Way back in 1997 Australian band Grinspoon released their debut album Guide To Better Living. The album became an instant hit feature fan favourites like “Just Ace”, “Champion” and “DCx3”. Now fast forward twenty year to 2017 Grinspoon are hitting the road to celebrate the albums 20th anniversary with an extensive run of Australian tour dates. We caught up with Grinspoon drummer Kris Hopes to chat about the album and tour.
 
SCENEzine
Firstly how’s the tour been going so far? Any particular stand out shows?
 
Kris Hopes
The tours been going really well. All the shows have just been off the hook. Most of them have been sold out. We had a good one recently we played a mini festival called ShakaFest on the Gold Coast. That was pretty hectic.
 
SCENEzine
Has it been challenging having to re-learn the Guide To Better Living Songs?
 
Kris Hopes
Yeah well we never set out to play an album start to finish before, which is whet we are doing on this tour. It was a bit of a challenge getting our heads around it at first at rehearsal. I think we put in a bit of an effort there and it’s been sounding really good. Everyone is playing great and it’s pretty high energy. We are doing an hour and a half a night which is fairly long for us.
 
SCENEzine
How did the Grinspoon boys all meet back in the day?
 
Kris Hopes
Phil and I were in a band before this band called Crab Apple and we used to play around the Port Macquarie area. Pat and Joe were in Lismore in a band with my dad who is also a drummer. My dad taught drums at the music university up there. Pat and Joe went to that University doing Bass and Guitar. Phil and I moved up there and we sort of lost our bass player and guitar player that we had in our band, my dad suggested that Pat and Joe should come along to a rehearsal. We had our first rehearsal, recorded two songs in the first two weeks for Triple J and won that contest. So that’s how it started and from then it’s been non stop touring up until we took that break in 2013.
 
SCENEzine
When you started out did you have any idea what genre you wanted to be?
 
Kris Hopes
Not really, we listened to a lot of rock and I guess you would call it alternative rock back in the day when we started. Those kind of influences came pretty strong into the band writing wise but we’ve always written pretty different stuff. You look at a song like “Just Ace” to “Chemical Heart” to “Champion” they are all really different kind of songs with their playing and style. That’s what we’ve done with all our albums. It would be really hard to put us in a genre. We just are who we are.
 
SCENEzine
Back when you recoded Guide to Better Living did you walk out of the studio thinking you’d nailed it or just hoping people liked it?
 
Kris Hopes
Well yeah of course we were hoping people liked it. Every song that went on that album that was every song that we had. We recorded every song that we had because we wanted to give people value for money. We were hoping that it sat well as an album and people liked it.
 
SCENEzine
You must of been shocked by how well it ended up doing?
 
Kris Hopes
Yeah it was really cool for us. We recorded that and put it out then it did really well. It got us some coin to go to the States and start touring over there. It was a pretty exciting time for us back then. Before that we had only released two EP’s. The first one sold a few thousand copies then the second one maybe ten or twenty thousand copies then Guide to Better Living came along and went gangbusters for us.
 
SCENEzine
The song “Just Ace” is a huge song loved by fans. Do you ever get annoyed that the song is too short?
 
Kris Hopes
(laughs) It is a pretty short song. That might be our shortest song. It is a pretty short song but that’s what it is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to hang around long that song (laughs). “Just Ace” is what it is. I’m glad people really like it and it still goes off at shows these days.

SCENEzine
Do you have memories of shooting the video for “Just Ace”?

Kris Hopes
I do it was a really late night in a underground railway station in Sydney. We had a permit to film from midnight until 5AM. So it was a very late night. I think we’d been up for almost two days when we got to it. It was a pretty funny video to shoot. We shot the last scene about five minutes before the first commuter train for the morning came in when our time ran out. We were lucky to get it all done.

SCENEzine
Another huge crowd favourite is “Champion” do you remember how that song came about in the writing process?

Kris Hopes
The music came first. Joe wrote most of the music for that one. Him and I basically rehearsed a couple of rhythm tracks that we had we just thought that was a pretty cool rhythmical tune to play. Then obviously Pat and Phil added their bits and it came out pretty good we really liked that track.

SCENEzine
To celebrate Guide to Better Living you have re-released it featuring some live tracks recorded at CBGB’s. What was it like playing that iconic venue?

Kris Hopes
It was amazing. It’s a shame that it’s closed down now. We got to play that venue a couple of times. We had a pretty memorable gig there the last one. Bands like Blondie and Pearl Jam had played there it was amazing to be a young band from Lismore and get to play a venue like that in New York.

SCENEzine
Grinspoon are quite uniquely Australian. So did American audiences understand what you were all about?

Kris Hopes
No well back then it was kind of weird because Americans really like to put you into a category. They could never do that with us, they weren’t sure if we were a metal band or a punk band or a rock band. We didn’t really fit the pieces together for any of those genres. Our true fans out there got the band and knew what we were all about. I think it was difficult for a lot of people especially Americans to work out who we were.

SCENEzine
Guide to Better Living has also recently been pressed on vinyl. It must be a cool feeling to see the album now on vinyl?

Kris Hopes
Yeah it’s pretty cool for us. The EP we did before the album we got pressed a really small run of vinyl back then and I’ve still got one floating around somewhere. It was really cool to be able to do it these days and have some limited edition red vinyl. I’m stoked to have the album on a record that I can play at home. Not that I have yet but I will.

SCENEzine
I grew up like many Australian’s seeing you play at Big Day Out, Homebake and all kinds of places. It must be surreal to think how Grinspoon affected so many peoples lives growing up?

Kris Hopes
Yeah that’s exciting for us. We obviously set out when we recorded the album for people to like it but we didn’t think it would carry on this long. We’ve had fans bringing their kids to our shows. It’s pretty amazing really.

SCENEzine
Is there a key reason why Grinspoon has been able to stay the same four members?

Kris Hopes
I think if Grinspoon ever wanted to change a member we would break the band up. The chemistry between the four of us is a key to this band. It would be something totally different if there was a different guitar player, bass player, drummer or singer. It has a lot to do with the longevity of the band and why we are back doing it again at the moment. My suggestion to people in bands these days is find some dudes that you really like and stick together.

SCENEzine
Is Phil as crazy off stage as he is on?

Kris Hopes
Generally yeah (laughs). He’s always a bit of fun. There’s always something going on with him. You need that in a front man for your band. He’s an amazing front man.

SCENEzine
During the bands hiatus what were you personally up to?

Kris Hopes
I ran a commercial handy man business and took time away from music. I just wanted a break from music to recharge the batteries. We had been touring for almost eighteen years solid and when we weren’t touring we were writing and recording. So for me it was time to get away from music for a little while and take a fresh look at it.

SCENEzine
Lastly is there any news on new Grinspoon music happening anytime soon?

Kris Hopes
We’ve talked about a bit of stuff and there’s a couple of tracks floating around. I don’t know if they’re going to see the light of day but we are just taking it one step at a time. We will get to the end of this tour then see how everyone is feeling. But nothing concrete we are just focusing on this tour at the moment.

(Interview by Christian Ross)

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