War on Drugs' Adam Granduciel on finding inspiration in NZ

The War on Drugs frontman Adam Granduciel says playing the Powerstation in 2014 was "insanely awesome". Photo / supplied

In December 2014, The War on Drugs frontman Adam Granduciel stepped on to the stage at Auckland's Powerstation and began soundchecking ahead of one of their sold-out shows.

Following the breakout success of their third studio album Lost in the Dream, The War on Drugs were in the midst of an enormous world tour. As Granduciel and his band prepared to practise a few songs, Powerstation staff lent him a black Stratocaster guitar to fiddle around on - and within moments Granduciel was playing a brand new riff that came seemingly out of nowhere.

"I remember taking it out of the case, putting it on, and I'd never played that riff before, ever. I just put in on and it's the first thing I've got on my hands. We played it for like 20 minutes in soundcheck," says Granduciel.

Halfway through Sweetest Thing, the fourth song on The War on Drugs' newest album A Deeper Understanding, a crystalline guitar bursts into life with the very same riff that Granduciel sings over the phone to me - the same one that came to life at the Powerstation. The riff pulls the song into a glorious crescendo of layered guitar solos, unleashing a euphoric energy for the track's final three minutes.

"I always think of New Zealand or Auckland when I think of that song because that's where I wrote it. I remember [those shows] were insanely awesome. That was so fun, one of my top five moments of the tour."

Almost immediately after the end of the Lost in the Dream tour, Granduciel was back in a studio, writing and recording the songs that came to be A Deeper Understanding, out today. The record's title represents Granduciel's headspace as a songwriter who works largely solo, using his craft as a meditative tool to process the world around him - but it's also an homage to the Kate Bush song of the same name that gave him a burst of inspiration.

"I heard it at a specific moment in time where I needed to have a little kick in the ass. I was in a weird place with the record - I felt like I was delegating all the music and not really being proactive about putting my own stamp on it," says Granduciel.

"I listened to that song and it was all Kate Bush. The way that she was playing this one piano part, you could just tell it was played by someone really connected to the song; no one else was going to go into the room and play the part like that.

Photo / Shawn Beackbill

"That song was an inspiration to not forget about my own involvement in the music, and that at the end of the day it needed to be something that I was heavily connected to for it to really be something that would be worthwhile."
 
A Deeper Understanding is out today via Atlantic Recordings.