Buffalo solo

Grant Lee Phillips is relaxed. In just over two hours, the affable Californian and his touring band will hit the stage of Vicar St. like a whirlwind, whipping everybody present up into a frenzy through a combination of his inspired and inspiring tunes and his infectious personality. For now, however, he’s taking it very easy: “At this time of the day, I am conserving all of my energy: trying to speak slowly, walk slowly, knowing that I am due to explode in an hour or two.”

And explode he does, putting on a rapturously received show that left the entire audience sporting ear-to-ear grins afterwards. The last time Grant left a Dublin crowd as ecstatic, he was lead singer in cult American three-piece Grant Lee Buffalo. I wondered how different it felt for him to return as a solo artist rather than part of a band?

“The most notable difference for me is that there is a whole lot of freedom that comes with doing this on my own that might not have been there when I was trying it as a group,” he muses.

“But there is accountability too. I notice that when I set foot in a place like Dublin, I have a renewed appreciation for the place,” he continues. “I feel that for the first time, I am taking it all in. In the past, it was like we were on this treadmill and it all went past us very quickly. When that happens, you tend to expect that the carousel is going to come back around and that it is just going to keep spinning: but that is the last thing you really want, certainly, if you’re to be creative. The difference today is that I feel more spontaneous, that I can shift gears and stop on a dime, depending on how I’m feeling about my work.”

Despite the somewhat acrimonious end to the GLB days [Grant and bassist/producer Paul Kimble had something of a falling out], he doesn’t look back on them with bitterness or regret.

“I haven’t remained in close contact with either of the members of Grant Lee Buffalo but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think about them now and then. By no means do I harbour any resentment there,” he frowns. “It’s just that it’s all in the past. We had a lot of good times, we saw a lot of the world together and we got to accomplish a lot of mutual goals, so I look on those things as a lot of little victories along the way, rather than focusing on our falling out.”

What about the fact that despite the amount of critical acclaim GLB enjoyed, they never crossed over into mainstream commercial success?

“I’ve never really felt bitter about my place in the very insignificant history of pop music,” he laughs. “I just do what I do. It is a great coup that I have managed to exist as I have, because I don’t go out of my way to provide something that is meant to be spoonfed to your average Joe, whoever he is. I have been fortunate that a few folks salt-and-peppered around the globe have taken notice of what I do and that means that I can come to a place like Dublin or Lawrence, Kansas, and there’s going to be a few folks that welcome me. They might not pick me up at the airport but a few of them come to the show, and that means a lot. I don’t feel dissatisfied or embittered by any means, just because I’m not knocking young Britney off the charts.”

Grant’s first solo album, the sparse, acoustic Ladies’ Love Oracle, (“you have the melody and the words but it’s not decorated with a lot of bells and whistles”) was released very quietly, almost surreptitiously, over the internet: “I felt that it was the kind of record that was so personal and so genuine that it really ought to be carried forth in some manner that was just as covert and outsider as the songs’ perspective was.”

His latest offering, Mobilize, on the other hand, has seen the singer take a sizable step back into the limelight. Obviously, he felt the time was right to re-announce himself to the world at large?

“With Mobilize, I was aware that I had written a body of songs that could benefit quite well from the muscle and profile that a small but intelligent record label could offer me,” he answers honestly. Stateside, Rounder Records were the lucky recipients, while on this side of the Atlantic, he has licensed Mobilize to Cooking Vinyl.

Mobilize has, to these ears, left behind a lot of what could be considered the trademark Grant Lee sound, from ‘Fuzzy’ to ‘Truly, Truly’.

“There are certain tones, certain strains that are consistent from the first Grant Lee Buffalo album to the final album,” he admits. “I guess I saw this album as an opportunity to welcome some new influences, some things that were welling up inside of me that didn’t have a home within that palate of what Grant Lee Buffalo was. But at the end of the day, it is still coming from my heart, and it is still my voice, my songs. The only difference is that maybe I played a keyboard rather than a pump organ.”

A lot of Grant’s songs, stretching throughout his career, question life, his place in it, and the attitude of everyone around him. Apathy and lack of compassion have been common threads from ‘America Snoring’ on Fuzzy through to ‘Humankind’ on the new album. Post September 11th, these songs seem to have taken on an added poignancy, a new resonance. Does it feel somehow different to play them now?

“It feels like everything you have to offer at this time as an artist is all the more emotionally charged,” he says after a pause. “The songs on Mobilize were written a good year or so before the album was recorded, and the album was recorded eight to nine months before September 11th. But especially with this album, there is a kind of resonance with this moment. I tend to believe that is a product of working very unconsciously and tapping into issues that are personal and universal. If that means speaking of compassion and emotional issues then so be it. That’s the best place for me to enter into any kind of writing.”

While some of the songs are very angry, these are counterbalanced by extreme moments of tenderness. How does he reconcile the rage of ‘Humankind’ with the fragility of ‘Like A Lover’?

“I’m not sure that I made a real attempt to reconcile seemingly contradictary states of mind,” he ponders. “It is something I have noted about this album: it seems to contain opposing views. There are songs in which I am seeking solitude and songs that are filled with rage. I like the idea that you can throw all of that on one album because that forms a better snapshot of any one of us. I’ve yet to meet anyone who exists in one particular state. I think we’re all capable of a multitude of feelings, especially when it comes to our deepest relationships: with our wives, our lovers, those people that matter so much to us. These are people who can drive us to such states of insanity, and yet they can make us feel as though we are walking on water. That, to me, seemed to be a very attractive thing to try to express.”

This apparent dichotomy is perhaps best portrayed in ‘Humankind’ (which you can see Grant performing exclusively at hotpress.com): “We are forever wrestling with these very big issues of morality, in terms of the death penalty, the wars we fight, and how we choose to be charitable with our energies. All of it is very grey and so I am dealing with a state of confusion. Perhaps I always will be.

“To me, that is what this life is all about. It’s about trying to break through as much as you can, trying to aim for some sort of clarity. Apparently it is a very long ride. It’s a good one though.”