstage, the pedal is to the metal, and we’re rocking out hard,
but our choruses hit and we’re doing harmonies and we’re in sync with each
other.
