Growing up in Santa Cruz, California, in the 1980s—where the surfers were the jocks of the school and the Grateful Dead were newly resurgent—a young Adam Scott was doing what most of us were doing at a young age: figuring out his identity through music. His older brother revealed to him the myriad secrets of Led Zeppelin and R.E.M., while pop radio and MTV were shaping his nascent taste in obvious but important ways. It was the molding of someone who would soon become a real head—not just a Deadhead, though he tells me he did see more than a handful of Dead shows—but someone whose deep love of alternative music would live alongside his career as a dryly comedic actor of film and television.
If you’ve listened to his digressive, deep-dive music podcasts with comedian Scott Aukermen—U Talkin’ U2 to Me?, R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me?, and, most recently, U Springin’ Springsteen on My Bean?—you know that Scott is a self-professed nerd about the music of his life. It was a joy to chop it up with him about how albums came into and stayed in his life, how it connected to his friends, family, and life as an actor, and how difficult it was not to pick an R.E.M. album for every five years of his life.
Scott is currently starring in Apple TV+’s sci-fi series Severance, whose Season 2 finale aired last night. Season 3 is on the way, too.
Cat Stevens: Teaser and the Firecat
That was around the time of my dad moving out, which I don’t really remember that well, but I do remember Teaser and the Firecat being a thing in those days. Later as a teenager, when I rediscovered the album, it was somewhat familiar to me. I even remember at one point getting into that album as a teenager and being like, “Whoa, this is cool,” and my mom later telling me that when I reapproached the album as a teenager and was playing it in my room, she tried to get away from it because it reminded her of a tough time. So that’s why I remember it. But they shielded me from any tough time and I just remembered the album itself being this warm, lovely thing.
I mean, there’s “The Wind,” which was used so well in Rushmore. But “Tuesday’s Dead” is the one where it really kind of expands, and there’s this mandolin solo, and it has the feeling of a live band kind of just finding itself through the song. These are objectively great songs. And if he’s too syrupy for you, I totally understand and I’ve certainly gone through stages of being like, “Ugh, what the fuck is this?” And not listening to Cat Stevens for 12 years or something and coming back to it and being like, “Oh my God, this is so good.”
