We’ve gotten to know the inside of Brian D’Addario’s brain over the past decade across five albums as one half of the brotherly duo The Lemon Twigs, though perhaps Till the Morning is the songwriter’s most revealing statement to date. Although it frequents the same vintage thrift shops as all of his previous pop-rock albums, this one sees him stepping out on his own without the almost literal mirror image of his brother Michael to help guide these 11 compositions. The result is a tighter batch of songs paying homage to SoCal’s floral-folk forebears, balancing earworm bubblegum-pop and introspective acoustic balladry with ease.
Given that D’Addario’s sonic influences have only become clearer with every new Lemon Twigs album, we asked him to take us a little deeper and reveal some of Till the Morning’s non-musical inspirations. While some of those may not be of particular surprise—the writings of a Beach Boys collaborator, time spent strolling through a park near his home in NYC—others may not come immediately to mind when listening to these songs: Andrei Tarkovsky’s poetic musings on his poetic, musing filmography, or pesto and plum tomatoes.
With Till the Morning out now, stream the album and find D’Addario’s words on his influences below.
The poetry of Stephen Kalinich
I met Stevie several years ago in LA after being a fan of his work with The Beach Boys all my life. He had written the words to “Be Still” and “Little Bird” off of the Friends album, and also the Brian Wilson–produced album of his poetry, A World of Peace Must Come. He was a really easy person to talk to and seemed to be all about his art. He started sending me poems and told me to feel free to put music to them. During COVID I was living in the city and spending a lot of time writing and demoing. He sent me some poems over the years and a few of them became the songs “What You Are Is Beautiful” and “Song of Everyone.” As soon as I read them they immediately suggested music, and it was a really liberating and easy way to write. The words had a real feeling of ease and inner peace and connection that made them a joy to sing.
Tony’s Pizza on Graham Avenue
When Michael and I go to the studio, we probably eat at this place almost more than anywhere else. Pizza inspires me. It’s one of the best foods there is. Tony’s is a family-run joint run by two brothers. Maybe because of my Italian ancestry, my favorite slice of theirs is the Italian Flag specialty slice.
TASCAM Portastudio 488 8 Track
I don’t know if this really counts—it’s not completely non-musical, but it’s mostly technical. Three of the songs were recorded using a cassette machine, whereas our usual mode of recording is to two-inch tape, which is much higher fidelity equipment. It’s inspiring to work this way because your performances are more colored sonically and not as naked. I let certain aspects of the performance slide without making it absolutely perfect, which also gives it more character, which I wouldn’t have done if the audio quality wasn’t degraded significantly.
Prospect Park
I did a lot of the writing for the last three releases [The Lemon Twigs have] done starting with Everything Harmony at home. I live close to Prospect Park, and I spent a lot of hours thinking about the songs I was writing while walking around the park. It makes you feel a little more connected to see all sorts of people enjoying their day there. It’s a good place to get inspired and read or listen to music.
Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky
I love this book. Tarkovsky wrote about the philosophy behind his movies and his opinions on cinema, poetry, and art. One idea that stuck with me is one relating to his movie Mirror, which was an autobiographical work that—according to him—was as accurate as he could remember. He writes about how without in, anyway, trying to appeal to an audience or squeeze any emotion out of any scene, audiences would instinctively identify with the realism of the story and how he as a director felt about the events depicted by the film. I felt that way as a viewer. I didn’t always know exactly what was going on, but I felt so moved by the film for reasons I couldn’t quite identify. That inspires me to write as truthfully as I can without worrying about whether anyone will eventually relate, knowing that by virtue of our shared humanity, it likely will move someone.
