I grieve sir that I only have one upvote to give you . <| sep |> The Chain Gang of 1974 artist picimg 2 . akamaized . netiu 2527686 d 8 bda 44 c 47 a 8 c 725 d 15 a 55882 ffc . png My brothers and I were surrounded by music growing up , explains Kamtin Mohager , the shapeshifting s ingermultiinstrumentalist behind the Chain Gang of 1974 . Not Beatles albums or anything like that more like the Persian records our parents played all the time . And when we got older , it was up to us to discover everything . Born in San Jose and raised in Hawaii , Mohager spent his first 13 years obsessing over inline hockey and the idea of being drafted by the NHL one day . A series of lifechanging events were set in motion once Mohager ' s family moved to Colorado , however . The first of which involved the final scene from Real Geniusquite possibly Val Kilmer ' s finest hourand its penultimate ' popcorn song ', a . k . a . Everybody Rules the World . I love ' 80 s music , but not typical newwave stuff , says Mohager . Like I ' m way into Tears For Fears and Talk Talk , the other side of the spectrum , really . That ' s abundantly clear on White Guts , a record that ' s nearly as restless as Chain Gang ' s previous collection of early recordings , Fantastic Nostalgic . The way Mohager sees it , his first proper release was all over the place , from a piano ballad to songs that sound like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club , Primal Scream or Justice . White Guts , on the other hand , funnels three years of instrumentswapping , samplesplicing experience into a lean , focused listen . So while Stop ! and the rather epic Hold On hint at everything from LCD Soundsystem to Talking Heads , they make perfect sense in the context of deep cuts like the synthflecked Don ' t Walk Away and bassguided Matter of Time , shimmering power ballads that could have been on the soundtrack of Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink . What sets the Chain Gang of 1974 apart from other Reaganera revivalists is Mohager ' s innate sense of rhythm , a skill he acquired at an early age . And we ' re not just talking about his parents ' punchy , grooveriding record collection . We ' re talking about family gatherings and traditions that taught Mohager how to make a crowd of cool kids uncross their arms and dance like there ' s pistols pointed at their feet . Everyone lets loose at our shows , says Mohager . It ' s a party , man . If only I had a dollar for every time someone bumrushed the stage or grabbed one of our instruments . Things are bound to get worse , too , as his live banda quartet that ' s a far cry from Mohager ' s original iPodbass setupspends the next six months spreading the Chain Gang gospel far beyond its Rocky Mountain beginnings . Or as the man behind every last beat puts it , I ' m letting the music just be , and if something ' s meant to happen , it ' s meant to happen . Read more on Last . fm . ChainGangof 1974 95 , 878 listeners , 923 , 368 plays tags electronic , indie , seen live , electropop Please downvote if incorrect ! Selfdeletes if score is 0 .