Interview: Brendan Grove (Impending Joy)
There’s a feeling that often comes at the cusp of adulthood: the vague sense of a bright and limitless future ahead, but one still hazy through filters of uncertainty and social expectation. Such was the case for Brendan Grove in late 2022.
He’d graduated from Appalachian State University earlier that year, moved to Asheville, secured a job in digital marketing, and just finished his first multi-week stint as a touring musician. Yet despite achieving those milestones, he found himself in a melancholy state.
“I knew things were good and were going to even be better, but it maybe wasn’t there yet,” Grove explains. “I had that twinge of anxiety, that twinge of maybe needing to be a certain type of person to make people happy.”
Grove put a name to that feeling — and as a songwriter and guitarist, he gave that name to a new band as well. Impending Joy saw him join forces with Torren Brown on guitar and backing vocals, drummer Jono Cerrud, and bassist Izzy Rolow to craft an energetic blend of modern garage rock and ‘60s-inspired psychedelia.
The quartet is now gearing up to release its debut self-titled album with a show at Eulogy on Friday, Feb. 2, supported by fellow locals Tongues of Fire and Rob Robinson. Asheville Stages spoke with Grove in advance of the show to learn more about Impending Joy’s sound and how the band is fitting into the local scene. The conversation has been lightly edited for concision.
Daniel Walton: How did Impending Joy come together as a band?
Brendan Grove: Jono and Torren are in Seismic Sutra, an Asheville-based psychedelic rock band, and I’m also in Rugg, a super fuzzy, heavy psych group originally from Boone and now kind of all over the place. We went on tour together, starting in Virginia and going all the way down to Miami, in 2022 — I was playing bass for Seismic Sutra at the time, and that’s where I really got to know them as musicians. I knew Izzy from another project as well.
I had written one or two songs and didn’t really know where they were going to lay, and then after that tour I wrote the rest of what became the Impending Joy album. I asked Jono, Torren, and Izzy just about a year ago to come play the songs with me and see if they were liking it. They did, and now it’s become so much more than just me writing the songs and them playing what I tell them to.
DW: Has working with these other musicians pulled you in directions that you weren’t expecting?
BG: Definitely. Izzy is from the Orange County area of California, where garage/psych rock was just huge, and he was playing more math rock/emo stuff. He was able to experience all that and went to all those shows, played with all those bands. He's just given me a ton of wisdom about how other people do it, or how we shouldn't do it.
He's also an amazing surf bassist, so some of the songs, like “Limb Snatcher,” are very, very surfy. I wasn't really planning to do that with the album, but as soon as he joined the band, it just made sense. Some of the new songs we’re writing are a little bit more surfy too.
DW: You moved to Asheville from Boone pretty much as soon as you graduated from App State. How has being in the city shaped you as a musician so far?
BG: It’s been amazing. It was cool to be in the music scene in Boone because it's all very young, with a lot of different opportunities for bands that are just starting out. So, I was kind of able to cut my teeth there a little bit and get experience playing shows and just being in the industry.
Moving into Asheville, it seems like a much more mature scene and a little bit more refined. I think there’s a bit more opportunity here for a band to make it past the little bubble that we live in. I’ve made some really good relationships here; there are so many good bands and nice people that want to work together and help each other out.
DW: You’ve described the debut album as “a journey through time carrying a twinge of nostalgic familiarity.” Tell me more — what are you trying to evoke with that description?
BG: These songs have such a hard root, and you can tell that they're laced with this kind of surf-garage style from the ’60s that I love. It's kind of going into that melancholy feeling of times past. And then we’re also looking forward to the future with the contemporary aspects that we add in it: very heavy fuzz stuff, crazy sweeping delays, and other things that bring it into the 21st century. There’s that push and pull of past and future.
DW: Are there any particular pedals or pieces of equipment you find to be critical to the Impending Joy sound?
BG: 100%. Both Torren and I use JC-120s, these jazz chorus amps from the ’80s. We have very different rigs, as far as pedals and guitars go, but there's something about a sweeping chorus that goes across the whole stage that is pretty integral to our sound. I also use a Death by Audio Fuzz War, which is my No. 1 favorite pedal of all time — no matter what project I'm in, that is the driving element of my fuzz tones.
Another critical piece of equipment is my Death by Audio Echomaster. It's a vocal delay, and it’s integral, especially to our live sound.
DW: Speaking of tech, your performances often feature live projections by Thomas Miller. What are you trying to get across by including that element?
BG: A lot of it is based in two fields of thought. One is the old, Pink Floyd-era, i'60s and '70s liquid light shows, taking liquid discs with pigment in them and using old-school overhead projectors to make the colors do all this cool stuff. The other is Thomas’ computer-generated rig that uses analog video mixers and digital video feedback — he can point it at itself and it’ll make very psychedelic colors, beautiful glitchy effects — things like that.
It’s all about putting you in this state of not necessarily trance, but where you’re captivated, where it’s not four guys getting on stage, playing some music, and getting off stage. It’s about the emotional side and being like, “Wow, this is just beautiful visually as well as sonically.”
DW: Finally, what bands are inspiring you right now, both locally and on the global scene?
BG: Locally, probably my No. 1 these days is ¿WATCHES?, this incredible two-piece egg punk sort of band that’s a little bit more garagey too. Silver Doors is another big one. They’re doing some very interesting stuff in psych rock here in Asheville. They have a violin player who uses a Fuzz War; they do brass sometimes; they also do live visuals at a lot of their shows.
On the broader scene, one of my favorites right now is Fomies from Switzerland. They started out as a garage-punk three piece; now they’re a five-piece and have developed into this beautiful melodic psych band. I would say Meatbodies is another one. They’re a pretty awesome band, and we actually just booked a show with them in Charlotte in April where they’re touring for their new album.
IF YOU GO
Who: Impending Joy with Tongues of Fire and Rob Robinson
When: Friday, Feb. 2, 8 p.m.
Where: Eulogy, 10 Buxton Ave., burialbeer.com/pages/eulogy
Tickets: $13.78
(Photo by Jonny Leather)
