Conversation with the members of Grandaddy, bearded purveyors of lo-fi psychedelic rock, isn’t easy. While there’s nothing intrinsically unfriendly about the Californian band sitting before me, it’s clear that talking about music is a pointless exercise in their view. Drummer Aaron Burtch and pianist Tim Dryden remain switched off for the most part, while bass player Kevin Garcia disappears altogether. It’s left to the guitarist Jim Fairchild and the vocalist and songwriter Jason Lytle to explain what Grandaddy are all about.
We’re here to discuss their third album Sumday, the long-awaited follow-up to 2000’s acclaimed The Sophtware Slump though it quickly becomes apparent that Lytle isn’t in the business of analysing his songs. My attempts to discover the inspiration behind the nonsense-verse lyrics of “Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake” is met with a lot of head-scratching and a mumbled: “It’s just the way it came out.”But if explaining the finer points of songwriting is one of the less desirable parts of the singer’s job, dealing with the music industry has been nothing short of torture. “I feel like I’ve got myself in a jam,” he says, gazing dolefully at the floor. “I realise how important it is to do what we’re doing and I realize how crucial it is to make people happy but the percentage of it that I really abhor is pretty high.

There’s a lot of ridiculousness in the whole entertainment business, a lot of artifice. But we’re fortunate enough to have met a few bands who seem to be reading from the same page and are doing it for the right reasons. For that we’re grateful.”For Grandaddy, being in a band appears to be less of a career move than a moral crusade to enrich the lives of their listeners and lift rock music out of its current torpor “It’s all about honesty of intention,” says Fairchild. “To create something worthwhile, there has to be honesty, otherwise you’re just adding to the crap.”Despite Lytle’s prodigious talent as a songwriter, it would be hard to find a man less suited to the lifestyle of a musician. He dislikes flying, feels uncomfortable in “poncey” hotels and abhors being the centre of attention. He talks about “seeing it through” as if Grandaddy were some sort of endurance test.

“Look, I have alcoholic parents and I’m like a fully fledged alcoholic,” he says, finally looking me in the eye. “I read these statistics about what it is that makes you an alcoholic and I’m totally there. Add that to the fact that you’re constantly in a state of ‘Where am I?’ and being approached by people who are trying to have light commentary on what are very heavy subjects for you. Then there’s the fact that you have to stand on stage and you don’t particularly like being looked at. Luckily I never went near heroin but right now, to get through tours, I have this sweet spot where I’ll drink just enough and I can turn off the rest of the world and just get through it.”I sense that this isn’t Lytle playing the tortured-artist card. Asked why he perseveres, he replies: “I guess there are elements that I like The part that I love the most is making the songs Then there’s the immediacy of our live shows. I like the excitement and not knowing how things are going to turn out.

Sometimes I feel like a long-distance runner deciding that he’s either going to slow down, drift off and fall into the bushes or sprint toward the finish line I’d rather sprint toward the finish line. I feel I owe it to myself, the band and the people who get pleasure from what we do.”The band hail from Modesto, California, a small agricultural town that was the model for George Lucas’s American Graffiti. Lytle left in his early twenties to become a professional skateboarder, until a knee injury brought an end to his career. “I had to go back to my parents’ house and deal with it,” he recalls.