An Interview With Jade & Nora Of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

A couple of weeks ago when I attended the XPoNential Music Festival, I had the opportunity to interview Jade Castrinos and Nora Kirkpatrick of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was such an honor to talk to these two talented ladies, and they are both so incredibly sweet and fun to be around. Alex Ebert popped over at the end of the interview too, just in time to answer my last question and snap a photo of me with Jade and Nora. Read on for the interview and some more photos from their show that night!

You guys have played this festival before, and you’ve also played a lot of the larger ones. Do you have a preference?

Jade: I like them all!

Nora: This one’s nice because we get to play a longer set. We get to play for an hour and half, and sometimes at bigger ones you only get to play about 40 minutes.

How would you describe the new album in comparison to your other albums?

Jade: It’s definitely its own thing.

Nora: It’s a lot more eclectic as an album, there are a lot more instruments being used, and the parts have multiplied. There’s lots of meandering, interweaving parts on a lot of the songs. It feels a lot more visual to me, like a greater use of color.

If your music was a place where would it be?

Jade: Maybe the rainbow…that’s the album cover!

Nora: Totally. Yeah I think it would definitely be a metaphysical place…somewhere in the universe.

What are some of your favorite places you’ve traveled to?

Nora: Groenekan, which is in the Netherlands, that’s my favorite place. It’s set up for bikers…cars are a burden. It’s lots of rivers and cobblestone.

Jade: I had the best day of my life in Amsterdam. It was just so beautiful. There was a girl playing the sitar, and I’d never really seen anybody really shred on a sitar, much less a beautiful gypsy girl, and I gave her all my euros. I was like, “I love you!” I’ve never seen her again, though.

What do you think of Philly?

Jade: Philly is awesome! Didn’t we play like a church show here? The basement of a church.

I was at that show! Do you have certain shows that you remember as favorites?

Jade: We’ve played a lot of shows now…

Nora: The venue makes a big difference. Red rocks was so beautiful. We had a great show in Paris a few weeks ago.

Jade: Our first show at the Troubadour always sticks out.

When do you guys get to take a break?

Nora: In a couple days we get to go home for a little bit. We have about a week and a half off, which I am going to fully chill during.

What do you do when you chill?

Nora: Do a lot of work haha…but in a chill environment. It’s just nice to give your creativity that space to breathe a little bit. When you’re constantly moving around all the time it can be really inspiring, but also you don’t get that reflection period to let it come into fruition in whatever medium it wants to, so I think that’s that time…to take the summation of all the experiences you’ve had and let them come out in whatever form they feel.

Jade: I definitely just want to take off my clothes and have some watercolors over here, guitar over there, and just like, wander back and forth.

Nora: Having time to be naked is really important. You don’t realize how restricting wearing clothes can be until like, you can never be naked.

Do you guys all get along really well?

Nora: We’ve spent the last 6 years, more time with these people than anyone else…you’re bound to have your moments but at the end of the day we all love each other and that’s a pretty special thing to have as adults, to have a group of people like that that you actually consider family.

How would you describe your personal style?

Jade: My dad still to this day sells vintage guitars, and when I was 8 he had a vintage clothing and guitar store, so growing up my biggest treat was to go to thrift stores and dig around.

Nora: Yeah, vintage is awesome — especially when you go to other countries. Just the cuts of vintage clothes fit me so much better than new clothes, normally. I’m really into 40s dresses, Jade’s really into 20s and 50s I would say.

Jade: I like it all, like 1800s to 1990s.

Do you guys have any hobbies?

We all bike ride pretty consistently.

As a group?

Sometimes! We do some night rides. Nightriders.

Do you bring your bikes with you on tour?

Yeah we have a trailer for our bikes, we have like 17 bikes.

Who are some of your favorite bands?

Jade: I’m pretty obsessed with Radiohead and Beach House…Neil Young.

Nora: I listen to a lot of old gospel and spiritual music…

Jade: I’ve been listening to a lot of old speeches, like from the civil rights movement. I just like the way they sound. I like the way they were recorded. The Freedom Singers…have you ever listened to that? It’s these people they literally recorded on the steps outside of the supreme court in the 60s during the civil rights movement.

If you had to describe your music in one word what would it be?

Jade: The first thing that comes to mind is just love.

Alex: Vital.

Nora: Colorful.

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