Grinspoon: Music and the price of grapes

27 January 2012

by Olivia Kim

Grinspoon have come a long way since winning the first ever Triple J Unearthed competition back in 1995. From their double-Platinum selling debut debut record Guide To Better Living, through to the ARIA-award-winning Thrills, Kills & Sunday Pills, and 2009’s mature Six To Midnight, they are pretty much synonymous with Australian rock. After a brief hiatus, the Lismore rockers are back on the scene to show us all what 17 years of rock’n’roll looks like. Not that it’s gone to lead singer Phil Jamieson’s head; when he calls me from his home in regional NSW, he’s just got back from Coles where he informs me “prices on grapes are down.”

It’s been relatively quiet in the Grinspoon camp since their 2009 album Six to Midnight, but the band are in no rush to record new material, in fact, they haven’t even started. “We’re taking our time writing it”, Phil explains, “We wanted to make sure we had a reasonable amount of good tunes, because the band has three writers and not one, the process takes a little bit longer...also people know who we are, so it’s not like we need to release an album once a year, which is an advantage rather than a disadvantage.”

It has definitely not disadvantaged them in anyway; anyone who knows anything about Australian music knows about Grinspoon, and it’s a testament to their years of dedication to the music scene that they were added to the Sydney bill of the Big Day Out tour as special guests, a gesture that is both a blessing and a curse, “Yeah I think it’s just really nice to be asked, we haven’t released anything for a while. I’m very honoured to be asked and it’s really nice to be asked to be a part of the BDO festival and thank you to Ken for asking us but I’m missing Kanye and Soundgarden and that kind of sucks as well but in the same breath it’s going to be great to play regardless.”

Phil lists Parkway Drive, Girl Talk and Mariachi El Bronx all on his to see list, and warns, “Of course I want to play but I’m actually going to the BDO so don’t expect me to be in any kind of state to sing because I’m going to be having a really great day.”

What Phil seems most excited for though has to be his gig as official Sydney BDO after party DJ, under the moniker “2manyPJs”, a piss take on the genre bending Belgium duo 2manydjs. When probed on what his set will sound like, Jamieson tells TMN, “I’m thinking about maybe like an American Psycho themed set, which will feature a bit of Huey Lewis, Whitney Houston, and Phil Collins... It’s going to be fucking off the chain. I’m playing for myself, and it’s going to be awesome because it’s hip to be square.”

It’s surprising to see how in touch the frontman is with music today, especially dance music, citing New York electronic dance music duo Ratatat and Scottish electronic musician/producer Mylo all on high rotation of late, especially Mylo’s 2004 album Destroy Rock and Roll, which he states “has aged really well.”

“Sometimes dance music doesn’t age well, but I think it still sounds really fresh, which is rare in dance because dance is always evolving as far as sonically and production-wise goes.” Jay Z and the Rolling Stones also rate highly in Jamieson’s eyes.

When asked for his opinion on the intersection of rock music with dance, the most recent example being Korn and Skrillex teaming up, Jamieson is blunt.

“Whenever I hear about Korn, I try to bury my head as far as possible into a bin of sand, if possible... I don’t know much about Skrillex and I’m showing my ignorance here but Joe [Hansen, bass player] knows a lot more than I do, and maybe Skrillex is amazing but I don’t ever want to have to listen to Korn ever again.” A dubstep remix of Grinspoon tracks in the future is not ruled out. So, 17 years since winning the first ever Triple J Unearthed competition, what’s it like looking back?

“I mean there’s arguments for and against what’s going on with Unearthed all over the net at the moment, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. I think nowadays when people upload their music there’s more of a conscious idea of what it might mean to them, but back when we entered we were just four stoners from Lismore who had really no idea what we were doing and we sent a cassette tape in. It was a long time ago now and really I think nowadays because of Unearthed’s, for want of a better word, brand, it has become something that you and your band would enter consciously, to try and get somewhere in this industry. We really didn’t know the consequences of what it might bring us; we did it kind of naively, for want of a better term.”