Alex Grantham
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Alex Grantham

Toronto, Ontario, Canada | SELF

Toronto, Ontario, Canada | SELF
Band Folk Singer/Songwriter

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"Album Born From Experience"

Growing up in Paris, Alex Grantham always felt like an outsider.

“I grew up in a household where culture and movies and music and literature were held in high regard as something you could do with your life, so never really meeting people who shared that perspective always made me feel like a bit of a weirdo,” Grantham said. “I had no ambition to live a noble life of doing a nine-to-five thing and picking up a skilled trade. I just wanted to make art and do something creative and different.”

And he has. The 24-year-old experimental folk musician just released his first album, When I Was a Boy…, on New Year’s Eve.

Grantham wrote, produced and arranged all of the songs on the album and performed all of the instruments himself.

“I’m proud of it,” he said. “It’s very strange and different but at times it will sound very familiar.”

On his website, www.alexgrantham.com, Grantham calls the album “kinda Sid Vicious meets Brian Wilson doing Dylan.” He used sound effects and unique arrangements to give the album a distinctive sound.

The album is made up of songs written during the time when Grantham felt like an outsider living in Paris. The town, its people and its experiences influenced the record in many ways, some obvious and some not.

On the track Anomaly in River Motion, he references Paris’ Optimist Park, singing “Optimist Park, anomaly in river motion, the current has no choice but to find it’s way through the dark.”

“I think if you listen to the album you will hear a kid who is tired of where he is and wants to experience something new,” Grantham said. “It’s a little one sided in that regard. That was certainly who I was when I wrote those songs a couple of years ago.”

As a teenager and into his 20s, Grantham said he always wanted to get out of Paris and move to Toronto. He finally made the move four years after graduating from high school.

“When you’re 17 and 18, part of you starts wondering what else is out there and you wonder if you are ever going to leave and get scared at the thought of never leaving,” Grantham said. “But I find now that I’m living in the city I miss it dreadfully. I miss the personality of small town folk. I miss the warmth that is sometimes not there in the city.”

Since writing and producing the album, Grantham said he’s grown up a lot and become a new person. He met a group of like-minded people in Paris following high school and realized he wasn’t alone in his artsy ways.

That growth distanced him from the songs on his album, but he said he still wanted to release it because the songs are honest.

“Just because I can’t personally relate with the songs as much anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t think they are legitimate and genuine,” Grantham said. “They are real and I’d hate to just walk away from them and pretend they’d never happened.”

With his album released, Grantham said he is already thinking ahead to his next effort. He’s tight lipped about what the album will sound like, but said it will showcase some of the growth he’s experienced during the last few years.

“I’ve done a lot of growing up,” he said. “I wouldn’t abandon the original songs but they are not really an accurate reflection of who I am right now. I think (the next album) will be good, but it will be different.”

Grantham’s debut album When I Was a Boy… can be purchased for $10 at Green Heron Books in Paris or The Mix Down in Brantford. The CD will also be available for purchase on Grantham’s website in the next few weeks. - Brant News


Discography

The Divided Demos (2010)

When I Was A Boy... (2010)

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Bio

Drawing equally on the lyrical density of 60s Dylan, the anti-establishment libertarian sentiments of punk-rock and the experimental leanings of a Jeff Tweedy or Stephen Malkmus, Alex Grantham weaves a unique and ambitious tapestry of music and words. Born in Toronto and raised in the small town of Paris Ontario, Grantham enjoyed a brief stint as lead guitarist for the alt-country outfit The S. Detweilers, before re-directing attention towards his own acoustic-based material in 2007. In April of 2009 Grantham was accepted into the Independent Music Production course at Seneca College, where he studied under Juno award winning producer and fellow musician John Switzer. After graduating, Grantham began recording a debut album of earlier songs; adorned with strange arrangements which he composed and performed himself. Entitled "When I Was A Boy..." the album was released independently on December 31st, 2010.

Grantham currently resides in Toronto's central-east Chinatown; working on promoting "When I Was A Boy..." while assembling songs and ideas for it's follow-up "After The Blue Moon" - scheduled for a late 2011 or early 2012 release.