Music Features

Grinny Grandad have been making a name for themselves with a unique blend of upbeat sample based grooves, an individual vocal sound and some very interesting takes on classic Beatles tunes.

With everything they do glistening from a coating of seemingly effortless, yet clever and very high quality production, their music demands to be listened to without being taken too seriously. An interesting trick if you can pull it off.

When Claire, Kim, Gav and Morton visited the BBC Radio York studio for a live session they started with the trad jazz inspired Trumpet Woman. I asked singer Claire where inspiration came from.

"I think I just wanted something where I didn't feel I was stressing my voice. Morton's old stuff was just banging and I found it really difficult to sing. I just wanted a song where I felt I could relax and enjoy singing it."

So how did the band get together?

"Gavin and Morton are friends from school, and like brothers.  I (Claire) go out with Gavin on dates, for milkshakes - it's all very seemly, and Kim's a friend that we used to work with. She used to be Morton's boss."

Where do you draw your influences from?

"There is not two of us that like the same music. Morton has always been into electronic stuff like Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Beatles... the early electronic stuff from them.

"Claire is into the 'girl with guitar' stuff like Joanna Newsom and older stuff like Joni Mitchell. She's also quite a fan of Sia from Zero7.

Just how much of your performance is live?

"Kim and Claire both sing live, and Gav's guitar is live but a lot of it is pre-written. The arrangements are always rather similar but parts of them drop in and out as needed.

"We've been making fun of Morton for a long time that he needn't come to gigs really. He could just turn it on, have a pint and watch the gig, and then turn it off at the end.

"So we're trying to be a bit more flexible, have more for Morton to do, we want to get a drummer in as well as maybe some more musicians."

"But it's always been really difficult. If you watch big name electronic acts they've got lots of money to put on a big show. So our challenge is to be entertaining live."