Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with the music they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, The Grogans’ lead vocalist and guitarist Quin Grunden raises a glass to The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Revelation (2014).
Melbourne garage pop and rootsy blues rockers The Grogans just released their third album, Which Way Is Out, via local indie label, Cousin Will Records. Which Way Is Out follows The Grogans’ 2019 debut, Just What You Want, and 2020’s Day / To / Day. The new record includes the singles ‘Inside My Mind’, ‘Be Your Man’ and ‘Just A Kid’.
The Grogans’ Love Letter to The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Quin Grunden: It is always a cool concept picking a favourite album as a collective because we love such a wide and diverse catalogue of music. So, for this, rather than picking a nostalgic classic from the Stones, AC/DC or Donny Hathaway, we wanted to share our love for an album we find timeless in the modern day.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre have been occupying our minds for some time now, but in particular their album Revelation. This album finds its way into anything we do individually and as a band, I think because it is super melancholy and doesn’t fit a specific mood or genre.
A lot of the tracks merge a droning rock’n’roll thing with roomy drums, acoustic guitar and delay-saturated vocals, which ticks all of the boxes for us. Towards the end of this album, they even start exploring electronic and experimental elements.
One of the stand-out tracks is ‘Food For Clouds’. You will get lost in this track but only for good reasons. The melodies are beautiful and complex, but delivered in such a simple way. At one time there are at least three individual melodies coexisting around each other, fusing to create this giant wall of bliss.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre – ‘Food For Clouds’
I feel like we really fell in love with this album after watching a doco about them called Dig! – seeing the pure chaos that they were as a band and their ability to pump out multiple albums a year with no intentions of ever stopping. The band also never looked for mainstream fame but instead wanted to constantly evolve their sound.
After watching the doco, we couldn’t stop diving deeper and deeper into their records. Revelation summed it up for us, did it all, and created inspiration whilst also leaving us with an album we can take with us anywhere, anytime.
The Grogans – ‘Inside My Mind’
- The Grogans’ Which Way Is Out is available now via Cousin Will Records.
Further Reading
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