The Grand Nationals recorded their new album in a Newtown apartment.
By Jack Firneno
Wire Editor
It looks like the kind of place where people make records like this.
Guitarist and singer Adam Ray Honeycutt and bassist and engineer Jason Harris sit in the living room of Honeycutt’s rustic old apartment in Newtown, playing some of their songs directly from Harris’ mixing console.
The space doubles as the studio for their band, The Grand Nationals, and it’s where they tracked From the North, their new album that comes out this week.
The album, their second, finds the group’s sometimes disparate influences coalescing into a distinct, identifiable country-informed rock: imagine Neil Young at his most wintry and desolate at one end of their sonic spectrum, and Dave Matthews in an open-air stadium during the summer on the other.
“We started with 20 demos, and recorded 11,” noted Honeycutt on the band’s journey to truly find their own style. “I think everyone’s happy with the way it turned out.”
From the North was something of a labor of love, taking around a year to complete. But after a less-than-satisfactory experience creating its predecessor, the band decided to use Harris’ years of engineering expertise to build their own studio and take their time to record themselves.
“It was a lot of long nights,” remembered Honeycutt. “A lot of times seeing the sun come up.”
That’s how the living room of this second-story apartment became the band’s studio. It took nearly a year to create the album, with the band recording sometimes all night after the businesses downstairs closed — and Honeycutt also thanked his fiancée and her daughter for sleeping through most of it.
But, hearing The Grand Nationals’ new songs in this room quickly makes it obvious that this space is just as much a part of the record as the lap steel guitar by Kyle Perella, a guest from the band the Levee Drivers, gorgeous harmonies courtesy of guitarist Pete Hill, Jared Pfancook’s often ambient keyboards and the occasional funky drumming by TJ de Blois.
In the corner is a solid black dressing screen with a blanket thrown over it, a makeshift vocal booth. Next to it is one of at least three Bruce Springsteen posters in the place — one of which is autographed — with an acoustic guitar hanging next to it.
Hanging from the ceiling are carefully placed wooden baffles, hand-crafted by Harris. “It’s one of my favorite things to do, to build studios,” he said.
And in this one, the furniture is vintage and a little faded from the sun straining through heavy curtains. Above one window are cardboard cutout masks of the band members, which they wore to “dress up” as each other for last year’s Halloween show.
The performance was a casual affair, and one of very few gigs they played while recording. But all that’s set to change now: the band will be on Radio 104.5’s Live at Five show this Friday, and is playing an all-ages record release show at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia on Saturday.
Back home in Bucks, their albums are for sale at Newtown Book and Record Exchange. “They love us and we love them back,” said Honeycutt. But the band won’t be hanging around much to enjoy them.
This month, members are embarking on their first “real tour,” heading out on the road for 10 days and going as far as Nashville, Tenn.
“It’ll be our first legit tour. We’ve done a few weekend tours but that’s it,” said Honeycutt. They’ll go out again in June and July, and are planning an even longer tour for the fall.
But, no matter how far from home they go, the Grand Nationals will be bringing their living room with them wherever they are.
The Grand Nationals will be performing at World Cafe Live on Saturday, April 12. For information, visit www.facebook.com/TheGrandNationals.
