Last week when Melbourne trio The Grogans dropped their two new singles Ride and Washed Out, we were immediately hooked on their jangly surf-rock sounds.
So fresh off the release of the new songs, we caught up with the band to chat their new tour, inspirations, and future plans.
Fresh off the release of their two new singles Ride and Washed Out, we caught up with Melbourne band The Grogans for a chat.
HAPPY: Your third EP Grogan Grove dropped earlier this year… could you tell us a bit about the release?
THE GROGANS: We went down to Gus’ grandparents’ house in Ocean Grove and recorded some demos there, then we kinda decided which songs we liked from them, and wrote a couple more. We wanted to get a few songs that we’d been playing live for a while down right, so we bought a few new mics to make this record sound better than our last two. We’re all pretty poor and can’t afford much studio time.
We named the EP Grogan Grove because we did all the recording for it in Ocean Grove. We have also always gone there to hang out, have a skate, surf, and eat heaps of fried chicken, which is what is at the start of Lemon To My Lime, Gus’ car starting up and then the mumbling is us three ordering Vanessa Jenkin burgers from the local chicken shop.
The house we recorded in was built in like the 70s? And it’s a classic sort of beach house which is a bit haunted, but we managed to capture one of the household ghosts on a track – Mangus Mahogany – who featured on Watching You Dance, playing the tambourine. He’s a friendly ghost, but a little bit shy.
HAPPY: Could you tell us a bit about your upcoming tour?
THE GROGANS: The tooz starts in Rye at Baha, which we’ll have mates Foolish Boys and Flimsey Lohan for supports, we’re then driving across to Geelong for the first time and playing with Foolish Boys again as well as Auntie Leo & The Backstabbers.
We then head up to Sydney to play at Unicorn Hotel with Crushed Tinniez supporting. Then back down to Wollongong to play at Frank’s Wild Years with Wavevom, Scab Baby and Crushed Tinniez supporting. We’re super keen to get up the east coast for the first time and meet some mates there.
We then head to North-West Victoria to Mildura for an independent festival there called Regional Warp. Then we end the tour back in Melbourne with an underage show at Record Paradise and the finisher show at The Toff which will be the official launch of Washed Out // Ride.
HAPPY: What are you most looking forward too for the tour?
THE GROGANS: Definitely the tour itself. We’ve all kinda been geographically apart for the last two months with Jordy and Gus both overseas, so it’ll be awesome getting to hang out.
Also, as we said before, the East Coast leg of the tour is something we’re super keen for, there is a really cool scene happening there at the moment and it will be awesome to play with a handful of the bands coming out of it.
HAPPY: What are some bands you’re listening to at the moment and also ones that you take inspiration from?
THE GROGANS: At the moment we’ve been listening to A. Swayse & The Ghosts, a heap of jazzy hip-hop, Spring King, Orb, a German band called Odd Couple and also Surf Trash.
As far as influences go, we like 60s surf rock era a lot all summed up pretty well with the soundtrack from Pulp Fiction as well as heavy fuzzy stuff like Bass Drum Of Death.
HAPPY: Tell us a bit about future plans!
THE GROGANS: Pretty much get this tour done then play a few more shows around the place. We’re also going to plan out another release – maybe even an album? – we have previously just thrown together the songs we like the most onto an EP and then release that, but ideally next release we’ll sit down and write it out as an album. We’re planning on taking our time with it.
Then hopefully a big ol’ tour at the end of the year supporting Justin Timberlake, we’ve sent him a few messages already, he hasn’t replied yet though. He’s brought sexy back and it’s here to stay.
Listen to Washed Out and Ride above.
