Member Since: 2/5/2006
Band Website: coraline.merple.com
Band Members: Arwen Anderson - lead vocals and guitar
Dave Kaufman - percussion, backing vocals, mandolin, banjo
Michael Tomczyszyn - bass, backing vocals
Deb Tjoa - fiddle, backing vocals
Influences: Each of us has our own musical roots that add to the tapestry of Coraline...
One reason why Coraline's sound is so hard to categorize arises from ARWEN'S songwriting influences, which include Patty Griffin, Adrian Belew, ani difranco, Peter Gabriel, Gillian Welch, Guns N Roses, Kate Bush, David Bowie, Catie Curtis, Led Zeppelin, Tori Amos, Leonard Cohen, Sinead O'Connor, Trent Reznor, Jefferson Airplane, and Bob Dylan as well as rock operas and Celtic and Americana traditionals. She also knows that childhood memories of her mother singing dark, hauntingly sad Joan Baez ballads whilst her father would spin her around the room to Good Hearted Woman were important formative experiences. At 6 years of age, driving cross country with her dad in a Uhaul, she distinctly remembers listening to an incredible 8 Track and how "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, with 4 hungry children and a crop in the field" were struggles that she somehow related to passionately (?????). She soon realized the power of storytelling. Arwen grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and has found a great deal of inspiration in the rural landscape that she once considered a prison. But hey, she was 13, angry and unable to drive, so what do you expect? She is now 31, happy, and prefers her bike to a car anyway.
DAVE is primarily influenced by the motion of the Sun, moon, and stars, although he has also been known to listen to avante garde classical, jazz, bluegrass, country, folk, rock, african drumming, indian classical, and Phish. Aural patterns which exist in nature are also big influences, and he is the guitarist and singer in a Led Zeppelin tribute band.
MICHAEL was turned on to music through 80s college-radio, especially R.E.M., The Replacements, Husker Du, The Minutemen, etc., but has followed an erratic and idiosyncratic muse since then, obsessively sopping up everything from Howlin' Wolf to Explosions In The Sky and all points in between. When supplying Coraline's low end, he imagines himself drawing on sources ranging from Richard Thompson to The Band to Nick Cave, and on bassists like Mike Mills and Clint Conley, but he's got a big head that way.
DEB comes from a stuffy classical background :-) but has picked up some folk, country, and something sort of like Irish fiddling along the way. She loves the style of Warren Ellis, violinist for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as well as Dirty Three, and pretty much any fiddler in any Irish, country, bluegrass, Appalachian, or roots rock band. Add her affinity for lead guitarists like Trey Anastasio and power pop bands like Jellyfish, New Pornographers, the Posies, the Shins, and the Decemberists and that about sums it up.
Sounds Like: Singer-songwriters like Patty Griffin, the power of Grace Slick's voice, the maelstrom of Nick Cave, and a little country thrown in with your rock and roll - anything between the sunniest day and the darkest, meanest downpour.
Type of Label: None