Cold War Kids started with jangly guitar, hand claps, and a Harmony amp in a storage room atop Mulberry Street restaurant in downtown Fullerton, CA. For the first practices, having instruments was not as important as heavy stomping and chanting. Clanging on heat pipes, thumping on plywood walls. Hollering into tape recorders. Slipping and swaying into alleyways and juke joints of yesteryear. Dreaming the American dust bowl and British maritime. On the restaurants roof the sound and feeling was cultivated and burned, built and hallowed out, painted and stripped to the primer. Cold War Kids make songs about human experience in orchards and hotel rooms, laundromats and churches, sea ports and school halls. Using songs of Dylan, Billie Holiday, and the Velvet Underground as a road map, they strive to manipulate, structure, and style their music with honesty. Much like Belle and Sebastian, Radiohead, and Blue Note artists from the 50s and 60s, upon hearing Cold War Kids music, one cannot help but think of their graphic design. This is accomplished through constantly documenting the band, friends, relationships, and new acquaintances through touring and daily life. This is Cold War Kids vehicle to create community. Ultimately, Cold War Kids intent is to present themselves as not just four musicians, but as an expanding artistic community in which everyone is invited to take part.