GRISWOLD

Although some of you will be in the dark about Griswold, the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed the odd favourable review appearing in our previous issues, and anyone from Belfast can't have failed to notice their high profile poster campaign.

For the uninitiated let me inform you that Griswold are a three piece (Leif- guitar/ vocals, Kes- bass/ vocals, Andrew- drums) who specialise in high octane punk rock n roll, with a positive attitude that says loud music is fun! To date they've released a couple of fine demos and a split 7" with Chicane (now Chi) on Edinburgh's Simpleton label, and contributed to Mark Hamilton from Ash's compilation 'Laugh Hard At The Absurdly Evil' alongside Superchunk and Kenickie. I met up with them for chat after their gig in Belfast's Empire Music Hall. The line-up is now fixed as a trio, with Kes becoming full-time on April 1, 1997 (appropriately enough!). So are they going to stay as a trio?
Andrew: "For the forseeable future. We three bastards have been playing together on and off for such a long time that it would be very difficult to bring a new bastard in. That's the problem we've had before. We can certainly handle it like this in the studio, and live we just have to beef up the guitar a bit more, but some people have actually said we sound fuller as a three piece. It's clearer, there's less clutter going on. The three of us played in a band a few years ago called Chopper, and although it's the same line-up it's a completely different band now."

So how long have you been functioning as Griswold?
Leif: "The name is two years old but the X-Wing compilation CD ('Laugh Hard At The Absurdly Evil') was the earliest recording to be properly released. When we recorded it we thought we were going to be called Hangover, but we were watching National Lampoon's Vacation so we went 'Griswold! Of course!'"

Just as an early aside, which is you favourite of the Vacation movies?
L: "It's a toss-up between the first one ('Vacation') and the Christmas Vacation."
A: "The first one is definitely the best overall, but the sequence in the Christmas film, where Randy Quaid abducts Clark's boss, is a classic."
Kes: "All the sequels becane more and more kid-friendly, but then Griswold are a kid friendly band!"

What are your immediate plans?
A: "Well, Mark from Smile fanzine is planning to start a label called Smile records and we're going to be the first release on that hopefully. It should be a single comprising 'Let's Pretend We're Gay', 'I'll Take Love' (an Elvis cover) and 'Learnin the Hard Way' which was originally on the 'Better' demo."

Are people going to take offence to 'Let's Pretend We're Gay'?
A: "No more than usual! The odd thing is that although we're quite gay friendly, we're totally obsessed with chasing women - chasing women is where it's at! Especially since we rarely get to catch any of them. Anyway the single should be out sometime in the summer depending on funds. I think we just want to get some songs recorded cos this is the best line-up we've had and we want to do something worthwhile with it. We'd like to get some new stuff out in the public eye. We've only really been able to function as a band since the start of '97 so this is just the beginning."

Are you happy to keep on doing singles here and there or are you going to try and get some sort of concrete deal?
A: "We're happy to do whatever we can, we just want to go for it totally."
K: "Ideally it would be nice to get management ad record deals and whatever but obviously that's only the first step, cos if you put out singles with everyone as a one-off things will get out of hand."
L: "If we have good funding we'll just go anywhere though!"
A: "We see Griswold as a long term thing, we really want this to last."
L: "It's a very expensive thing though, and if we had tons and tons of money we'd do ten times as much, and although we do work hard we're limited financially. We would rehearse every single day if we had the money to do it."

What about the samples you've used from films- where do you find them?
A: "The three of us are obsessed with comedy movies. You get a lot of bands taking samples from cult gangster films from the 70s, but we enjoy life and we enjoy laughing - why not sample films that sample that? People like the samples, they really give the songs a lift. We like a lot of John Hughes films, Saturday Night Live, Gene Wilder, classic slapstick comedy. My ultimate hero in the world is Mel Brooks, although we haven't sampled any of his stuff yet. 'The Producers' is my favourite film of all-time, just ahead of 'It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' (Stanley Kramer)."
L: "Mine's probably a choice between 'Good Fellas' and 'St Valentine's Day Massacre', cos I like gangster flicks."
K: "Whereas mine would be 'Bladerunner' or 'Alien' or classic sci-fi!"

So what about comic influences on your music?
L: "I love it!"
A: "We take our band seriously but we also like to laugh at ourselves. We know this is entertainment, and music isn't going to change anything, much as some people would like it to. We want to entertain people, but we're not crying off. We're in this for the long haul and we can take the abuse""
L: "I'm sick to death of watching bands perform where the singer's all dressed up nice in a suit and stuff and he doesn't care about the audience. He puts his foot on the monitor and looks to see if his shoes are clean!"
K: "I think a lot of bands imagine that the public owe them a living. I remember Bono from U2 saying that they had a deal with the public. Their audience gives them millions of pounds and U2 give them fabulous records. I think that's bullshit!"

So what's the best thing about being in Griswold?
L: "The best thing about it at the moment is musical freedom. You see loads of bands from here that try to catch whatever wave comes along, and by the time they catch on to it, it's gone. So it's best to do something that means something to you. It's good because nearly everything we do - including our best ideas - when we come up with them we sit and laugh about it for ages cos it's so funny to us, it's so stupidly gormless.
A: "I like it because I believe that we're different and we offer people something different. I know that sounds cliched but it's true. We're not po-faced in the slightest and we really want to give people a good night out. As well as that I love our songs, so I love playing them!"

Griswold discography
'Just Fuck Off' on compilation CD 'Laugh Hard At The Absurdly Evil' (X-Wing)
'No Habla Espanol'/ 'Batter Up' on split 7" with Chicane (Simpleton)
'Rock-Ola' on compilation CD 'Hit The North' (Immortal)
'Let's Pretend We're Gay'/'I'll Take Love'/'Brand New Barcode'/'Learnin the Hard Way' forthcoming 7" (Smile)

Griswold can be contacted at PO Box 362, Belfast, BT7 1AY or e-mail 106044.2200@compuserve.com

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