Anyone who saw Grandaddy s recent gig in the Mean Fiddler will know just what a beautiful anomaly the band are. A five-piece from Modesto, California with a shared interest in Neil Young s vocal technique, the Beach Boys harmonic structures and the Pixies sonic bum rush.
And, er, ZZ Top beards . . .
Jim Grandaddy, though, is clean-shaven and proud of it.
The three old guys in the band have beards, he states. I think it s because they feel that they ve got better things to do with that minutes of their morning than shaving! Aaron and Jason (Lyttle, singer and songwriter) have had theirs for about five years. I feel like I have to hold out! I can t do it.
There are those who would argue, with good reason, that it doesn t matter how much facial hair you have when you can make the kind of sumptuous, hyper-melodic, out there kind of music that is Grandaddy s debut album, Under The Western Freeway.
With songtitles like Collective Dreamwish Of Upperclass Elegance , not to mention forthcoming single, the spaced and spacious Everything Beautiful Is Far Away , one would be forgiven for thinking that Grandaddy summon their muse while sitting in a desert tripping on LSD. True or false?
Well, actually, none of us are really too into drugs, confesses Jim. We all like our booze a lot. Kevin and Aaron smoke weed but that s about the extent of our drug intake. Other than that, we re sort of big beer drinkers . . . kind of boring, I know. But yeah, we do like to be outside. We try and escape up to the mountains as often as possible.
The place where we recorded the album was about 60 miles from our home town of Modesto. We rented a house on the cheap and a chunk of land and we made a skateboard ramp and a garden. We have a really, really good dog it s Jason s and he lived up there too. We would spend our days skateboarding, hiking and recording. It was really
inspirational.
What of those song titles?
A lot of the time it s just stuff that comes up in conversation but also it s to do with daydreaming and just letting your mind wander.
Also, it turns out that Modesto s not even near the desert. Just shows ya.
Modesto is right in the central valley of California smack bang in the middle which is one of the richest agricultural regions in the entire world. But culturally it s bit of a wasteland. There s no university, no good record stores . . . it s an isolated place. But it s about an hour and a half from San Francisco.
What s the music scene like in Modesto? Or is there even one to speak of?
There s other bands that are pretty good but I don t know if any of them are doing the same thing we do. There s a couple of bands in particular that are doing some pretty neat things. One s called Fibre and the other s Built Like Alaska.

prog rock element

While their image may be positively Mansonian (Charles, not Marilyn), there s no question that the family tree of Grandaddy s music is made from the same bark as Brian Wilson s Californian dreamers.
I know it s a cliche to say it, but the Pet Sounds record is something that we all listen to and was really inspirational, avers Jim, unapologetically. That s something that we strive for not that we ve achieved it but we re after that same spirit, that same density of sound. It s that idea that you could return to a record and no matter how many times you ve already listened to it, you could still pick up some new things.
For a while there, we were playing a sort of drunken, you could say hallucinogenic version of Fun, Fun, Fun live.
Neil Young the balladeer as opposed to Neil Young the feedback terrorist is another obvious point of reference.
We get that comparison a lot because of the natural range where Jason s voice lies. But I know that early on, when Jason was writing songs, he was listening to a lot of Neil Young so I won t deny it.
There s also a lot of quirky effects woven into the album not unlike OK Computer (though I should point out that Under The Western Freeway was recorded before Radiohead s magnum opus was released). Has there always been a prog rock element to Grandaddy s music?
I know that Jason, growing up, listened to a lot of ELO and was very influenced by their recording technique. If you consider ELO to be a prog rock band, then maybe it s a valid comparison. But I m not sure if they fit into that category.
Calling occupants of interplanetary, multi-generic songwriting craft: Grandaddy will see you now. n
Under The Western Freeway is out now on Big Cat/V2 Records.