Live music: The good Grace to revive 'the song'
A DESIRE to bring realness into music once more, and move away from the spiky guitar riffs of recent indie music, has brought Grace together.
A DESIRE to bring realness into music once more, and move away from the spiky guitar riffs of recent indie music, has brought Grace together.Now the five-piece who are already signed to EMI on their own imprint Gracious Records, are coming to The Met Lounge, in Bridge Street, tonight, to try to win over a new set of fans.
The Guide spoke to frontman JP Jones about their new album and new mission to bring "the song" back to the charts.
He said: "Songs are the key, they are the only reason we are doing this as a band.
"We want to bring the power back into pop, with bigger-sounding guitars and songs that make you feel something, that come from emotion rather than follow some art-niche type."
The band took its name from one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the last 15 years, the doomed Jeff Buckley, who drowned in the Mississippi with only one classic album to his name – Grace.
JP, short for John Paul, added: "It is in honour of that album and also an ex-girlfriend of mine – actually it wasn't even a girlfriend, more a one-night thing, but I don't want to say any more than that!"
The band's first single, Stand Still, was named as one of The Sunday Times' Top 40 songs of 2006, and was played by BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe and Jo Whiley.
Grace is now preparing to unleash their second single from their forthcoming album, Detours.
Wonderful is set to hit the shelves on Monday, March 5. When JP spoke to The Guide, the band had just finished recording the video.
He said: "The director has done it on a shoestring budget, he organised it in five days and shot it with non-stop flashing lights. It was a big, heavy performance and good fun."
Backing up the single release and the video is the band's second national tour of, as JP described it, "the toilet route".
He said: "It's really good fun. In London we have got a really big following from where we live in Shepherd's Bush. We have never really ventured out of London. We are still finding our feet and introducing ourselves to the rest of the country. We seem to be going down quite well.
"We were always a gigging band rather than a touring band. We did lots of gigs around London and in south Wales, where I am from. We love being in the studio writing songs just as much as we love being on stage."
The songs come from the band's own trio of writers, JP, keyboard player Sam Swallow and drummer Chris Hutchings.
JP said: "We have never been the kind of band that will jam – we are not a riff-based band, we are definitely more song-based.
"I always say it is impossible to write a song unless you are genuinely feeling it at the time. If you're not actually feeling anything, it always sounds forced."
That feeling sometimes comes from the worst crises and losses you can experience
JP said: "Both Chris and I lost our fathers last year when we were making the record. It was a really awful year for us. We each wrote songs and recorded them as
B-sides, but those three songs are now going on the album.
"It is a way of getting frustration and anger out. With any bad thing, the best thing is to talk about it. If you can sing about it and scream on stage, it is the best way of filtering your frustration and anger out there.
"The best performance is an honest performance. The best songwriters have written and
performed completely from their heart – people like Jeff Buckley, David Bowie, Regina Spector, Bloc Party, Bob Dylan and Prince."
JP and bassist Ben Lumsden were old school friends, who formed the band Morocco while JP was at art college and Ben was at Cambridge studying music with keyboard player Sam.
JP said: "We were really bad back then. At the first gig we did in Camden, Sam played drums on his Casio keyboard. We didn't know that wasn't cool at the time!"
Drummer Chris joined them not long after that, and the band finally became Grace with the addition of guitarist James Hayto two years ago.
JP said: "We had made a demo with the keyboard player from Jamiroquai and put out 1,000 copies of it, selling it at gigs."
Their lawyer got a copy of the demo and hawked it around several labels, starting a bit of a labels' feeding frenzy.
JP said: "We never did this to get signed to a massive label and throw it down people's throats. We want to build our fan base the right way and the real way, and give the music some longevity. We want to be doing this forever."
Grace played at The Met Lounge, in Bridge Street, with support from Clocks and Jacobi.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Peterborough
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: North east
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.