“I just finished up a new record yesterday,” he states nonchalantly, and though one might presume the prospect of finishing a record and being on a plane to Australia a couple of moths later to be a tiring thought, Granduciel is enthused. “I started making it (the record) last September and spent more than a year on it – and then it was like ‘do you want to go back to Falls (Festival)?’ and I thought fuck yeah!”
It’s hard to tell if Granduciel is wired or just always this enthusiastic, he is extremely forthcoming and excitable about every line of inquiry, even when quizzed about the state of relations with former member and accomplished solo artist Kurt Vile. Though the split was amicable, and the two remain friends, some in the media still like to perpetuate the idea of a spiteful split or a dramatic departure on Vile’s behalf. Granduciel admits it’s frustrating, especially because he finds the truth, that of two driven friends and songwriters going their own way to lead their own bands and fully realise their vision, far more interesting.
“People are like ‘he left the band’, but it was never even like that. We bonded over his music when we met, and the first two years I was writing and recording a lot, but when we met we starting honing in on his music and I joined his band real early. Then he started playing on my recordings as a favor to me because I was playing on his stuff so much. His solo thing was really inspiring and he was a good guy to inspire you to do your thing – when people are like he ‘left the band’ – it cheapens it.”
It wasn’t as if Granduciel wasn’t capable of great things without Vile either. The War on Drugs’ second, long gestating album Slave Ambient was a critics favourite; offering a Springsteen inspired, hypnotic and rambling journey that had the sonic effects of a dream combined with the locomotive drive of Granduciel’s songwriting. “That last record I was chasing a sound. I’d do fifty remixes of a song, or kept tracking a song because I didn’t even know what I was doing. I wasn’t sure what I was chasing, I was chasing an idea.” The approach on the upcoming album is a little different Granduciel claims; “this time I did a lot of chasing but I was chasing a song, I thought, ‘I have a song I’ve already recorded it, it sounds amazing, what is it I’m trying to bring out of it?’ I did a lot more searching within the song.”
Though questions about a bands name are a little clichéd, I have to ask about it, mainly because hearing the name The War on Drugs makes you (or at least made me) think ‘that’s a band I want to listen to’, maybe because it can be interpreted as either playful or political. “I heard the phrase ‘The War on Drugs’,” recalls Granduciel, “and I was like, that’s the fucking name of the band. You gotta wanna have your drugs in your rock n roll band name. And then I kind of thought it could be anything, you know?” Plus, it has the potential to be shortened… “I’m trying to have it catch on where people are like “let’s go see the Drugs!” or “have you heard the new Drugs album?” Having a band that’s called The Drugs without that actually being your name would be the best ever,” he adds chuckling.
BY GARRY WESTMORE
