True highs

It’s a fair way from Australia to America, especially when you go via London, but it’s the journey undertaken by brothers Danny and Julian Wilson – musically at least. The fruits of these travels can be heard on their band Grand Drive’s latest album, True Love & High Adventure. Originally released last year on the hip London home to alt country, Loose Records, the album is being given a second lease of life through a new deal with the slightly larger BMG – allowing the band to give up their dual roles of painters and decorators and struggling musicians.

“We weren’t getting paid”, remembers Julian the keyboard playing half of the Australian born vocal and songwriting team, “we were doing jobs and things like that. What it’s basically done is free us up to give it a go full time. We’ve given up the day jobs temporarily! It’s one week at a time but it’s meant that we can really get stuck in. We’ve toured lots, this will be the third time we’ve been to Ireland this year”.

A fact that has not gone unnoticed, for while it’s not unusual for newer bands to pay the odd visit over here, Grand Drive seem to becoming a regular fixture – drawing better audiences each visit. “Part of it is because we’re new this year to Ireland and people don’t have any preconceptions”, thinks Julian. “The other thing is that Ireland has a tradition of good songs, sung well with spirit – no matter whether that tradition goes from the back of the bar to the biggest bands in the country. That’s what we’re about”.

How have they found the touring experience?

“We’ve loved it”, he enthuses. “You’re kind of freed up when you leave your home country, you can be what you want to be. All of a sudden a lot of pressures have gone. The record company aren’t at every gig, it’s not a case of ‘the London show’, it’s a whole new place. Ireland to us is a place where everybody’s very hospitable and we come and we drink till we can’t drink anymore!”

Like many musicians before them, Grand Drive seem to have found a kindred spirit in this country. “It’s not about your allotted 45 minutes, there don’t seem to be curfews. It’s like ‘give us a bloody good night, give us our money’s worth and don’t take the piss and we’ll all have a good time’. That’s the attitude that we’ve thrived on”.

Listening to True Love & High Adventure, it’s perhaps no wonder that the band’s star is in the ascendancy. A gorgeous cocktail of country, soul and quirky Americana, the album has been championed by many critics, a fact that delights Julian but doesn’t necessarily surprise him.

“I don’t think we were surprised because we’re quite harsh critics of ourselves and also massive music fans and students of everything about the industry. We’re classic ’90s kids who grew up with the top ten of this and the top ten of that and we just wanted to make a record that we thought stood up against some great records that we loved. By that we’re not talking about the Stone Roses and after, we’re talking about great records from the ’60s, the ’70s, whatever”.

It’s a record that’s very steeped in musical history.

“Hopefully,” agrees Julian, ”in that respect we think of it as a postmodern record. You couldn’t have made it in the ’70s because there was too much of this and that around. For us, when it was finished we were happy with everything about it so it wasn’t a surprise when other people started liking it”.

One thing that can’t be ignored is the huge influence of American music on Grand Drive – and we’re not talking Limp Bizkit or Nirvana here. Despite their London roots, the band have far more in common with the likes of Mercury Rev and Lambchop than the Coldplays of this world. Sadly, America is one place that the band have yet to visit, as Julian explains:

“The album’s not been released in the States but on a groundswell level, they’re taking to it brilliantly. They’re playing a lot of it on the radio and we keep getting requests on the Internet to go over and play”.

Delve into their past and it soon becomes clear that this musical love affair all stemmed from Mr Wilson Snr.

“Our Dad was never a child of the ’60s, more a child of the ’50s – and the ’60s in Australia was pretty much like the ’50s everywhere else anyway – he had a kind of fascination with that American thing. He saw all the touring American bands like the Beach Boys and the Temptations, he came out of old rock ‘n’ roll, soul and do wop. We heard a lot of that, even when we moved to England his fascination continued. For us it wasn’t so much an obsession with all things American, it was just the music that we heard – it could have been the wallpaper we had. It just sort of seeped it, if you were to look at our taste then that’s what the foundations are”.