“I’d never seen him before,” he says, enthusiastically. “He approaches things like James Brown, he wants people to leave satisfied and exhausted. He even does that thing towards the end where he pretends to faint and people come over and squeeze a sponge on his face, and he gets back up like he’s a boxer. It was incredibly inspiring.”
One spin of Granduciel’s latest full-length, 2011’s near sublime Slave Ambient, would shed some light on the high he’s currently riding. Vibrant, textured and rolling, Slave Ambient takes long drives into the dark with no hope of being found.
The album echoes much of Springsteen’s lifelong aesthetic, and Granduciel is quick to count The Boss as a huge influence. He mentions that he’s giving the interview while sitting in his van outside his home; coincidentally enough, Springsteen has often stated that this is his favourite place to listen to records, particularly demos of his own material. Granduciel quickly agrees, and elaborates as to how simply being in automobiles influenced the rolling vibe of Slave Ambient.
“I’d agree with Bruce, I’d say the best place to hear music is in the van, with my band. Though when I was working on Slave Ambient, in West Philadelphia, I had a bunch of odd jobs. I’d be driving around a bunch of these old, beat-up cars as part of a job. But they still had great stereos, and that’s where I’d listen to everything I was working on after 2008.
“I could put on 15 different mixes of the same song,” he continues. “And no one’s going to tell me which one they favoured or anything like that. I can sing along to the parts I want to, find the right notes. When I work at home, which I do a lot, I would go out in the car for a long drive after and try to get focus. Or when it came to lyrics, I could improvise over demos, maybe 50 or 60 times and really figure it out.”
Slave Ambient was a massive undertaking for Granduciel, a record which stayed with his conscience for the three years after his debut, Wagonwheel Blues. As our conversation continues, it becomes clear that his Granduciel prides himself on his work ethic. The results speak for themselves; Slave Ambient grows with each listen from simple, gradual hooks into a layered wall of sound that’s as engulfing as his landscape-sized poetry. And while Slave Ambient topped many a year-end “Best Of” list, Granduciel admits the whole process was a bit exhausting at times.
“It was exhausting but incredibly enjoyable at the same time. I probably felt exhausted most of the time then, but never too overwhelmed. I’d never go too far into a song that I couldn’t get back out. I’d try to take a step back and let the song come to me. There was a lot of recording, so it was a very busy time, but I didn’t actually finish a lot of stuff. I’d get some ideas down, then there’d be a tour for a month. And it’d go like that for a few years: touring, writing, touring, writing.”
Money troubles soon mounted for Granduciel and his output began to slow. Ever the perfectionist, he wasn’t about to turn in a sub-par product. It took the insistence of a friend to push Granduciel to allow Slave Ambient to finally see the light of day.
“Jeff Zeigler, a very good friend of mine, he just said, ‘Let’s just finish this record.’ It wouldn’t have happened without Jeff, because I got so worried about re-recording and getting them perfect.”
The humble Granduciel is quick to note that he might not harness the most efficient method of songwriting. Yet Slave Ambient also ended up revealing much about his own process.
“I’ve never been the kind of guy who can just sit down and write a song on a guitar in five minutes,” he admits. “I had to discover my own process.”
While his casual demeanour may fool at first, make no mistake: with Adam Granduciel and The War On Drugs, everything is calculated. He notes there’s an element of spontaneity to their live set, but like Springsteen utilising a hungry crowd to bring him back to life with every performance, Granduciel is always one step ahead.
Constantly manipulating the world around him into his dense sonic output, Granduciel takes cues from The Boss and the legends of Americana before him, including Bob Dylan. The War On Drugs may have drawn comparisons to these two giants, but Granduciel isn’t about to just take the compliments in stride.
“Like anything you love, you have an intense relationship with it, that probably only you understand. Those songs and records, Dylan for one, he was always looking for combination of things. Harmonica, organ, guitar, that sort of thing. He was thinking about how it was going to be presented.” For Adam Granduciel, being critical is all part of the process.
“It’s about figuring out the different combinations of instrumentation. What’re the different ways I can combine the different feelings, and that’s what I take away the most from those guys. I think about them when I’m choosing what to write about.”
BY JOSHUA KLOKE
