The Radar Bros. [ tickets ] an LA-based indie quartet, hinges on the only permanent member, Jim Putnam, whose father, Bill Putnam, is considered to be the mastermind behind modern audio recording. Despite the constant questions about his legacy, the junior Putnam doesn't appear to feel any pressure to follow in his dad's footsteps.

"I think I had a job there once painting one of the studios when I was thirteen or fourteen. They had these video games in the lounge and I was more interested in that at the time."

Since then, Putnam has created five albums with the Radar Bros. in his personal studio/garage. The most recent, "Auditoriums," dropped in January to rave reviews and led to a quick European tour, followed by a West Coast tour that the quartet just wrapped up.

Radar Bros. [ tickets ], a Los Angeles based four-piece indie-rock outfit, just wrapped a West Coast tour in support of their recently released fifth album, "Auditoriums."

LiveDaily contributor Maya Marin sat down with the group's founding member, Jim Putnam, to discuss the new album, their recent European tour and his influential father.

LiveDaily: For those listeners who might not be familiar with your history, I'm going to bring up an often brought up fact: that you're the son of audio recording legend, Bill Putnam, founder of Universal Audio and considered to be the father of modern recording. Do you feel as if your path was predestined for you because of this, as a musician and recording artist yourself?

Jim Putnam: Maybe, yeah. I don't think I was aware of that or anything like that but I guess I was around a lot of recording and studio stuff because I would go to my dad's studios a lot and hang out there. I didn't really get into recording and stuff until after my dad passed away, but I think a lot of it has rubbed off on me.

And you do own your own studio, right?

JP: Yeah, I have a studio in my garage. It's where I record all the Radar Bros.' stuff and other things too.

Did you inherit some cool vintage recording gear?

JP: Not too much, but I did inherit a silver-faced 1176 that I think is serial number 10,000, so it's the 10,000th 1176 ever made.

I'm going to pretend I know what you mean by that ... I'm sure if any listeners are into recording, they'll know what that means. Now, walk us through the evolution of the Radar Bros.' music. How do you feel the music has evolved from the first album back in 1995 to now?

JP: It's evolved pretty slowly. That's kind of a tough question because I think as we keep making records, the less perspective I have on the actual music--meaning that the more warped my idea of what the music has evolved into.

That's interesting. The more records you make, the more distanced you feel from it?

JP: Not necessarily distanced, just that my idea of what it is might be different than what a lot of other people who aren't so attached to it think. It's just lack of perspective, I think.

Do you feel like you've tread new ground with the new album, "Auditoriums?"

JP: Yeah, I definitely do.

How so?

JP: I think that the songs--there's more of an edge to them than the last record. When the [new] record was finished, I really thought it was a lot different from our previous stuff.

What do you attribute that change to?

JP: Well, we'd had a guitar player playing with us who hadn't been on any other records and I think also we were all a little bit more fractured. We weren't all working on it together. There was a lot of stuff going on at the time so I had to take the reigns more.

Do you have any personal favorite tracks off the record?

JP: Yeah, I think that would be "Brother Rabbit," which we've been rehearsing lately, so hopefully we'll be playing it live soon.

I read in an LA Times piece that you're considered to be a father figure to quite a few Silver Lake musicians. Do you consider yourself as such, and do you enjoy mentoring other musicians?

JP: I think I read that. That's really weird. I still feel like I'm a 14-year-old kid so I don't know what to say about that. That's just kind of weird.

Your band lineup has changed considerably; is it strange now working with new guys after you've been with the same guys for 15-plus years?

JP: Yeah it is, but it's not as strange as I thought it would be because, actually, my first choice was to choose a really good friend of mine to play in the band, my friend Eric Morgan. I think personality is more than half the battle when you're finding people to play music with. We'd never played music before or anything but he's a drummer and it was just like, "Ok, you're going to play in the band." I want to have other people involved that I know aren't going to start having a nervous breakdown halfway through the tour and start throwing things at me or me start throwing things at them.

So you're currently on tour right now, correct?

JP: We're leaving on a West Coast tour tomorrow.

And you came back from Europe just recently?

JP: Yeah, we were in the UK for a week and a half, two weeks.

Any memorable moments?

JP: Lots.

Want to tell us one story from the road?

JP: We were in Edinburgh and we went to this bar and the bartender, after the bar closed, invited us to his house, which was right around the corner. He was a super nice guy but when we went into his house, his house was basically these catacombs that had just been recently unearthed where, during the Black Plague, they used to stuff a bunch of people in there and then wall it over to make the problem go away. That was kind of creepy, but then his actual house part of it looked like it had been hit by a tornado, which was also interesting.

Did this guy know before he moved in that there were dead bodies there?

JP: Oh, I'm sure he did. It was really strange because it looked kind of like a normal house, but then you go in through this hallway and all of a sudden you're in this ancient cave.

You travel and record at quite a leisurely pace, which is opposite of today's super-rushed, deadline-driven society. Why is that?

JP: I don't really think it's a leisurely pace. I've never understood this whole thing about how we put records out. I guess we put records out every few years, every three years or so, and that seems like a normal pace. I can't imagine putting a record out every year, but I guess some people do that.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

JP: I don't know. Maybe it does take me a long time to make records. That's probably the main issue. It's also hard to get everyone in the studio at the same time.