Start Listening To: Grandmas House
We had the pleasure of speaking with Grandmas House about their vitriolic new single Always Happy and got to learn more about how it was produced.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from, and a little bit about the music that you make?
We’re a female punk trio from Bristol! We all met at Uni in Kingston, London and then decided to all move together to Bristol after we graduated. We think our music takes different aspects from various genres including post-punk, surf, and good old rock’n’roll. We all love different genres so I think we naturally incorporate different aspects from each genre.
We love your most recent single ‘Always Happy’. Can you tell us more about the lyrics in this song?
We wrote this song during the first lockdown back in March last year. At its core it’s about social anxiety and being perceived in a certain way and how social media has a play in how you’re seen as well! It’s about how easy it is to convey a certain image of yourself and how far from the truth this ‘mask’ we can put up can be.
What is your songwriting process like?
We’re all constantly writing in our free time - we’re big fans of journaling! But it definitely varies for each song. Sometimes we’ll just jam and come up with something really fun instrumentally and then we’ll have a look if anything we’ve previously written would fit it. Other times we’ll have these amazing lyrics that we just need to get out there so we’ll just write the music around the words! We also occasionally just start playing all together and a full song will just burst out, lyrics and all!
How did you produce the track?
We had the track ready to go and loved it so much we immediately wanted to get it recorded. We ended up going to Bath to record it with a lovely man called Scott Barnett. We usually record all of our instruments together to give the song that raw, live feel and it works really well and then record vocals separately.
It’s cool that you directed and edited the video for your latest single by yourselves. What was that like? Did you have any prior experience going into that?
Yasmin did film at Uni so had lots of experience with filming and editing and Poppy and Zoë did Fine Art so we’re quite a creative bunch! :) It was really fun keeping the whole creative process “in the family” as we could make sure that it’s exactly what we want. Zoë also painted the Artwork for the single so we’re really taking advantage of all our talents! We’re really glad we can put those expensive art degrees to good use.
Do you see yourselves doing more of your own music videos?
We absolutely loved making this music video and will definitely continue having a huge part in our future videos as it’s something we love doing. We love coming up with visual ideas so it’s definitely something we want to keep doing. It’s amazing being able to reflect our passion for music in the videos we make for it.
How has it been adapting to not playing live? Do you have plans for future shows?
We’re definitely itching to get back to playing live - we’ve done a few livestreams which have been really fun. We also did a socially distanced show at the Lanes here in Bristol back in November, which was an incredibly weird but AMAZING experience. The atmosphere was so incredibly energetic as everyone misses gigs as much as us!
We’ve got a few shows that have been postponed a few times now - we’ve only played Bristol and Cardiff so far but were meant to play lots of new cities for the first time so it was such a shame that all had to be put on hold. A few shows we’ve got lined up range from London to Glasgow so we can’t wait to get out there!!
Do you have any venues you are particularly keen to play one day?
To be honest one thing we’re especially excited for is playing festivals at some point hopefully!! Any venue will do as long as we get to play :)
What do you hate right now?
Not being able to have a cold pint at a pub. All we’ve been talking about is pubs lately and how much we miss them :(
What do you love right now?
Our guinea pigs who have been the absolute lights of our lives through this difficult time! We adopted them towards the beginning of lockdown and they couldn’t have come into our lives at a better time!
Is there any new music from 2021 that you’re enjoying?
We’re loving Bob Vylan’s new album they just released and Shame have also just released an absolute banger of an album! Been listening to Goat Girls new stuff as well and LOVING it. We also discovered the band Lime so been listening to them quite a bit!
What can we expect from you in 2021? Any more releases planned?
At the moment you can pre-order our first ever physical release: a cassette! It’s got ‘Always Happy’ and another single ‘Small Talk’ on it and we’re really excited about that! We’ve also been recording our first EP, which we’ll be releasing at some point this year so lots of fun new tunes coming soon!!
Do you have any final life lessons or tips for our readers?
Live, laugh, love, it’s ok to be sad sometimes, be kind to yourself, you are loved xx
