Jesse Coulter – Grenadiers ‘No Lights, Pyro, Fuckin’ Stage Props or Gimmicks… Just the Music’
If you haven’t listened to Find Something You Love and Let It Kill You yet—do yourself a favour, listen to it… and let it kill you. A front-to-back mashup of seriously relatable tracks that range from a retro punk sound to hard-hitting rock, this album has all bases covered. I caught up with Jesse Coulter to talk about bringing Grenadiers latest album together and taking that bad boy out on tour.
Taking the title, album artwork and certain recurring themes that I noticed in Find Something You Love and Let It Kill You, I asked Coulter if he was going for some sort of critique on today’s society with it.
“There was no overarching theme to the album when we started writing it but I guess on reflection when it was finished, there was definitely something there. I don’t know exactly what that is, but like, when you listen to the lyrics you can hear a common thread. There’s a lot of references to drinking, there’s a lot of references to death – basically a dissatisfaction with the modus operandi and the status quo and the way that governments and people and social groups operate. The idea that there should be something better than this.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ZMQaOST4E&w=640&h=360]
Talk about things coming together nicely. The first Grenadiers I heard was ‘Factotum’ from their release Summer two years ago. An album vastly different from 2010’s Songs the Devil Taught Us and Find Something You Love and Let It Kill You. I was interested to find out what inspired the bands different sounds.
“If our band were to be categorised as a person, it would be a drunk driver. There is nothing going on in the head of that communal organism. It’s basically just getting behind the wheel drunk and seeing what happens, and if you get caught and something bad happens, then you try and sweep that under the rug and move on with your life, but you know every now and again you fuckin’ drive yourself home and everything is good, and I guess that’s the way we write songs, we just go in blind and see what happens.”
The band can boast a solid amount of variation when it comes to the songs they produce, being often compared to (and drawing some influence from) the likes of Queens of the Stone Age and The Bronx.
“Sometimes that may involve surf riffs, sometimes that may involve more of a hardcore sound or a punk rock sound or an 80’s ballad kind of sound you know, like we don’t really have any preconceived intention about what we actually want to achieve with any particular song, we just do what we do and pick the best results of that approach.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0_YqGAsfzU&w=640&h=360]
Find Something You Love and Let it Kill You is the first album written completely by the current lineup, with a slightly different dynamic to the first two albums.
“Every song came from inception to completion as a 3 piece as opposed to the earlier albums where it was more so me being the songwriter and bringing songs to the band.”
It’s apparent Coulter is excited about taking these songs for a thrash on the road: “I think now that people have had a little bit of time to marinade on the record and let it absorb into their consciousness I think it’ll create some really cool live shows... It’s always good to take your shit on tour and see how it goes down in a live scenario.” The band has such an epic (I fucking hate that word, but unfortunately it’s completely appropriate) sound for a 3-piece, so I asked Coulter if he reckons they can replicate their recorded sound on the stage convincingly. “Yeah I think so, disregarding the odd guitar overdub or something like that, yeah more or less, there’s bits and pieces, like we try and record albums in a way that they can be played live and not sound empty.”
Coulter reluctantly went spiritual.
“While there maybe the odd guitar overdub that doesn’t appear in a live set, I think the energy that we convey live and the—without getting too spiritual—the kind of like cosmic energy, between a band and an audience is enough to make you forget about, you know— unless you’re a total wanker— to make you forget about some guitar overdub that’s not being played live, but yeah our albums are pretty much a fairly accurate representation of us live, just without all the bells and whistles pretty much.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXED7t5uuII&w=640&h=360]
As I’m due to miss the boys when they hit Perth at Mojo’s bar in Fremantle, I asked Coulter what one can expect from a Grenadiers show.
“We don’t have any lights, we don’t have any pyrotechnics, we don’t have any fuckin’ stage props or anything fancy, we don’t have any gimmicks, we don’t dress any different to how we would normally, it’s just the music. We try to just convey the music and that’s all that you can expect I guess.”
“Hopefully that is enough to be a really fuckin’ engaging and fun performance, because that’s all we try to do, we try to just let the music speak for itself and play a fuckin banging show and really engage with the crowd and play loud and play fast and get everyone into that mindset of just, you’re only alive once, and you put your fist in the air you fuckin’, pull your tongue outta’ your mouth, you act like an idiot and it’s your release, and that’s what we like to give people if we can.”
Listen to the album, and go to a show this February. From a band that draws influences from 80’s Aussie Rock to Metal to Jazz, and enjoys a beer as much as you do, you can expect nothing short of brilliance from this undeniably Australian, authentic, rock n’ roll powerhouse called Grenadiers.
Glasses up!
Review by Rory McDonald
Grenadiers - Australian Tour 2018
Thurs February 8 - The Eastern, Ballarat
Fri February 9 - Workers Club, Melbourne
Sat February 10 - The Chippo, Sydney
Sun February 11 - North Gong, Wollongong
Fri February 23 - The Northern, Byron Bay
Sat February 24 - Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane
Fri March 9 - Mojo’s, Fremantle
Sat March 10 - Prince of Wales, Bunbury
Sat March 17 - Crown & Anchor, Adelaide
