Live, Layered, and Limitless: The War on Drugs

Philadelphia’s alt indie rockers the War on Drugs are back in the Southern hemisphere, cracking their knuckles, tuning their guitars and gearing up to leave it all out on the stage. Their destination? Adelaide, for an Australian-exclusive set at Harvest Rock festival on Saturday 25 October. Ahead of their anticipated return, The Note caught up with frontman Adam Granduciel to talk reinventing records live, new music, Leonardo da Vinci and Harvest Rock. 

Words Millah Hansberry // Image Jimmy Fontaine

The War on Drugs is taking to Adelaide at the end of the month as one of the huge names on the Harvest Rock Festival Saturday lineup! How are you feeling coming back to Australia?

I'm incredibly excited. We love playing here. We've been playing Australia since, what, 2009 or something? Any excuse to come to Australia, we'll take it. I think we've only played once in Adelaide before, when we played Laneway festival, and I had a great experience in Adelaide, so I can't wait to come back.

For a very long time, The War on Drugs have been described as a “live band”. You’ve released two live albums, first in 2020 with Live Drugs, and in 2024 with Live Drugs Again. Do you agree with this “live band” title, or do you see yourselves in a different frame?

Playing live is special with this group. We've put together this group that has come together and stayed the way it's been now for ten years. Then Eliza joined in 2021 as our seventh member. It's just a collection of people that get behind the recorded music in a way that I think is pretty special, and probably a fairly rare phenomenon nowadays.

We love performing these songs and as a band on the road, we all take it really seriously. We tour a tonne when the records are out, and we're always asking ourselves, how can we not recreate this record, but perform this record for people, and how can we get inside the songs? Like, you have the studio stuff, the trickery, or whatever, but then how do we do this live and not have it be 50 tracks of playback? It’s great, but for us, it'd be an impossible feat.

Once you're out there, it's really addictive. Being out on the road and being inside the music, playing every night and watching the show grow and the songs take on a life of their own. So, yes, in terms of a band that goes out and listens to each other and tries to get better every night and tries to embrace the chaos or the mistakes. I love when things are a little bit on the edge, you know?

Your last release Live Drugs Again was recorded between February 2022 to December 2023 from tours across the EU, UK, US and Australia. What prompted this live album and why did you choose to record it bit by bit, instead of one set? 

Everything gets recorded now, from shows to soundchecks, because, that’s the way that consoles run. Everything just gets backed up to a drive so you have everything. For the live album, it kind of made it fun to be like, alright, let's write down 20 shows that we remember as being amazing and start there.

The last time we were in Australia, I had walking pneumonia or something, and had to take steroids for my throat to sing. But I remember that show being incredible. I was like, ‘oh, we gotta listen to that show!’ I listened to it back after and was like ‘Oh, my god. Crazy person’. Sometimes you remember something a little differently than how it happened.

For a lot of these, we would just go back to the drives and listen to the shows to find those little bits that were really special. Something that was maybe just a little bit on the edge, unhinged, but confident. A solo that was maybe not all the way there but inspired. We wanted to put together a document of this band on the road for our fans. There's the recorded material from the records and there's the reinterpretation of some of it. It was fun. It's a fun tradition to get into, going on a cycle, and then at the end, putting out a document of the tour and where the stuff ended up.

The War on Drugs have always been very sustainable with your release schedule. Since your 2005 beginnings, in 20 years you’ve released nine EP’s/albums, including two live. What is the reason for the pause between releases?

Making records is just a lot. You’ve got to factor in that the record comes out, you go on the road, and then two and a half, three years later, maybe you'll come home. Then you’ve got to write a record, because you can't really write on the road. Maybe some people do, but I can't really. I wrote one song on the road once. I wrote the beginning of a song in Paris, and that's on the new record that I'm making. That stuck. Normally I don't write anything on the road. There is too much going on.

Then you come home and I'm definitely not perfectionist by any means, I just like to give it time. Time is the best editor. There are so many things that I’ve done that I was so excited about even five months ago that now I'm like, ‘Oh, actually, it should actually be the other way’. To go through that thought process with so many things, just to arrive at a place where you're confident in what you're delivering. You know that you've gone through the different ways you can present a song or parts of a song and you know that this is way I want it. It takes time, I think, to just do things with care. If I only get to put out nine records in my life, I want to make those nine things important, if only for myself.

READ MORE: Dave Graney: Rock ‘n’ Roll Chameleon

You mentioned writing for a new record. Is there a new album coming up?

I have a new record almost done, a full-length record. It's not announced or mixed or anything, it doesn't even have a title. I've been working on it for a long time, three years, four years. I'm just always working on something, you know, especially new recorded music, but it also takes me time. Some people can write a song and three days later they have it. That’s not really the way it is for me. So, it does take me a while to sort of get through stuff, but this one's great. I'm really proud of where it's going. I think it’s going to be our best record.

What is inspiring you right now? Any books, films or other artists?

I'm always listening to new stuff and watching movies. We played a show in Sacramento last week, and we all went to see One Battle After Another in IMAX, which we loved.

I do like this new Flock of Dimes record by Jenn Wasner. She used to be in Wye Oak, a great band from Baltimore. She just released it yesterday, her new solo record under Flock of Dimes. It's really a tremendous record that I've been listening to a lot.

There's always something. I’m constantly listening, writing and watching.

A lot of the War on Drugs’ songs are quite sonically dense. Is creating this wall of sound a conscious choice, or do you find that you naturally get to that place in the studio?

I just get attached to little bits of things, little moments of things. After three years, you have so many little moments. Then weaving it all together is the goal. I love a wall of sound; I just love it being one sound. Sometimes people see a band live and are like ‘You could hear every little detail’. I’m like ‘ehh no’. You're not supposed to hear every little detail. It's supposed to be one thing, all these little melodies making up one big sound. That’s the joy for me.

We have a lot of things that are very sparse too, like, wide open and a lot of space. Those things are great when they happen naturally. A song that's just full on, and you have all these competing melodies and counter melodies, that's also really exciting to be a part of when you’re making it. You end up with a lot of things happening, but it makes it makes sense, like it's all one colour.

This new record we're working on, it's got a lot of space, and it's got some things that are full on, you know, and then sometimes it's all just stripped back. It's a nice, nice dichotomy of things to have.

If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would you pick?

Musically, I feel like collaboration can be, you know, I wouldn't say like Hendrix or something, because just have no sort of confidence standing in that room. Maybe Leonardo da Vinci. We could put our minds together and figure out a pedal board system or something that could transcend normal thought. Musically, maybe Scott Walker.

What should audiences expect from a War on Drugs festival set?

Well, we're gonna go down there. We're just gonna play our jams. We're gonna play all of our festival ready songs, and leave it all on the stage. Leave it all on the stage in Adelaide.

The War on Drugs play Harvest Rock 2025 on Saturday 25 October. Limited tickets avilable via harvestrock.com.

---