| Grandaddy | |
|---|---|
Jason Lytle, frontman of Grandaddy, live in London in 1998. |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Modesto, California, United States |
| Genres | Space rock[1][2] Indie rock |
| Years active | 1992–2006 |
| Labels | Big Jesus, Will, Big Cat, V2 |
| Past members | |
| Jason Lytle Kevin Garcia Jim Fairchild Tim Dryden Aaron Burtch |
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Grandaddy was an American indie rock band, formed in 1992 in Modesto, California by singer, guitarist, and keyboardist Jason Lytle, bassist Kevin Garcia, and drummer Aaron Burtch. Guitarist Jim Fairchild and keyboardist Tim Dryden later joined the band in 1995.[3] After several self-released records and cassettes the band signed to Will Records in the US and later the V2 subsidiary Big Cat Records in the UK, going on to sign an exclusive deal with V2. The band released several albums before splitting in 2006, with band members going on to solo careers and other projects. The bulk of the band's recorded output was the work of Lytle, who worked primarily in home studios.
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Grandaddy was formed in 1992 by singer, guitarist, and keyboardist Jason Lytle, bassist Kevin Garcia, and drummer Aaron Burtch, initially influenced by US punk bands such as Suicidal Tendencies and Bad Brains.[4] Lytle was a former professional skateboarder, who had turned to music after a knee injury forced him to stop, working at a sewage treatment works to fund the purchase of equipment, and several of the band's early live performances were at skateboarding competitions.[5][6] The band members constructed a studio at the Lytle family home, and the band's first release was the self-produced cassette Complex Party Come Along Theories in April 1994.[7][8] Singles "Could This Be Love" and "Taster" followed later that year.[7] In 1995, guitarist Jim Fairchild (another ex-pro-skater who had guested with the band before) and keyboardist Tim Dryden joined the band.[3][5] A second cassette, Don't Sock the Tryer was withdrawn, with the band instead releasing debut mini-album A Pretty Mess by This One Band in April 1996 on the Seattle-based Will label.[7] In 1997 they released their debut full-length album Under the Western Freeway, and with the help of Howe Gelb, signed a UK deal with Big Cat Records (by then a subsidiary of V2), who reissued the album the following year.[6][7] The album included the single "A.M. 180", which was featured during a sequence in the 2002 British film 28 Days Later, and is also used as the theme tune for the BBC Four series Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, and for an advertisement for Colin Murray's BBC Radio 1 show. "A.M. 180" was also used in television commercials for the Dodge Journey automobile. One of the album's singles, "Summer Here Kids" was awarded 'Single of the Week' by the NME.[9] "Summer Here Kids" is also used as the theme music for another Charlie Brooker-fronted show, BBC Radio 4's So Wrong It's Right. The album led to an increase in the band's popularity in Europe, and a main stage performance at the Reading Festival in 1998,[10] although it was only a success in the US when later reissued by V2.[5] With the band busy touring in 1999, their next release was the compilation The Broken Down Comforter Collection.[8]
Unhappy with the efforts of Will Records, the band signed a worldwide deal with Richard Branson's V2 Records in 1999, their first release on the label the Signal to Snow Ratio EP in September that year.[6] In May 2000, they released their second album, The Sophtware Slump, to critical acclaim,[11] with popular British music magazine NME later placing it number 34 in their Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade list, and The Independent describing it as "easily the equal of OK Computer".[8][12] The album reached number 36 on the UK Albums Chart,[7] and the band's fanbase increased, including celebrities such as David Bowie, Kate Moss, and Liv Tyler.[5] By early 2001 the album had sold 80,000 copies worldwide.[5] "The Crystal Lake", although not a hit when released as the first single from the album, gave the band their first UK top 40 single when reissued in 2001.[7]
Around the time that The Sophtware Slump was released, Grandaddy was invited to open for Elliott Smith on his tour for Figure 8.[5] On some nights, Smith would join Grandaddy onstage and sing lead vocals on portions of "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot".[13] The band later opened for Coldplay on their US tour in Summer 2001.[14][15] Also in 2001, the band's version of The Beatles' "Revolution" was used in the film I Am Sam.[16]
Their third album, Sumday, recorded in Lytle's home studio, was released in 2003. The band promoted it with a pre-release US tour with Pete Yorn followed by a three week European tour (including a performance at the Glastonbury Festival) and a larger US tour.[4] Lytle described the album as "Grandaddy influenced by Grandaddy...the ultimate Grandaddy record".[4]
Starting in late 2005, the Grandaddy song "Nature Anthem" could be heard in a Honda Civic Hybrid television commercial,[17] and was later used in a Coca Cola commercial.[18]
In 2004 and 2005 Lytle recorded what would be the last Grandaddy album, Just Like the Fambly Cat, although by the time of its release the band had decided to split up.[19] The title is a reference to Lytle's desire to leave Modesto, a town which he complained "sucks out people's souls".[19] The album was largely the work of Lytle, who created the album over a year and ahalf in his home studio in Modesto, fuelled by alcohol, painkillers and recreational drugs, with only Burtch from the remainder of the band playing on it.[20] It was preceded by the band's final release while together, the Excerpts From the Diary of Todd Zilla EP.[19]
In January 2006, after a meeting the previous month, Lytle announced that the band had decided to split up, citing the lack of financial income from being in the group as a reason.[21] Just Like the Fambly Cat was released later that year as a farewell album. Lytle spoke to the NME:
It was inevitable...On one hand our stubbornness has paid off, but on the other hand refusing to buy into the way things are traditionally supposed to be done has made things worse for us... The realistic part is it hasn't proved to be a huge money-making venture for a lot of guys in the band."
Lytle had called the meeting in a hotel in Modesto, the first time the band had been in a room together for two years.[6] The feeling at the meeting was described by Lytle as the result of a breakdown in communication among the band members.[21] According to Lytle the decision was not a surprise:
"Everybody knew, but we needed to make it formal, we needed to make it official. We needed to pay some respects to what we've done, just make it real."[6]
Lytle also stated that he was "burnt out on touring" and cited his fears over his drug and alcohol problems as a factor in the band's split, and in 2009 he expressed his preference for being solo, saying that he was "a bit of a loner", and referring to his former bandmates, stated: "The main thing is not having four girlfriends to lug around with me all the time."[22][23][24]
The band did not tour after the release of Just Like the Fambly Cat,[25] though Lytle continued to make music, embarking on a couple of small solo tours,[26] and working with M Ward on Hold Time.[22] He has moved from Modesto to Montana.[9] Lytle has since released a solo album (Yours Truly, the Commuter) in 2009 and in late 2009 formed the band Admiral Radley with former Grandaddy drummer Aaron Burch.[27]
In April 2007 Jim Fairchild put out his first solo record on Dangerbird Records, entitled Ten Readings of a Warning, under the name All Smiles. He currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. He released the second All Smiles album entitled Oh For the Getting and Not Letting Go, on June 30, 2009. Fairchild has also played for the bands Giant Sand, Great Northern, Lackthereof, and Modest Mouse.[28] Fairchild began playing guitar for Modest Mouse in 2004;[29] He continued playing with Modest Mouse again in 2009. In 2010 he was selected to lead a project at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.[30]
Burtch has been in a band called The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit.[31] Burtch and Lytle, along with Earlimart's Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray, have since formed a new band called Admiral Radley. Their debut album was released in the USA on July 13, 2010 via Espinoza's label The Ship.[32]
Much of the band's music is characterized by Lytle's analog synthesizer and the fuzzy guitar, bass and drums of the rest of the band.[33] The band has variously been described as "bittersweet indie space rock",[1] "neo-psychedelic, blissed-out indie rock",[34] "dreamy, spacey psychedelic pop",[35][36] and "an uneasy combination of warm, tactile guitars and affectless electronics".[37] Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the band's songs as "stately anthems orchestrated with full late-psychedelic pomp: fuzz-toned guitar strumming, rippling keyboards brawny drumbeats".[38]
While the band have sometimes been described as 'alt country', in Lytle's view it is the sentiment of country music that the band embraced rather than the musical style.[33] In their early days, the band's lo-fi sound was compared to Pavement.[39][10] The band has also been compared to Radiohead (even described as "the next Radiohead" in 2001), The Flaming Lips, and Elliot Smith.[5][40][41][42] With Sumday, the band were compared to the Electric Light Orchestra and the Alan Parsons Project.[8][34]
Lytle has cited both The Beatles and E.L.O. as influences, stating in 2003 "I'm completely in tune with E.L.O. and Jeff Lynne - I know that guy like the back of my hand."[43] He stated in 2009: "I think the majority of my musical influences were set in stone when I was five or six years old."[22]
Lytle's vocals have drawn comparisons with Neil Young.[10][14][33]
Common lyrical themes include technology and a resistance to change. Adrien Begrand, writing for PopMatters described the lyrics on The Sophtware Slump as "one's attempt to transcend the glut of technology in today's urban lifestyle, in search of something more real, more natural, more pastoral".[34] Ben Sisario of The New York Times stated that the band "provided the soundtrack to dot-com-era alienation, singing in a cracked yet still innocent voice of life spent staring into a computer screen".[37] Ross Raihala, reviewing Sumday for SPIN, identified what he called Lytle's "geeky identification with technology".[44] On The Sophtware Slump, CMJ writer Richard A. Martin commented on Lytle's "sympathy for the lost souls and machines of the high-tech dot-com landscape".[5] Lytle described his empathy with machines in 2003, stating "I find it easier dealing with certain things by living through inanimate objects" and how the song "I'm on Standby" is about Lytle relating to a mobile phone: "I was spending so much time learning the art of turning off, while still being 'on'".[43]
Lytle said of the tracks on Excerpts From the Diary of Todd Zilla: "For some reason, they are tied together by the idea of being fed up with your environment."[19] He stated in 2001: "I have a growing appreciation for that which is simple and natural. I get that from the outdoors, and seeing the accumulation of clutter and waste and not being too happy about it."[5]
There is also much humor in Lytle's songwriting, including the band's promotional Christmas single released in 2000, "Alan Parsons in a Winter Wonderland", which was also included on the charity compilation It's a Cool Cool Christmas, described by Allmusic's Tim DiGravina as possibly "the funniest song from 2000".[45]
The band's releases were generally recorded and mixed in makeshift studios based in homes, garages, and warehouses, although the last two albums were mixed in a dedicated facility.[46] Although live performances used a full band, much of the recordings were done by Lytle alone using analog recorders and Pro Tools.[46] He recorded basic drum tracks in a soundproofed room and overdubbed cymbals and tom toms.[46] He recorded his vocals close to the strings of a piano for what he described as a "ghostly effect".[46]
Lytle described how the Grandaddy recordings became more of a solo effort and the right conditions for recording:
Earlier on I tried to include people as much as possible. Then I realised the magic is me really prying stuff out of my head and getting it on to tape, and that stuff doesn't happen unless I'm completely alone. Sometimes it's about the right amount of blood sugar, just slightly hungover. And I'm really affected by the weather. If it's too nice outside it's insane for me, the concept of being inside. Everybody talks about this whole technology versus nature thing and if it's anything that is it: look who my best friends are, a bunch of plastic and circuitry and electricity, when I should be running around getting chased by bumblebees.[6]
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