Twenty two years ago a bunch of Lismore-based mates formed a raw, rock ‘n’ roll band called Grinspoon. Two years later they released their debut album, Guide To Better Living, a record which went on to achieve double platinum accreditation and was splashed all over the Triple J airwaves. The album also generated five great singles; ‘Pedestrian’, ‘DC×3’, ‘Repeat’, ‘Just Ace’ and ‘Don’t Go Away’ and spent 36 weeks in the ARIA Top 50. Now in 2017, the band has decided to celebrate the 20 year anniversary with a deluxe reissue and expanded red vinyl edition, which is released on June 23rd. Grinspoon have curated a 20th Anniversary Edition of Guide To Better Living, expanding the original 16-track album to a mammoth 49 track feast of rarities, live tracks and unreleased recordings. The album also appears on vinyl for the very first time in the form of a limited edition red vinyl pressing, coupling the original album with a second disc Live At CBGB’s – an incendiary 10-track live recording of the band taken from the fabled CBGB’s venue in New York. In conjunction with the release, they also kick off a national tour playing the songs from the album. The tour also begins on June 23 and runs through until late September. Guitarist Pat Davern took some time away from rehearsals in Brisbane to speak with AM’s Greg Phillips about the album re-issue and tour.
Hi Pat. Do you remember what your life was like before the release of Guide To Better Living?
From pretty much ’95 to ’97 we were on the road the whole time. Its was pretty much just playing in a band. Before that I was at uni and at school. We were pretty young when we put out Guide To Better Living and even younger when we started the band so there wasn’t a huge amount of life in Grinspoon before that.
Which guitarists were you into growing up?
When I was in school I was into psychobilly bands, so I was into The Meteors and The Cramps. Then I got into Sex Pistols. I listened to Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi when I got a little bit older. I studied a bit of music at uni, so listened to guys like Larry Carlton. My roots were really indie rock n roll. I was big Brad Shepherd fan from Hoodoo Gurus too.
The band has developed musically quite a bit since Guide to Better Living. What’s your relationship with those songs now?
I’m enjoying playing them in rehearsals. At the time I may have been a little more indifferent to them to what I am now even. It’s fast and it is fun to play, it’s a real workout. It is a pretty relentless record in a lot of ways. There’s not a lot of room for breathing. There are little bits and pieces like Bad Funk Stripe and Scalped but for the most part, it’s pretty balls to the wall. As we got older we definitely weren’t doing as much stuff like that on later albums but it is fun to do this again. It brings back a lot of memories about writing the songs and playing them at the shitty gigs we used to do before we released that album. It took us a couple of years to write that first album and all the songs were written living in each other’s pockets on the road and supporting other bands. When I look back at the album, I look at the songs in that regard. They were a snap shot of a couple of years of my life when the band was first getting together. It’s nice that everyone likes a bit of nostalgia and that’s what the tour is all about and the re-release of the record … it’s a chance to indulge in nostalgia. It’s definitely going to be a lot of fun and it’s kind of for the fans. I know it is a cliche but if it wasn’t for people buying the album and coming to the shows we wouldn’t be doing this. Our manager came to us a couple of years ago and asked how we felt about doing this tour and everyone was open to it at the time and it seems to have come around really quickly.
Has your method of writing and coming up with riffs changed since then. Have you learned a lot of new tricks over the years?
Yeah I think so. I don’t write a lot of rock ‘n’ roll anymore. In my current life I am writing original music for a film which is a totally different process. The director comes and says I want this mood here, can you create something for that? I guess in that kind of environment you draw on a lot of stuff that you have learned in the way you create a song. Inspiration still finds itself in lots of different guises. You still need to be inspired in some way by something. I don’t think that ever changes, it’s more about the craft and the way you go about piecing those ideas together, it’s the forming of something that develops over time.
Touring an album that is 20 years old, do you have to go back and find gear that you used on the album to get the original sounds?
Well I had my old ‘parts’ Strat that I built and used on the album and tour and I hadn’t looked at that guitar for almost 20 years. It had a Seymour Duncan Invader in it and at some point, I put back the original Strat pick ups in it. I still have the original pickups, the Invader and I took it to Tym’s Guitars and asked him to put that back in it and I have been using that to rehearse with. I am actually going to use one guitar for the whole set, which is something I haven’t done for a long time too, so it’s very authentic. Pedal-wise, I used such a mish-mosh of stuff back then. I didn’t even own an amp. I think I used a Marshall JCM800 combo on the record, possibly with a Big Muff , you know maybe, I never wrote any of that stuff down but I definitely used the guitar that I am using. I also had a Scion head from a Newcastle guy who custom made them, modelled on a Hi Watt Custom 100, similar sounding amps. So I am using an old Sunn head that I have had for a long time. Actually I am using two Sunn heads, one for a clean sound, which I will run through some effects, like a Phase 90, a tremolo and I’ve got a couple of MI audio drive pedals. For my overdrive sound I am using the Sunn just dialed up.
The Guide To Better Living re-release includes some tracks recorded at CBGBs in New York. What memories do you have of that club?
Good and bad. We did some good shows there and we did some bad shows. Luckily the one they’ve released was one of the good ones. Universal Records must have brought a recording truck down or something because I don’t remember recording it. It was always a lot of fun to play there. We played there a bit during the period that we were living in the states. It was rock ‘n’ roll, dirty and dingy, small and the people who worked there were a bit too cool. I remember that Tim Rogers came to one of our shows at CBGBs. He came and saw one of our bad shows, which was a little embarrassing at the time. Mark Lizotte was living there too, there were a lot of Aussies around at the time in New York. We were based out of New York because we were signed to the Agency Group and our record company was there too.
What are some of the more memorable Grinspoon gigs over the years?
Livid 1997 in Brisbane was a big one. It was the first time we felt like we’d had some success. The album had just been released. We played the Loudmouth stage and it was full to capacity and we felt like we’d arrived. The biggest show we ever played was, I think in Wisconsin. It was one of those radio shows that they used to do back in the day. It was us and Cake and Offspring and Motorhead and there must have been over a hundred thousand people there, one of those giant American outdoor rock festivals… actually it was Minneapolis!
What’s the future for Grinspoon after this tour?
We have no plans to be honest with you. I am sure our manager will have something to say after the tour has finished. Everyone is busy doing their own thing. I have my own studio and I’m pumping out a lot of stuff. I’d love to say we have new music on the horizon but at this point we don’t. Who’s to say what will happen in the next couple of years whether you hear new music from Grinspoon or we keep on the nostalgia train. We’re not sure at this stage.
20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition GUIDE TO BETTER LIVING out June 23 + national tour on sale now from www.grinspoon.com.au
