Grandaddy is an American indie rock band from Modesto, California. The group was formed in 1992, and featured Jason Lytle, Aaron Burtch, Jim Fairchild, Kevin Garcia and Tim Dryden, until Garcia's death in 2017 following a stroke.
After several self-released records and cassettes, the band signed to Will Records in the US and later the V2 Records subsidiary Big Cat Records in the UK, going on to sign an exclusive deal with V2. The bulk of the band's recorded output was the work of Lytle, who worked primarily in home studios.
Grandaddy released four studio albums before splitting in 2006, with band members going on to solo careers and other projects. Grandaddy reformed in 2012, and after several successful tours, released its fifth studio album, Last Place, in March 2017. Following Garcia's sudden death, the band cancelled its touring plans for the release and re-entered an extended hiatus.
In 2024, Lytle revived the Grandaddy name to release the project's sixth studio album, Blu Wav, ahead of a full 2025 reunion tour in celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Sophtware Slump.
History
1992–1997: Formation and early independent releases
Grandaddy was formed in 1992 by singer, guitarist and keyboardist Jason Lytle, bassist Kevin Garcia and drummer Aaron Burtch. A former professional skateboarder, Lytle had turned to music after a knee injury forced him to stop skating. He began working at a sewage treatment plant to fund the purchase of music equipment. Several of the band's early live performances were at skateboarding competitions.
The band members constructed a studio at the Lytle family home, and their first release, also in 1992, was the self-produced cassette Prepare to Bawl. This was followed in April 1994 by a second cassette titled Complex Party Come Along Theories. The singles "Could This Be Love" and "Taster" were released later that year. One of the album's singles, "Summer Here Kids", was rated as "Single of the Week" by popular British music magazine NME, and was also used as the theme music for another Charlie Brooker-fronted show, BBC Radio 4's So Wrong It's Right. NME later placed it at number 34 in their "Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade", and The Independent described it as "easily the equal of OK Computer". The album reached number 36 on the UK Albums Chart, The band later opened for Coldplay on their US tour in mid-2001. Also in 2001, the band's version of The Beatles' "Revolution" was used in the film I Am Sam.
On December 20, 2002, Grandaddy released The Ham and Its Lily under the alias Arm of Roger via their private label Sweat of the Alps. The songs were recorded prior to the release of the Signal to Snow Ratio EP, and were initially created as a prank on their record label: the band initially submitted The Ham and Its Lily to V2 executives as a practical joke. The album was sold at their concerts during 2003, and in 2015 reissued on vinyl and cassette by PIAPTK/Soiled Gold Records.
Their third album, Sumday, recorded in Lytle's home studio, was released in 2003. The band promoted it with a pre-release US tour with Pete Yorn followed by a three-week European tour (including a performance at the Glastonbury Festival) and a larger US tour. Lytle described the album as "Grandaddy influenced by Grandaddy ... the ultimate Grandaddy record". The title is a reference to Lytle's desire to leave Modesto, a town which he complained "sucks out people's souls". with only Burtch from the remainder of the band playing on it.
2006–2011: Breakup and post-Grandaddy activities
In January 2006, after a meeting the previous month, Lytle announced that the band had decided to split up, citing the lack of financial income from being in the group. Just Like the Fambly Cat was released later that year as a farewell album. Lytle spoke to the NME:
<blockquote>It was inevitable ... On one hand our stubbornness has paid off, but on the other hand refusing to buy into the way things are traditionally supposed to be done has made things worse for us ... The realistic part is it hasn't proved to be a huge money-making venture for a lot of guys in the band.
Lytle regarded Just Like the Fambly Cat as a "pretty fitting" last stop for Grandaddy; however, he continued to make music and perform solo, and worked with M. Ward on Hold Time. Admiral Radley's debut album I Heart California was released on July 13, 2010 via Espinoza's label The Ship. In 2011 Burtch played in a band called The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit. Lytle's second solo album, Dept. of Disappearance, was released in 2012.
Jim Fairchild's first solo album, Ten Readings of a Warning, was released in April 2007 on Dangerbird Records, under the name All Smiles. A second All Smiles album, Oh for the Getting and Not Letting Go, was released on June 30, 2009. In 2010, he was selected to lead a project at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and in 2011 he released his third All Smiles album, Staylow and Mighty. Fairchild has also played for the bands Giant Sand, Great Northern, Lackthereof and Modest Mouse, having first played guitar with the latter in 2005.
2012–2013: Reunion
In March 2012, it was announced that Grandaddy had reformed and were to play a limited number of shows, including London on September 4, and headlining the End of the Road Festival in the UK. Grandaddy also played San Francisco's Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival and Paris's Rock en Seine Festival in August 2012. On August 7, 2012, to kick off their reunion tour, they played a "secret" show at the Partisan venue in Merced, California, but were billed as "The Arm of Roger". The next day they played as Grandaddy at the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur.
Regarding the band's reunion, Lytle noted, "The bargain I made myself regarding the 'brief reunion and couple of shows' situation was that I wasn't gonna talk too much about it. I was just gonna stew on it, and then do it. That's the good thing about festivals. No need for me to sell anything here. Get in, rock out, get paid, get out. There are just going to be a few shows. Festival-type thingies. Perhaps the odd 'warm up gig' in someone's hair salon or something. Money was a motivating factor (resurfacing my indoor tennis court, oil change for my 4×4 Ferrari) but the idea of playing and hanging out with each other is something all of the guys are pretty stoked about."
Lytle later noted, "It was actually Jim [Fairchild]'s fault. He suggested that we consider playing some shows, and I went, 'No', [but] he convinced me it might be a good idea. We talked about it for a little while. I didn't think anyone else in the band would be into it, [and] he checked around and it turns out they were all enthusiastic. I think I was the last one to say yes. ... I was actually blown away that they even wanted to. Once I found that out, I said 'OK, let's start doing the work, figure out how to play the songs.' The weird moment was when he had the first rehearsal; I had no idea how it was going to turn out. After five days of playing together it actually sounded really good. It was too easy, and we were actually really having a good time together."
Lytle also noted that he was likely to record a new Grandaddy album, stating, "It's probably going to happen. ... If anyone knows anything about Grandaddy, they realise that my [solo] music and Grandaddy's music is slightly interchangeable. I think if I were to focus on making a Grandaddy record [it would be] a full-blown Grandaddy record, and I like the idea of that. I'd like to give it a shot."
2014–2017: Last Place and the death of Kevin Garcia
thumb|alt=refer to caption|Grandaddy live at Concorde 2 in [[Brighton, England, April 1, 2017: Kevin Garcia is at right]]
From 2014 to 2015 Lytle produced the album Why Are You OK by Band of Horses, to which he contributed material; this collaboration also produced the single "Hang an Ornament", which was issued as the work of Grandaddy and Band of Horses. In September 2015 Lytle tweeted that the band was working on a "new GD LP", which was interpreted by the media as confirmation that a new Grandaddy album was being recorded. Following a second reunion tour in the summer of 2016, the band announced that a new album called Last Place would be released by Danger Mouse's 30th Century Records on March 3, 2017, and released a video featuring the actor Jason Ritter for the single "Way We Won't". In March 2017, Lytle said that he could "at least promise one more" Grandaddy album after Last Place, since it was the first of two that the band was contracted to create.
Kevin Garcia (born Kevin Michael Garcia on June 22, 1975 in San Jose, California) died on May 2, 2017, aged 41, one day after suffering a "massive stroke". He became a member of Grandaddy at the age of 15. Following his death, the band canceled all its planned live appearances. Two commemorative shows were planned in Modesto for October 2017 – the first was a scheduled date that had already sold out – but these were also canceled due to the band members' ongoing grief over Garcia's passing.
Minor activity during the rest of 2017 included the releases of a music video featuring the comedian Jonah Ray for the single "Brush with the Wild", taken from Last Place, and an EP of live and alternative versions of songs from Last Place titled Things Anyway. To commemorate its 20th anniversary in October 2017, the album Under the Western Freeway was reissued as a double vinyl LP that included eight demo tracks. In November 2018 a song titled "Bison on the Plains" was released: Lytle revealed that it had been written prior to the completion of Last Place .
2018–2023: Hiatus, archival releases and renewed activity
On August 28, 2020 it was announced that Grandaddy would release their 2000 album The Sophtware Slump in a 20th anniversary edition but with a twist—the whole album being performed by Jason Lytle with piano and no other instruments. The album was initially recorded during lockdown by Jason Lytle and was released in November 2020.
In October 2020, Lytle confirmed that he had plans to record a sixth (and possibly final) Grandaddy album: "I'm working on a solo LP, then I'm gonna do another Grandaddy record. I'm gonna go big on the Grandaddy; I want it to be this all-encompassing, cool send-off. I have life plans that don't involve playing live. I want to spend more time outdoors, off the grid." Lytle elaborated, suggesting that it might not be the project's final release: "I am just embarking on a new album of my own; it’s gonna be under my own name, but right after that I’m starting on a new, very big, comprehensive Grandaddy record; I’m not gonna call it the last [Grandaddy record], it’s gonna be the most comprehensive-sounding, and it’s gonna be tied in with a documentary."
In April 2022, Lytle and a group of French musicians embarked on a short tour of Europe under the name "Grandaddy and the Lost Machine Orchestra," playing the entirety of The Sophtware Slump.
On February 25, 2023, Lytle announced via Twitter in response to a fan that a new album had been recorded and would be released "in the middle of" that year.
On May 12, 2023, Sumday: The Cassette Demos released, featuring demo versions of the songs off their 2003 album, Sumday. Merch related to the aforementioned album also released on their storefront at the same time.
2023–present: Blu Wav
On October 25, 2023, "Watercooler," the lead single from their sixth album Blu Wav, was released alongside a music video. Two months later, on December 1, 2023, "Cabin in My Mind," the second single/music video from the album, was released.
The album was released on February 16, 2024. Lytle is the only band member who contributed to the album, performing all vocals and instruments, apart from pedal steel guitar by Max Hart.
Musical style and influences
Much of Grandaddy's music is characterized by Lytle's analog synthesizer and the fuzzy guitar, bass and drums of the rest of the band. The band has variously been described as "bittersweet indie space rock", "neo-psychedelic, blissed-out indie rock", "dreamy, spacey psychedelic pop", and "an uneasy combination of warm, tactile guitars and affectless electronics". Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the band's songs as "stately anthems orchestrated with full late-psychedelic pomp: fuzz-toned guitar strumming, rippling keyboards, brawny drumbeats".
While Grandaddy's style has sometimes been described as alt country, in Lytle's view it is the sentiment of country music that the band embraced rather than the musical style. The band has also been compared to Radiohead (even described as "the next Radiohead" in 2001), Weezer, The Flaming Lips and Elliott Smith. With Sumday, the band was compared to the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and The Alan Parsons Project. He stated in 2009: "I think the majority of my musical influences were set in stone when I was five or six years old." His vocals have drawn comparisons with Neil Young. On The Sophtware Slump, CMJ writer Richard A. Martin commented on Lytle's "sympathy for the lost souls and machines of the high-tech dot-com landscape".
Recording techniques
The band's releases were generally recorded and mixed in makeshift studios based in homes, garages and warehouses, although the last two albums were mixed in a dedicated facility. Although live performances used a full band, much of the recordings were done by Lytle alone using analog recorders and Pro Tools.