WHAT does the future hold for rock band Grinspoon? Guitarist Pat Davern said they were working on new songs and there was a possibility of a new album of original material.
The Bangalow-based musician admitted the band had “a few” new songs written so far.
“As I sit here in my studio, I am looking at Kristian (Hopes)’s drum kit, he’s been down the past couple of weekends and we’ve been kicking out the jams,” Davern said.
“Phil (Jamieson) is coming down in a couple of weeks time, he’s gonna lay some vocals in a couple of tracks that Kristian and I put together.
Davern said he was keen on producing something really good or nothing at all.
“As I said to the guys, I think that if we are going to do a new album, it has to be as good or better than anything that we have ever done before, or otherwise, what’s the point?
“We’ve had a lot of time to think about new music and I think the time could be soon for us to do something new, so I’m gonna work towards it, but if it’s not better than what we have done before, I see no point in doing it.
“If we can’t do that, then we won’t do it, but if we can, it will be a comeback bigger than Aerosmith’s,” he promised.
Davern said the work they had done so far was looking promising.
“I’ve thrown a lot of stuff out, but the stuff that we’ve kept, I believe could make an album that would be really good,” he said.
“I mean it’s rock’n’roll, so nobody will probably care about it, but it has to be better than anything we’ve done.”
It’s the same hunger for big sounds and great rock’n’roll the Grinspoon from 1997 got fans used to, after the Lismore band won the first ever Triple J Unearthed competition.
They had formed two years earlier, and the win catapulted the band to music stardom.
After seven albums, the band went on hiatus in 2013, re-forming in 2017 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their Guide to Better Living album.
POPULAR: Grinspoon is fronted by Phil Jamieson on vocals and guitar with Pat Davern on guitar, Joe Hansen on bass guitar and Kristian Hopes on drums. Contributed
Now Grinspoon is kicking off the Chemical Hearts Tour in October, which Davern said will be different to 2017 tour.
“It will be very different because the previous tour was The Guide to Better Living from beginning to end, with an encore of other songs, and we could have done a tour of our second album, Easy, in 2020 for the 20th anniversary, but we thought that would just be taking the piss a bit too hard, really,” he said.
“So basically we just packaged up, we’ll just do a retrospective of our entire career.
“We’ll release a vinyl, which will be comprised of our favourite album tracks, our favourite single tracks, and our favourite live audience tracks.
“We’ve never done this kind of retrospective thing before, and the last time we toured like this was in 2012 on the back of Black Rabbits.”
Davern said they hadn’t started rehearsing for the tour, but he promised live the show will be spectacular.
“It’s going to be amazing, without a doubt,” he said.
“As always with Grinspoon, we’ll have the best lighting, the best sound, the most up-to-date special effects and lots of little surprises.”
At The Star Broadbeach, Gold Coast, on Thursday, November 7. 18+. Visit grinspoon.com.au.
