Ken Vasoli of The Starting Line picks 5 movies to pair with ‘Eternal Youth’
In Pairings, artists and creators pick the movies that complement their latest work.
Ken Vasoli is the lead singer and songwriter of the pop-punk band The Starting Line, whose new album Eternal Youth comes out September 26 wherever you get your music!
We asked Ken to pick a few movies that pair well with Eternal Youth.
Perfect Days (2024)
It’s not often a film comes along and leaves me with such a genuine, positive afterglow like this one. Wim Wenders always seems to have a certain tenderness in his storytelling that I’ve connected with deeply, especially these last few years. This story of a humble bathroom maintenance worker is so potent in delivering an appreciation for the commonplace details in everyday life that spilled from the screen into my outside world almost immediately. It serves as a beautiful reminder to pause and savor the wind flowing through leaves on a tree. It shines light on the simple pleasures and the things we take for granted. I’ve borrowed inspiration from the film’s dialogue, namely in the lyrics on our lead-off track “I See How It Is.”
The Face of Another (1966)
My wife and I would regularly trade movie picks to watch on the weekends. One night she chose Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face Of Another, which neither of us had ever seen. I really dug this one because it played out much like a great Twilight Zone episode, a program I’ve always adored. With this film there is a profound meaning for me beyond the surface plot twists. The line that stuck out was something to the effect of “humility is always greater than vanity.” This was another direct inspiration on my lyrics, specifically for our song “Humility.”
Control (2007)
While I am admittedly a sucker for a band biopic, Anton Corbijn’s Control has to go down as my favorite. I am not enough of a music historian to know if or how much of this screen-written story is a truly accurate depiction of Joy Division and Ian Curtis’s life. What I do know for certain is how much I adore this film and the performances within. I can credit Control as the gateway portal that initially familiarized me with Joy Division’s music, and for that I’m grateful. Ian Curtis’s tragic story aside, there are numerous very positive takeaways from this dramatization: 1. These guys looked COOL! No one pulled off the disheveled business casual look quite like them. 2. For my money, Sam Riley delivers a fantastic performance portraying Ian. As far as I can tell he is the one singing in all the performance scenes, and I love these versions. 3. It’s evident that the filmmaker is a true fan of the band, and he manages to build a world that is most deliberate in tone. It’s radical and bleak, yet aspirational on a creative level. I hold Joy Division in my mind and heart as one of the most important pioneers in the history of punk music, and I am not sure I would have arrived at that conclusion had I not been exposed to Control. To say our new record was inspired by that band would be an understatement.
Moneyball (2011)
I can throw Bennett Miller’s Moneyball on anytime, any flight, and wherever it appears I’ll ride it out every time. The film is motivational on several levels, the obvious being the story of administering change with limited resources by utilizing radical thought and harnessing the uncompromising will to win. This movie is a great, easy watch because it does not expect you to be a baseball expert or even a fan, dropping you into a point in time when a marginal team and their GM were seemingly on the downswing. The drama pulls you in immediately with minimal backstory and walks step by step through the saga of the 2002 Oakland A’s. This one is very important to the story of our recent recording process for Eternal Youth. It was quoted a lot in jest during the making of the album but also rang true with the spirit of our approach to independent music making. We were finally taking full control of our operation and it was up to us to create music that deserves to be remembered. It was not about competition—it was about sticking to our principles and letting the work speak for itself. The correlation was big for me. On top of all that, I dove FULL ON into baseball fanaticism last fall (2024) when we were recording this record. Before that I truly did not give a damn about sports. Moneyball may have played some part in opening that doorway.
Paris, Texas (1984)
A perfect film. Closing the list out with another Wim Wenders masterpiece. I aspire to make music as gracefully as this man puts together a motion picture. There is an intangible element to Paris, Texas that rises above the narrative. There is a glowing atmosphere within the runtime that feels both comfortably familiar and completely unique. The color saturation of this film has a brilliance unlike any other—it radiates from the screen. There is a thoughtfulness about this movie that is hard to describe. It is perhaps a complicated story about complicated relationships, and yet the plot blossoms in such an elegant way that it leaves no confusion or unsettled feelings. The video for our single “Sense Of Humor” was certainly inspired by Paris, Texas in more ways than one. We essentially tried to recreate the scene of the man ranting on the overpass, for example. I’ll always love this film and it’s definitely top-shelf creative inspiration. If anyone ever associates our music with this wonderful cinematic achievement, then I will have done my job!