By River Bryan
It’s been almost two years since Grackles, an Austin-based collaborative effort that assembles eight seasoned studio and touring musicians, debuted with their self-titled LP Grackles (2023). Named for the bird and unofficial city mascot, the group embraces its locality both on and off stage, with frontman Noah Lit characterizing it as both a personal tribute and a means of preserving the musical hallmarks of Austin.
Kicking off their sophomore effort, Grackles Deux, Lit, whose musical resume includes other indie rock projects such as The Love Supreme, Oliver Future, and Noah And The Megafauna, prepares for the album’s upcoming release party at the Continental Club with the same relaxed enthusiasm he brings to his music as a whole. Joined through Zoom along with his occasionally interested cat, Lit spoke of the band’s intentional spirit and the ever-shaping colors of Austin’s music scene.
Grackles’ newest LP, Grackles Deux: The Grackling, will be celebrated at the Continental Club on Saturday, September 20th.
Your new album, Grackles Deux: The Grackling, developed a lot of genre-bending ideas that you were already exploring in your self-titled debut. Can you tell me how the creative process differed this time around, and how it was similar?
I think this one leaned a little bit more into rock and roll. With the first one, I was really trying to focus on a sort of goth, Americana kind of vibe. With this one, I think me and the guitarists, Jason Mozersky and Sam Raver, just really wanted to play the electric guitar, and wanted to just rock a bit more. Not in a stadium rock way–more in a tight, seventies kind of rock way.
There’s a lot of talk about Austin’s music scene–how much it’s changed, how much it’s developed. Is there anything in your experience that has stayed the same, and how do you think Grackles contribute to the mosaic of old and new that we find here so often?
Well, the places that we play so far are the Continental Club, Antone’s, and Batch (Craft Beer and Kolaches, which Lit co-owns alongside his brother and Grackles bandmate, Josh). Batch is obviously a newer venue, but Continental and Antone’s have been around forever–Antone’s, obviously, in a new shape, but the vibe is still the same. For us, we’re playing the Continental on the 20th, and it’ll feel like it did in 2010, or probably 1995, in a lot of ways. That’s what I love about that space and that room, it just feels like the music scene that we kind of came up in.
To answer the second part of your question, I do feel like Grackles are sort of my attempt at being consciously Austin. I feel like with my previous bands, I always wanted them to sound like they’re from, say, London, or just somewhere else where you couldn’t really put your finger on it. I really feel like Grackles is my “I Love Austin” band. It kind of guides a lot of the lyrics, a lot of the vibes, and a lot of the people we bring in to play on the record. David Grissom is the most incredible lead guitar player, and he’s just a treasure here. Kevin McKinney, also, and Eric Zapata, from Gary Clark Jr’s band. I really try to pull these dudes that I’ve known forever, and just bring them into this little Grackle-world, which is kind of my version of what Austin feels like.
Does the stage feel different to you than the studio in any meaningful way, and does it affect your music and creative process to perform live?
Oh, for sure, yeah. I get excited on stage, so all the songs are twice as fast (laughs). Three times as loud. And I do see performing and recording as two different animals. For recording, I like to lean more into the lower ranges of my vocals, but live, you’ll hear that sometimes I pitch things up an octave, ‘cause that just cuts through a little bit better, adds a little bit more excitement.
I haven’t really gotten to the point of – some classic bands can do that thing where you bring the audience down to that special place, and everybody sits there on pins and needles. Where you can hear a pin drop. I haven’t really figured that one out. At the end of the day, we want to be a really, really good bar band (laughs). I always joke that I want to be the kind of band where if you pay attention, you’ll be like, “Man, they’re pretty good.” And even if you’re not paying attention, you’re just at the bar, talking to your friends, but out of the peripheral, you’re like “Hey, they’re pretty good.”
Grackles is a band where every member has a prolific relationship with music, recording, and performing. Is there any experience or artist that set you on a musical path, or is it a passion that has always existed in you?
I feel like there have been different artists at different stages. I think I was a nerdy kid who fell in love with Jimi Hendrix and wanted to do that, but as I got a little older, I found David Bowie and was like, “Oh, you can meld all these different genres and types of art into your music.” Then Bowie was a crossway into Tom Waits, which was like, “You can do that and play all these characters, but in a sort of darker, cooler way.” I feel like for Grackles, those are maybe the three patron saints.
And then all of these Austin artists that we love, like Townes Van Zandt [and] even Stevie Ray Vaughn. Like I said, I’m really just trying to be obnoxiously Austin. I do feel like the city has changed so much, so fast. And I’m not complaining about it–I know that’s an Austin pastime (laughs). When I moved here in ‘95, people were already saying it jumped the shark. I don’t feel that way, but musically, I feel like there’s something to it that has drawn all these people here. So we kind of have to remember to pay homage, or try to keep that.
Regarding not just the Austin music scene, but also rock, blues, Americana, and roots as a whole, their shape and popularity differ from their time in the seventies and eighties. How do you feel about its current climate and future?
That’s such a tough question. A good one, but in the same way that people have been complaining about Austin forever, people have been saying rock is dead forever. But I do feel like shared reality is a bigger problem than specific genres of music. Within the genres of rock and Americana, there are people who are doing really great stuff and doing really well. It’s hard to say people like Jason Isbell aren’t doing really well. Wilco is still out there crushing it. So it’s hard to say that there isn’t an audience for it, but there isn’t that thing anymore where a band releases a record and it’s a moment that everybody feels, and I don’t think that’s ever coming back. And I think that’s kinda sad, but it’s just something that we have to adjust to.
But it’s not just music, not just rock and Americana. It’s movies, our perception of the news. Whatever you’re into, you can get so into it and find your little groove. On one hand, it’s a really cool thing, but on the other, it means this shared reality is sort of dissolving, which I think we can see the implications of in our politics and our day-to-day lives. But it’s hard to see people who are out there just crushing it–and yeah, you don’t make as much money off of it, but I think they’re making up for it in other ways. I always have kind of a weird philosophy on that because I never really made very much money as a musician. It’s only since 1964, when the Beatles came out, that anyone expected to make any money off of music anyway. So that was a very short amount of time. And if you did it within that time, good for you, but the rest of us kind of have to do it because we feel it.
So it’s not just a music-bubble issue, but reflects the way we live our lives differently in general.
Yeah, that’s just the way it is. Every now and then, something pops through, and everyone I know is like, “Have you seen Sinners?” There are these little tiny glimpses of what that felt like. I mean, I’m old, that’s a part of Grackles–we’re grumpy old men. I remember when [Radiohead’s] Kid A came out, and there were heated debates on the news about Kid A. Are you kidding me? (laughs) Can you imagine? Or New York Times pieces about Amnesiac. Those days are gone, but that doesn’t mean music is gone.
You can catch Grackles’ upcoming album release party at the Continental Club on Saturday, September 20th. You can also listen to their newest LP, Grackles Deux: The Grackling, on Spotify, Apple Music, or anywhere music is available.