These United States sing “Susie at the Seashore” in a perfect demonstration of the bands parallels to folklore and Americana. “It sounds weird, but we’ve never been interested in introspection and personal stuff,” said Jesse Elliott, lead singer. “My background is in storytelling and the third person. I’ve heard from a few places that we’re accused of sneaking in as many allusions to things as we can, and that’s just not true. Characters are interesting. From a writing perspective, I like T.S. Eliot and Hunter S. Thompson, and, musically, I like similar idiosyncratic characters in our songs.”