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Last Updated:
Mar 19th, 2008 - 07:43:02 |
Open Hearts and Fashion Disasters:
New Grenada
New Grenada are down to earth.
Dave
Melkonian (drums): “People get so worked up by the whole becoming
popular thing. We’re all getting a little older, quite frankly it
doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t understand why there’s always this
discomfort, why people just can’t be normal — when you show up at a
venue, someone throws up their whatever: ‘How’s your band doing? My
band’s doing great!’ We just scratch our heads sometimes … I just wanna
have a normal conversation: Do you have a life outside playing shows? A
job? A home?”
New Grenada are sensible.
John Nelson
(guitar/vocals): “We’re one of a million band pages on Myspace; how
many of those million are you ever gonna hear of? What’s gonna matter
10-15 years from now? You’re going to have a lot of memories of fun
things you did, but the bottom line is: what did you record? Are these
songs any good? That’s the main thing, not just how many friends you
can get on Myspace.”
New Grenada are easy going.
Nicole
Allie (bass/vocals): (looking down at what could either be chicken,
tofu or mutated eggplant in her yogurt taco): “I don’t care, I’ll eat
it, whatever it is.”
New Grenada are a trio, a rock trio that,
consistently for on six years now, have been wielding acerbic,
energetic British-style punk rock mixed with a discordant kind of pop
inspired by the American underground of the early ‘90s. Catchy, maybe
even sugary, but with a good amount of volatility and grit, John
approaches his songs often with his own kind of philosophical
reflection, much like a singer/songwriter-storyteller.
John
formed the band with then-girlfriend-now-wife Nicole after the demise
of his previous band, Cloud Car, and steadily collaborated with
art-school-comrade Shawn Knight (now of Child Bite) as New Grenada
germinated over the early ‘00s. After a revolving door of drummers they
found the amiable and even-keel Dave (of Ten Words For Snow.) After
three LPs, three Eps, a number of (mostly) unintentionally disastrous
shows, a good amount of college radio play and a brief springtime
sabbatical, they’re back — and not only to perform, but to soon record.
But about those unintentional disasters, (John: “…t hings
getting broken and people getting hurt … there’s probably half-a-dozen
venues that will never have us back …”) as Nicole and John agreeably
admit, it may be a curse — these lighthearted, worldly rockers are
exceedingly good-natured and friendly — but for some reason they’ve had
some considerable “Brian Jonestown Massacre-esque on-stage meltdown
moments” (“without the drugs,” as Dave puts it) throughout their
existence.
Recalling one on-stage skirmish, John’s guitar
got broken, Shawn’s brand knew keyboard was destroyed — torpedoed by
John’s guitar — after which Shawn jumped into the rafters, thereby
breaking a microphone and John apologized to the crowd by insulting his
own band which put Nicole on the brink of leaving …
After a
pause, John says, “It was probably very entertaining to watch. I’ve
gone into every show with a positive attitude … for whatever reason,
we’re cursed.”
Gloss over their sound and you come away with
prematurely labeled bubble-gum punk, (“We get that a lot,” Nicole
shakes her head) but invest in it just a second longer and you hear a
worldly wisdom and a poeticism in their hook-filled antics, shredded
chords and turbulent rhythms.
“We could be doing some trendy dance-punk thing,” John jokingly suggests.
“It’s what’s hip with the kids these days …” I goad.
With
warm but exasperated smile, John replies “Who even knows? You just have
to play what you feel, whatever sounds good to you. If it’s not
fashionable, who cares?” | RDW
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