For a certain generation of contemporary indie-rock musicians—notably among them Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, and Spoon—Doug Martsch has served as a guiding musical force. Yet ask the Built to Spill frontman about his impact on rock music at large and the prospect, he says, remains a bit bizarre. "I take it all with a grain of salt," Martsch says with a laugh. "It's such a matter of circumstances." As the 46-year-old musician sees it, despite the undeniable legacy of the band from Boise, Idaho, they've yet to chart a path as formidable as some of the indie rockers on which he was raised. With Built to Spill releasing its first new studio album in six years next week, the ever-expansive Untethered Moon, Martsch expounded on some of the bands and albums that shaped his musical palate, from R.E.M. to Sonic Youth.

Listen to Martsch's playlist on Esquire Spotify

R.E.M., Murmur

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

"I just recently watched a weird documentary about R.E.M. and just remembered how much Murmur meant to me when it came out. That was a pretty critical time. It was a real life-changing moment for me. I had moved from a smaller town to the big city of Boise. I was probably about 14, right before I started high school. I moved to Boise about a month before high school started. I can't remember if I had the record then but I saw them on David Letterman. They were the number-one college radio record and that really impressed me. It was also at that point I started playing guitar: My brother had one lying around and every once in a while I'd goof around but I'd never really gotten serious. I had this month where I didn't know anyone in town so this was really the time when I started getting into music. It was also a transition time for me between heavy metal and hard rock. I discovered David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and then I heard R.E.M. Murmur was definitely the first indie-rock record that I loved. Maybe like 10 or 15 years ago I listened to it and thought it didn't hold up at all; I thought it was horrible. But then I tried it out again a few years later and thought it was great. So much music was inspired by it. Actually so much bad music was inspired by it [laughs]. I have a lot of weird feelings about that record and that band but it was huge for me and I can't deny that."

The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

"I heard 'Girl Afraid' and just liked everything about it. The music was just so cool and weird and kind of complex. It was kind of punk-ish in a way even though it was also sort of R.E.M.-ish in a way. Morrissey's voice was just so cool-sounding to me. It had a punk-rock attitude to it, even though it was New Wave or whatever. And it had the line 'And she doesn't even like me/And I know because she said so,' which I thought was just hilarious. Just the bluntness of it. It's kinda poetic but also kind of super-blunt."

Dinosaur Jr., You're Living All Over Me

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

"I must have listened to that record about 10 times before I liked it at all. And then I loved it. So much music was that way back then. Things took a long time to grow on me. There wasn't that much stuff where I knew I liked it right away. Nowadays I can tell right away if something's for me or not for the most part. But back then even stuff that was clearly good took a while to understand and appreciate. All of a sudden one night this album made sense to me. The thing I noticed at first was just how the guitar solos were way louder than everything. That I did appreciate right away. It was kind of the perfect meshing of punk rock and classic rock and pop music to me. It had this lo-fi, crappy-sounding thing and was pretty aggressive but it had these melodies and this classic-rock sensibility to it. Every song is great. Every guitar solo is perfect. I love that record."

Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

"I remember maybe a couple years before this album I picked up [1986's] EVOL and I did not like it. It didn't make sense to me. I could not deal with that degree of dissonance. But by the time this record came around I loved it. I thought it was just amazing. It was really rocking but I loved that the guitars weren't totally distorted; they were kind of chiming-sounding. Listening back to it they were actually pretty distorted but the chords kind of ring out in just the way they play. It was really expansive and kind of jammy. It occupied its own space and was unlike anything else. By that time they had been influenced by Dinosaur Jr., and this was kind of their version of pop music. Actually even EVOL and [1987's] Sister were along those lines. Sort of experimental. Kind of No Wave or what have you."

Pixies, Doolittle

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

"A lot of bands that I liked around that time, it was like I'd love the band and then they'd put out a mediocre record. Like I thought [the Smiths'] Meat Is Murder wasn't that great of a record even though the Smiths were one of my favorite bands. But Pixies putting out Doolittle was great because it was everything you wanted it to be. It made sense right away to me. It's kind of poppy and pretty but it's also pretty dark and kind of mysterious. It sounded like nothing else even though it of course comes from all sorts of places. It struck me as singular."

This content is imported from Spotify. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io