Post-Stoners: Why Arena Rock just won't die.

Post-Stoners Why Arena Rock just won’t die.

New York City fivesome Grand Mal play raucous, classic rock ’n’ roll about dirty and messy situations, where everyone is a bounced check. Or everyone’s a bitchslap from being beaten down, but never for good. Their third full-length album, Bad Timing (Arena Rock), is a dark, sly record that celebrates this city while also reminding you how ridiculous it can be. The album, like a lot of art about New York, is about conditional love.

And in this post-rock, post-punk, post-everything cesspool we’re in, a classic rock record like this seems, to use frontman Bill Whitten’s term, palate cleansing.

"This record was made in a vacuum," Whitten says. "I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on here. I don’t even really go to shows unless it’s, like, Nick Cave."

Bad Timing was produced by Dave Fridmann of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips fame. The 13 musicians who play on it include members of both those bands, but don’t be fooled. This is a straight-ahead rock record, full of fuzzy guitars and hit-you-in-the-mouth hooks and sad stories that make you shake your head and smile.

Whitten swaggers and sneers, but he’s also plenty bemused. On "Old Fashioned," he reveals that:

I’m in love with this actress

But she only fucks black chicks

Though when she’s stoned she likes dancing with me

She says I look like a fascist

With my black moustaches and my field jacket

From 1963

On the title track, Whitten begins with:

He said …‘You’ve got marvelous features

Like Peter Perrett, though your chin is weaker’

Bad Timing, Whitten says, is his best, most cohesive album for a good reason: "I wasn’t completely drunk when I made it. I think it’s a lot better for that reason. I sing in key on most of the songs. More work went into it, more thought. I just think the songs are better. I wasn’t wasted.

"That’s the main difference. I had to stop [drinking]. It was a life-or-death situation, not to be too melodramatic… When I made [Grand Mal’s previous album] Maledictions, I was destroyed–drunk and on heroin for every second of writing it, making it, mixing it."

Whitten’s amused by reviews that call Bad Timing "booze-soaked." He understands both maledictions and contradictions well. The title track is about quitting music when you’re not quite ready, but Whitten ain’t planning on it. He’s so consumed with music, he spent 12 hours one recent weekend recording piano and cello.

There are somewhat legendary stories about Grand Mal hitting bottom years ago, about how they were so far gone they could barely finish sets. Nobody seems to remember exactly who was involved because there’ve been maybe 30 or 40 members since Grand Mal formed in 1996. (Whitten hasn’t kept track, and he admits the guy who wrote the band bio probably exaggerated the number.) There may be guys still pissed at Whitten, but who knows where they are.

"I don’t want to get Behind the Music-y, but there was a lot of chaos," he says. "A lot of it was my fault. A lot of it wasn’t."

Whitten recovered and wrote a bunch of tunes that are plenty optimistic, given all that’s happened. He sings about garbage collectors and bleary-eyed starfuckers and strung-out pals, and he does it with what almost feels like awe. It’s funny how songs about believing in nothing take you back to when you still believed in everything, when you felt like all the bullshit and bitter, bitter weeks were worth it. You were here in New York, at least, so why not feel triumphant? Never mind that Manhattan turned into Brooklyn or Long Island City, and you were still overpaying for a hovel without heat. If you can make it here, they say… But what does that even mean?

"I like you best ’cause you think you’re famous," Whitten sings on standout track "Get Lost." "Well, I’m outta my head, and it’s bringing me down."

The thing about fame is that it’s really about utility, and there are infinite degrees. For some, knowing the door girls suffices. For others, like veteran musicians who put out records and do press, there’s a desire for something more.

If Whitten seems a little ambivalent about fame, maybe it’s because he’s lived the unfortunate cliche of an impoverished musician who got dropped by a major label (Slash/London) years ago. Bad Timing’s characters and the guys in Grand Mal aren’t exactly rich, and this has led reviewers down a predictable path.

"Those who suspect The Strokes of being milk-fed arrivistes should hook up with Grand Mal," Mojo declares.

"Forget the Strokes, Grand Mal are the real streetwise hipsters of New York," Kerrang! piles on.

Arena Rock is partially responsible for this line of hype because the label, for more than a year, has posted notes online that crown Grand Mal as authentic because they play songs that people without bank accounts relate to. Sample Arena Rock posting: "For those of you who like NYC rock in its purist form… No trust funds…"

Of course, being poor does not alone make you authentic or pure, not any more than doing lines or selling shoes does. Plenty of people who make art use poverty as a crutch, for fake cred, as an excuse not to try so hard. And Arena Rock’s recent online quip about Julian Casablancas and boarding school was cute, but also reflexively silly.

Thing is, Grand Mal’s respectable ethic really has nothing to do with anybody but the fellas in the band.

"The people who made the record all came from a working-class background," Whitten says. "I think it’s working-class rock ’n’ roll."

All the members of Grand Mal have other jobs. Whitten, for one, has worked in an office for the last three years, the "most stable" of his adult life. Grand Mal may go on a two-week tour or have some weekend shows soon, but Whitten knows he’s not ready to play full-time again.

"Maybe I’m one of those musicians who’s not arrogant enough to just think you shouldn’t have a day job," he says. "I know a lot of those guys."

There’s a difference between being pessimistic and being realistic. Whitten understands this well. Being pragmatic is not the same as becoming a Republican. (Whitten calls himself "a populist, left-leaning, union member.")

What also makes Grand Mal authentic is something they actually share with the Strokes. It’s something that could lead to backlash because Grand Mal have obviously mined revered sounds of the past. Part of being real involves knowing you may be appropriating something, but saying fuck it and then doing whatever you want because it just seems fun and good and right. Whether you actually believe in what you’re creating forever–or even six months later–doesn’t matter, as long as you believe it for that first moment.