Dream album worth all the stress

Adam Granduciel wants to challenge the band to make even better music as they grow older.

The War on Drugs frontman struggled while perfecting a record which has since found international acclaim.

Adam Granduciel is lounging by a hotel pool in Melbourne when the Herald calls, so the thunderstorms of Auckland will probably be a bit of a shock when the lead singer-songwriter for Philadelphia six-piece The War On Drugs arrives in Auckland for two shows.

But the band are still very much looking forward to visiting - these will be the last performances of a lengthy international tour, as well as their last shows of 2014, and the band have plenty to celebrate.

In the last few weeks, their third album Lost In The Dream (which was released in March) has been named album of the year by multiple publications, and featured on many other Top 10 lists. In fact, it's been labelled the most critically acclaimed album of the year by Metacritic, based on 73 lists. It's the cherry on top of a very successful year for the group, who've gone from being a moderately successful American indie act to an internationally renowned band.

"It's all pretty great really," Granduciel says. "I guess when I was making the record and when I finished it, and trying to think of what expectations I had for it, this has far surpassed anything I imagined. I wasn't expecting or thinking or wanting anything like this. So I guess it's really flattering that it's got to the point that it has. And it makes me feel excited for the future, but it also makes me feel that I want to challenge myself to make even better music as we get older. It does feel pretty surreal though."

Granduciel made the record almost entirely on his own. Sometimes he got players to add parts as he worked through the songs, but mostly it was created in isolation, and borne out of anxiety, paranoia, and personal stress. It's a tunnel he doesn't really want to go down again, though he admits it's likely to happen again.

"To be honest I'll still have those same struggles with the next one, it's just about learning how to manage it and not having it affect every aspect of my life. I'm excited to make new music, and that process really excites me, and then sometimes I misinterpret that excitement for paranoia and it all starts to spiral. But it's not like I was ever anxious about success. So the fact that things have been going well won't necessarily make it a better process next time.

"I do want it to be more of a communal thing now, where everyone in the band is key. The shows are great, and we've worked really hard as a band to find our sound, but from my point of view we're still on this trajectory, and we're really looking forward to getting into the studio after all this touring as a band."

Lost In The Dream has been widely praised for the way it taps into the nostalgia of classic rock acts like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, and Fleetwood Mac, without sounding like a homage. But while he can hear plenty of the bands he loves in the record, Granduciel didn't grow up in a musical household.

"My parents have certainly been supportive of it, but it's not like I came from a house where there was lots of music or lots of instruments. I guess I learned on my own when I was a kid, and I was the only one who was really into sitting in my room and listening to CDs all the time, learning guitar. My Dad was a bit older, he was in his 30s by the time the 60s were happening, and I remember finding my mum's records in my grandma's basement when I was 18, so she had these classic albums, but they weren't really part of our house.

"So for a while it seemed like a path that was just going to be a hobby, and then as I got older, it became a lot more than that, it was all I ever wanted to do really."

It seems like success has come at the right time for The War On Drugs. Before the album was released, Granduciel had expanded the lineup to a six-piece, so when bigger shows were offered, they felt as though they were presenting the live show they wanted people to see. Plus, they're happy to be three albums in, so they can better enjoy the pay-off.

"It's been a pretty consistent build, and I feel like the albums have caught on a lot of the time via word of mouth. Each album has been bigger than the last, and people have found the music on its merits, and I feel like that's all you can ask for."

Music profile

Who: Adam Granduciel, frontman for The War On Drugs.
Where and when: Performing tonight and tomorrow night at the Powerstation in Auckland.
Listen to: Lost In the Dream.
See also: TimeOut's Best of the Year issue today.