artist Grady

Grady- Calling All My Demons - The Austin Chronicle Review 

Audio and visual experiences being opposite inputs, this CD/DVD combo looks like Texas – the longhorn skull riding between Nina Singh's bass drums – but in bullying Winnipeg instead, it sounds like Hell. As in black-hatted Canadian transplant Grady Johnson unleashing his slide guitar as if he were the Hell's Angels. Texiconic out front of big red Tex-Mex skull tapestry, the local trio burns rubber through an oil slick of nasty postapocalyptic blues, and whether bassist Big Ben Richardson lays in underground cables of low-tone connectivity on the DVD or Johnson's 100 miles of unpaved vox scuff the CD ("Good as Dead"), Calling All My Demons summons diesel-burning carnality whatever the format. "Blackass Woman" leaves little to the imagination on CD, but Singh singing a "A Cup of Cold Poison" demands eyeballs. Johnson's two-headed guitar hints of Jimmy Page and his "Tom Sawyer" breakdown in "One Night of Sin" call for both discs. Grady's gift: a black eye and cauliflower ear.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2011-02-25/grady/

Gordie Johnson has never been one to stand still musically. In his old band, Big Sugar, Johnson's songwriting, and the band's sound, went through gradual shifts over the course of five full-length records and a few EPs, the sound expanding from tight blues to a wider range of rock 'n' roll and reggae as the group's lineup expanded. Once Johnson folded Big Sugar in 2004, he headed south for the musically-fertile landscape of Austin, Texas, turning his guitar up even louder—even in Big Sugar he had a reputation for extreme volume—and hit the gas pedal with a little trio called Grady, enlisting his old bass-playing friend Big Ben Richardson and former Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton for the band's debut, Y.U. So Shady?, with Billy Maddox stepping in on drums for the band's second album, A Cup of Cold Poison. After Maddox left the band for health reasons, Nina Singh took over, settling in nicely as Grady worked its way through a long list of live dates leading up to its third record, the upcoming As Good As Dead. And while the guitar, bass and drums still pump the heart of the band, the group's blood has gotten a little thicker this time around with a little more texture, due in large part to a bit of additional instrumentation.

"It really is evolving and without doing things on purpose to it either, you know," Johnson admits over the phone from a West Coast tour stop. "It's just the musicians that we're hanging out with, and there are more guests on this record than on previous records just because we hang out with some great steel guitar players and fiddlers.

"It offered a little bit of balance," he continues. "Some textural differences like accordion and fiddle and steel guitar—they're all such beautiful textures, so to contrast that against the giant wall of [sound], I think it does make the record a little more balanced that way.

"While the band's wall of sound is still front and centre, like Big Sugar before it Grady has assimilated the sounds of its surroundings—"Accordion's really big down there in Texas, man—accordion is king," Johnson laughs. "I mean, guitar players are cool, but accordion rules down there, so we had to have some accordion on the record, too"—but the evolution has come from within, as well. Specifically, Singh's influence is felt not just in her drumming—the beats remain heavy, but with a little more nuance and different shades than previously—but also in her vocal work behind Johnson.

"Yeah, I mean she's really not just drums for hire," Johnson heartily agrees. "She joined the band full-on, she's got a co-write on one of the songs and the two of us singing together—I've used her on a bunch of session work where the two of us will do backup vocals together on other people's records. I just love singing with her, so it's like, 'How can we not do that on our own records?' So we really worked on the vocal arrangements.

"A change in drummer can have a substantial effect on the sound of a band, though the specifics of that change are often nearly impossible to describe in words. It often comes down to a feel, the way that the various players interact on a musical level.

"There's a communication between the three of us that wasn't there the same way before. With Nina, she's almost like the mediator between me and Big Ben, where Big Ben and I we're like one big thing, the two of us are kind of like musically inseparable—I mean, I've known the guy for like 25 years and we've played together for all of that time," he says. "It's like it's just one big thing, so having a drummer who comes in and stands up on her own and adds to the conversation—she's not just following this massive thing around the yard, she goes in an opposite direction or she's complementary to it and she becomes this mediator musically.

"And look at it, man, it's a three-piece band," he continues. "If we were five or six instruments, the drummer's still important, but in a three-piece band there is nothing else in that range. The bass does its job, the guitar does its job and the drums are all over the sonic spectrum. There's no easy way around that, you can't fake your way through it. The sound that they produce becomes signature to the band, and Nina really does have her own signature.

"I mean the other drummers were great, but they were almost too connected to the same stomp that we were putting down," he adds. "It had a sort of monochromatic kind of thing—like our first record is sort of monochromatic, I find. I'm not disappointed with the way it turned out, but it all just goes stomp and steer—it's like a drag race, whereas this is more like a road rally where there's curves and you gotta slow down and speed up and pass people.

"Since moving to Austin, Johnson has become a fixture at Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studio, laying down not only Grady's three records there, but also producing and mixing plenty for artists like the Spades, Joel Plaskett, Gov't Mule and Nashville Pussy. According to Johnson, there's something special that draws him back to that particular studio.

"Well, it's Willie's place, you know, and his vibe just permeates the entire joint," he laughs. "Willie's office and his chessboard are there, he's out on the golf course, Ray Price has walked through the door, Merle Haggard has walked through the door, Kris Kristofferson—I mean, there's just like fucking amazing, legendary people that just drop by or do stuff there. So whatever you're doing in there you tend to raise your game to its highest level because it's like, 'Wow, there's been some no fucking around going on in here.' If you showed up there you better have meant it."

Johnson says that he's seen the vibe manifest itself in varying degrees throughout his time in the studio: Nashville Pussy recorded its latest record there without vocals, and then singer Blaine Cartwright sat down in Nelson's office and cranked out the words to 12 songs in an afternoon, with Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes doing the same thing. Even Johnson has felt the magic while recording Grady's latest.

"The song 'Good As Dead' on our record," he recalls, "we had already recorded most of the record and at that point we were just doing bonus stuff, cover songs, just whatever tickled our fancy 'cause we were already set up and I was just like, 'Guys, just hang on for a sec,' and I went next door, same thing, man, I came out of there with 'Good As Dead' and 'I'm a Sinner Too,' two songs from the record, and those came together in minutes. The place is kind of haunted.

"For Johnson, the shift between producing or mixing for someone else and creating the music with Grady is an imperceptible one. In the end, it's all about making the best music possible, regardless of what role he's playing in the process.

"You know what, it's all music and it's like one big instrument, the studio," he says. "It's like a giant keyboard instrument—there's a lot of buttons to push. But a double-neck guitar has got a lot of buttons to push and a lot of strings to set in motion, a bass guitar's only got four strings but it's no less important or intricate. So the studio to me is just a really super intricate instrument and I can make music with it.

"Ultimately you're just channeling the flow of electrons to push paper—to push the paper speakers, little headphones or your car stereo or whatever, and it's supposed to invoke an emotional response," he continues. "The last thing you want is for the music to come out of those speakers and the people to be non-committal about it either way. You got to have people that get emotional over it—it's got to mess them up. I'd rather people absolutely hated the Grady record—in some sense that's kind of great for me, like, 'Great, I was really trying to piss you off, because that means that if this pisses you off then there's going to be people that really like it passionately.'"

By Eden Munro - vueweekly.com

http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=13357

On a cold and wet October afternoon, I huddled in with a few Trent friends in Peterborough at the Old Stone (a favourite haunt) and knew I had a call coming from Mister Gordie Johnson (of 'Big Sugar' and 'Grady' fame) who was across the country. Gordie had some time to kill and was kind enough to open his vault of knowledge for little old Matt McKech from Thick Specs as he was waiting to get on a ferry to Victoria, BC to kick off the 'Good As Dead' tour with Grady.

MattMcKech/ThickSpecs (TS): What started you down the road of music, Gordie?

Gordie Johnson (GJ): Well, that's a story that started a long, LONG time ago. But as a kid , of about 12 or 13, I was always into listening to records. That kinda thing. I can remember as a teenager going to see Rush in detroit in '77 and I remember thinking 'THIS is what I want to do!'

TS: You're kind of a jack of all trades (and master of all, as well) in the Canadian music industry – how do you switch from producing iconic albums like Joel Plaskett's 'Ashtray Rock' to performing buzzsaw guitar riffs and writing music in Big Sugar and now Grady?

GJ: Ya know – I guess somewhere along the line, I stopped making the distinction between the two. For me, now, it's all the same thing. I mean, the way I look at it, the control board is just one huge keyboard that sends electrical impluses. So for me, when I stopped differentiating between playing music and producing, I started having fun with it. With someone like Joel (Plaskett), though, it's like I can channel him through electricity and microphones and amps. It's pretty cool.

TS: Speaking of which – how did you and Joel ever get connected?

GJ: Well, it was pretty serendipitous, really. Ya know, for a long time, I'd be travellin' somewhere and a song would come on the radio and I'd be like 'Hey – I like this. What is it?' and bandmates or other people would tell me 'Oh, that's Thrush Hermit' and his music just started stickin' with me. It stood out from a lot of other crap I would hear. So I'd hear him while listening on the radio and then I saw a video that he did with the emergency band  and I was like 'Whoa! Who is that kid?' and people were like 'That's Joel from Thursh Hermit' and I was always into his stuff. So for a while, it was sorta like I would  always accidentally run into him. Then I found out we love all the same stuff and that we both had a lot of the same influences musically and it sorta started gettin' creepy. But then, luckily enough, his management called me and said 'We'd like you to hook up with joel for some production work' and I was like 'Yes, please! Send him my way!' So it all took off from there.

TS: I'm sure you and Joel must get into some good chats about gear as you're both into that stuff, hunh?

GJ: (laughs raspily) Oh yeah, man. We can get into it. Whether it's songwriting or guitar gear – but now, actually, with Joel having his own studio, we talk a lot about recording gear and we can go on for an hour on the phone about that stuff. But Joel seriously is one of those guys who has my deepest respect as a songwriter and amazing guitar player, man. Sometimes, with the stuff he shows me, I'm like 'Joel – I don't even want to know what you're doing or playing right now.' I can remember once he was gonna show me how to play 'Clueless Wonder' and I was kinda like 'I don't know if I want                                    you to show me, ya know?' It's like I didn't want him to spoil the mystery. (laughs)

TS: You were one of the first Canadian musicians to release a hit single both in French and English (with Big Sugar) – How did that all come about? Was it controversial?

GJ: Actually, it was pretty controversial which was kinda stupid. I mean, it seemed pretty simple to me. I can remember reading contracts about francophone radio play and I was like 'Why don't we sing in french?' In my mind, it seemed practical – Canada is a 2 language country and I've worked with all  kinds of bands in Quebec (The Respectables) who only write in french and so I've spent a lot of time with pure French musicians. But as far as the songwriting and singing of an album in both english and french, it's a massive undertaking. I can honestly remember meetings with the record company and people were pounding their fists on the table in a boardroom. It was ridiculous. People were saying 'Oh, but we wanted to put o canada on OUR record and blah blah blah' – I was like 'You gotta be kidding me!' But it was worth it, I mean it really opened the doors for us and gained us a lot of respect in Quebec and with a lot of people in the industry, there.

TS: And now for a gear question - How do you get some of the wailing, big, catastrophic sound you do from your guitars?

GJ: (chuckles) Well THAT is actually something I get asked a lot but it requires a lot of explanation – and it's funny, ya know – I get more gear questions than you'd believe. But for me, it ain't about the equipment – it's the lack of equipment that does it. I've always found that the most uncomplicated signal path between my guitar and the amp is the key. I mean, Matt – if you want to hear from the voice of God, you gotta be able to channel it. Mostly too, I use really heavy strings and I have to play a lot harder to get that sound. I'm a pretty dirty player. I tend to use amps without distortion because my hands are the distortion - my hands are dirty and my playing is pretty crude and progressive. But yeah - cleanest signal path is key because all these overtones and signals are pure and the sound regenerates – so you have to get in the signal path which is actually a circular path that is constantly looping away from you on a circle. You have to plug yourself into a magnetic field - you have to be part of it. I always see all these guys with 9 volt everything and pedal boards and 10 cables between you and your signal - there's a lot of cutoff, there. It's gotta be pure. Joel plays his electric like it's still an acoustic guitar and I play electric guitar in Grady almost like it's a banjo, ya know? I use alot of banjo tunings. The electricity is just incidental.

TS: (mind blown) Wow!

GJ: You got all that? (laughs heartily)

TS: Let's talk about Grady as opposed to Big Sugar – tell me about the differentiation between the two projects for you.

GJ: Well, the process of BS (Big Sugar) was a lot different in actuating the musical theory  - half the band was Jamaican and we lived in that community in toronto. Now, I'm not comin' from the sitars or the crazy wind-up instruments – we used musical elements in Big Sugar that were close to us – a lot of old blues, reggae and other stuff. But those were only ingredients. We all had a fairly good sense of humour which helped. Now, livin in texas for most of a decade has had a profound influence on my guitar playing, ya know? I mean, my voice was changing - my playing was changing. Songs that I started playing in standard tuning became eliminated. I describe it like this – I dream in open G. It's kinda like dreaming in languages. You know how most of us only dream in one language? Well, my brother knows a lot of languages and he dreams in Japanese. So I began to embellish my metal, my punk rock. Everyone I knew was in a rock band and loved Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, and ya know – that stuff gets into your skin. It presents what we do. BS was part of a piece of machinery. It was a lot of marketing, radioplay, video-making, all that stuff. And it's not that it isn't relevant – it's just not part of my dream anymore. The bands I listen to aren't into that. Ya know, if we would write a song with BS and executives would say 'you can't say cocaine because of radio standards', we didn't do it. Now, I'm singing what I'm singing. That's it.

TS: I read that you filmed a video for Grady in Luck, Texas – an 1800's Old West town that is actually owned by Willie Nelson. Is that true?

GJ: Well, standing at the bar of the continental club, it's a totally different scene down there. I mean, people like Mike Judge or Billy Gibbons are always standing at the bar and they're part of the community and the club. It kinda raises the bar as a performer. These are professional people. You rise to that level. But yeah, Luck, Texas – stuff like that happens to you, here. We were throwin' around ideas for a video and this lady at the bar was like 'shoot it at willie's place!' and we were blown away. If you're there, you're there, man. Things like this happen. We even had Willie tell a joke on the record – at the start of  'cup of cold poison' – and ya know, it's all part of the environment. Ya know, Willie gets impressed because you're his children and you have a firm handshake. He's not impressed by radio play. I got really sick of downtown toronto. Every gig was a showcase. Everyone was always shmoozing. I'm more interested in having a well-trained dog, now. If you can hang on to a bucking bronco for 8 seconds, that impresses the hell out of me. But yeah, we shot the video, and it was awesome.

TS: 'Alberta Bones' is a favourite track of mine on the new album. Tell me about the writing process of that.

GJ: Well that one was written by me and my friend Clayton from the Road Hammers. We've been friends a long time and wrote songs together all day, one fall day down here. Now, I don't think about Alberta specifically all the time or anything – but it seemed appropriate. It's funny - someone from the british press called us 'cowboy metal' – and I guess after hearing that, we were emboldened us to say 'Yeah! So what if I like Waylon Jennings and Outlaw Country and Buck Owens and Dale Watson!'   And Dale, especially – I love that guy. He's a musically unsung hero of the scene. He's not as big as Toby Keith but he's the real deal. I see him every monday. (laughs) He plays a lot of truck driver songs. And now, when I'm drivin to houston to play a gig, you can hear Dale Watson on the road in your head and your happy about that lone truck stop.

TS: And that song about the truck stop in La Grange on 'Good As Dead' – was that ZZ Top inspired?

GJ: Well actually, that's a Dale Watson song. Yeah, he wrote that song. But that ZZ Top breakdown in the middle is just us being wise-asses. (laughs) I asked Billy and he was alright with us doin' that!

TS: How far is this new tour for 'Good As Dead' going to go?

GJ: We're goin' right across Canada, man. I'm excited. All the way from BC, straight on through the prairies and into Ontario with stops in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa and all over the place. Come on out and see us!

TS: I can't wait! Thanks so much for your time today, Gordie.

GJ: No problem, Matt. Cheers.

Matt McKechnie is a musician and writer from Ottawa, Ontario.

http://www.thickspecs.com/my_weblog/2009/10/guest-column-gordie-johnson-interviewed-.html

Gordie Johnson of Texas cowboy-metal trio Grady is all about cars and guitars. And he collects both with a keen eye on quality.

Johnson treats his two vintage Dodge Chargers with kid gloves, but he’s a little more liberal with his handling of the 40 guitars in his stable. He’ll bring half a dozen guitars with for Grady’s five-week tour of Canada. Fans can expect the trek to be a veritable showcase for Gibson guitars, which Johnson uses exclusively. 

During his reign with Big Sugar, his wildly popular former group, the ex- Torontonian paired his Gibsons with a considerably slicker look, including suits provided by Hugo Boss. These days, after six years living in Austin, Tex., he’s more laid-back, with a scrappy beard and long hair peeking out from under his cowboy hat.  

The shift in mindset never struck Johnson as odd until he returned to his former home base months ago. It was then he realized he’s no longer a native Winnipegger, longtime Albertan and former Torontonian; he’s a full-blown Texan. 

“I’ve got no Toronto left in me. I was there recently and it was the first time being there that I felt like a stranger.” 

He’s nicely amalgamated himself into the Lone Star State’s musical landscape by producing and performing in equal measure. Not surprisingly, some of the artists he has produced – Gov’t Mule, Taj Mahal, Nashville Pussy, and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, among others – helped steer the direction of his current project, Grady, which also features bassist Big Ben Richardson and drummer Nina “The Queena” Singh.

“We are a product of the environment we live in,” Johnson said, which means everything from “country music, Texas blues, and heavy metal” find their way into the Grady mix. “Lightnin’ Hopkins came from Texas, and so did Dimebag Darrell (of metal act Pantera) so there you go.” 

It’s ironic, then, that Grady’s third record, Good as Dead, which is due in stores Oct. 20, is punctuated by a Canadian song: Boots or Hearts, a gem from the Tragically Hip’s album, Up to Here. 

Richardson brought the song to the studio and fostered the idea with an initially reluctant Johnson. “I’d never been a Tragically Hip fan, only because I never heard them. When they were coming up, I was just starting. I was going to the studio and writing songs, and pretty much, at that point, all I did was go see reggae music.”

He came around eventually, despite the initial hesitation. “I can identify with Gordon Lightfoot but I never did with Hip singer Gord Downie,” Johnson said. “But I listened to the song once and said, `I can do that.’ Cowboy boots and cowboy hearts? Finally, something to relate to!”

Canwest News Service - Victoria Times Colonist

http://www.kelowna.com/2009/10/09/from-big-sugar-to-big-texan-gordie-johnson-now-a-self-declaredmetal-cowboy/

Gordie Johnson is back, kickin' & howlin' all the way

(Winnipeg, MB/Toronto, ON) - On October 20, 2009, from the shimmering heat of the Texas hill country comes Good As Dead the fourth release from Grady, the anointed kings of cowboy metal. Gordie 'Grady' Johnson (whose credits include Big Sugar, Gov't Mule, Nashville Pussy, Taj Mahal, and string of hit singles for Canadian artists Joel Plaskett, The Trews, The Respectables) is joined by ‘Big' Ben Richardson on bass and Nina 'the Queena' Singh on drums. Gordie also produced Good As Dead which perfectly captures the wall of sound that has made Grady a favourite among smoky, beer stained bars across Canada and Austin's Red River underground scene yet it is their most texturally intriguing record to date.

Gordie Johnson explains, "This record really is the byproduct of the musical environment we live in. Cowboys, metalheads, rednecks and punk rockers all congregate around us. Someone actually described us as 'shredneck' which of course brought gales of laughter."

Good As Dead includes the highly volatile remake of the Tragically Hip's "Boots or Hearts", the debut single "Whatchewdid" plus nine other tales of tejano hallucinations, truck drivers, cattle barons, saints and sinners. Grady even makes a burnt offering of the Texas outlaw anthem "Whiskey River" - a Willie Nelson staple and Johnny Bush classic. Appropriately, the album was recorded and mixed over three weeks at Willie's Pedernales Studio in Spicewood, TX.

You may catch a faint whiff of steel guitar in "Alberta Bones" featuring Clayton Bellamy of The Road Hammers on guest vocals. The accordion wafts above the din of metal on metal in "If I Was King". Vocal contributions of Big Ben and Nina also provide a little salt and lime to go with Gordie's tequila howl.

"Grady is renowned for amazing live shows and this album is the one that completely captures the band," says Shannon Martin of C12 Records. "At their live shows, I'll look around me and all the dudes in the Anvil, Supersuckers and Sepultura t-shirts have their jaws hanging open and pounding their fists in the air. Devil horns all around."

A sound that could only come out of Austin, TX, Good As Dead hits Canadian retail and online October 20, 2009 courtesy of C12 Records. Across Canada tour dates start now!

On October 20, 2009, from the shimmering heat of the Texas hill country comes "GOOD AS DEAD" the 3rd release by the anointed kings of Cowboy Metal "Grady" including the highly volatile remake of Tragically Hip's "Boots or Hearts" plus 10 other tales of tejano hallucinations, truck drivers, cattle barons and blackass women. Grady even makes a burnt offering of the Texas outlaw anthem "Whisky River" - a Willie Nelson staple and Johnny Bush classic. Appropriately, the album was recorded and mixed over 3 weeks at Willie's Pedernales studio (Spicewood, TX).

Produced by guitarist Gordie 'Grady' Johnson (whose credits include Govt Mule, Nashville Pussy, Taj Mahal, and string of hit singles for Canadian artists Joel Plaskett, The Trews, The Respectables & Big Sugar) joined by Big Ben on bass and Nina 'the Queena' Singh on drums. "GOOD AS DEAD" perfectly captures the wall of sound that has made 'Grady' a favorite of Austin's Red River underground scene yet it is their most texturally intriguing record to date. You may catch a faint whiff of steel guitar in "Alberta Bones" featuring Clayton Bellamy of The Road Hammers on guest vocals. Accordian wafts above the din of metal on metal in "If I Was King". Vocal contributions of Big Ben and Nina also provide a little salt and lime to go with Grady Johnson's tequila howl. A sound that could only come out of Austin, Texas

"GOOD AS DEAD" hits Canadian retail and online October 20, 2009, courtesy of C12 Records.
Canadian Tour dates this fall

Adios.