The Beatles led to classic rock. Classic rock led to Van Halen. Van Halen led to punk — the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the whole beautiful blunt-instrument tradition. And somewhere in there, Tony Leo also found Nick Drake. The arc is more coherent than it sounds: it's a map of someone following whatever is most alive at any given moment.
His song "Venus" came together in a single day with collaborator Chris. The key ingredient was a tuning Tony had been carrying since a college project inspired by Nick Drake — top three strings dropped a whole step, creating an open, slightly disorienting resonance that suits the song perfectly.
The album Alien Punk Journal got its name from a coworker who, seeing Tony's hair after it had grown out, told him he looked like an alien punk. Tony recognized something true in the phrase, connected it to his old college songwriting journals, and had his title. "Life is strange, but the weird is beautiful," he told us — and the album backs that up on every track.