You can usually tell a lot about a band’s sound and musical influences by what they listened to on the radio when they were younger.

But not always.

“I didn’t really grow up listening to music at all, and my parents didn’t really listen to music — ever,” said Francis Beringer, who plays bass and sings with D.C. based Caustic Casanova. “They only listened to WTOP.”

Huh?

“What do you mean you didn’t listen to music,” I asked incredulously.

“We really didn’t listen to music in our house, we just didn’t — we listened to the news, constantly, as a family,” said Beringer. “It’s funny that someone who grew up to be a musician would have had such a music-less childhood.”

So, maybe it’s not surprising that Caustic Casanova’s upcoming album is called “Glass Enclosed Nerve Center,” the nickname WTOP’s longtime boss, Jim Farley, bestowed upon the newsroom in the early 2000s.

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