Christian Letts plays guitar and sings in the Los Angeles band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. The 10-to-13-member musical collective plays a ramshackle and sometimes spacey brand of folk rock. The unlikely hit "Home" has been featured in numerous TV shows (Community, Ugly Betty), commercials (the NFL, Blue Cross Blue Shield) and one particularly sweet father-daughter cover rendition that became a YouTube sensation. Here, the follow-up to the band's 2009 debut Up From Below, will be released on May 29 on Vagrant Records. Letts is also prepping his first solo album. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros will perform an all-ages show tonight, Thursday, March 15, at the Rialto Theatre, with Rocco DeLuca. Doors open at 7 p.m., with the show starting at 8 p.m.; $21.
What was the first concert you ever saw?
Michael Jackson.
What are you listening to these days?
Serge Gainsbourg.
What was the first album you owned?
Big Daddy Kane, "Ain't No Half-Steppin'" (single).
What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone seem to love, but you just don't get?
Next (question).
What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?
Radiohead.
Musically speaking, what is your favorite guilty pleasure?
Harry Connick Jr.
What song would you like to have played at your funeral?
Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, "Minor Swing."
What band or artist changed your life, and how?
Django. Led me to guitar.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?
A 1939 recording (of) Reinhardt's Hot Club of France.
