They say you never forget your first love or your first kiss. Many folks would add that they never forget their first intimate encounter either. Taking that a few steps further, it’s easy to imagine that most musicians never forget their first album either. That could explain why Ben Lee is still so partial to the first effort he ever released on his own, one he wrote at the tender ages of 13 and 14 and then recorded a year later. It wasn’t his first outing — he played in a band called Noise Addict in his native Australia —- but being out on his own for the first time was clearly made for an auspicious occasion.
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“There is something magical that sometimes seems to happen at the beginnings of artistic careers,” Lee writes in the liner notes that accompany the newly-expanded vinyl edition of that initial album Grandpaw Would, now newly reissued for Record Store Day, which falls on Saturday, August 29. “Sometimes planets align, the timing is just right, people show up ready for their entrance.”
Originally helmed by power pop producer Brad Wood, who had also sat behind the boards for Noise Addict’s efforts, and co-produced by Casey Rice the album consisted of a sublime set of songs effectively adorned with the exquisite accompaniment of acoustic guitars, billowing harmonies and a sound that bolstered and emboldened Lee’s newly unleashed melodic intents. It boasted 18 songs in all — 21 on the Japanese release — and no shortage of outstanding offerings —“I’m With the Star,” “Side View” and “How Can That Be” chief among them.
Originally released on the indie label Grand
Royal Records, the album remains one of Lee’s most memorable efforts overall.
It also made quite an impression on Lee’s current company as well, New West
Records, which opted to rerelease the album under their own auspices. New West’s
VP of publicity, Brady Brock, suggested that it ought to be brought back and
personally presided over the project as its Executive Producer.
“I guess those anniversary
numbers mean something,” Lee told American Songwriter when asked why he
was enthused by the album’s rerelease. “It seemed like a fun idea to revive it
for a moment. I was into it. Twenty-five years is a significant period. It’s
pretty cool that anyone still cares about a record I made in two weeks 25 years
ago.”
Reimagined as a double disc, the Record Store Day edition includes not only the
original 18 tracks but also two sides of demos and outtakes. “I dug into my storage and pulled
out a bunch of cassettes and 4 track demos from the era,” Lee recalls. “You
hold onto these things on the off chance that someone will be interested in
them one day. It’s a minor victory for an artist on the day that phone call
comes.”
Some
might say those remarks might suggest that he’s a packrat, but the fact remains
that even with all the albums he’s done since then, that first record, Grandpaw
Would, remains an essential part of his trajectory.
“It seems like it
continues to be meaningful to some people,” he says in retrospect. “I meet
people who tell me how important it was to them. It’s not a super dramatic
album that changed the world, but it’s a hopeful, romantic, fun, cool album
that made people want to have crushes on each other. I think there’s room for
that. Also, it’s
the album I’ve made with the most in-jokes. Literally…jokes and references that
were only for me. I was getting high on my own supply.”
That
said, it was Lee’s love of songwriting that’s obvious even now. Here again, in
this excerpt from the reissue’s liner notes, he offers a glimpse into his MO.
“Songwriting has
always seemed noble to me,” he insists. “I’ve
never liked songwriting by committee. I come from indie rock. I like songs
written by one or two people, that could only have been written by them. I
believe songs can touch on the universal, and probably should, but they must be
anchored in the world of idiosyncrasy and detail. The lines in songs that
people come up to me and recite back have never been the ones that read like platitudes,
but the ones that spell out the exact moment in time when I wrote it…And for
me, that is the eternal lesson I carry with me from this period of my life:
Always write about your own little universe. Its details are what make it
yours, make it real. When a song is based in truth, the audience and the
songwriter can fall in love, side by side, with each other, with the song, and
with the whole world.”
Consequently, this Record Store Day reissue of Grandpaw Would provides a timely return. It rekindles some lost love that’s as assuring and alluring now as it was so early on.
The Away With The Pixies EP is on vinyl for the first time as well as the “Pop Queen” single B-Sides. The release also features new liner notes by Ben, Producers Brad Wood & Casey Rice, and fans of the band Damian Abraham of Fucked Up, Har Mar Superstar, and Jake Fogelnest as well!
It is a must have for Ben Lee fans, so hit your local record store and pick it up!
