People make music for different reasons. Some just need to pay the bills, to keep the dials turning every month. Some need the thrill of the crowd, the dopamine buzz that comes from playing your own music in front of an audience.
Jason Lytle, though, simply needs to create. It's not a choice, it's simply an urge – it's something that pushes him forward during the bright times, and acts as vital solace during the dark times.
Recently, there's been a few more of the latter, than the former. Grandaddy – the band he formed, and led – dissipated in 2006, leading the songwriter to move location from Modesto, California to Montana. Two rich, enjoyable, and enduring solo albums followed, before his marriage ended and he was left firmly, finally alone.
Music, though, remained. “I mean, it was the only thing that I had to live for,” he says simply. “It was the only thing that was giving me purpose every single morning. It really got to that point where I needed a purpose.”
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A short burst of Grandaddy re-union shows reminded the songwriter of the intense bond that existed between these musicians, as well as the love fans retained for the band. A spark was ignited, and he plunged head-first into the first new Grandaddy album in a decade.
“It gave me extra incentive to make sure that everything is done right,” he says. “I was making sure every song was the way it needed to be. And that's tough. Even just in general! And plus, this is all kind of new to me. I mean, it's new in terms of having to talk about it, but it's pretty fresh… the whole process.”
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It does come like little lightning flashes and you just have to be ready – anytime, anywhere.
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Working predominantly at a home studio in Portland, Oregon, Jason spent his days sketching out material that illuminated the darkest passages of his life. Yet amidst this rubble he found love, solace, and no small degree of humour – black, maybe, but it's certainly there. Surprisingly, the carefully structured end products emerge from a chaotic, and often quite staggered creative process.
“I always have to be at the ready,” he explains. “Probably one of my most useful tools, and probably one of the best songwriting inventions of the past ten years, is the little recorder on my phone. Because I've had so many instances where I'll suddenly get a melody, or a lyrical idea. And I still get a lot. I always keep a pen and paper in my left pocket – always, always.”
“It does come like little lightning flashes and you just have to be ready – anytime, anywhere. There was definitely a lot of that going on. Which can be even more maddening because sometimes you're like: let it be done! But you've got to wait this shit out.”
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Despite Grandaddy being in essence a group project, the majority of the studio recordings are done alone. Expanding and contracting over the years, Jason Lytle's studio set up is firmly in line with the style of songwriting he envisages. “It's varied from $3000 mixing consoles to two inch tape machines,” he says. “Racks and racks of dedicating my whole house to Studio A and Studio B. I've built some amazing ones over the years, but I'm slowly downsizing… although I still have some incarnation or another version of a studio in my house.”
“The majority of this was done in Portland, and one of the things that I'm pretty adamant about is tracking drums to real tape. A nice big warm analogue tape. There was a room in town where I would track all the drums to, and I would pretty much transfer it to my computer, and then take it home and do the overdubs in my own space.”
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In an ideal world I'm going to become the wizard behind the curtain…
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Out now, Grandaddy's new album 'Last Place' is a delight. Sonically, it seems to fill the gaps between 'Sophtware Slump' and 'Sumday', it both recalls the finer moments of the band's catalogue and suggests that new gems, new possibilities are at large. The album was released on 30th Century Records – a label run by Danger Mouse – and the super-producer's continual encouragement was a steadying force during its undoubtedly emotional formation.
“I don't hang out with musician people,” Jason reflects. “I have more friends on the technical side of things – engineers, mixers, producers. I'm really fascinated with that whole part of it. I'm not so fascinated by the egos, and the debauchery… I don't even really go to shows that often. I love the creative, artistic end of things. In an ideal world I'm going to become the wizard behind the curtain.”
“I'm not a huge fan of all the stupid shit that goes along with the music business. And I really respect that about him, too. He's such a hard worker, and he gets so immersed in his projects. So to have somebody who's such a fan on nerd level – like he is – still consider me this valid force in whatever it is that I do was a big shot in the arm, for sure.”
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Asked if there was something inherently different about the material on 'Last Place', he sighs and take a deep breath. “I don't know,” he admits. “I mean, I'd gone through a really, really difficult, tumultuous end of a very long-term relationship. Someone who was very close to me. And I was just kind of holding on for dear life, y'know. I kind of needed this outlet. A lot of it, I was just trying to survive.”
“It seems like putting all this rock 'n' roll strategy stuff… that was kind of taking a back-seat to just: I'm just trying to stay alive here, and maybe make some good work… And if we're all lucky we can come out of this at the other end with some really heartfelt emotional stuff happening here, and it's going to have enough familiar elements that people have come to know as Grandaddy.”
Presenting the finished product – so pained, and so personal – to the other members of Grandaddy was a tough moment, as he freely admits. “I was actually kind of nervous,” he says. “I was just really hoping that they would like what they heard.”
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A lot of it, I was just trying to survive.
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“I've never gone out of my way to make music that I thought they weren't going to like. My end goal was always to make myself happy with what I'm working on, but I also really wanted them to like the material as well and get behind it. I think for the most part I did alright over the years… towards the end it got a little weird. I'm just hoping it goes alright this time.”
'Alright' is perhaps an under-statement. Live shows have been revelatory, with Grandaddy ably fusing their wonderful new record with that studded back catalogue, each night seeming to provide a wave of fan emotion for the band to make their own.
“It's kind of hard to… I try to act like I'm not affected by it, but it's undeniable,” he admits. “I think I've found myself having more fun at these well-aged versions of Grandaddy shows just because there's so much love. At the risk of sounding hippy-dippy you really feel the love… it's crazy.”
“It's a magical thing,” he reflects. “I have to say that I went and saw E.L.O. at Los Angeles… it was one of their warm up shows and I'm a huge, huge, huge fan. We were so close to the stage, and the sound was so great, that I spent the whole show just singing at the top of my lungs, jumping up and down… and I was singing so hard that my face actually hurt the next morning. And I don't think I've ever had an experience like that at a show before.”
“And it was kind of cool for me to experience that because I get it now. Like, I had to go there to grasp when people say how great a time they had at a Grandaddy show. Now it's like: I get it… I get it!”
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'Last Place' is out now. Catch Grandaddy at the following shows:
March
28 Manchester Albert Hall
29 Nottingham Rock City
31 Bristol Colston Hall
April
1 Brighton Concorde 2
3 London Roundhouse
5 Brussels, Belgium AB Hall