More than a few people have probably dismissed pop/rock band Fun. as something of a passing fad, but if the runaway success of both “We Are Young” and “Some Nights,” is any indication, they’re going to be around for a while. However, they’re not the sort of flash-in-the-pan rock band that many people think they are: Fun.’s influences range far and wide, displaying a vast, impressive knowledge of music. We were fortunate enough to talk to Fun’s Andrew Dost about the music that inspires him in the upcoming issue of Elmore. You can read the whole interview with Dost, alongside an interview with Eric Burdon, in next issue’s Influences column. Below, we have a few choice quotes from Dost about what makes him tick musically:

On his favorite music: “My background is rooted in a lot of old pop music, especially the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but also a lot of classical music. Claude Debussy is my favorite, I listen to a lot of Debussy.”

On why he picked up the guitar after years of playing piano: “I was listening to a lot of guitar music. When you hear the guitar lick in ‘Paperback Writer,’ you want to learn that lick. I became obsessed with the material aspect of guitars, the way that a kid gets obsessed with, I don’t know, dinosaurs or something.”

On the musician that impacted him most: “Paul McCartney’s sense of melody is beautiful, but you only start to realize how complex and how harmonically dense it is once you try to take apart what he’s doing with the chords. A song like ‘Penny Lane,’ it’s modulating constantly and it has an interesting structure, but you remember the melody because it’s so good. It’s deceptively smart, and that’s what I want my music to be.”

You can read more of our chat with Andrew Dost, as well as our interview with Eric Burdon, in the upcoming issue of Elmore Magazine, coming soon!