Daniel Duque-Perez – Co-Writer, Lead Guitar, BV of the smash success indie band The Griswolds took time out of his busy schedule to chat with Punk Globe! LETS GO!

First off, Congratulations on the great success of “Heart of a Lion” in 2012! Did you expect this song would be such a raving success?

Thanks very much. It's been a mental year; we had no idea it would take off like this. Pretty big mind fuck, we definitely had to learn a lot about getting real pretty fast but it's been the raddest year of our lives to date.

Can you tell us about the band and its roots?

The bands really new, we are just coming up to a year old, our first show being in April 2012. Whitehall and I met ages ago and were good friends that were working on song writing for other people and hating our current band life situations. One drunken night we decided to start our own thing and a few weeks later we moved in together and had our own studio, wrote a bunch of tunes and put a band together.

What musicians served as inspirations to you to enter the music scene?

Oh god, probably all of them, when I started out it would have been Metallica, then a few years later it was Blink 182, then a few years later it was Tool, and then I got sick of distortion and playing that kind of stuff, and now I have no idea what inspires me to be in a band anymore, maybe I just love writing and the satisfaction you get from nailing a song on the head and people loving it more than you even love it or maybe I’m inspired by the huge leg up you get pulling chicks when you’re in a band.

Is there a particular era of music that really inspired you?

For this band I think there probably isn’t, I think we probably draw a lot of vocal melody inspiration from 80’s Paul Simon, but then in the beats we are drawing from hip hop and dance. But overall I’d say we are trying our hardest not to pull inspiration from any one era or genre. I don’t know, we are pretty chilled and honestly don’t think about this stuff very much, we just do it drunk mostly.

If you had to place your music under one genre, what would it be?

Indie

Currently, who are some of your favorite musicians?

Devendra Banhart, Alt J, MGMT, Theophilis London.

Tell us about the new E.P you released?

We wrote it quickly, at home, we didn’t even have a band at this point in time or a name, then once we had the songs we liked we made a video for heart of a lion, and still didn’t have a name for the band. Once we decided “alright these are gonna be the songs on the EP.” We got a band, went into a plush studio and got an excellent engineer and self produced the EP having no idea what we were going to do with it other than have a fun time listening to it and making it. We didn’t even have a band name until like the last night of recording the second last song, but we needed a name because our we were being offered our first gig and need to be called something. I’d like to state that we aren’t as moronic as this now days. At that point in time, this was all just for fun haha.

To date, what is the best song you have produced?

Oh man, we’ve only released four songs but my favorite would probably be Mississippi.

Tell us about what is in store for 2013?

New video clips, new singles, an album, some tours, some laughs, and hopefully cross the big pond and come and play for you guys over in the states.

Do you feel your music will help this generation to appreciate music more?

There is no way to answer this question without sounding like a pompous asshole or a self-deprecating crybaby.

Any international tours in the works?

Yeah, but not written in stone just yet.

Thanks for the chat, looking forward to hearing more great things from your crew in the future! Check ‘em out at:

http://wearethegriswolds.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thegriswolds
https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/heart-of-a-lion-ep/id566457368