Formed with Berlin-based musician LARS TRIESCH from a chance meeting at Las Vegas’ Punk Rock Museum, Jack Grisham and the Life Undone offered an opportunity to make a truly authentic album with a kindred spirit. A lifelong aficionado of California punk and modernism (his house was designed by Cali modernist architect Ray Kappe), Lars was well aware of Jack’s talents. “Jack is an extraordinary songwriter with such a natural feel for structure and harmony,” Lars told IDIOTEQ. “Of all the great characters who came out of the early California punk scene, I couldn’t imagine anyone else for this record.”
Jack Grisham and the Life Undone started with that random meeting at the proverbial “right place and right time. After Jack felt T.S.O.L. had run its course, he stepped away from music and was happily writing novels and making films. Lars (whose own life path led him away from the punk rock past to much-more-stable vintage furniture and design firm in Berlin) had always harbored a wish to return to his musical past. Striking up a conversation with Jack, the oft-suggested “hey we should make a record” phrase was uttered… This statement however had legs. And not too long after, Lars and Jack made good on that suggestion and started writing music together – albeit from 6,000 miles apart - via Zoom.
Produced by Kurt Ebelhäuser (Lars’ former collaborator in the ‘90s Koblenz, Germany punk scene) and accompanied by a crew of fellow punk musicians, Lars’ former collaborator in the ‘90s Koblenz punk scene; engineer/co-producer Michel Wern (Donots, Broilers); and Jack’s onetime T.S.O.L. bandmate Trevor Lucca (D.I., Dick Dale) on guitar, the guts of the album were nearly complete. Upon his return Stateside, Jack revisited some of his vocals with producer and longtime friend Paul Roessler (The Screamers, 45 Grave) in Los Angeles, who also added keys and backing vocals.
The result is the single-minded, gorgeously melodic Jack Grisham and the Life Undone, thirteen heartfelt tracks, spanning guitar-fueled alt-rock, harmony-heavy Britpop, Americana-adjacent acoustic songs, and low-cal SoCal balladry. |
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