It Takes A While to Find Your Tribe: An Interview with The Retinas

by - October 29, 2019


It’s always the inadvertently different tastes in music that create the ultimate genre-bending artists, and The Retinas are no exception.

For drummer Anthony Fulginitti, his earliest love for music began with Wu Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest. Bassist Andy Silverman preferred metal than hip-hop, with classics like Black Sabbath. Vocalist/guitarist Thomas McHugh grew up on The Doors and The Rolling Stones.

“We all kind of met in the middle around Led Zeppelin,” McHugh said.

Once they began making music together they found influence in bands like Pixies, The Replacements and The Strokes.

“Each of them possesses something we all look for in music,” McHugh said. “Pixies and [The] Doors have that insanity, the weird places you can go with art. [Black] Sabbath and [The] Replacements have a raw unadulterated soul to their approach, and [The] Strokes and Wu Tang [Clan] have a perfect catchiness and beat to them.”

From the first time they collaborated in the studio together, those influences stood out - especially while creating their recently-released debut self-titled album. They have the luxury of having their own studio, which gave them as much time as they needed to perfect their sound.

It also gave them the opportunity to learn how to best work alongside each other. They make the most out of their demos by taking them home to work on individually, practicing them live as much as possible and recording another demo before fully committing to an official recording.

“In the studio I think the most valuable thing we've learned is to leave everyone with optimizing space,” McHugh said. “If we need to run the song 50 times to get the take, if we need to do it by ourselves all together, take it home, whatever we need to do to get the take is fine. The science is never exact, but it’s important to leave to however it may come.”

The Retinas have really been able to take their greatest influences and create music that they are fully involved in and proud of. Their self-titled album is available now and can be seen live on tour this fall.


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