STACK November 2016 Issue 145

70 / 128

The Griswolds’ High Times For
Low Lives refuses to conform
to any particular genre, and that’s
exactly what the group were
gunning for. “There wasn’t really
anything we were trying to do,
genre-wise,” says frontman Chris
Whitehall. “We wanted to steer clear
from this second release just being
Be Impressive Volume 2. We wanted
to be creative and to be influenced
by anything and everything. There
are songs on there that sound like
old school funk, and R’n’B, and even
hip hop. Then there’s [lead single]
Out Of My Head, which is still an
anthem rock song at heart.”
One of our top picks is You Don’t
Love Me – turns out it’s about Chris
pining after an elusive tryst. “All of
these songs are telling little stories
from the last few years of my life,
and my relationship status at that
point,” he says. “On You Don’t Love
Me, I’d just met this
fantastic woman and I
fell in love with her after
a one night stand,” he
laughs, “which is a pretty
rare thing. She didn’t want
a bar of it – there I was
trying to take her out for
dinner and see her more
and being needy, and she
wasn’t having any of it. Not
interested.” The record was
brought together with the
help of Andrew Dawson,
a producer who’s worked with
the likes of Kanye and Gambino.
According to Chris, he’s always
been someone The Griswolds have
wanted on board. “Every time we
make an album, we make a shortlist
of the people we want to work with.
Us being huge fans of Kanye’s stuff,
we had [Dawson] on our list. He
heard all our demos and came back
to us: ‘I need this album – I have to
have it. I don’t want to just mix it, I
want to produce the whole thing.’”
They were stunned – for the band,
it was like working with royalty. “It
was kind of scary as well. We’re
pretty touchy with that kind of stuff
because we usually do a lot of the
production ourselves. But it ended
up being the right move – we got
into the studio and it was a dream
come true. He was so open to ideas
– even the craziest idea could be
experimented on. I guess he had
a trial by fire working with Kanye –
apparently he’s one of the hardest
people to work with.”
Chris was listening to a bit of
everything to draw inspiration for
new tracks: “Prince and Michael
Jackson are all over the album. Tame
Impala’s Currents is my favourite
album on the planet at the moment.
The Weeknd... Marvin Gaye...
Kendrick’s To Pimp A Butterfly . All
those influences were just seeping
into us subconsciously, and it all
came out in the album.”
visit
70 NOVEMBER 2016
MUSIC NEWS
continued
Q1/ There are numerous cross-overs between
other bands amongst your members. Does material
ever drift sideways?
Yeah for sure; it happens occasionally. On this album,
Precious Hands started life as a jam I brought in when we
were rehearsing up songs with Saskwatch to record for
Sorry I Let It Come Between Us . The fortunate thing for
me, with our friends who are singers (Ella, Jarrad, Nkechi
to name a few), is that they're exceptionally talented and
have unique voices which give the songs such character,
so even if it was a Saskwatch or Dorsal Fins song
originally, they bring their own thing to it and push it in
another direction.
Q2/ The rhythms are so integral to these tracks –
they’re impossibly jangly, like Primal Scream. Do
you ever start with beats and build from there, the
hip hop way?
Yeah, that's how we do it with the Fins. I'll write the
music first and send it to Jarrad or Ella (or a guest like Tim
Karmouche, Nick Vorrath, or Tim Nelson and Cub Sport, on
this album) and they'll come up with the melody and lyrics.
THE GRISWOLDS
LIAM McGORRY
DORSAL FINS
INTERVIEW
FACTOID: The Griswolds are named for the fictional family in the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation, whose patriarch is played by Chevy Chase.
Words Alesha Kolbe
Then we jam it with the band. We love a lot of funk, disco,
beats and of course Primal Scream. Music that really lifts
you up.
Q3/ The end of When It All Comes Down To Love
has an epic Arcade Fire feel to it, with just enough
noise to feel completely free. Is it possible to layer
too much, so that everything gets murky – kind of
like how if you mix all the paints together it comes
out brown?
Of course. I feel like recording with Dorsal Fins is really
about throwing everything at the wall, seeing what sticks
and then peeling back eight or nine layers, because we got
really carried away. It's a really tough balance not to have
it turn out 'brown', but I think we're getting better at it.
Q4/ The album sounds like you have had more time
to distil exactly what you wanted from each track
Digital Zodiac by
Dorsal Fins is out now
via Remote Control.
High Times
For Low
Lives by The
Griswolds is
out November
11 via Chugg
Music/MGM.
(compared to Mind Renovation) –
was there a careful effort to allot
brain power to each stage of the
process?
Yeah, that's exactly right. Mind
Renovation is perhaps a bit more
chaotic a record, and people have
said to me that each song sounds like
a completely different band. I guess
going in to this record, we wanted to
get the feeling of a journey (as I think
we did with Mind Renovation), but to
make sure that the band sounded a
bit more like Dorsal Fins and not 10
different bands. We also wanted it
to reflect the live band a bit more in
terms of instrumentation, which has
been great.
Q5/ Your album cover shot is at Parliament station.
What does it mean to you, other than being a good
Melbourne meeting place?
I think to me, Marcelle's [Bradbeer, photographer]
shot was really apt for the cover, in that the name Digital
Zodiac is referring to movement, searching, travel and
finding your way. I feel like where we're at now, compared
to where we were a year ago (releasing Mind Renovation
and starting out as a band) is a world away, and we're still
travelling and learning together. It's great.
INTERVIEW