Grandaddy to release first album in 10 years 'Last Place'
On March 3, 2017 Grandaddy will release Last Place, their first album since 2006, on Danger Mouse's 30th Century Records and Sony Music. Produced by the band's Jason Lytle, Last Place is wry, humane, poignant, fantastical, and very beautiful; a panoramic representation of everything that has always made Grandaddy so well-loved.
The band has shared a video for the album track 'Way We Won't,' which was first featured on a sold out, limited-edition 7" from this past September, and stars actor Jason Ritter. The video, directed by Chris Grieder, premiered on NPR and Lytle told them, "I would have loved to have made a video based exactly on the lyrics of this song, but I really like (director) Chris Grieder's treatment because the main character is an outsider who has taken to wandering and can’t get accepted (picked up) by a varying array of characters. I felt it was important to place a girl in the cast of characters, someone who had some attachment to the loner guy and perhaps, just perhaps, was responsible for putting him on that lonely road. I have to say my absolute favourite part is the very end (you have to watch it)."
After Grandaddy broke up in 2006, the band's frontman Jason Lytle relocated to Montana, where he happily made two solo albums and reconnected with the natural world around him. Eventually, though, life uprooted him again, taking him to Portland, Oregon until he eventually returned to his former home of Modesto, California. The return to California was practical (he needed to be near his bandmates) but also appropriate: he had started writing songs that he felt would be fitting for another Grandaddy album. He needed to let the ideas flow until he found the perfect chemistry for what is now Last Place, which he describes as: "just enough personal stuff and just enough escapism, just enough electronics and just enough acoustic elements. The full spectrum."
The result is a perfect addition to the band's celebrated, critically-acclaimed catalogue that includes their breakthrough sophomore album, Sophtware Slump, and their debut, Under the Western Freeway. It's a symphonic swirl of lo-fi sonics and mile-high harmonies, found sounds and electronics-gone-awry mingling with perfect, power pop guitar tones. Lytle's voice sounds as warm and intimate as ever, giving graceful levity to the doomsday narratives that have dominated the Grandaddy output.
When it came time to release the record, Grandaddy found an ally in artist, producer, and label owner Danger Mouse who notes, "Grandaddy's music has had a big influence on me, and the new album almost sounds like it could fit between Sophtware Slump and Sumday."