Review Fix chats with Jared Grabb from Among Thieves, who discusses the band’s new album, “Among Thieves,†as well as his origin in music and goals for the future.
Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?
Jared Grabb: I took piano lessons for a few years as a kid, but it wasn’t until Weezer’s ‘Blue Album’ came out in 1994 that I understood music as a thing that could deeply connect with a person. I was a freshman in high school at that time. An older friend would bring me along to local DIY shows in town. We both loved the energy of the punk and indie rock performances happening in American Legion and VFW Halls. My friend bought an electric guitar and wanted to start a rock band. That put me on bass and kicked me into gear.
I started writing my own songs and leading my own rock bands around the time that I graduated from high school. By the end of college, I was booking tours and self-releasing albums. Planes Mistaken for Stars was a touring band that originated in my hometown, and they were great role models on how to just face your fears and get out into the world. They threw us on shows and put in a good word with folks when we needed it.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Grabb: Things need to start with something that I haven’t done before. That can be a lyrical topic. ‘Among Thieves’ is all set in the lives of historical figures from my hometown. I used their stories to talk about how I feel about the place where I originated and the culture of the world around me.
At other times, the “newness†can come from writing on an instrument or in a tuning that is less familiar to me. I have used banjo, mandolin, 12-string guitar, accordion, piano, and slide tunings all in this way.
When I was younger, writing was all about repetition. I didn’t have a good way to document what I was writing, so everything had been performed a million times before entering a studio.
These days, I do a lot of recording simple ideas to voice memos on my phone. When I need to put together a record, I’ll go through these recordings until something jumps out at me. Doing this usually gives me the distance from the original thought that allows me to meet the song halfway rather than force it along. This process can also mean that I take years to finish a song.
Since ‘Among Thieves’ is a full band record, we also did some live jamming to build up the bones of some of the songs. I’ve been performing with Chris Anderson (bass) for around a decade and with Thomas Satterfield (drums) for nearly two decades. I have a lot of trust in what they bring to a song.
Review Fix: What inspires you?
Grabb: Inspiration can come from anywhere. Personally, I tend to gravitate toward the ugly, dissonant, and awkward.
A reference to Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ shows up in a song I wrote after watching a friend’s mother pass away from Lou Gehrig’s disease. In another song, I name drop fellow singer-songwriter, Andrew Bryant, whose work I love. This was written after considering the way that rappers like Jay-Z can be so efficient with endorsements within their work. One track from our new album was written with the idea of combining the feel of the ugly, sneering, dissonant track “Daughters Spelled Wrong†by the noise group Daughters with the jolly, sing-a-long sound of traditional Irish drinking songs.
As with most songwriters, my experiences with love have filled up many of my creative works. However, I identify with the late American folk singer Fred Hellerman’s words at Woody Guthrie’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2000 when he spoke of hearing ‘Talking Union’ and ‘Dust Bowl Ballads.’ Hellerman stated that these records made him realize that “there’s a whole world out there which can be and needs to be and deserves to be sung about.â€
Review Fix: What does music mean to you?
Grabb: Music is a blessing and a curse. Upon college graduation, music became my whole world. All I wanted to do was tour, write, and record. I had no idea how difficult that life was really going to be. As such, there have been multiple points where I have pushed back: quitting bands, getting office jobs, and settling into romantic relationships.
When I started touring, I told myself that 25 years old was the peak time to make a music career. If I hadn’t made a serious living from music by my late 20s, I was going to give it up and make a life in the straight world. Now in my late 30s, I know that music is something I can never put down. It is my life’s work. It is my timeline. It is my conversation with the world.
Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?
Grabb: In the past, I have described our music as a punk and indie rock interpretation of roots music. For ‘Among Thieves,’ it’s pretty easy to just say it’s a rock record: 2 guitars, bass, and drums.
Some artists that I think had some pretty direct influence on this album would include Bruce Springsteen, The Thermals, The Rolling Stones, John Moreland, and as I mentioned earlier, Weezer and Planes Mistaken for Stars.
Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?
Grabb: Well, right now, the main difference is that our studio work exists and our live shows don’t! Hahahahahaha…
But, seriously, our live energy is a little more raw and a little more punk. On the album we worked to give things more of a vocal-centric vibe and thickened things with a lot of acoustic guitars. Live and in person, it’s just a rock and roll good time.
I, Jared, often tour solo acoustic as well, so there is a good chance that I will be doing a solo tour supporting this album come 2021.
Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?
Grabb: ‘Among Thieves’ is a history-themed concept album that tells the story of the mid-sized Midwest city that we live in.
“Only My Eyes Can See†tells the story of the entrepreneur Vernon C. Seaver. Seaver had worked in Chicago to build the White City Amusement Park in 1905. This park was named for the temporary park constructed for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and modeled somewhat after Brooklyn’s Dreamland Amusement Park, which had been constructed a year earlier.
Upon arriving in Peoria in the same year as the construction of White City, Seaver quickly teamed up with Thomas Webb, a diamond jeweler, and John Finley of Central City Streetcar Company for land and funding to build Al Fresco Amusement Park in Peoria Heights, Illinois. Local history lovers still reminisce about the 22-year-run of the riverfront amusement park, during which Seaver also operated the touring Young Buffalo Wild West show featuring a 51-year-old Annie Oakley.
At its center, “Only My Eyes Can See†is a song about having dreams and making to effort to bring them to life. For the music video, I used the imagery of sleeping in a van on tour and performing night after night to express this theme.
Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2020?
Grabb: This is a wide-open question these days. We had tours planned for the Fall and some great local shows planned with folks like Austin Lucas, Cory Branan, Adam Faucett, Matthew Fowler, and Blake Brown. However, as it’s turning out, it looks like we will be live streaming sets over the social networks and producing music videos for the foreseeable future.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Grabb: I will start writing the next album soon, which will likely be a record of acoustic love songs that’s more comparable to 2017’s ‘Masters.’ I produce a podcast as well, titled ‘Middle America.’ This podcast tells many of the stories behind the songs on this album along with some others. As the podcast pushes forward, I imagine that I will write more songs about regional history. This may or may not give us material to begin work on a follow-up to the full band record that is ‘Among Thieves.’
Review Fix: Anything else you would like to add?
Grabb: Please go check out our social network pages along with ‘Middle America’ podcast. And, if we manage to hit the road, we would absolutely love to see you in person!
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