Adam Granduciel, frontman of the band The War on Drugs, is a local kid made good. Thirty years ago or so, he was another teenager with a guitar living outside of Boston—today, he’s a Rock Star, albeit an unassuming one. The War on Drugs is a Grammy-winning, Rolling Stones-collaborating, Madison Square Garden-playing, Electric Lady-recording kind of band. That transformation feels more complete than ever on their impressive fifth album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, a record full of big arena-worthy anthems. It’s out this week.
Ahead of the release, Granduciel reminisced with GQ about growing up in the suburbs—biking around, discovering Neil Young, fishing for work at a golf course where he couldn’t afford a membership. The reflections on his childhood make sense; while making this record, he had a baby with his partner, the actor Krysten Ritter. The album was shaped by the cadences of fatherhood as much as the disruptions of last year’s pandemic.
Perhaps that’s why there’s an optimistic undercurrent running through I Don’t Live Here Anymore. The War on Drugs have always managed to channel the sound and vibes of classic rock without it coming off as cosplay. They often sound like Springsteen at his most pensive, played through a haze. That comparison still holds up here, but this album is easily the band’s clearest, most vibrant, and upbeat. You’ll want to play it loud and see it live.
GQ: Talk about how the album came together during the pandemic.
Adam Granduciel: I basically moved to LA at the end of 2014, but I was living in New York most of 2018, while Krysten was working there. Most of the time I was on tour, but when I wasn’t on tour I was writing and recording a lot at this place called Studio G in Brooklyn. We did a lot of demoing there, and some of the stuff from those sessions ended up on the record.
At the end of 2018 we did a week at Electric Lady [Jimi Hendrix’s old studio complex in downtown Manhattan]. That was, in my mind, the beginning of this record. But all of 2019 was LA-based. The band came out and we did some work in May of that year at Electro-Vox, which is now gone. It was one of the more iconic studios of late. A lot of producers used to love working there, Frank Ocean made some records there.
But when everything shut down in March of 2020, that was basically it until I got back together with [producer] Shawn Everett. The first time we got back together was in October at Sound City. We did three weeks and that’s where a few songs really took a turn for the better.
Like what?
The song “Old Skin.” I had a demo of that song that I really liked that sounded like Jesus and the Mary Chain. We tracked it with the band in the beginning of 2020 and it was totally different, but not for the better. But I knew there was a song inside it somewhere, so out of frustration [Shawn and I] had it up on the console and I said, “What if we just mute everything I don’t like?” That left basically the organ and one note I was playing on the JUNO [synthesizer], and it opened up the whole song to be something really cinematic. Within an hour from that, we had figured out the arrangement for the song.
The other one was “I Don’t Live Here Anymore.” It was sounding really good and [guitarist Anthony LaMarca] had a JC-120 amplifier, which is basically the classic 80s amp. There was something about the mood of the song that wanted to sound really big, and the 80s amp really reminded me of something. Two hours later we had basically run every single track on that song through that amp. It gave it that really amazing sheen, a three dimensional depth, that hadn’t been there before. It was a really tactile way to work on music, which is my favorite way.
Those kinds of things can only be done if you’re in the room with somebody - we could never have done it with mixes over email.
Those sessions would have been over a year ago, though. What happened to the record between then and now?
At the end of the project, Shawn and I sent it to mastering. We listened to it and thought it sounded really great. They were like, “Cool, are you ready to sign off?” And we were like, “No.”
We sat on the record for about a month and they pushed the release date. To Atlantic’s credit, they did not bother me one time about why I hadn’t signed off. I was in Portland and Shawn was working on other projects so it took us a while to connect, but we realized something was not right. It just wasn’t there yet.
One day I said to Shawn, “I’ll come over to your house and we’ll finish this frickin’ record.” I got there at 6 at night and we worked until 5 in the morning and basically changed the entire record. We remixed songs, I resang things, we spliced songs together.
There’s nothing you could quantify to say what made it right. It’s just that we were together in the room that last time listening to it together through the speakers. We needed to be the last ones to put our hands on this thing.
You sound like someone who thrives off in person interactions. Beyond the album, how was quarantine for you?
It was tough! I feel fortunate that Shawn and I got to work in person on this record. But I knew how cautious he was because he also had a baby a couple months younger than [my son] Bruce. I knew that he literally didn’t leave his house, which afforded us the opportunity to get together, because we both trusted each other.
Were you seeing anyone besides Shawn and your family last year?
Basically no! We would go on walks and we would see other people, obviously, but we weren’t socializing. I wouldn’t go to the grocery store, which is one of my great joys that I’m finally back to doing—walking the aisles with my headphones on. The first time I went back, I realized how much I missed roaming the aisles and just getting lost in whatever I’m listening to.
Occasionally I would play golf with these guys I met through a neighbor of mine, and we ended up becoming pandemic buddies and awesome buddies in general.
How did you get into golf?
I started playing golf when I was very young, maybe 10 or 11. There was a country club, Wellesley Country Club in Massachusetts. We weren’t members or anything, but it was 15 minutes from where I grew up, and my Dad or somebody was like, “You should go caddy on the weekends, make some money. Deadbeat.” So you get there at 6:30 in the morning and you wait and they pair you up with a guy, you carry his clubs and he gives you $20, you eat a hot dog and you go out again at noon, you get another $20 and you go back again on Sunday.
Then on Monday, they would close the course for maintenance day, and caddies got to play, even if you weren’t a member. So my dad gave me his dad’s clubs from the 1920s or something, and I would play. And I had a friend in middle school, his dad played, so he played and we all played. They would take me out on a 9-hole course. To be honest I think they may have been using me to get in on the greens fees—I’m just putting it together now. But I got really into it, until I got so old that I couldn’t pay junior fees any more, maybe when I was like 16. The public courses went up from $5 to $20, so I was done.
Then one morning I was wearing a Kurt Vile t-shirt and a mask and I was walking by this house [in my neighborhood], and the guy out front goes, “Great shirt!” and turns out it’s a guy who used to book shows for us in Australia. He had moved to California, like 40 feet from me. We knew each other, we’d see each other every morning when I walked with my baby, and he’s an avid golfer who one day invited me out. It was so fun!
What’s your handicap?
Realistically, it’s probably like +20. There was a period when we got out a lot, and by the end there I almost thought I was going to break 80. That was the peak.
These days you work almost exclusively in legendary studios. Is there any particular place that stands out for you?
When you’re at Electric Lady, I think there’s something about that place. I don’t think it's the ghost of Jimi Hendrix or anything, I think it’s because it’s underneath the West Village. You walk in the front door and all of a sudden you’re in a cocoon. It’s vibed out, everyone is so kind, but right above you is the energy of New York. That is a very special place.
The album is called I Don’t Live Here Anymore. You recorded it in LA and New York, you live in LA, your band is from Philadelphia… Where’s home for you?
I consider Los Angeles home, for sure. But that took a while, in part because we were moving back and forth. In those times, I definitely considered Philly home, and there was this feeling that I hadn’t been home in five years. I didn’t even know what it meant to be home any more, to be rooted in a place. Now having been in LA and having a family here and knowing my way around and having a community, it does feel like home.
Did becoming a dad change the way you think about your music at all, or is it a completely separate thing?
It is separate. For me at least, creatively, when I’m working on something and I’m waiting for inspiration, you go back to a well of inspiration, a feeling from a different part of your life—the idea that you’re directionless or you don’t have a home. These things that we all go through can be a source of great inspiration, even when you find yourself with a kid or a life in Los Angeles. You can have one thing and still feel connected to an idea, whether it’s a lost love or depression or loneliness.
People have said this record is more hopeful. I can’t point to a specific thing, but I think there is a certain level of acceptance with having a kid and the joy that it brings. There’s an affirmation on some of these songs about doing what you have to do to live your code.
The moments I’m most proud of are those when I had a clear idea of what the song was about when I walked up to the mic. On the title track, lyrics had never come out of me as easily as they did. Usually it takes me weeks to write two lines. On this one, it was just falling out of me. There’s a hopefulness to being so sure of yourself.
Is it important to you that your son’s childhood is similar—or different—to yours in any way?
I’ve been thinking ever since he was born, or even before—I would be totally content to move back to where I’m from. That’s the landscape of childhood to me. I know how to navigate childhood in that place. Like, “Let’s just go back, it’ll be really easy, that’s where I was a child, we’ll ride our bikes to the tennis court.”
But at the same time, every morning I have this room filled with music gear, and we hang out every morning in the music room. He experiments with sound and has fun, and it’s so cool that he gets that. I had to find music for myself, but he gets to inherit my obsession and my knowledge. He’ll take that knowledge and he’ll turn it into a love of music or something totally detached from it, who knows. But giving him some sort of bouncing off point for his interests is cool.