| | | |  | Australian punk/grunge/funk band Grinspoon hail from the North Coast of the State of New South Wales, an area noted for attracting an alternate lifestyle community to its rural seaside setting. Guitarist Pat Davern and bassist Joe Hansen met vocalist...
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| Interview | Interview from MTV Australian Video Music Awards 2007 by Simon Finck
Access All Areas.net.au: Now did the kind people at MTV, in this increasingly tight industry, only give you and the boys’ one pass?
Phil: Um…no. We tried to get Pat a pass…well my wife has a pass, but I don’t think anyone wants to talk to her. Well I do.
Access All Areas.net.au: You just presented with Sophie Monk. What was that like?
Phil: Yeah. She wanted to change the script at the last minute, so we did our best at some re-writing.
Access All Areas.net.au: It was for download of the year. Have you ever downloaded anything illegally?
Phil: Of coarse I have. You have to test. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. But I’m slowly learning to pay for my downloads.
Access All Areas.net.au: What have you downloaded illegally?
Phil: Avril Lavigne with Complicated, but I think that’s fair. She made a lot of money of that song.
Access All Areas.net.au: Talking about downloading and that kind of thing, what do you think of downloading bootlegs and that kind of raw stuff?
Phil: Like Youtube style? I think Youtube is kind of what it is and if people want to record you singing out of tune from Splendour In The Grass on their Mobile 3 phones then post it, then there’s not much you can do about it and I think that’s world we live in at the moment. We can’t control it and I’m kinda for it anyway.
Access All Areas.net.au: Do you think it kind of helps you out?
Phil: Um…depends how out of tune your singing is. I don’t know whether it helps or it’s negative, but…yeah I think Youtube’s fun. I like that Dick In A Box by Justin Timberlake. That was really good.
Access All Areas.net.au: Excited bout getting back onto the road with the band?
Phil: I’m a little bit scared. It should be fun going to Broome and Geraldton. (Laughs) No it should be fun. We haven’t done it for a while and the album comes out in July. Hopefully people like it and if they don’t, they wont.
Interview from MTV Australian Video Music Awards 2005 by Marc Mancini
Access All Areas.net.au: At Homebake you played with a rather large quire and at the MTV AVMA’s, dancers, whats next?
Grinspoon: I think they’ve put so much money in to this event that it would be quite a waste not putting it in to an Australian band, Chingy had I think 50 dancers, we had 44 but we tried to get up there. We’re going to have a stampede of white stallions on the tour… it’s going to be awesome. It’s going to be called the Show Pony Express Tour! Come along!
Access All Areas.net.au: Do you ever wonder how we can have an event like the MTV AVMA’s that plays to the rest of the world and actually make it something truly ours?
Grinspoon: That’s a good point! I think MTV has not infiltrated Australia. I don’t think that that many people have cable do they? Or maybe that’s a dirty word to say but I don’t think that they’ve infiltrated us that far but I mean at least it gives the ARIA’s a kick up the arse to be entertaining, don’t you reckon?
Access All Areas.net.au: So do you need overseas artists to make a show?
Grinspoon: No you don’t, no… I mean I remember the ARIA’s a few years ago and think was it Harry Connick Jr or someone that handed Tim Rogers an award and Tim basically slapped him in the face. I don’t think the ARIA’s need that, I think they’ve just got a bit lazy if that’s an allowable word to use. I mean it's all bling tonight, bling is fun. F#*k, the ARIAs should be fun right? We haven’t won an ARIA yet!
Access All Areas.net.au: The Beastie Boys did an interview once and half way through it they said what sort of name is Grinspoon?
Grinspoon: What kind of name is Beastie Boys? [laughs] Well actually it’s a very sill name, Grinspoon, but its just one we have to come up with and unfortunately its stuck so don’t hate us because we’re beautiful! |
| Biography | Australian punk/grunge/funk band Grinspoon hail from the North Coast of the State of New South Wales, an area noted for attracting an alternate lifestyle community to its rural seaside setting. Guitarist Pat Davern and bassist Joe Hansen met vocalist Phil Jamieson and drummer Kris Hopes in 1995 on jam night at the main hotel in Lismore, the major town in the area. They decided to form a band specifically to enter a national competition looking to unearth new music. The contest was the first of its kind being run by the government-funded national youth radio network, Triple J. They won the competition with "Sickfest," the first song the band had ever written. The name Grinspoon comes from pro- marijuana activist Dr. Lester Grinspoon. On the back of their Triple J success Grinspoon began touring and recorded a self financed five track CD "Licker Bottle Cozy" in July 1996. They were then signed to MCA 's Australian subsidiary Grunge, recording another EP before the September 97 release of the band's first album Guide To Better Living, named after a Sunbeam booklet of whitegoods from the 60's. They insisted on recording their album locally in Byron Bay rather than heading for a big city studio. The album reached ..3, spent 26 weeks on the national charts, achieved double platinum status, and generating a number of hit singles. After extensively supporting the American release of Guide To Better Living with live performances, the band re-entered the studios in Sydney with expatriate American producer Jonathan Burnside (Nirvana, Melvins) to record the second album Easy, released in November 1999.
The group's style is variously described as Helmet meets Bush, or going from Helter Skelter type Beatles and Radio Birdman, to Fugazi and Ween. |
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