The Griswolds are at a turning point. They are a fun band that wants to make “fun, happy party music” that you can sing along with, but now they have an added pressure of living up to both a label and producer that have continuously delivered in their work. Following their breakout EP, Heart Of A Lion, they are headed to the studio this month with Tony Hoffer, who has produced albums for M83, Phoenix, Foster the People, The Kooks, Fitz and the Tantrums and Beck, among others, and are now under Wind-Up Records’ label.
Hailing from Sydney, Australia, the five-piece dance-pop group is made up of Christopher Whitehall, Daniel Duque-Perez, Chris Riley, Lachlan West and Tim John. They had all previously played in different bands throughout Sydney, some metal and some even goth punk. But they felt “trapped” in those groups, so they decided to do something new.
“We initially decided to make a band that would be fun and free,” said Whitehall. “Dan and I started hanging around and drinking and writing songs. We eventually had enough songs to start playing live, so we told our closest friends that we should start a band together and that it would be a lot more fun than the previous bands we had been in.”
After a few drinks (Whitehall said tequila played a role) they wrote their first hit “Mississippi,” which set the tone for the Griswold’s sound. They self-produced their debut four-track EP in Australia during the fall of 2012 and dropped it this past September in the U.S. The result was an upbeat, summery collection of pop tunes, including the danceable “Heart of A Lion,” that eventually gained them recognition from Wind-Up.
The label asked them who they would like to produce their album, and the band went with their favorite, Tony Hoffer.
“He happened to like us as well,” Whitehall said. “So we started ‘dating.’ Now the ‘courting’ process has begun. We wanted his brand, his sounds. Some of the albums he’s done are our favorite albums. He told us he likes the live energy we put on stage. So when we record, he wants us all there jamming out and writing the songs together. He’s a really hands-on guy. He actually learns all of our songs on guitar, so he knows what the deal is with them.”
They said what they like most about Hoffer is that he is a “musician-producer rather than an engineer-producer,” and they believe he is the right person to “bring it all together as a cohesive piece.”
A lot has changed for the band since putting out their debut album in terms of their influences. This time around, they are listening to a lot of M83, Drake and Kanye West as well as “keeping in touch with the top albums that came out in 2013.”
They are also working from a different mindset than when they were back home in Sydney. “Back in the day, we were just writing kind of without knowing where we were going and what was going to happen," Whitehall said. "Now we have a label backing which gives us some pressure, so we’ve gotten a bit more serious with it. We feel like we have to live up to the high standard of most of Wind-Up’s records breaking big and most of Tony’s records breaking big. The theme that’s coming through is what we are experiencing now, five Australians living in New York. That theme of being a little bit out of our depth and displaced is coming right through on the album. Which is great because it’s real.”
Throughout this past fall, the band was in New York City writing songs non-stop in a studio in Times Square and in their apartment in Midtown. “We kind of had two writing teams, and we would bring our ideas together at the end of the day. It’s been very collaborative,” Whitehall said. “It’s everyone’s flavor, and it works out well for some reason, and that’s just the Griswold sound.”
Now that they are stateside, they are excited to be in a bigger market. “What we used to think was the end all be all in Sydney of trying to make it on the radio station or book a certain venue or festival, we now realize that it doesn’t mean sh*t. So it’s good to come here and be small.”
But despite having a more serious mindset, the boys aren’t through with having a good time. They recently put out a hilariously fun music video for their single “The Courtship of Summer Preasley” which features a male Lana Del Rey impersonator, puppets making out, people eating cereal out of each others’ mouths and other ridiculous clips. “We just kind of brainstormed a bunch of crazy stuff and figured out how it would work in a video,” Whitehall explained. “In the end, I don’t think we thought about trying. It was great. It’s just a metaphor for life, haha.”
After they wrap up in the studio, they plan to tour extensively and hit a few festivals starting around March or April throughout North America. And their live show is really where they excel. At their show in December at Brooklyn Bowl, which happened to take place during a snowstorm, they were still able to draw a good-sized crowd and get them all dancing — their music was the perfect concoction of summer for a winter’s night.
Look out for the Griswolds on tour, and check out their debut EP while you await the first full-length, which they hope to drop this summer.
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