Back in the good old days of American Pickers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz roamed the country looking for treasures. They picked in almost every state in the continental US. However, fans only saw the moments leading up to the pick. Most just wanted to see the antiques and haggling. After all, that and the pickers’ personalities were the best parts of the show.
However, many fans don’t think about how many miles they put on that van every year. At one point, Mike said they were driving up to 70k miles every year for American Pickers. Obviously, they had to have some entertainment for the trip. At the same time, no road trip is complete without some good tunes. So, Mike and Frank definitely cranked the radio up while they roamed the countryside looking for relics.
American Pickers fans never get to hear what Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz listen to going down the road. So, that led many people to wonder just what they filled the silence with. There are several reasons for this. Chief among them is probably legal. It would be tough to license music for the show. At the same time, it would be a lot of work and money just to hear a snippet of a song in a segment that might completely derail the flow of the show. After all, the scenes from the van are usually conversations between Frank and Mike or calls with Dani or homeowners. Additionally, neither of the pickers seem like the kind of monsters who talk over good songs. So, there’s really no point in sharing music on the show.
Luckily, the American Pickers duo did an interview with Sidewalks back in 2014. During that interview, Mike and Frank opened up about what kind of music they listened to in the van. Their answers might surprise you.
What the American Pickers Stars Listened to in the Van
The interviewer told the American Pickers that she was going to give them several rapid-fire questions from fans. The first of those questions was “What kind of music do you listen to on the road?”
Frank Fritz answered first. About their road trip soundtrack, he said, “There’s only one kind of music. That’s 80s hair band music.”
Mike Wolfe, on the other hand knows that there are two types of music – country and western. Wolfe said, “I like old country and western, man. A little Lefty Frizzell.”
However, in a 2018 interview with C-Suite Insights, Mike Wolfe revealed that he listens to one classic rock band to get him ready to get down to business. Wolfe cranks up The Who’s 1973 album Quadrophenia to get him pumped to mine for rusty gold.
