Five Things With Sasha L Smith From The Grand Rapids

1.Growing Up

I remember listening to tapes on road trips in the HQ Kingswood. Stuff like Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, Jesus Christ Superstar, Elvis, Simon & Garfunkel. I guess the biggest influence out of all that kinda stuff was that it was all about the melody.

2.Inspirations

I was into heavy rock stuff like The Angels, Rose Tattoo, Sex Pistols, then got into metal pretty heavily, then had a complete epiphany when I first heard The Stone Roses. You could actually make really cool-sounding stuff on the guitar without all the fretboard wanking. As someone just learning the guitar, and not intent on practising eight hours a day, that seemed like a good tip, and they had cool haircuts to boot.

3.Your Band

The Grand Rapids are a neo-psychedelic drone rock band out of Melbourne. We’ve been going for over seven years. Daniel (the other guitarist) and I met at a party and I was looking for a bass player and it all just started from there. Keith (drums) was a high school friend of Daniel’s and joined a few years later, and Deon on bass has been on board for the last couple of years. I think the connection is we want to make dark, dense rock’n’roll, love recording and doing some sweet shows. Callum Barter engineered and mixed our debut LP Great Shakes and he is engineering our next record. ‘Copper Girl’, the seven-inch single which is our current release, was recorded by Callum and mastered by David Briggs of Little River Band fame.

4.The Music You Make

Personally I really dig Vibravoid, The Warlocks, Spacemen 3, Bad Liquor Pond, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Church, Ride, The Cult Of Dom Keller, The Cosmic Dead, Acid Mothers Temple, early Pink Floyd, The Seeds, The Byrds, et cetera. Live-wise we always like to get the projectors out and get things nice and freaky, and loud is always good, real good.

5.Music, Right Here, Right Now

The psych scene in Australia is really, really healthy. Really cool bands coming out of all places. There’s always something cool to go and see. Sydney is great in that it has some real cool psych club nights. It’s not really happening on that front in Melbourne so it’s cool that there are clubs like Velvet Cave and Live at Your Cosmic Mind going off, and Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice in the city is just pure gold.