My First CD with Tora

Over the last few months, Byron Bay lads Tora have been slowly sharing a collection of very cool tunes with us while making promise of of a brand new album coming our way this year.

That album is called “Can’t Buy The Mood” and it is finally being released this Friday, so we caught up with the band’s vocalist/guitarist Jai Piccone to ask where his love of music began…

–

“If I remember correctly my first album on CD was ‘By the way’ from Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I vaguely remember listening to it on Discman with headphones running around the house mimicking Anthonys vocals. I was probably about 7 or 8 I guess this was around 2006, my dad once told me off for singing ‘Throw away your television’ badly out loud while he was trying to work. I can definitely sympathise with him in hindsight considering even Anthony seems to have had a difficult time getting away with a decent take of the line.

I don’t know why I remember getting told off but I did and I believe it sort of drove me to get good or become more interested in music. I didn’t want to be bad at singing. My Dad has always been incredibly supportive however and without him I don’t think I would have pursued music as fiercely.

I started with guitar and there was certainly a bunch of influence/inspiration early on from great Frusciante riffs frequented throughout that album. Songs like ‘Dosed’ ’The Zephyr song’ ‘Can’t Stop’ and ‘Venice Queen’ are particularly nostalgic, thinking about it now I think the album probably influenced me a lot more than I care to admit.

I listened to the band for years and that lead to many more treasured musical discoveries that continued to influence down the line. While I don’t feel that album particularly influences me now, the genesis of my musical interest sparked from that band and particularly that album. While it seems so far from my personal tastes now, when considering a concept like the butterfly effect, perhaps I wouldn’t even be pursuing a musical journey if I hadn’t found and fell in love with it.

–

Let’s all jump back to 2009 and get a little nostalgic with ‘The Zephyr Song’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers, and then we’re straight back to 2019 with ‘Similar’ by Tora – and stay tuned this Friday August 9th) for their new album “Can’t Buy The Mood”!