Last week a high school friend of mine was reminiscing about his time working with several metal bands. He spoke at length about the rigors of the business of maintaining a band. It’s not all fun and games, in fact what you see and hear when a band performs is the end result of much effort. It seemed to fit right in that this week I would feature alternative band Grouplove. I would need to learn a little more about the Los Angeles band but I felt like I knew at least part of their story before I ever started. Yes, the story of building and maintaining any band always strike similar chords. With a few variations, Grouplove’s story would be similar to most. However, those variations are what makes the story interesting.
Grouplove was formed in 2009 by Hannah Hooper (vocals, keyboards), Christian Zucconi (vocals, guitar), Sean Gadd (bass), Andrew Wessen (guitar, vocals), and Ryan Rabin (drums). Hooper met Zucconi on the Lower East Side of Manhattan after hearing and enjoying his music from his former band ALOKE. Despite having just met, Hooper invited Zucconi to an artist residency in Crete she was leaving for later that week. (the two would become a couple and later marry) It was at the Ikarus artist commune in the village of Avdou where they met the rest of the band, Andrew Wessen, Ryan Rabin, and Sean Gadd. Rabin, an accomplished drummer and producer, grew up in Los Angeles with Wessen, a surfer and guitarist. Rabin comes from a musical family – his father is Trevor Rabin, former guitarist of Yes. Sean Gadd, a songwriter and guitarist from London, was also at the commune.
A band always has a starting point. That common person(s), place or thing that brings them together. Of course Grouplove members come from different places, geographic and musically. However, we can easily point to that artist commune in Crete where everything started.
The friendship between the members formed quickly, but the band did not form until a year later after Gadd, Zucconi and Hooper pooled their funds together and made a trip to Rabin’s Los Angeles recording studio. They played their first show at El Cid in Los Angeles on May 10, 2010. Later that year, the band went on tour with Florence and The Machine on the west coast, and then The Joy Formidable on the east coast. By November, Nylon Magazine recognized Grouplove as one of the top ten in the “Best New Bands in 2010.”
Before even signing with Canvasback/Atlantic Records the band was in a money rut and had to license the song “Getaway Car” to HBO’s “How to Make it In America” just to get by. Eventually the band was signed and decided to re-release their self-titled EP, Grouplove, on January 25, 2011. In 2011, the band co-headlined a cross-country tour with Foster the People, and made appearances at Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Reading and Leeds Festivals, and Glastonbury.
Every once in a while a band like Grouplove comes along and hits the ground running. Though they met lean years monetarily, in about a year the band was performing at some impressive venues. Now the recording would start and the test of the audience would soon come.
Going back to my friend discussing his time with his bands, he spoke extensively about the lean years. Some bands and musicians speak about their rough patches, some do not. However, there are always times that prove to be challenging. The tough times are not always within one comfortable patch of time. The problems arise at different times in various ways. The bands that handle them well enjoy longer careers as a unit.
The band released its debut album, Never Trust a Happy Song, on September 13, 2011 through Canvasback/Atlantic Records. They released 4 singles from the album – Colours, “Tongue Tied” (which went on to score the band a no. 1 on the US Alternative Chart and featured in several commercials) Lovely Cup and Itchin On A Photograph. In support of their debut album, the band went on a headlining North American Fall tour and also performed with Two Door Cinema Club as their main support. On January 3, 2012 the band kicked off their sold-out headline tour in Australia at the Factory Theatre in Sydney and continued their tour in Europe in February. The band began their US Spring 2012 tour on March 6 in Burlington, Vermont in support of Young The Giant. Throughout the sold-out headline tour the band had featured stops at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Sasquatch! Music Festival, and Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.
After the successful tours around the world, the first change would come to Grouplove. On April 22, 2014, Sean Gadd tweeted, “Thanks for all the love. Grouplove is family and still my favorite band. Sending love. GROUP”, leaving his status with the band up in the air. He has posted a song on YouTube called “Dream With Me”. On June 19, 2014, Sean Gadd tweeted a series of tweets about his status in the band, the last one officially confirmed his leaving of the band, “I’m so sorry I made a big mistake. I’m making an announcement of why I’m leaving grouplove forever x.” This was followed by a post on the band’s website officially announcing his departure.
Dan Gleason had already stepped in and toured with the group in the US and Europe. Later in 2017 Grouplove donated $1 from every ticket sale of their ‘Big Mess’ world tour and raised $40,387 for charity: water. On May 9, it was confirmed that, alongside K.Flay, the band would be a supporting act for Imagine Dragons’ Evolve Tour, in support of their third studio album Evolve. Noticeably, drummer Ryan Rabin was missing from the lineup on this tour, with Benjamin Homola filling in on drums. In an email to band frontman Christian Zucconi, Rabin explained, “I’m not saying I don’t want to be in the band anymore but I don’t want to go on the tour.”
The personnel changes lead us to our day. On January 8, 2020, Grouplove released the single “Deleter”, the band’s first release since the re-release of Big Mess in 2017. Deleter would be the lead single for Grouplove’s fourth studio album Healer. This album signaled big changes in how the band would produce an album, and also changes in their overall sound.
Grouplove also had to overcome the illness of Hannah Hooper. She needed brain surgery. It was a major medical issue that would require a long recovery. Nevertheless, Grouplove and Hooper would embark on the journey back with the common thread of love of music. “It felt good to scream,” says Hannah. “We write music as a way to deal with good times or bad.” The shows, the songs and the writing took Hannah out of a state of constant freak-out. It didn’t only help heal Hannah, but also helped heal Christian, who wasn’t just a Buddha-like figure for Hannah and their young daughter but, was helping keep the band in productive spirits too.
In October 2018, the band – including Homola, guitarist Andrew Wessen and bassist Daniel Gleason traveled to El Paso, Texas with esteemed producer Dave Sitek [of TV On The Radio] for a month. This was a shift for the band, who had previously worked almost entirely in house with founding member and former drummer/producer Ryan Rabin. Rabin left amicably prior to the band beginning work on this album. Sitek had heard ‘Deleter’ and loved it but he wanted to work with the band to veer away from their previous grunge-leanings. He wanted to take them outside the box and stretch them beyond what they had ever had to deal with. “It was so fun,” says Hannah. “It’s like playing a sport with a new teammate. We just became better.”
Whether the music is better or not I leave to you individual fans out there. However, what they are doing is different. Life and experience tend to change us and our overall outlook. Grouplove is no different than any other band, or people.
It’s been almost ten years since Grouplove met on a commune in Greece and brought the idea of themselves being a band back to California. They’d never have anticipated making it this far. Healer represents a re-birth and one that almost comes full circle to their initial idealism. “When we all met in Greece, Christian and I were leaving New York at an all-time low. We just wanted to have a fun summer. We wanted to make art. And we’re still doing that. We found that feeling again on this album, of hopelessness put into a medium of expression.”