Interview - The Griswolds

We were given the opportunity to interview Australian four-piece The Griswolds. Read below to see what we talked about hours before their second sold out show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.

CS: Welcome to Washington D.C.! How are you guys?

Lachlan: Good

Danny: Great, thank you.

Tim: Good

Chris: Good

Danny: Were gonna have to yell.

CS: Am I yelling?

Lachlan: No, no were going to have to yell

CS: They’re sound checking.

Lachlan: Yeah, the band (Walk the Moon). Rude Bastards…How dare they.

CS: I know this is your second night in DC, can you describe your last 24 hours for me?

Chris: Oh, it was great. I mean the show was amazing. Today most of us, well me and Lucky and Dan have always been sleeping.

Lachlan: yeah

Danny: I didn’t get out of bed until 3:30.

Lachlan: This is uh, its been a first sleep in we’ve been able to have for uh two weeks or something like that, so it was good that we could just rest a bit.

CS: So I was looking on your website and saw you just sold out your show in Los Angeles for your headline tour “Excellent Adventure Tour”, what should your fans expect from your tour in June? Anything New?

Chris: We’ll play more songs, I guess.

Danny: A longer sound.

Chris: We might play the whole album. Might have to learn it but…

CS: What about some of your acoustic songs? I know you guys just came out with a new EP.

Chris: We were thinking maybe during the day we could play some acoustic songs for like all ages, kids that missed out on some of the 21+ shows. I think that’ll help.

CS: Last year you guys made it to the lineup for Bonaroo and Firefly, and now this year you guys are on the lineup for Firefly again, which is pretty awesome. Based on first hand experience how do you guys like American music festivals?

Danny: They’re amazing.

Lachlan: Great. Awesome.

Danny: Really, really good.

Lachlan: They’re first a lot bigger than Australian festivals, but I don’t know everyone’s there to have a good time. We’ve had really good expierences at American music festivals.

CS: Any different from music festivals outside the country?

Danny: Yeah, yeah definitely.

Chris: The lineups are pretty big.

Danny: Better lineups, I think they’re orgainized a lot better for their artists, especially Firefly.

Lachlan: Yeah.

Danny: It’s really fun, it’s really close knit with all the artists. So the artists here are very like…everyone facing each other and just one communal area. The lineup for Firefly this year is insane. We don’t get lineups like that at home.

CS: Really?

Danny: No. We get good lineups, but not like that.

CS: Anyone you guys are looking forward to seeing?

Lachlan: Paul McCartney.

Danny: Paul McCartney. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris: The Killers.

Tim: The Killers.

Chris: Foster the People.

Danny: Yeah, everyone.

Tim: Walk the Moon.

Chris: A lot of friends playing the festifval as well, like our friends bands. Should be great.

Danny: Actually speaking of will you pass me my phone? The Young Rising Sons have asked to be in here. Sorry about that.

CS: That’s alright.

CS: Australia to America, that’s quite a trip. What would you say were some turning points that helped in regards to your musical career?

Chris: We just worked our ass off. We kinda came here for the first time and did like a tour and played to no one. That tour allowed us to meet some radio stations and then they started playing our songs, and we threw a better tour next  time and met more radio stations.

Lachlan: Met more friends and bands and stuff. We played one festival we’d befriend another band and then met up some other bands and that’s how you get tours and stuff like that.

Chris: We just toured our ass off basically.

Lachlan: Don’t, don’t stop working. Yeah, don’t do it.

CS: Would you say everything felt like it was happening all at once, or took a while?

Lachlan: No, I mean I guess to someone looking on the outside its happened in a good boat, but its been a lot of hard work and a lot of time, but to say that it’s not like we’ve achieved meets, but we’re on a cool level for that and that’s cool.

Chris: I’d say beware the dog. That was probably the biggest.

CS: Yeah, I used to hear that one a lot on Sirius XM, Alt Nation.

Chris: Yeah.

Lachlan: Yes!

Chris: One of the biggest things that happened.

Lachlan: They’ve been the biggest supporters of us. They’ve been awesome.

CS: So like I said earlier, you guys just released your Acoustic EP on Sunday. Can you tell us a little more about it? What inspired you to make something like this?

Chris: I just made it for fun to be honest. I didn’t really think it would ever get released, but then I shot it to someone from the record label and they were like this is awesome and like maybe we could release this as The Griswolds acoustic EP. I just recorded it in the lounge at my home, just for fun one night.

CS: It's really great. What made you guys cover “Doses and Mimosas” and “Anna Sun”? Just good songs?

Chris: Just two of our favorite songs. Yeah, I mean I love Doses, well we all do and just thought it might be cool and kinda almost funny to have a song that has a real rude chorus about telling everyone to fuckoff and then play a really awesome acoustic would be quite funny. Anna Sun, because were on tour with these guys and honestly made a lot of sense. I think it’s my favorite song, I guess.

CS: Have you guys gotten really close with them over the tour?

Chris: Yeah, too close. Very close. We’ve made a lot of writing, a lot of kissing, a lot of touching.

CS: That sounds like fun.

CS: We have some twitter questions for you guys from some of your fans.

Danny: Oh, cool.

@makiedoodle44: What’s your favorite song on the Be Impressive album?

Chris: Different for everyone.

Danny: Well I know mine.

Chris: Probably 16 years for me.

Lachlan: I like if you wanna stay.

Tim: 16 years.

Danny: Live this nightmare.

Natalie (from Twitter): What’s your favorite city that you’ve visited in the U.S. so far?

Lachlan: I’d say Washington D.C.!

CS: I know a lot of people that would be happy to hear that!

@_SaffySlays_: What inspired you to write Beware the Dog?

Danny: Um...google it.

@sarahvantright: When they were little, what did they want to be when they grew up?

Lachlan: Fireman, I knew it. I was going to be a fireman, and then music started taking up more of my time.

Danny: You could still be one. He’d have to be a very part time fireman.

Lachlan: Yeah, three days on four days off.

Danny: We could light fires for you to put out on the road.

Lachlan: I think I’d be into that.

Danny: That’s awesome. What about you two? *gestures to Tim and Chris* That’s a good question.

Tim: A basketball player for the NBA, but then I found out about my height.

Lachkan: Being 5’6 doesn’t help...

Tim: At about 9 I figured I'm probably not going to get much taller.

Chris: I wanted to be an actor. I love Jim Carrey. I just wanted to be him.

CS: I like The Truman Show, Have you seen that?

Chris: Yeah, I have.

CS: Great movie.

Lachlan: I actually wanted to be a pterodactyl originally and then… didn't work out.

@fallgirl99: Where do you get your inspiration? Like how do you begin to write a song?

Danny: It’s different every time.

Chris: No rules, we just write whatever comes to mind and we actually like adding on a lot of different lyrics and they end up staying. Yeah, we rarely set out to write for a specific reason.

Danny: Yeah.

Lachlan: It could start out, ya know with a little thing on our laptop. It might start out with a drum beat or the guitar riff, or a lyric.

Danny: Or a sound.

Lachlan: Yeah, whatever it might start out as.

Danny: Sometimes you’re just like I want a song that sounds like this, and it becomes something completely different.

We’d like to thank The Griswolds for taking the time out of their day to talk to us. You can find all of their information on their website: wearethegriswolds.com and buy their acoustic EP on iTunes.

Below are a few photos from the show, click the photos for more.