Sterling Point Breakout Keen Ruffalo Plays Us Five Songs That Changed His Young Life

The 25-year-old actor Keen Ruffalo starred in two projects that, coincidentally, both premiered earlier this month. They could not be more diametrically opposed. One is Prime Video’s smash YA series Sterling Point, about the shattering familial secrets that burble up during a consequential summer in Canada. The other, Nimrods, is a film about a teenage punk band on an impulsive, hijinks-filled road trip to LA to achieve their dream of opening for Green Day.

In both projects, Ruffalo — yes, the son of Mark — plays puckish characters whose impish actions set off an irreversible chain of events. Teenage mischief aside, that’s really where the similarities end between Nimrods and Sterling Point. Well, unless you count the Sterling Point wrap party. The festivities, Ruffalo explains, included a karaoke machine. Someone who’d seen Nimrods at its Toronto International Film Festival premiere signed Ruffalo up, unbeknownst to him, to sing “American Idiot.” Ruffalo had never really done karaoke, but jumped onstage anyway.

“It’s a good song, so I gave it my all,” he says. Ruffalo didn’t have much of a relationship to punk until post-Nimrods, but music has always had a role in his life. His mother played a lot of Bob Marley around the house, and Ruffalo — an avid Minecraft player as a kid — would listen to Minecraft-themed song parodies that he’d find online. Mom was not impressed: “’Yeah, it’s really nice, sweetheart,’” he laughs.

Ruffalo took up guitar when he was young,

Ruffalo took up guitar when he was young, but only stuck it out for a few months. The only thing he remembers from those lessons: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” He regrets it, especially because his sister plays bass, drums, and guitar. “Playing the instruments with her would have been so fun,” he says. “She’s so sick…she’s definitely the coolest Ruffalo.”
When Ruffalo got older, his aperture widened.

He and his friends would listen to artists like Freddie Gibbs, Oliver Tree, Kendrick Lamar, and Lil Yachty, and they liked being the people who’d open up the mosh pit at concerts. As an adult, his tastes have continued evolving — lately he’s been digging into more grunge — and he now considers music essential to his day to day. “If I’m walking around, I have music playing.

If I’m driving, I have music playing,” he says. “It truly grounds me when I’m out and about.”
Ruffalo walked us through five songs that have transformed him as a person. Rainbow Kitten Surprise, “Cocaine Jesus”
I was not doing great in college. I wasn’t even able to get out of bed in the mornings. Most days I was so just depressed and miserable. Before I dropped out, my roommate showed me Rainbow Kitten Surprise and ever since then, I’ve consistently listened to them.

I think they’re in all of my albums

I think they’re in all of my albums or playlists. My roommate in college was my roommate for all of high school — I went to boarding school — and so me and him were extremely close. He had his license, and I didn’t at the time, and we’d go upstate and drive around in the country, and just listen to Rainbow Kitten Surprise in this truck. We would just hang out, and, really, that was super peaceful for me and calming.

And that was what I needed in that moment. [“Cocaine Jesus” is] about partying and getting fucked up and moving on. And then seeing those kinds of memories that you might not be so proud of, but you look fondly upon, and someone else might not…I think that was very important to me, and definitely was something I could relate to. Such an important step in my music taste was discovering [Rainbow Kitten Surprise], because then I was opened up to more types of music than just rap and hip-hop, which was what I used to like in my earlier days.

Chase USA, “cowboy bebop episode 26 minute 19 06”
I didn’t really get into grunge and punk until a little bit later. It was actually after Nimrods, I got more into it. I’d say my gateway to it was actually [Panic! At the Disco’s] “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” which is one of the best songs of all time. It’s so good. Chase USA performed in Nimrods. They were a very small local band, and I think the scene was a junkyard-like show, and they were the band that were up before the Mason and Ryan and Kylr’s characters went up.

I was like, This is awesome

I was like, “This is awesome! I’ve never heard anything quite like it.” It’s the first thing of that nature that I had listened to. It was almost like there were parts of it that felt like hyperpoppy, and then they were more grunge and punky, and it was such an amalgamation of these different things. It felt like we’re doing garage music again, and that’s good. That’s good stuff.

Ben Quad, “We’re Gonna Be Here for a While”
That was recently, and just having hard times in my personal life, I’d say. Just kind of being depressed. It’s weird. Everything…has been going so well, career-wise, but [my] personal life is still…always going to be struggling. I think recently I’ve been relating to more grunge and like not…anger, but the louder expression of music.

It’s not, like, angry, but it’s just chaotic, volatile. And those fucking guitar riffs! Oh my god, they’re so sick. The Districts, “Violet”
That was what I was listening to when I was starting one of my first serious relationships. And I found The Districts by chance. I was in a store and I really liked the music they were playing, and I asked the cashier, and they told me. But then I forgot, and so I was trying to find this song just based off of the lyrics that I remembered.

Or what I thought he said

Or what I thought he said. And I stumbled upon The Districts. And I don’t think that was what they were playing, but it was something that I was like, “Okay, close enough.” And then I really started listening to them. And there are three songs of theirs that I absolutely adore, and they’re probably some of my favorite songs. It’s “4th and Roebling,” “Violet,” and “Funeral Beds.” I think [“Violet” is] the one that I’ve listened to the most, and had such an impact on the relationship I was talking about.

I’d sing it in the car, and we’d both be singing. And so that was a way that we connected and became closer. Rainbow Kitten Surprise, “Mission to Mars”
[“Mission to Mars” is] an underdog story. It’s about somebody getting their life together, and it feels like [the band] them singing about their career a little bit. Like, it’s just such a mess at the start, and nobody’s interested.

They’re talking about viewings for the mission to Mars [being] down by like 50 each week, and…it felt like they were talking about the struggles they had at the earlier points of their career. And of course, that might just be me projecting onto it. But for me, it felt like them talking about the struggles, and then getting it together, and people paying more attention, and then getting more popular.

And leaving it at them getting somewhere and finally taking off. That was something that resonated with me, at least: just trying again, again, again to get better. And then finally stuff starts happening. And for the better or for the worse, it’s happening.

Source: www.gq.com