Grouplove adores its home base of Atlanta and will launch its new album, “I Want It All Right Now,” with four local events in early July before joining Pink on her massive North American tour.
Four of the five members of the indie rock band now call Atlanta home.
“We love it. We’ve been coming here for years on tour, and we started really falling in love with it,” said Hannah Hooper, keyboard player and lead singer. Hooper moved here in 2021 with her husband, Christian Zucconi, who is also Grouplove’s rhythm guitarist and fellow lead singer.
Credit: Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP
Credit: Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP
“It’s a really diverse city. The quality of life is obvious,” said Dan Gleason, Grouplove’s bassist. Gleason, who also co-owns Big Trouble Recording Studio in the Little Five Points neighborhood, was already a longtime Atlanta resident when they arrived.
The local events for the new album include shows at The Earl on Thursday, July 6 — already sold out — and at The Tabernacle on Friday, July 7, the official release date of the album. Grouplove is also hosting two fan events over that weekend.
Two weeks later, the group will be on the road nonstop through late November as an opening act for pop queen Pink’s tour, with more than 45 concerts lined up — though none in Atlanta. Americana star Brandi Carlile will join many of the shows, and rock legend Pat Benatar will perform at some too.
“It’s a really exciting opportunity to get new fans and get people interested in the music,” Hooper said.
The launch of Grouplove’s sixth album before this tour is great timing. “I Want It All Right Now” captures a host of human emotions, from the joy of letting go to the pain to feeling trapped by the need for constant fulfillment. Some of the album’s songs sound like what you’d expect from a Grouplove record, while others show that the band is entering new territory.
Credit: Photo: Courtesy of Grouplove
Credit: Photo: Courtesy of Grouplove
The band, which formed in 2009 and soared to international acclaim in 2011 with hit singles “Colours” and “Tongue Tied,” recorded the latest project at Los Angeles’ famed United Recording Studio with Grammy Award-winning producer John Congleton.
“All of our collective energy made that record what it is,” Zucconi said. “John was so supportive of us and just wanted to elevate (the songs). We worked fast. It was just fun.”
Opening track “All” eases the listener in, with Zucconi’s vocals building gradually from a relaxed opening section — “I wanna have a good time/wanna be fine wine/I want it all right now” — to a primal fury in the song’s last minute.
The song is about that “almost panicked overwhelming need to make your life so fulfilled with everything, topical or emotional — we want so much and we want it now,” Hooper said.
Zucconi credits Congleton for pushing him to tap into the feelings behind the song.
“He let me remove the shackles and really go for it. That was a great collaborative moment,” Zucconi said. “Usually people are afraid to show that emotive side in music today — that kind of emotive catharsis we all fell in love with when we were kids, with bands like Nirvana.”
At the other end of the spectrum, both aurally and lyrically, is “Cream.” Written in Los Angeles during an early lockdown in the pandemic, the track started from an instrumental section written by Grouplove drummer Ben Homola, who was staying with Hooper and Zucconi because of a tour cancellation.
“We were immediately drawn to it,” said Zucconi, to the extent that he and Hooper recorded vocals for it that same day.
“We’d been feeling so much stress. We’d all felt trapped,” said Hooper, who contracted COVID-19 early in the pandemic. “This was a total moment of surrender and pleasure.”
The atmospheric, synth-heavy “Cream” is near the end of “I Want It All Right Now” by design.
“Where it is on the journey of the album is important, too,” Hooper said. “The beginning of the album is really angsty, and we slowly start letting ourselves feel good and feel loved.”
Credit: Brantley Gutierrez
Credit: Brantley Gutierrez
The accompanying sound shows Grouplove in an experimental mode. “It’s new territory for us,” Zucconi said. “We love music like that, so it was fun to delve into that realm.”
The album, the band’s first on Glassnote Records, has a lot in between, from “Malachi,” a fuzzy garage rocker, to “Eyes,” a mid-tempo singalong accompanied by a video released in June.
Oddly enough, the group’s shortest recording is among its best known. “Back In the 90′s” is the 42-second end title theme for “BoJack Horseman,” an acclaimed TV show that conveyed existential woe through the story of a washed-up equine actor. The recording, released in 2017, was made on Apple’s GarageBand app and was never longer than that version of it.
Following the tour with Pink, Grouplove has a headline tour in the works for early next year. In the meantime, the band, which also includes lead guitarist Andrew Wessen, is ready for its Atlanta events.
In addition to the two performances, the group is hosting a free event on Saturday, July 8, at the Drugstore Gallery in the Little Five Points neighborhood. The event features album-related artwork from Hooper, who paints and designs their album covers. The long weekend will wrap up on Sunday, July 9, with an album signing and meet-and-greet at Criminal Records, next door to the gallery.
“Our band is really about creating this community, this space where everyone feels inspired and accepted and safe,” Hooper said. “I feel like art, however that comes to be, is a huge part of that.”
EVENTS PREVIEW
Grouplove
8:30 p.m. Thursday, July 6. Sold out. The Earl, 488 Flat Shoals Ave. NE, Atlanta.
With Lunar Vacation, 8 p.m. Friday, July 7. $30-$123. The Tabernacle, 152 Luckie St., Atlanta. 404-659-9022, concerts.livenation.com.
Fan event with Hannah Hooper’s artwork. Free. Time TBA. Saturday, July 8. Drugstore Gallery, 1154 Euclid Ave. NE, Atlanta. grouplovemusic.com/shows.
Album signing and meet-and-greet. 3 p.m. Sunday, July 9. Criminal Records, 1154-A Euclid Ave. NE, Atlanta. Preordering the album secures a spot in line for signing. 404-215-9511, criminalatl.com.
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