By Sonia Schnee | Posted Friday, April 30, 2021
When the pandemic hit and NJ went into quarantine, Hoboken experimental indie collective Grander used the time to self-produce and engineer their newest single, "Just Beneath the Surf", out of their apartment. They also produced and released an accompanying lyric video, while working on a (soon-to-be-released) EP entitled "If Found, Cherish.” Check out our interview with the guys, below, to learn more about how Grander came to be, what their creative process is like, and their plans for 2021.
What are your names, where are you from, and what do you do?
The core of Grander consists of Matt Cugine, Chase Montani and Aaron Vigliotti. We are based out of the Hoboken/Jersey City area and work boring desk jobs when we're not making music together lol.
The greater Grander community consists of several other collaborators, including Angie Cuzzola, Jesse Henshaw, Darien Henshaw, Josh Flores-Vitti and Greg Anastasio. We'd like to think of this band as a collective - with many different contributors. We're lucky to have a wide net of friends who are a blast to work with.
For first-time listeners, how would you describe your sound?
Our sound really is an amalgamation of our collective influences. We like to push the boundaries of indie rock by bringing in influence from hip hop, electronic music and classic rock, which we think makes for a unique listening experience. Our forthcoming project features seven tracks, each with their own distinctive feel - yet as a whole, it sounds undoubtedly like Grander.
Who are your musical influences?
Our biggest musical influences are Radiohead, Bon Iver, Toro y Moi and Mac Miller. Matt comes from a background of playing classic rock and blues, while Aaron and Chase came up together in the emo scene - so those influences bleed into our music as well.
Congrats on the release of your latest single, "Just Beneath the Surf"! Where did you record? Who produced it?
Thanks so much! We recorded and produced the track ourselves in Matt and Chase's Hoboken apartment. The song was mixed by Justin Krass and mastered by Sam Stauff, both members of the post-rock bands Wess Meets West and Wide Waters. They have been awesome to work with throughout this process and helped bring our apartment recordings to life.
This song was one of the first ideas that Matt and Chase started toying around with early in quarantine. We all found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands, and started engaging in experimental songwriting exercises - one of which included setting a timer for 10 minutes and trying to come up with the skeleton of a song with loops. The main "hook" of “Just Beneath the Surf” came together in these sessions, and we worked on the song pretty meticulously for about eight months (!) to get the final product you hear today. It went through many different iterations, and I think we were able to mess with it just enough to get it perfect. Or as perfect as it could be...
What's the inspiration behind the song?
The lyrics are about the complexities of contradiction, and the role that contradictory decisions play on our subconscious. Matt really went deep into this concept after coming up with the words "just beneath the surf." While the song does have a "surfy" vibe to it - there is a feeling of uncertainty to the music, and the lyrics play off of that. We love to use juxtaposition between the music and the lyrics in our songs.
What is your songwriting process like?
It really varies for each song. Matt and Chase handle most of the songwriting, usually independently, as far as the core of a track goes. For our forthcoming project, Matt wrote four of the tracks and Chase penned three, but we all worked together once the core ideas were developed. It's not like Matt or Chase writes a whole song and that's it - the three of us really build off of each other's ideas. Some of Aaron's contributions have completely changed the feel of these tracks, and it's been so exciting to see that come to life.
One constant in our songwriting process is that the music always comes first. We think the music really is our strong suit, and are still working on being poignant and effective songwriters. That said, this batch of music we are releasing soon is much more polished than what we've done in the past, and we're so excited to share it with the world.
Are your songs largely based on personal experiences? Fictional characters? Inspired by movies/TV?
Again, our songs come from different places each time. Matt and Chase both pull from personal experience and fictional/historical characters. Matt takes a lot of inspiration from movies/TV - and will sometimes try to watch certain films to get lyrical ideas flowing. It's an awesome practice that he engages in. Sometimes the inspiration that we pull from films is even related to the movie's score - as is the case with one of the instrumental songs on our new project, inspired by Jonny Greenwood's original music for Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice."
So, take us back to the beginning. Do you come from musical families or are you trailblazers?
Matt's mom plays the piano. Chase's parents both played instruments growing up as well, with his dad being an all-county baritone horn player on Long Island as a teenager. Aaron's uncle plays a mean blues guitar and was a big influence on his relationship with music growing up. So there definitely is some musicality that comes from our families.
That said - the approach that we've all taken to our own music is much different than that of our parents and relatives. Aaron and Chase started a punk band in seventh grade, playing blink-182 and Taking Back Sunday covers around their small NJ hometown. Matt picked up guitar in high school, but really dove into playing in college, thanks to the inspiration of his roommates at the time and listening to a lot of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.
Looking back, what have been some of the highlights that you’ve experienced so far as individual artists and/or collectively as a band?
We were on a real high going into the pandemic as far as momentum goes. The Grander live experience started in June 2019, and by January 2020 we played a sold-out show at Pianos in NYC. That was a big highlight for us, but we also had a lot of small victories along the way. We put on a show in Matt and Chase's apartment to 50+ people, booked our first festival appearance at Cornchella in Western PA (not to be confused with Coachella, but maybe one day...) and played to large crowds in Brooklyn and Downtown Manhattan.
At the same time, quarantine did help us slow down and focus on the music. We had been recording our debut album at a professional studio (we were recording in the same studio as Blue Oyster Cult, lol), but were forced to put that on hold as well. That time allowed us to really sharpen our songwriting, and our next batch of music is easily our best yet.
It has been a great experience starting Grander and bringing it to a live setting, and we can't wait to get back out there!
What’s next on the horizon for you? What are you most looking forward to in 2021?
We are releasing our debut project, "If Found, Cherish" later this Spring/early Summer. The seven-song EP features songs that were all written during quarantine, and we're really excited to share it. As it stands, we have four songs completed and mixed, and the last three are very close to the finish line.
Otherwise, we're looking forward to playing live again! We are looking into putting together a livestream or virtual concert and have also talked to some friends about doing small intimate live experiences in our own spaces with small groups.
Before the pandemic, we were a five-piece band, with Angie and Jesse joining the core band, but we haven't all played together since our last show in February 2020, so there's definitely going to be a bit of an adjustment, and perhaps some new personnel coming to the live show in 2021.
And we may release some more music before the end of the year as well. There are two songs that we decided to leave off of the EP that we may package together as a release, and some old ones that we started in the studio that we hope to revisit. So hopefully we come out of 2021 with a nice body of music for our fans to enjoy.
If you could collaborate with any artist, producer, or musician -- living or dead -- who would it be and why?
I think we'd all agree that it would be a dream to collaborate with the late Mac Miller. We had very personal connections to his music, and hearing about the way he worked with other musicians is one of the big inspirations behind the collaborative energy that Grander tries to facilitate.
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and the members of Radiohead would also be amazing to work with. Both groups push the boundaries of genre and sound, and that's really fundamental to what we do. We like to learn a lot about these artists and incorporate some of the ideas behind their songwriting into our own. We question everything in the studio, and always ask what more can be done? Sometimes we'll go and completely fuck up a song, just to see how far out it could've gone, and then rein it back in, and I think a lot of that comes from Bon Iver and Radiohead.
What words of advice or encouragement would you give to someone who’s trying to make it through and stay mentally healthy during this pandemic?
I'm not sure that we are qualified to give out advice or encouragement ourselves, as we've been going through many highs and lows personally throughout the pandemic. But I think it's important to take a step back and realize that we're all in this together, and that it will get better. It's been inspiring to see progress of late, but of course, we're still in the thick of this thing.
It's been helpful for us to lean on creation in this time, but there are also some days where you just don't have it. And that's ok! I think realizing that is important too. We were so productive in the beginning of quarantine with all the extra time on our hands, and then really saw our production slow down once Summer came around. That's the ebb and flow of making art, and it's inevitable.
Is there anyone who you’d like to give a shoutout to?
We're all very lucky to have great support systems in our families and we can't thank them enough for coming out to our shows, listening to demos and just being encouraging overall.
Justin and Sam, who are mixing and mastering the album, have been great collaborators and willing to "go there" with us to create a really unique and interesting body of work. It's our first time working with mixing and mastering engineers as Grander, and it's been a real pleasure. This project sounds awesome thanks to them!
We want to thank Corey Zack at Cocoon Recording in Jersey City for letting us come through and record drums for a few tracks on the EP in November. He's got a beautiful space and is a great person to work with, and got these drums sounding real crispy.
Shout out to our close friend group who have been down to listen to our demos and give us feedback, especially LeighAnn Armbruster, Dennis Desantis and Brandon McNamara, who have all heard these songs a bunch and have been really helpful in giving us perspective from a listener's point of view.
All of the people who have collaborated with us on this project deserve high praise. Angie Cuzzola delivered some beautiful vocal performances, Josh Flores-Vitti brought that thump on a couple bass lines and Greg Anastasio provided some dreamy atmosphere. It's so great bringing our friends in from afar (Josh is in DC and Greg is in LA) and being able to create something together.
Big thanks to the Henshaw brothers for everything. Jesse's art is going to be the cover image of the EP, and Darien came through and helped us out with some production. We miss them greatly, as we've been separated through most of the pandemic, but cannot wait to jam with them again soon.
Finally, where can people find you online?
We're all over! Our Instagram is the best place to keep us with us day-to-day. You can follow us on Spotify to make sure you don't miss "If Found, Cherish" when it drops. Check out our Soundcloud for some unreleased demos as well.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks so much for reaching out for an interview! Shouts to Sonia and the Jersey Indie team for doing things like this for independent artists in NJ. It's been an honor!
