Temporary Youth: Dan Grissom Interview!!!

Ok, im getting tired of waiting, a day has passed and i only one more reader. Hmmm sad. But anyways, screw if i get anymore readers, atleast i hope you guys appreciate my posts.
But now im gonna' drop the bomb!

As written in the last post i finally contacted Dan Grissom from my personal facebook profile. I wrote a long message to him about this blog, about me and about how much my readers liked him. He wrote back and said that he would gladly answer any questions from me. - So i wrote down a couple of questions, here it is - hope you'll enjoy:

Hi Gustav, 
That is me. I would be happy to answer any questions you have.


How old are you, and where do you live?

I am 28 years old. I live in Austin, TX. I grew up in a very rural part of Louisiana.

When did you had your first experience with music, what or who introduced you? First time performing with singing, first guitar?

I didn't start playing music or thinking of music as a possibility for me until I was in college. Growing up, my sister played lots of instruments and I was a painter. I saw it as a clear delineation. She was a musician, I was a visual artist. I wasn't interested in music until I was in college and all of my friends had bands and I wanted to play in their bands. My uncle lent me a bass guitar, and I taught myself how to play and joined one of my friend's bands. I started playing my own music at open mics and eventually met my friend Ryan Conlin, with whom I formed 'some say Leland' and started playing my songs out more.

First piece of music that you bought yourself, what bands did you listen to back then? 
The first music that really inspired me was The Beatles and Paul Simon. Other than that, I listened to a lot of terrible music that was on the radio.

What music did you start out playing? What inspired you to make the music you make now? Have you been playing in that typical school rock band that almost everybody has?
One of the first bands I was in was a death metal band. I quickly got tired of playing heavy music all the time. Then I got more into straight forward folk music, then I got more into experimental stuff. This was all after high school though.

When did you start making your own lyrics? What did your different lyrics tell?
I started writing my own lyrics when I started learning guitar. If there were some chords that I wanted to learn, I'd write lyrics around some of those chords and practice playing them. I was writing poetry at the time, so it seemed like a more useful place for what I was writing than being in notebooks for no one to read.

If you had to choose one song that would be the 'soundtrack of your life' so far, which song would it be? You can tell about different periods of your life and choose different songs for those periods, if you want to.
The song 'Ariel Ramirez' by Richard Buckner is a song that I love more every time I hear it. I don't think it's really the soundtrack of my life or anything, but if I had to choose one song to listen to for the rest of my life, that might be it.

Whats your biggest experience with your music untill now, anything you won't ever forget?
A big highlight recently was when my band 'some say Leland' was recording our split 7" with 'Spirits of the Red City'. We are close friends with them and the idea behind the 7" was that we would write a song, and they would write a song, then we would spend a day together and learn to play the songs as one huge 14 piece band. Then we recorded both songs the next day. We had such a blast, that we're going to make it an annual thing. Another big one would be a show we played in an Abandoned Mental Institution outside of Austin. My friends and I put together these shows in interesting locations around town, and that was the most epic. Directions were vague and required walking about a mile away from the road with a flashlight. About 250 people showed up and the show, which was completely acoustic and candle lit was really amazing.

Whats the craziest thing you can think of that could happen with you and your music in the future?
Spontaneous combustion.

If you could make one wish come true, what would it be?
Infinite wishes.

To all those kids out there, like me, dreaming of making as good music as you one day, - do you got any tips or wise words to tell us?
Don't make music to please anyone but yourself, don't get caught up in what's trendy, and always be kind.

When will we be able to buy a CD of yours, my readers are furious because they can't find any of your stuff online?


I have a band called 'some say Leland' that has a full length album called 'fifty miles into the main' and two EPs called 'wake' and 'field recordings volume 1: the abandoned state school'. I also have a sort of slapped together solo EP from a while back called 'what was'. All of this is available on itunes and through cdbaby.com. There is also an older some say Leland full length called 'kings, bishops, and pawns' but I don't think it really represents what I'm doing now musically. We are also about to release a split 7" with a band from Minneapolis, Minnesota called "Spirits of the Red City". I'm also currently working on another full-length album with my band, and a solo full-length as well. Both will likely be released within the next year.


Thank you Dan. I'm very gald that you would spend your time doing this interview. I'm sure my readers are too.


No problem Gustav. Good luck with your blog.




So that was it. Hope you liked it.. Tell all your freinds about it ;) I would appreciate that!