May 06 2024, 3.43pm / Reviews
Though we aren’t inundated with review CDs any more (a what?), our inboxes are crammed …
Closing out his monumental I Love You, I’m Trying World Tour next January and February in New Zealand and Australia, the mononymous alt powerhouse known as grandson will also tick off his first ever Aussie shows in 2024.
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A genuine sonic shape-shifter, melding rock, hip, hop and electronic flavours into his own unique take on the alternative realms, grandson is already a platinum-certified success story, with his music appearing on Hollywood soundtracks, collabs with Mike Shinoda, Steve Aoki, Travis Barker and Tom Morello, 3.5 billion global streams, and a touring history that would make any rock fan weak at the knees.
Releasing his sophomore studio album, I Love You, I’m Trying, earlier this year, grandson has relentlessly grown his sweltering reputation, both as an creator and as an explosive live performer. And in some extremely rare downtime amongst his current world tour, grandson took a moment with HysteriaMag.com to reflect before he hits our shores next year.
“I’m good, I’m good. I’m taking it all in,” says grandson. “It has been a crazy two years, I’ve played 200-something shows across Europe and North America, I’ve put out an album. I’ve neglected my emotional and physical health and I’ve had an incredible adventure. It’s been exhausting. I would be lying if I pretended that I didn’t need or look forward to this time off that I’ve had!”
“I’m learning how to just sit with it,” grandson continues, “because for me, the stillness has often been a place where my worst impulse has come out. And I think that that’s why I have been the kind of artist that has kept so constantly busy and struggled with the pandemic so much. But now that I’m here, I feel as though the next mountain for me to climb might not be much of a mountain at all. It might be just sitting with it and hanging out, playing some guitar and enjoying having made it this far. And I’m also quite grateful that on the other side of a little break here, I get to finally come down south because it is really exciting to get to start from the beginning.”
“Once you build a relationship to a city, you build a relationship to a country as far as playing these shows there, you start to feel familiar and it’s really exciting to be reminded of what a big, beautiful world it is and how many grandson fans there are around the world. So I’m just stoked to get the opportunity to come and make a first impression all over again. That’s going to be really, really fun. And it’s a long time overdue. My partner is Australian, so I’ve spent time there and I’ve never had the chance to put a grandson show there yet!”
With his tour press material stating that “making movies, taking shoeys” will be high on the priority list down under in 2024, grandson is more than prepared to grow his community – and cause some affable chaos along the way,
“I’ll be trying to jump off of large rock faces into cold, refreshing bodies of water,” says grandson of his upcoming Aussie adventures. “I’ll be trying to liberate the marsupials from their cages. I’ll be trying to drink out of a stranger’s shoes. All of the above.”
The win is in having people connect with grandson and the music that they love to an actual group of people that support them and have their back. And that’s why I wear my values on my sleeve and I try to lead by example as far as the kind of things that I’m about, and the way I am not scared to share that with the world. So hopefully at the end of all of that madness and rock and roll is actually this genuine feeling that other people get to experience. That’s the best part for me.
[ Grandson ]
“And on top of that, everyone that I’ve met through my music from Aus has been mad cool,” grandson adds. “I put a little meetup together in Melbourne at the beginning of this year and met all kinds of super dope people. So my goal is to have these shows and when I leave, have a grandson fan feel like they have a community around them that love this music and that they can look forward to seeing the next grandson show.”
“For me, that’s the win. The win is in having people connect with grandson and the music that they love to an actual group of people that support them and have their back. And that’s why I wear my values on my sleeve and I try to lead by example as far as the kind of things that I’m about, and the way I am not scared to share that with the world. So hopefully at the end of all of that madness and rock and roll is actually this genuine feeling that other people get to experience. That’s the best part for me.”
With tunes that can vigorously enamour and/or encite a party at the drop of a hat, grandson’s hybrid and hard-hitting prowess inescapably offers a haven as much as it oozes with passionate power via this Canadian/American artist. And his impact on his fans and increasing platform is not one readily lost on him, with the chart-blazing maverick firmly dedicated to his fans and his craft.
“It’s a really interesting thing to unpack,” says grandson, “I know that when I come out there and get to play these shows, a lot of people were more affected by these lockdowns and by how restrictive that two years was, and what that did to disconnect us from one another and feel distrustful of other people and resentful for the people that would fuck it up for everyone else. And it really created this frustration with one another. But really so much of what we were doing in the pandemic was born of consideration from one another. And we never really got a chance to come together and reflect on the other side of this thing, that we had to band together and ask a lot of one another.”
“And now here we are – live music is back,” grandson continues. “There’s some sense of normality that we’ve returned to. And I think that live music and sports are really two of the only areas left where we can get together as total strangers, so united with one singular passion and one cause and one collective heartbeat. And I feel as a performer that reminding people of that is such a powerful experience. I didn’t feel here in America like that was acknowledged. Certainly in sports. Everyone just pretended like it never happened. That’s kind of been the main thing: everyone’s sick of talking about it. Now it’s been a year or two and now that’s why I am coming for these first shows. If not for this pandemic, I’d be coming for my third tour in Australia and be playing bigger rooms and it is what it is. And now maybe can we get to that part where we acknowledge we got through this together and we deserve to have a good time. We deserve to get drunk and mosh with other people and feel that kinetic energy with another person who cared enough to spend their money to call an Uber that night and make this plan to go have this experience right next to you.”
“You have so much in common with somebody at a show without even knowing it. It’s going to be awesome.”
Bolstering connectivity with his fans in a live setting also beats at the core of grandson’s MO, stemming heavily from his own experiences, both on and off the stage.
“I have this song that I dedicate to a fan that I lost to suicide,” says grandson. “And every night I started getting into the habit of getting into the crowd and performing it in the crowd with the people. And it gives me this real intimate opportunity to kind of break down these barriers. I don’t roll out there with security or anything. I’m just connecting with people, and at certain shows I can very clearly see who’s affected. And sometimes I could see strangers coming together in that moment and supporting one another when somebody’s visibly distraught, reflecting on their own mental health journey. Those little moments are the moments that really connect with me, when I see the heart and the soul of the community that my music has brought together and that I’m genuinely proud and I just want to be friends with you all. Those moments mean a lot.”
“This last album was really challenging for me,” grandson continues. “My mental health was not in a great place, I had really run myself down while making it. And to get on stage and look up and start to see people connecting with those lyrics and see those songs take on a second life outside of the studio…you write these things from the bottom of your heart and you put them out – whatever happens as far as how people connect with them is outside of your control. But then all of a sudden you’re standing on stage and you’ve got a thousand people that they meant something to. When I meet people and these lyrics helped them get through a hard time and they’re not going anywhere, they will always be brought back to that experience when that song comes on and those moments of understanding that this – it matters to people. That’s been really, really powerful for me.”
As an artist extremely familiar to a wide array of influences, both old and new, grandson not only pays homage to a broad array of artists, including Tool, System Of A Down, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, Twenty One Pilots and beyond – he also has brought his absorbing wares into the same stratosphere as some of the industry’s true greats, collabing over the years with a horde of legends, including his musical “dad” Tom Morello on the scorching single Hold The Line.
And with so many high profile team-ups in his wake, grandson appears on the surface to have hit the mother lode professionally. But as he reveals, there’s more to collaboration than simply penning a wish list and manifesting it into reality.
“I think that as I get further into my journey of expression,” says grandson, “and it becomes more clear what it is that I do…I think that of course as a music fan I have these bucket list moments to connect with artists that I look up to, or friends of mine that would be great to share the stage with. But I think that ultimately the most meaningful and fulfilling collaborations for me are when there’s a synergy outside of just making music together. When I can get a real connection with somebody who also makes music and who’s prepared to get into the sandbox and play with me in that way – it is really special and I try not to have too much pressure or expectation for it.”
“Long story short,” grandson continues, “I do think there’s an amount of just making stuff and seeing if people want to work in a more organic way because – trying to do it any other way? Maybe you’ll get a song out of it, but nowadays people want to feel like there’s an authenticity. I think the days where your record label could just put you on this blind date creatively, a lot of people can kind of smell bullshit and they don’t really connect with it. So for me now, it needs to be a collaboration where we actually are aligned in such a way that leads us to want to not only make a song, but then tell the story of what the song’s about for our fans. It happens when it happens!”
As to how the grandson success story ultimately kickstarted, we trace over a decade back to the moment when grandson first sparked the idea that he may want to pursue life as a musician.
“You know what? It’s funny because the answer might not always be what people expect,” says grandson of the moment that changed the game. “Of course there are bands and alternative artists that once I had committed to making music, I began doing the journey of trying to find my sound and listening. And that’s kind of where I’m at right now, actually, I feel like now that I have some time off, I’m reconnecting with being a fan and I’m just listening to lots of music to find what inspires me and provokes that connection, that call to make something.”
“But as far as the stuff that really got me into it,” grandson continues, “the festival that I point to, I was a college student in Montreal, Canada, and I went to a festival in Montreal in the summer of 2012. I was a young man at this point and I saw a bunch of different artists there. But one of the ones that really connected with me that year were Disclosure, they put on an amazing dance performance. Everyone was just jumping and singing. And Kendrick Lamar was very inspiring for me as a storyteller. And then that night was closed by Mumford & Sons, at the peak of it. You had to be there, Little Lion Man for 60,000 people.”
“And I remember looking around at that anthemic deep, deep call to the wild, that we all were there to be a part of that feeling. I was with friends and family and tripping on acid and I started crying, real human tears. I was so moved by that showing of humanity, and I think that I couldn’t really put the genie back in the bottle after that. That summer of music was really, I think, what made me want to do this.”
Grandson I Love You, I’m Trying Australia + NZ Tour:
Tuesday, January 30 // Powerstation // Auckland 18+
Thursday, February 1 // Princess Theatre // Brisbane Lic AA
Saturday, February 3 // Liberty Hall // Sydney Lic AA
Sunday, February 4 // 170 Russell // Melbourne 18+
