Thrills, Kills And Summer Lovin'

They’re the epitome of Australian rock and roll; the boys from small-town New South Wales who grew up to become one of our nation’s best known, and most loved, rock bands.

After a year of once-a-month gigs, a bunch of corporate shows and supporting other Australian heavyweights (think INXS and Cold Chisel)­, Grinspoon guitarist Pat Davern says the boys are excited to be back on the road for their summer tour. “We’re looking forward to just doing a bunch of gigs and improving over that period of time, improving as a band. We haven’t done an eastern seaboard tour of Australia for a long time and playing places like Forster, Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour will be a lot of fun. It will be summer time, there’ll be a lot of people around and hopefully we can put on a really good show.”

Speaking from his home in picturesque Byron Bay, Davern says playing support for Cold Chisel on the Sunshine Coast was just what the band needed to get amped before packing the van for a trip down the coastline. “The Cold Chisel crowd was very much our kind of crowd. We had a great show at that gig. I think we were a really good warm-up band for them. I mean, the INXS show was good too, I think our styles of music were a little bit too different, but it was still a good show.”

The rock veterans, who formed in 1995 to take out the inaugural Triple J Unearthed competition, have since won the ‘Best Rock Album’ ARIA Award for ‘Thrills, Kills & Sunday Pills’ and had three records named in Triple J’s Hottest 100 Albums of All Time compilation.

Davern says throughout their lengthy career they’ve been lucky to see the music industry change, and stay the same. “Over the time, a few venues have opened, a few venues have closed, but overall the musical landscape is still the same. The way people buy their music and the way people go about listening to their music has obviously changed a great deal, but the live music landscape has pretty much stayed the same, which is a good thing.”

Adapting to the changing landscape has seen Grinspoon cement themselves as mainstayers on the Australian music scene. Though it cost them fans of their early, heavier tunes, the move to a more mainstream sound has kept the Grinspoon name on the tips of tongues for more than a decade. And they wouldn’t change a thing. “We’ve been lucky that we’ve been able to gain new fans along the way, as well as retain some of the older fans, but hopefully we’re still relevant to young people. We’re still playing music, we’re still playing rock and roll, and a lot of our old fans have stuck with us, which is great.”

A conscious rejection of the stereotypical rock star attitude kept the boys’ head buried in their music, even through singer Phil Jamieson’s well-publicised stint in rehab and heated discussions in the recording studio. “We’re probably older and wiser than we were back then, but it’s still a job we enjoy, that much hasn’t changed. If we weren’t enjoying what we’re doing, we probably wouldn’t do it anymore.”

But having a sweet job doesn’t mean there’s no need for sabbaticals. A brief hiatus that saw the birth of drummer Kristian Hopes’ son, a stint in a Singaporean studio and solo shows for frontman Jamieson, a plunge into Canada’s metal scene for bassist Joe Hansen, and Davern’s own European adventure, made for the band’s self-proclaimed “best album yet”, 2009’s ‘Six To Midnight’. A feat the group hope to surpass with their next project.
With no working title and no set release date, Davern says Grinspoon, whose name was taken from a Harvard psychiatrist studying the positive uses of marijuana, are taking their time and just enjoying the process of creation.

“It’s a work in progress at the moment. We’re still in the writing stage; we haven’t started producing or anything like that yet. We’re still coming up with material and it’s coming along well.”

Grinspoon play the Twin Towns Resort Saturday December 31.