Forbidden Fruit 2018: The War On Drugs Cover Story

The last time Hot Press spoke to Adam Granduciel, the War On Drugs frontman was fighting his own battles. It was 2014 and, after a decade of more or less blissful obscurity, he and his band were on their way to becoming famous.

Their just released third album, Lost In The Dream, was roaring up the charts, leaving hyperbolic critics in its wake. The introverted Granduciel – that’s him, moping on the record’s cover – was having a difficult time processing what was going on.

He was polite during our chat – sweet even. He was clearly also someone with a weight on his shoulders, as if the gravity had suddenly been turned up.

Four years on, the vibes are entirely different. The War On Drugs are, if anything, even bigger now. Incredibly, the one-time indie band have won a Grammy for Best Rock Album – for last year’s seismic A Deeper Understanding – and are counting down to a Monday headline slot at Forbidden Fruit (“I’ve heard it’s a really gorgeous venue – I want everybody to know that we’re going to bring it”).

Granduciel, it is evident, has sloughed off his slouchy old persona and is no longer shielding his gaze from the spotlight. He’s moved from Philadelphia, where he spent most of his career, to sun-swaddled Los Angeles and is in a relationship with actress Krysten Ritter, aka small screen superhero Jessica Jones. Life is pretty sweet.

“When Lost In The Dream started to get popular I decided I needed to embrace it,” says the 39-year-old. “There was a moment I had to make a choice – was I going to let everyone around me down or was I going to own it and try to be better at leading this band?”

He will admit that for a while there seemed a serious danger he might not pull through. Shortly before recording Lost In The Dream, Granduciel was struck down with excruciating panic attacks and chronic insomnia (inspiring the hit ‘Red Eyes’). He feared he might be losing his mind. His bandmates were of the same opinion.

“Whatever has been said, whatever will be said, and whatever becomes the mythology of the record is insufficient,” the War On Drugs’ bassist told an interviewer in 2014, explaining that, in a two-week period Granduciel had given up alcohol and coffee, become a vegetarian, broken up with his girlfriend, and was more or less living off juice “from a juicer he bought in an informercial – it was like Howard Hughes.”

“It was pretty crazy to witness. We as a band went from worrying about the record to worrying about the person.”

“Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and I pull the blinds and I get that feeling I still can’t shake,” Granduciel said around the same time. “Today is just going to be another long, shitty fucking day, and hopefully tomorrow will be better.”

Strangest of all was the fact that this pain should fuel what was, in its way, the feelgood record of the year. Lost In The Dream’s oeuvre was classic American rock ’n roll – horizon-spanning, roof-down FM pop that processed the best of Springsteen, Tom Petty and Bob Seger.

He achieved much the same feat on A Deeper Understanding – an album that evokes headlight-strobed highways, 4am diners and limitless expanses. What was remarkable in both instances is that Granduciel achieved something thrillingly resonant without stumbling into pastiche. He isn’t aping the ghosts of classic rock past, so much as recontextualising them and interrogating the response they provoked.

“If I tried to figure out what people like about our music I’d probably just ruin it,” he says. “I have a responsibility each time I make a record to follow my heart and make a record that is a reflection of the music I’m into.”

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As a kid in a small town 20 miles south of Boston, he was never a particularly huge fan of the bands to which he is most often compared. Of course their music was in the air, like a vapour, and he soaked it up. He has a healthy open-mindedness about influences – and isn’t troubled that few of his would pass for fashionable.

“Everybody wants to be compared to the Cocteau Twins or Echo & The Bunnymen or Sonic Youth,” says Granduciel. “Those elements [the Springsteen/Petty influences] aren’t the foremost thing on the records. But I understand where the comparisons come from.

“I also think that a lot of the fans feel they know all the members of the band – which is maybe where we get compared to say, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. It’s a band people can connect with – not just six anonymous faces.”

Success has forced him to become more serious about what it is he does. “The venues we’re playing now – it varies, but for the most part, it’s what I would consider a shitload of people. The operation has got bigger, the budgets are higher, the amount it costs to put on a show has increased. At some point, I’ve had to take control of it.

“When you start having to employ a lot of people – it’s too much to ask that it’s like one big family, but you have to make sure everybody enjoys each other’s company. If something is going on that is taking away from that, it spreads, so you have to make sure you put together a great team.”

Classic rock from an indie group who came up alongside outsiders such as Kurt Vile (who was a very briefly a member of War On Drugs) isn’t where the contradictions end with Granduciel. He’s a quietly spoken, live-and-let-live sort who nonetheless found himself sucked into a bizarre feud with Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon.

The row kicked off in 2014 when Kozelek objected to what he felt was the bleed over of music from the War On Drugs to his stage at Hopscotch Music Festival. The volatile Kozelek derided the group as purveyors of “beer commercial lead guitar shit” – and, as if anyone was missing the subtext, released a song titled ‘War On Drugs Suck My Cock’.

“What the fuck, dude,” was Granduciel’s response after it had been suggested that Kozelek and he mend their differences by recording together (a plan Kozelek had rudely riposted after some back and forths). “Get over your fucking self.”

As the War On Drugs continued their rise, the “beef” – which was really mostly on Kozelek’s side – dwindled into irrelevance. It certainly wasn’t on Granduciel’s mind when War On Drugs won their Grammy in February and he and the band celebrated the good news while on tour in New Zealand. “It is what it is,” says the singer of the accolade. “I never sat around thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be super-amazing for our career to win a Grammy.’ I wasn’t surprised that we won. I wouldn’t have been surprised had we not won. It’s cool because it brings new people to our music. We’ve been around for a while, so I don’t feel like we ever have to be anything to anybody ever. We got rewarded for being ourselves. At the end of the day that’s all you can ask for.”

The War On Drugs headline Forbidden Fruit's Monday night on the Main Stage.