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Each week ZIO asks a different musician the same 11 questions via email. Visit Zoom In Music weekly for a new installment or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Los Angeles-based octet known as Fool's Gold goes deep. In addition to the group's sheer size (they occasionally expand to a 12-piece on stage), the band's music takes its cues from an improbably wide range of musical sources: soul music from Ethiopia and Eritrea, Malian Touareg music, Congolese secousse, tropicalia, and '80s dance hits can all be heard in the group's joyous, wide-open sound (Oh, and their lead singer, Luke Top, will sometimes sing in Hebrew, too).

On paper, that probably looks like a mess, but there is a method to the madness that comes out of the speakers when their self-titled debut is on. And for this latest installment of These Questions Go To Eleven, founding member and bassist Lewis Pesacov showed he can be very precise when he has to answer questions.

1.  What music was played in your home while you were growing up?
My oldest brother would lock himself in his room and blast Eurythmics and Abba as if his life was dependent on it, which it was.  My other brother did the same thing with Pink Floyd and The Cure.  My mom was down with the Arabic folk music and my dad would play lots of early rock n’ roll cassettes like Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis.

2.  Who is the best artist we have probably never heard of?
Elsa Kidane.

3.  What is your favorite song lyric?
"I'm on a bus on a psychedelic trip
Reading murder books tryin' to stay hip."
-Billy Idol

4.  What song do you want played at your funeral?
"I Love L.A.", by Randy Newman

5.  What is your favorite b-side?
"Too Much Sugar", by Brian Wilson

6.  Which medium do you prefer: vinyl, cd, or download?
I have mostly been listening to music digitally lately, so I’d opt for that out of circumstance and convenience.  If I had my druthers, I would lie out on a bear skin rug and put on some vinyl.

7.  Which artist would your fans be surprised to find out you like?
I think my fans would be more surprised by the way I smell.

8.  What musician would you choose to cover one of your songs?
I’d love to hear Townes Van Zandt do our song, “Ha Dvash”.

9.  Who is the most overrated artist?
Thomas Kinkade

10. What musician or band do you wish you’d seen play live in their prime?
The Smiths

11. What non-musical influences do you have?
Sea, sex and sun.  Sports. 

Check out Fool's Gold's music on their Myspace page.

Dig into an interview with Luke Top, Fool's Gold's other founding member, in which he describes the feeling of eight guys all feeling and thinking as one on stage.

Watch one of the most painfully unprepared television interviews ever, in which some hack at L.A.'s local NBC News affiliate reads straight from the band's press release, then tries to ask a bemused Luke and Lewis interesting questions.

Check out more installments of THESE QUESTIONS GO TO ELEVEN:

Adam Green
Art Brut
Camera Obscura
Chin Chin
The Cribs
Darlings
Dead River Company
Fujiya & Miyagi
Golem
Jukebox the Ghost
Talib Kweli
Ben Kweller
Jeffrey Lewis
The Low Miffs
Lights
M83
Man Like Me
Marina & The Diamonds
Meg & Dia
A.C. Newman
Cale Parks
Silvery
Tapes 'n Tapes
Tiny Animals
The Von Bondies
White Rabbits
Wild Light
Yo Majesty!

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