He'd been anointed by Spin as the hottest unsigned artist on the planet. He'd racked up more than 25,000 sales with no label muscle. He's hit number one on MP3.com. He'd drawn from a kaleidoscope of influences to create a passion-drenched, personal style that had brought him bookings up and down the East Coast and as far west as California.
But something wasn't right.
And so, in 2003, Garen Gueyikian, a.k.a. Granian, stepped out on his own. He got himself centered. He recorded a solo album, Live Sessions, in a studio filled with thirty fortunate fans and hundreds of flickering candles. It is a riveting document -- but still something was missing.
Which leads to On My Own Two Feet, an astonishing CD performed by Granian backed by musicians who are fully connected to his songs. His journey hasn't been long, but with this release he blends all that he's experienced into a perfect reflection of who this artist is and, more important, what he is soon to become.
Break it down: The singing is unforgettable -- always musical but urgent and raw. The lyrics suggest a passage through pain to a place of strength, though whether they address issues of love or something bigger is open to discussion. ("I spent too much time on my knees for you … Consider yourself set free," he rages on "Mark My Words.") Instrumentally, these tracks are uncanny; driven by Granian's ferociously percussive guitar and celebrated drummer Nir Z's propulsive rhythm, they drop sharp hooks like anchors into a sea of turbulent emotion.
Impressive stuff -- especially when you consider how this album was recorded. We'll get to that in a minute -- first, let's wind the clock back to when On My Own Two Feet began to take shape in Granian's imagination.
"My true colors came out with this album," says the Holmdel, New Jersey native. "On My Own Two Feet is exactly what I was hearing in my head: more in your face than anything I'd done before. That's because I let it brew for quite a while. I played each song by myself for a long time. My goal was to have the songs ready and sounding great on their own, so that when I went into pre-production and arranged them, they were fully formed and ready to go."
But working solo also built up Granian's restlessness. From the start he wanted On My Own Two Feet to rock. There were obvious steps to take toward making this happen, not the least of which was to find the right producer. This turned out to not be so difficult: Through mutual friends he contacted Mike Shimshack, whose résumé included projects in country, hard rock, pop -- a sprawl of styles, though in each he found the right sound for the occasion. A meeting or two was all it took to persuade Granian that he had found his partner.
"We had enough trust to challenge each other until we came up with something we both knew was right," Granian says. "On 'My Voice,' for instance, he felt that my melody and lyrics were a little mysterious for the music. So he borrows my guitar, asks me to sing the song, and plays it with a slower feel. The next thing I knew, we had a completely rearranged song with a new bridge and a new breakdown, all done on the fly. That's how it was throughout these sessions."
"As I started playing solo acoustic in 2003, I wanted to write these songs and keep working on them until they were ready to record. It was just as important to find the right musicians. And when that time came I wanted to work with professionals, with hard-hitting players who understood what I was going for.”
This also proved easier than he expected. Through his producer Granian assembled an ideal group, beginning with drummer Nir Z, whose history included work with John Mayer and Peter Gabriel. Kyle Kelso (Tony C. & the Truth, Driver X, Wunderband) sculpted his aggressive guitar parts with a contradictory sensitivity, bassist Pemberton Roach laid down massive, high-impact lines, and Chris Gignoux sprinkled electronic details that added mystery and texture to the mix. It was the kind of band any gifted singer/songwriter would die to take into the studio and out on the road …
"I didn't meet these guys until the day we started recording," he explains. "That was the beauty of it: to get together with great musicians, play them my songs, and then have them run with that. And it worked brilliantly. There was one song I played for Nir Z once, then I played it again and talked about what I wanted, and then he got behind his drums and threw it down perfectly the first time he played it, which was also the third time he heard it. All the guys were like that. They totally got it."
"I had demoed each song with vocals and acoustic guitar," he says. "I'd cut them a little tighter than I do them live, so that the guitar wasn't too busy or crazy and I could give an impression of what kind of feel I wanted from the band. When we were finished, I was amazed: It sounds like the tightest live band you could imagine."
That's the key: these players were Granian throughout each take -- Granian, that is, as an ongoing musical story, not just the one guy who came up with the name as a framework for all his musical endeavors. Whether hammering out acoustic guitar riffs on solo gigs, fronting a group whose roots go back to their first appearance in 1996, or road-mapping accents in the studio alone with Nir Z, Garen Gueyikian stands at the center of this whirlwind, all of it identified by that name.
In fact it goes back further than that, to when Gueyikian began playing guitar at age fourteen. He started doing gigs at sixteen, as front man and youngest member of a local band. A kaleidoscope of influences tumbled through his early music: Pearl Jam, Live, Guster, the Verve Pipe, the Indigo Girls -- too many and varied to mention. He processed it all and recorded his first CD, with the seeds of his unique sound, before graduating from high school.
For a while Granian went to college, studying civil engineering at Northeastern in Boston, then transferring to the University of Maryland. All the while his mind was on music more than urban design. "I wrote one of the first Granian songs, 'Foresight,' during my first two or three weeks at Northeastern," he recalls. "After I played it for my roommate he'd go out into the hallway and one by one he'd bring in these girls to hear it. I'd play the song and before I was finished they'd start crying. I realized right away that I loved putting myself out there and stirring up some emotion."
With waning energy Granian tried to focus on his studies, finally transferring to Brookdale Community College back in New Jersey. Halfway through his three-year program he surrendered to the inevitable: "The whole time I was in school I just wanted to play and write music. There was no way I could stop. It was easier for me to put school on hold. My parents and I fought about it for a good three or four years before they finally understood that this is something I can't not do."
In 1995 he launched Granian as a four-piece. Despite personnel changes that began almost immediately, the group packed the Lion's Den in New York with a release party for their first CD, Without Changes, in November 1996. A second album, Hang Around, followed in October 2000; shortly after that the group streamlined down to a trio. Then came the solo incarnation; letting go of his band, Granian cut the epochal Live Sessions in 2003, followed by a national one-man tour, during which he played on intimate coffeehouse stages as well as in arenas opening for Matchbox 20, Vertical Horizon, Guster, and other headliners. And, not incidentally, he also conceived the idea of On My Own Two Feet.
Granian's sessions with Shimshack led first to a five-song EP, My Voice, which previewed the full album. Fans responded eagerly, buying nearly the entire pressing and turning the disc into a collector's item within months. With On My Own Two Feet Granian now fulfills a promise made not just on the EP but in the music he has written and performed as far back as those dorm-room recitals.
"I know who I am now more so than ever before," he insists. "That's what I want to put out on songs like 'On My Own,' 'My Voice,' and 'Vigil.' I'm finding my own place in this world and doing what I feel is right. That's what's going on in my head right now. That's what I'm about. That's why I call this On My Own Two Feet."
And that's why this album gives meaning to the most compelling word emerging in music today: Granian
Source: http://www.granian.com/bio/
