How Grouplove Came Together In 'A Series Of Happy, Unlikely Accidents'

The newly-released third album for Los Angeles indie-rockers Grouplove is called Big Mess. But its title doesn't refer to the chaotic state of the planet or, indeed, stand as a prescient prognostication of the American political circus. "We made the album quite a while before this current political chaos, even before the elections got into full swing," says the band's drummer/producer Ryan Rabin. "It's talking more about an emotional mess, and 'big mess' as a state of mind, not the chaos that exists on the planet." 

After "basically touring for four years straight" - through releasing their debut LP, 2011's Never Trust A Happy Song, and second, 2013's Spreading Rumours - Grouplove wanted to settle down, and spend some time at home. "We'd moved to LA in 2010, but never really actually lived there," says guitarist/vocalist Christian Zucconi. "It was just somewhere we'd stay for a few months a year."

Only when they attempted to 'settle' did the members of Grouplove discover it was easier said than done. "We were all striving for normalcy after years of living a non-normal lifestyle," Rabin says. "It felt difficult. Finally getting off the road, our lives all just felt so messy."

Rabin was thrown into planning his wedding, which became a 'Safari-themed' extravaganza held in a national park in South Africa - where his family hail from - that was lavish enough to be covered by Vogue. And for Grouplove's co-vocalists, Zucconi and Hannah Hooper, things were about to get even messier. When they began writing Big Mess, Hooper was pregnant with their first child. Rabin wrote the chorus for Welcome To Your Life when Hooper went into labour; the couple's daughter, Willa, arriving mid-recording, and turning one just before Big Mess' release.

"That's what Big Mess is about: creating beautiful art against a chaotic time."

"That was a really crazy, beautiful thing to go through, and it changed all our lives," says Zucconi. "Hannah and I were about to become parents, and so we were heading into this great unknown, this place where we weren't going to be comfortable. That's what Big Mess is about: creating beautiful art against a chaotic time."

"I wanted to get to know myself after this beautiful whirlwind of the last couple of years, to be more present in the moment, acknowledge and appreciate the things that have happened for me, and then to manifest all that in song," Zucconi continues. "It was cool to write from that place where you know the baby is coming, but they're not there yet. Enlighten Me, one of the songs I'm most proud of from the album, was written from that perspective."

The fact that Grouplove are celebrating babies, albums, and ongoing success - Big Mess debuted at #40 in the US, #20 in Australia - is, for the band, another sign of the serendipity of their union. "This band is a product of a series of happy, unlikely accidents," Rabin says.

Zucconi, beaming fatherly pride ("Willa's pulling herself up and standing now, which she's so happy about; she's gonna be walking soon") can hardly believe how things have gone. He was born in the Bronx, half-Irish, half-Italian, and grew up in Ossining in upstate New York. His earliest memory is of listening to Simon & Garfunkel with his parents as a two-year-old. He started writing songs on the piano at eight, and after hearing Nirvana, picked up a guitar; songs, unlike other things in life, always coming to him "effortlessly".

"We did the whole thing: we got signed, made a record, toured the country. But the record didn't do anything, and we got dropped, and I thought my life was over."

Zucconi was in countless NY outfits over the years, including Michael Pitt's band Pagoda. He spent his 20s in Aloke: "This, like, Fugazi meets Radiohead, post-hardcore, beautiful, sad, grungy thing." But after recording what was to be their debut LP with Steve Albini in 2008, they stalled out. "We got all this money together from our family and friends, and made this record that we thought was going to be [our] breakout," he recounts, "But nothing really happened. A year after we'd recorded it, the album hadn't even come out, and none of our hearts were really in it that much."

Though Zucconi speaks fondly of his band - who reunited to play shows with the much-belated release of their LP, Alive, in 2015 - he feels, in hindsight, like it wasn't truly what he wanted. "I was just too scared to do what felt the most honest to me. And that was, really, what was most accessible," he says. "I knew I was always going to make music, but I didn't know if I was going to be able to get to do this, if I'd ever be financially successful. I wondered if I was going to waste my life trying. And, then, Grouplove happened, in the most unexpected way, when I finally gave up trying".

Grouplove 'happened', in that origin-story way, when Hooper walked into a show where Zucconi was playing, solo. "When Hannah came into my life, it was this beautiful, lucky coincidence that changed everything," Zucconi says. After a whirlwind, 48-hour courtship, Hooper - a painter who'd never played music - implored him to jump on a plane and come with her to Crete, where she was undertaking an artist's residency. It was taking place at a commune at Avdou, in the Cretan North, run by the brother of future Grouplove guitarist Andrew Wessen.

Wessen was childhood friends with Rabin, who had grown up around rock'n'roll. "The music industry here, it always felt like it was around me," says Rabin (being the son of Yes guitarist, Trevor Rabin). Rabin was still in high school when his band, The Outline, were mooted for success. "We did the whole thing: we got signed, made a record, toured the country. But the record didn't do anything, and we got dropped, and I thought my life was over. I went through the highs and lows of the music business when I was real young."

Rabin had put his music career on hold and was spending a semester studying abroad in Prague when Wessen emailed him, out of the blue, and asked him to come to Crete. "I was just finishing up," he recalls. "So, I flew to Crete, thinking Andrew was going to pick me up from the airport, but when I got there, no one was waiting for me. I get a phone call from his buddy saying 'yeah, Andrew's surfing, so just hop in a cab, give the cab driver your phone, and I'll tell him where to go'. So, I get in the cab, and we drive into the middle of nowhere, to this village. And that's where everyone was. We all became fast friends, but I had no idea my life was changing."

Over the next year, Zucconi and Wessen would swap songs back and forth, and Rabin eventually organised the budding band to come together in Los Angeles to record. "It started out with us finishing the first song, and thinking 'wait, this is actually great'," Rabin offers. "And then we did the next song, and it's also fucking great, and, eventually, you have these recordings that you're so proud of. Then you play it to friends, then someone says they want to manage you, then you get signed to a label, then, all of a sudden, it's six years later and you're sitting on a tour bus, and you can't believe that this is your life."