We deliberately used elements from Brazilian music and from African and Asian music. Now people can hear that but then it sounded so abstract, they couldn't hear it.
We were really interested in music from all over the world. We realized that what we were doing was very close to contemporary classical music because of the lack of tonality in the guitar- the fact that I play guitar the way I play.
It was very interesting for me because DNA made music without much technical knowledge at all.
Certainly since then many people have taken a lot of those ideas and ridden them for years and years and made careers out of them. Part of that is willingness to do the kind of work that I wasn't willing to do. Get into a van and cover the country.
The Lounge Lizards were relating with a tradition and it was like I was playing within a musical context. The guitar playing stood out as being different in some way. That was a real education for me.
The period right before punk rock where people like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop were really strong.
