fIREHOSE

Influences

• The Minutemen — This is the literal DNA of the band, as Watt and Hurley were two-thirds of the legendary trio before D. Boon's death. You hear this in the lockstep, hyper-kinetic rhythm section and the short, punchy song structures that defined their early SST releases. The ghost of Boon's clean, treble-heavy guitar style sits right behind Crawford's early riffs.
• Richard Thompson — Mike Watt has repeatedly cited the British folk-rock guitarist as a massive influence on both his songwriting and how he wanted fIREHOSE to approach melody. Crawford's acoustic-electric fingerpicking style on tracks like 'In Memory of Elizabeth Cotton' directly mirrors Thompson's hybrid folk-rock-jazz guitar work. It gave the band a pastoral quality that the Minutemen never touched.
• Blue Öyster Cult — Watt grew up obsessing over Albert Bouchard's basslines, and fIREHOSE actually recorded a cover of 'The Red and the Black' during their career. The hard-rocking, blues-based scale runs and driving tempos on their heavier tracks trace right back to this classic rock foundation. It keeps their punk songs from sounding like standard three-chord thrash.
• John Coltrane — Hurley's drumming style was heavily shaped by jazz greats, particularly Elvin Jones' work with Coltrane. You hear this in the rolling, triplets-heavy drum fills and the unconventional time signatures on 'Chemical Wire.' It shifted the band's rhythm away from straight-ahead punk backbeats into something fluid and swing-based.
• The Meat Puppets — As SST labelmates, the Kirkwood brothers showed fIREHOSE how to successfully blend desert-fried country-folk with screaming punk rock. The acoustic-meets-electric dynamic of fROMOHIO directly reflects the sonic experiments found on Meat Puppets II. Both bands proved you could be deeply weird, play acoustic guitars, and still keep your punk credentials.