Los Angeles/Nashville-based rock band Grizfolk first burst onto the scene back in 2014 with their debut From the Spark EP and have never really slowed down since.
Their debut full-length album, Waking Up the Giants, came in 2016 and quickly established them as indie/rock force to be reckoned with. Their enticing bend of electronic-tinged folk and pop caught. millions of ears from all corners of the world.
However, as Grizfolk grew and became more recognizable, the band themselves — Adam Roth (lead vocals, guitar), Sebastian Fritze (keys and vocals), Fredrik Eriksson (guitar), and Bill Delia (drums) –began to face their own demons and dilemmas of various forms. Everything from alcohol dependence to personal/familial problems to romantic relationship struggles and more, all began to creep in. Rather than let that break them down and cause unrepairable tension amongst themselves they continued to turn to music. As much as they’d been providing joy and an escape for their fans, Grizolk realized that in songwriting lay their own redemption and deliverance.
The result of their epiphany was 2019’s Rarest of Birds, which contains 12 tracks hat delivered a nostalgic, summertime feel as the band embraced more organic instrumentation. All the while, Grizfolk continues to tour and grow their brand, as they’ve since done all kinds of headlining shows and appearances at festivals, while also supporting bands like Bastille, Twenty One Pilots, Andrew McMahon, and more.
A staple of those live shows, for a while now, has been a song called “The Ripple.” It’s a song that has long been a fan-favorite when played live, but up until now, Grizfolk had yet to capture it in the studio. But now, with the help of producer Rich Costley (The Killers, Muse, Barns Courtney, Biffy Clyro), the band was able to appropriately capture it’s Americana twang and singalong appeal. Inspired by Grizfolk’s time spent in Joshua Tree, California, “The Ripple” joins the previously released “California High,” “Queen of the Desert,” and “Money” as a taste of what’s to come from their upcoming album, due out this summer.
Ahead of it’s official release to streaming services this Friday, Substream is thrilled to be teaming up with Grizfolk to bring fans a stream of “The Ripple” today, which can be found below.
“We’ve been playing ’The Ripple’ live for years…fans have uploaded clips of us playing it everywhere from Cleveland to Berlin,” Delia says. “It’s always been one of our favorite songs but every time we tried recording it, we couldn’t capture the magic of what the song meant to us. Rich Costey played a pretty important part in guiding us towards how to finally get this song right- the instrumentation, tempo, and mood were all meant to be a little more subtle / understated than we’d had it in years past.”
Roth adds, “‘The Ripple’ is a song about expanding outwards in life. It’s a song about how one wrong turn can lead to greatness through a reckoning of self-reflection: ‘Gotta get lost to get it right.’ Creatively, we’ve been on a long journey to connect with our true sound, and we feel like we finally found it on this upcoming album.”
Listen to Substream’s premiere of “The Ripple” below.