GRINSPOON are mid-‘90s seasoned rock‘n’roll veterans who are still kicking. Starting off at humble beginnings at a collaborative night in Lismore in northern NSW, the band has travelled upwards and onwards to become one of Australia’s most classic original rock bands.
Comprised of Pat Davern (guitar), Joe Hansen (bass guitar), Kristian Hopes (drums) and Phil Jamieson (vocals, guitar), the indie quartet has stuck through thick and thin, since forming in 1995. Hansen muses of the first time the band got together, “Pat and I had a jam night at the Gollan Hotel where all sorts of musicians came down and had a play. Phil and Kris came down one night, had a beer and then met up again. The rest is history.”
Going through several different musical style changes, hiatuses and dealing with media coverage of Jamieson’s drug addiction and personal problems, Hansen admits that Grinspoon has been inevitably “dynamic and ever changing. For example, when we first formed, Phil was still very young – he was only 17 and he was a little brat. He didn’t know how to make toast or operate a washing machine. He was the precocious talent in the band. It took a while for him to settle down. These days he is a bit older and more calmed down and so is the band. There are also less tensions in the band.”
Hansen laughs about the times when “Phil and I had so many fights, we even had a fight on stage. If you spend too much time together, in each other’s pockets, you don’t appreciate each other.” But now, Hansen says, because all the members of the band live in different cities, “our time apart makes our time together better. We’re very close, professionally and personally – it’s like I’m married to three other blokes.”
Having been nominated for 13 ARIA awards, winning one and selling close to 500,000 albums, Grinspoon has had the opportunity to tour all over the world with many different bands. The most memorable, Hansen mentions, has been KISS, describing the experience as “hilarious.” Because the band was “on their own level – they had thousands of people backstage to help with the pyrotechnics and lighting. When we went to visit them it was like visiting royalty.”
Their new album, Six to Midnight, which peaked at number six in the ARIA chart, is reminiscent of their original post-grunge sound. Singles such as Dogs and Summer are a veer away from the style of New Detention, which brought the indie-pop and commercially sounding single Chemical Heart into the limelight. Instead, Six to Midnight hails back to the faster and grittier style of Guide to Better Living, Hansen says. “The new album is all songs that we could nail live and it harps back to our early stuff. The most challenging thing was bringing it down to 15 tracks that we all could agree on.”
Grinspoon are touring their new album Six to Midnight on Thursday 18 March at 8pm at the Hellenic Club in Phillip. Tickets through Oztix or Ticketek.
