The excitement is palpable in the New York apartment where Patience Hodgson – lead singer for The Grates – is temporarily residing. Currently in North America to do a short string of appearances at festivals and one-off shows in Canada and the United States (including Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ontario and Monolith Music Festival in Morrison, Colorado), Hodgson recently whispered the announcement that, four months ago, The Grates began writing songs for another album that they hope to begin recording in early 2010. While the songs are still in the very embryonic stages and not at all ready for preview on stage yet, the work that is coming through in a very promising way that Hodgson hopes, given the tenor of the writing process this time, will be The Grates' best and boldest to date. It gets even better though; while the band is hoping to get back in front of the good mikes early next year, the set lists for forthcoming shows won't just be populated by material from The Grates' 2006 Interscope release Gravity Won't Get You High because September 15, 2009 will see the release of another full-length album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won.
At this very moment, readers are asking themselves, “Are The Grates really so prolific as to be able to put out two full-length releases in the span of less than twelve months?”
While such an occurrence might be possible, that's not exactly the phenomenon at work here. In the case of The Grates' forthcoming release, it's a matter of North America playing catch up with the Brisbane, AUS-based band. In fact, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won came out in Australia on Dew Process Records on August 2, 2008 to rave reviews at home, but it appears that it took North America a little longer to wake up wonder, “Whatever happened to that plucky little band from Down Under that sounded a little like Nirvana and Sleater-Kinney would if Mary Poppins stole the mic?”
Finally The Grates have secured themselves a release date on North American soil and now everyone can be let in on the secret.
In conversation, Grates singer Patience Hodgson can barely contain her excitement at the prospect of Teeth Lost, Hearts Won being unleashed on North American audiences and getting to re-acquaint them with her band. Equally, she's over the moon at the plan to re-enter the studio while The Grates are in North America for the next six months. Without a doubt, it's a very special time for The Grates (“We haven't been to Canada for two years, but in one month we're going to go three times – that feels pretty good.”) and, without a doubt, one that the band is happy to use to its advantage.
Bill Adams vs. Patience Hodgson, singer for The Grates
PH: Hello?
BA: Hello, may I speak to Patience please?
PH: This is she.
BA: Hey Patience, it's Bill Adams calling.
PH: Oh great! This is for my interview?
BA: Yes! Yes, it is. I apologize, I'm a couple of minutes late.
PH: Oh, that's alright….
BA: I had a bit of a culinary emergency.
PH: Oh really? That sounds exciting, culinary as in food?
BA: Yeah.
PH: I can totally take that excuse. I'm of the opinion that culinary emergencies are absolutely a legitimate reason to be late with anything.
BA: Well, in this case, it's been a while since something like this happened to me. I happen to like spicy food – the hotter the better – so it's been a while since my eyes welled up because of just one pepper but my girlfriend decided she's going to make hot pepper jelly that we're going to give away as gifts and I'm behind it because I'll get some too. She went down to the farmer's market today to pick up some peppers for it and, when she brought them home, she told me she wasn't sure what she got. So I grabbed one because I figured I could probably tell her. It looked a little like a Habanero crossed with an El Jefe but my god it's hot – acid indigestion has nothing on this.
PH: Yeah! Oh yeah, I can understand what you're saying but we don't even get chilis in Australia the way you do in North America. I think it's because Australia doesn't really have any Mexican influence whatsoever and our chili selection is huge, but there aren't many ways to prepare them. Not too long ago, I went to an Indian restaurant and had a deep-fried chili that sent my heart racing. It's probably not as hot as what you're talking about – I know it isn't – but it was really good and pretty hot. John makes a really good chili; he got into it when we started coming over to the States and he's gotten really good at it now. The Mexican food in Australia isn't very good but we have heaps of Asian food because we're so much closer to that part of the world. We get heaps of fantastic Vietnamese, Thai and so on – it's absolutely beautiful! I think that's the trade-off: we have really bad Mexican but really great Asian food that's better than anything I've had in America – I reckon. We're a big food band – we eat a lot of food, take photos of a lot of food and we'll put them up on our tumbler because it gets us really excited.
BA: So you're the exception to the rule. Every touring band I've ever spoken with complains about the quality of the food you eat when they're on tour. You guys know how to eat on the road though.
PH: Yeah, I've often thought that, for every band, it comes down to food or drugs – some bands really like drugs and others really like food. Like, if a band isn't really into food, they might be really into drugs because you really don't have enough money for both these days. We're a food band; we've been over here in America for about a week right now and we've been eating a lot of vegetarian food lately but yesterday we had meat for the first time in a while. We all had hamburgers that were really incredible – just really meaty with no filler – and afterward we were talking about how high we felt off of the meat because we hadn't eaten meat for weeks. They were really good burgers. It's been funny too because this is the first trip for the guy that we have playing keyboards for us now. We're really excited about that because it'll be our first trip as a band. We had another guy playing keyboards with us but, because we've come over here for six months, he didn't come because he couldn't commit to that amount of time so we had to find someone else. Another friend of ours that we met in Canada recently lost his job and happily agreed to take the position.
BA: That sort of leads into what I was going to ask you about, actually. The game has changed a lot for The Grates over the last three years hasn't it? I remember reviewing the first album when it came out and the time on the road and time to refine your sound has really altered the way you play. This new album seems to have a whole lot more power pop in it.
PH: Yeah – we wanted to step it up and we wanted to put more stuff on the album. The first one was much more open and we did want to change it up a little but what we didn't want to lose the spirit. I feel like we got to achieve that goal and I find that, now when I listen back to it and I think about the process and all, it surprises me at how much it turned out how we wanted it to; it sounds organic but really high-end at the same time and I think a lot of that had to do with recording with Peter Katis because his method of doing everything is to do it really organically but use really good equipment. We just recorded upstairs in his house – it is a studio, but it's really just a room where there's a couple of rugs on the floor, there's nothing particularly special about it – but he's a real tech guy so he uses really great equipment and he's really familiar and well-versed in all of it. When we were working with him, I got the impression that that's how all of the records he's worked on – with Interpol and The National and there are a bunch more – have been done and that was really attractive to us. We liked that sound, but we also wanted to make sure we kept 'The Grates spirit' and energy in it and when I look back on it now, I'm kind of surprised at how smoothly it went; there were no problems at all. We didn't have any dramas making the album; no doubt we'll have lots recording the next one.
BA: Well, eventually you have to make a record that's like pulling teeth. You have to have one album that tests you, and either breaks your band up or turns out to be one of the greatest things you've ever made.
PH: I'm not sure, but I reckon the next one is going to be like that. I already feel it. We started writing a little right before we left and we're writing more now and, at the moment, I've got that pulling teeth feeling. We're not getting a tremendous amount accomplished but, at the same time, I really feel like we're chomping at the bit. It's been a bit laborious, but the last one certainly wasn't; the writing was rough sometimes but, once we had the songs together, it came through really well.
BA: Were the songs for Teeth Lost, Hearts Won written in advance? Or were you writing in the studio too?
PH: They were written in advance. We did make changes in the studio – like we mixed up “Not Today” – the song we did with Tim Fite – a whole bunch and we gutted “Two Kinds Of Right” and re-recorded it. There are the two little songs we had that we really just melodies I had kicking around in my head and didn't think terribly much of, but Peter was just in love with. He was crazy for them so they really came alive in the studio because of him. The majority of the songs were done when we got into the studio – certainly the bones of them and a lot of the flesh were there, we just added a bit of skin on. We try to get as much done outside of the studio as possible because it can get very expensive when you're writing in the studio as well.
BA: I can believe that – so are you going to be writing on the road as well? You said you'd already begun writing, I assume you're going to try and make it into a studio in the near future….
PH: I hope so, yeah. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen but I hope we're going to be recording again early next year. We don't tend to write on the road so much; like, if we went on a month-long tour and left tomorrow, I doubt very much that we'd write anything during that period; we're writing a lot right now because we're not doing too many shows but we usually reserve writing for downtime so, if we left, no writing would get done. You don't have enough personal space on the road – especially if you're a support band. It's a little bit different if you get to be a headlining act because if you want to sound-check for two hours, you can use that time to do whatever you want but if you're a support act, you pretty much take whatever you can get on the stage before you go on to play a show.
BA: Well yeah, I don't know many support acts that can say, “Yeah! We got to do sound check for fifteen whole minutes!” [laughing] No, you didn't.
PH: No…. [laughing] But hopefully that will come along and come together for the next one. I'm excited to finally be releasing Teeth Lost, Hearts Won as a hardcopy title in North America though. Everybody says now that it doesn't matter and you can track albums down for free on the internet and all that but I don't think it works the same way in the minds of people; you need to have an album release for people to take you seriously still. Otherwise, it just feels like you're heading out on the road again; you need an album to be able to tour.
BA: Certainly! I mean, it's very psychological, but you need those things to instil in the minds of listeners that new things are happening and there has been another chapter written. I mean, yeah – the notion of a record release is a bit antiquated because you can promote and release on the internet anytime you like but, in the minds of listeners, you have to figuratively restart the engine every time or people start to feel confused and overwhelmed.
PH: Yeah. I don't mind restarting the engines though – I really like it, actually. Like, with this, I'm so excited to actually have a release – there's an anticipation and it gives everyone something to work towards whereas if you just put it out on the internet, I don't feel like it has the same energy as when you've got a CD and it's coming out. In some ways, it feels like justification for all your hard work because it seems special.
BA: Of course it does – you've got something concrete, right there in your hand.
PH: Exactly. I'm not even sure if we have a Canadian release at the moment; I'm hoping that's something we'll be able to pick up.
BA: I was curious about that. I know Gravity Won't Get You High came out through Universal's Distributed Labels division in Canada but this one came out independently in Australia.
PH: Oh, it came out on a record label in Australia, Dew Process.
BA: I saw that on your web site. I thought that was an Australian indie label, but I wasn't sure.
PH: It's an indie label, but it's a really good indie label in Australia. There are a couple more coming up through the ranks now, but for quite a while there wasn't really a stable indie label you know? Like they'll come up and might peter out and then more crop up, but Dew Process has really solidified a hold. Modular is in that position now too and there are a couple more coming up in the ranks, but Dew Process is solid. And they're so good to us! They let us get away with murder – it's great. We have so many things that we want to do and so many things that we hassle them about all the time and they're just so accommodating to all of the ways that we want to do things.
BA: It's one of those moments like any good relationship: you put in a liiiittle bit of resistance in spite of the fact that you know you're going to give in.
PH: Exactly! Things have been really good with them. I do hope that we get a Canadian release though; it was one of the stronger supporters of the last one but I think that had a bit to do with a connection that the Canadian label had with the American release. We were signed to Interscope at that time so we got Canada through a distribution deal. When the Interscope deal dissolved, it sort of meant that the the Canadian deal dissolved as well. It was good though – even though I don't think we had a massive following, Canada was really receptive last time with Gravity.
BA: Indeed. As far as I know it didn't get a lot of play on mainstream radio but it did well on college radio and I remember when it showed up on my desk. I really dug it and I'd tell people about it and play it for people and they'd all kind of fall in love with it.
PH: You were championing us? Thank you! I appreciate it.
BA: The pleasure's mine – I dug it and the beauty of my job is that I'm afforded the opportunity to tell people about it. That said though, Gravity's been out for a couple of years and the release for Teeth Lost is still a couple of months out; are you going to be playing some of the new tunes on this tour?
PH: We'll be playing some of the stuff off of Teeth Lost, Hearts Won but, beyond that, we don't have a lot that we're really confident with yet. After recording Teeth Lost, Hearts Won we took a bit of a break so we've only now started writing again; we didn't write any new songs for close to a year. We started writing new songs about four months ago but I'm not sure how we feel about them yet so we'll be sticking to Gravity Won't Get You High and Teeth Lost, Hearts Won. Nothing that you wouldn't have heard, but some that a crowd might not have because Teeth Lost, Hearts Won hasn't come out in America yet.
BA: And you worked with Tim Fite on a track on Teeth Lost?
PH: Yeah – on the song “Not Today.” It's really kind of funny because we're all big fans of his and we happened to mention that to Peter. Peter knew him and called him up and he came up and played.
BA: That just really surprised me because around the time Gone Ain't Gone came out, I interviewed Tim. He happened to be touring through Buffalo so I had the opportunity. I don't think I've ever interviewed somebody so deadpan before but it was absolutely hilarious. I'm sure you know that he never pays for any of the samples he takes so, at the time, I asked him if he'd ever been turned down. “Yeah, it's happened a couple of times but I can't say I blame some people for not wanting to give their hard work away for free.” I asked him if there were any names he wanted to drop in that regard at that. “No, their shame can be their own.”
PH: [laughing] That is exactly him! He's got a way with stuff, Tim does. Like, I would never be able to answer that question so eloquently. “Their shame can be their own.” Alana [Grates drummer Alana Skyring –ed] is now flatmates with him and she always has fantastic stories to tell. He's a pretty funny dude but, by the same token, Alana is a pretty funny lady so, together, they have one of the quirkiest share-housing situations you could imagine.
BA: Nice. Now, are these shows going to be part of a tour or is it just one-off dates?
PH: I think it's just going to be one-off dates. We're playing The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto around the same time but, beyond that, we're just going to concentrate on getting as many tours and things as we can but it has been difficult with the album not having come out yet so hopefully more in September after the release happens and, until them, we're going to concentrate on writing. I do know that, while it hasn't been confirmed yet, there may be another three dates coming in Canada supporting somebody. We were joking about it because, if that happens, that will be the third time we've been to Canada in one month; we went to Ottawa, now we're doing Hillside and then we're playing the Horseshoe. We haven't been to Canada for two years, but in one month we're going to go three times – that feels pretty good.
Artist:
The Grates online
The Grates myspace
Download:
'Burn Bridges' from Teeth Lost, Hearts Won.
'Call Of The Wild' B-side from Teeth Lost, Hearts Won sessions.
Album:
Teeth Lost, Hearts Won comes out in North America via Dew Process/Universal on September 15, 2009. Pre-order your copy or get the import here on Amazon .
