Interview New Tricks: Grandaddy

Oh shit, you’re catching me off guard. It was probably an album called ‘Cast In Steel’ by A-ha.

Let’s see… Maybe it’s been a year or so, but it’s a Swedish band called Amason. The album’s called ‘Sky City’. I completely fell in love with that album. I like it when I can put on a record and just know that it’s going to be super great from beginning to end, and that it’s going to achieve a certain feel from the first part of it to the end of it.

As soon as I get off the phone I’ll have thirty of them that pop right into my head. It’s the performing under pressure thing. Good old new bands. There’s a band called Broncho that I really like. I think they’re probably due for a new record pretty soon [27th May].

One thing that I’m seeing that is making me happy is that there is an interest in making more creative sounding records, there’s an interest in production. It seems like the ‘new breed’ has a better grasp on what it takes to get sounds, and has a better grasp on actually manipulating the tools that it takes to get these sounds as well. They usually come into the studio with a pretty clear idea of what they’re after.

Let’s see. I think it’d be good if Tame Impala kept refining their live show. People seem to really like them. He’s proven that he’s just getting better and better at what he does. I’ll go and stick with that one.

I think honesty and devotion to what they do. Maybe putting quality before quantity. Not being so eager to please everybody before actually pleasing themselves, I guess.

I’d say it’s more important to surround yourself with people that you really enjoy being around. If something feels really weird and not right, and you’re trying to shove a square peg through a round hole, there’s probably a pretty good chance that your instincts are dead on - so do whatever you can to get out of that situation and do something better.

I was a huge Electric Light Orchestra fan in my formative years. I think growing up listening to that music on headphones had a pretty profound effect on me. I would say the album ‘A New World Record’. It’s a good study in pop music and production.

I think one just happened. I was a little confused by Pixies coming back, but I just bought their new album and it blew me away. I heard they got slagged for it, for trying to sound a little bit too much like Pixies, but that’s exactly what it is that I love about it. So one of my favourite bands reforming is happening right now. I’m pretty happy about that.

I don’t know. I’m kind of a loner. I don’t really want to collaborate with anybody.

I am a big fan of spending time outdoors, and of all kinds of outdoor recreational stuff. While it may not seem like it’s directly related, it actually has a huge… I think I’ve gotten a lot over the years out of clearing my head. I spend a lot of time in the studio. I spend a lot of time trying to problem solve and troubleshoot while writing songs. It’s really easy to get jammed up and hit all kinds of road blocks. It’s pretty amazing that when getting outdoors and getting away from the screen and from the headphones and stuff, I start to solve all these problems. All these answers start to sort themselves out as soon as I get out of the studio and out into the outdoors. I’ve become quite reliant on going from the studio to the outdoors, from the studio to the outdoors. Almost using it to my benefit on purpose, I think.

Yeah, something like that. Which happens to be my lucky number, so that worked out pretty good.

I definitely didn’t put much thought into where we fit in the music scene today. I was really inspired by the fans of Grandaddy and the persistence - almost the stubbornness - of the fans of Grandaddy. That’s actually kind of helped spur me along throughout the working process. If anything I was making it for them. It was a fun exercise on my part, to try and make a Grandaddy sounding album. I think more than anything else I had no idea how it was going to stack up. I have no idea where it’s going to lie in the current music scene, or even within the scheme of the other Grandaddy albums. I just kind of put my blinders on and started working on it. Now it’s just like, alright, here we go, let’s see what happens.

I’ve remained working pretty consistently. I’m always keeping up on the gear. I’m always getting inspired by new pieces of equipment. I kind of like it when I can get a lot weirder a lot quicker. Sometimes having to plug in any number of instruments, just the chain of events that it takes to get things sounding strange and interesting can be a little daunting. If anything my current obsession of the last couple of years has been streamlining my studio, so I can come up with an idea and it doesn’t take me that long to be executing it and for it to sound really good audio wise. I’m definitely inspired by gear, by working quicker, and by getting weirder faster.

I’ve been refining my studio set up, so I’ve been picking up all kinds of gear this weekend. I’m in the process of refurbishing these two microphone pre-amps. They’re called V72s. They’re microphone pre-amps that The Beatles used to use. I’m having some issues with them. I’m getting some maintenance done on them. I actually burnt the tips of my fingers because I’m so shitty with the soldering iron. I eventually gave up on it and decided to give the task to the pros.

The working process was pretty similar. Normally what I do is I’ll get Aaron [Burtch, drums] into a studio. He’ll have listened to my demos of the drums. We’ll do a real version of the drums. Then I bring all his drum tracks back and I start adding all the instruments to those myself. I also got to go through a divorce, so that made it pretty terrible. It really added to a lot of the drama on the record - which has never happened before. I guess that’s a big switch up.

This is the new album by Grandaddy - better late than never.

Grandaddy’s new album ‘Last Place’ is out now.

Tags: Grandaddy, New Tricks, Features