1. Growing Up
Our household was musical, but not really because of my parents: they were quite religious and pretty strict about what us kids listened to. So my two elder brothers rebelled and fell in love with rock’n’roll. It’s literally the exact story from Almost Famous with Zooey Deschanel showing her kid brother “the light” when it came to music.
2. Inspirations
I think Led Zeppelin is the best band that ever walked the earth: each member has more talent in their pinky toe than our entire band put together. I think The Beatles are the best songwriters of all time. My personal favorite band growing up however, was Nirvana. Nevermindand In Uterowere both the soundtrack to my upbringing. Cobain was one of my favourite front-men, along with Freddie Mercury and Michael Hutchence. These guys just devoured crowds with their presence.
3. Your Band
We are four pretty regular dudes from Sydney Australia cursed with an undying passion for playing music together. That passion has taken us around the globe a few times, it’s pretty surreal actually and we’re extremely grateful. We’ve had some pretty outrageous times and made even more outrageous mistakes.
4. The Music You Make
So we decided after the first album that we don’t want to release The Griswolds V2.0: we don’t wanna be another drop in the indie rock ocean. We really wanted to challenge ourselves and dig really deep into making a record and a sound that stands out and says something different.
5. Music, Right Here, Right Now
Music is always going through intense changes: we love being a part of that as artists. It’s like a game. Something we’ve realised recently is that there aren’t a lot of artists that are saying something anymore, or making music that is daring, or writing vulnerable lyrics that say more than just “three minutes of ear candy“. The biggest thing musicians have to overcome is the voice in your own head telling you “you can’t do that” or “what will people think of you?” The best music conquers those thoughts: the best example would be Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly: that record is fucking fearless.
The Griswolds are playing at the Pandora Warehouse party at Carriageworks, Saturday October 8. More information is available on their website, here.
