Greer: A Bunch of Happy People
Happy people are so overrated.
The aforementioned statement would likely be agreed upon by the members of the band Greer. Happy People, their sophomore EP, provides a four track review of lost love, past memories, and so-called “happy people.” Spoiler alert— it’s scathing.
Founded in 2018, the four piece Californian band consists of Josiah (vocals), Seth (bass), Lucas (drums), and Corbin (lead guitar). Receiving their initial limelight from filmmaker and former-viner Josh Ovalle’s YouTube video entitled, “Introducing Greer,” the band has since gained traction within the alternative indie rock scene. While clearly limited by Zoom, band members Josiah and Seth brought the sunny energy of California to Boston on a cold day, donning various Zoom filters and answering questions with gusto.
Though they have only been a band for three years, Greer’s discography is full of multiple singles, as well as their first EP, Lullaby for You, which was released in the midst of quarantine last year. Happy People marks the band’s second EP within the span of 16 months, and is without a doubt their boldest work yet. While they have plenty of songs under their belt, the band considers Happy People to be their first real release, as the majority of their work before the pandemic was either played on tours or in acoustic sessions on YouTube before being officially released. “We’ve wanted to display our growth— something different from what we’ve been doing” states Seth, “because we’ve kind of been doing the same song for like two or three years.” You didn’t hear it from me, but Greer might just be a tiny bit tired of playing “Bittersweet” over and over again.
Growing pains are natural for any up-and-coming band or artist, but Greer seems to have taken theirs in stride. Josiah stresses the fact that this is only the beginning and that their sound will continue to change as time goes by, “I think our sound will change erratically because we are in these very strange years of figuring out, but I think that’s a good thing, I don’t really want to stay in one thing forever.”
The band wrote the majority of their work during the first year of being together, and Seth emphasizes that “up until quite recently, we’ve seen an exponential growth where our sound has finally started evolving, and that’s kind of what the EP is, just kind of like the very start of it.” Starting out with various love songs, like “Bittersweet,” “Song for Me” and “Aeroplane,” Greer has drastically altered both their thematic focus and overall sound. Wistful melodies are a thing of the past, while loud, gritty dissonance is in. According to Seth, “the experimentation will never stop. We started as simply as we possibly could, and from then on we’re just going to keep getting more and more experimental and trying to grow as much as possible.” Greer is only just getting started— “We are genuinely still trying to find out who we are as people, and naturally that adds to who you are as an artist because they go hand in hand” Josiah exclaims, as Seth adds with a laugh: “in fifty years we’re going to be an obscure contemporary noise band.” And, when prompted with the question of: “why not do that now?”, Seth articulates that any band’s sound progresses “like human evolution— you don’t start out as the human, you have to go from the monkeys first.” Therefore, the world shall have to patiently wait a little longer until Greer’s obscure noise phase arrives.
While it is no obscure contemporary noise record, Happy People adeptly explores stories of first loves, letting go, and plenty of other true-to-life issues any listener could relate to in its short track listing. The songs take an angstier and more vulnerable stance than their previous work, but Greer is unafraid to tackle these subjects head on. The band collaborates when it comes to songwriting, although each member has a different approach to it. Josiah, for one, confides: “It’s easier for me to write about a relationship or something that’s affecting me, rather than looking inside myself and trying to put that on paper”, while Seth feels that “it’s actually easiest to write about that kind of stuff because it has affected my life so heavily. I wanted to do that when starting Greer, but writing the lyrics was the hardest part, it wasn’t really the vulnerability. I was okay with being vulnerable about it, but I just wasn’t as good of a lyricist and couldn’t put it into the words that I wanted at the time. But now that I’m starting to, it feels really good and it’s actually very therapeutic.” Despite their differences when it comes to vulnerability, both Josiah and Seth can agree that love songs are by far the easiest songs to write, the two laughing as they recall that at the beginning of their time as a band they were “farting them out” left and right.
As they think of their early songwriting careers, both Josiah and Seth emphasize one piece of advice they have for any aspiring musician: “Do not expect to write an amazing song right out of the get-go.” Songwriting is a skill that must be honed through time and practice. Josiah emphatically exclaims that “the only way you learn is by making a bunch of shitty songs and falling on your face a bunch of times— that’s most of art! That’s just how you learn.” Proving himself to be a man of many metaphors, Seth adds, “you don’t just do one bench press at the gym and get abs immediately. They don’t just pop on your body. You have to train your brain like a muscle.” Both can attest to the fact that with songwriting comes immense vulnerability. One has to be willing to be completely vulnerable to scrutiny, but not only that of others, but of their own minds. The path to writing a good song can certainly be a long and arduous one, but like Josiah says, one must “fail and learn from it.”
Luckily, Greer seems to have the art of songwriting down pat. Various fans were able to enjoy the fruits of the band’s labor in late October and early November, as Greer embarked on an abridged tour of the West Coast. Before the COVID-19 pandemic took the nation by storm, Greer had just completed two tours opening for The Flaming Lips and The Regrettes. After not having played an in-person show for nearly two years, the band was eager to ease back into touring life and make their long-awaited return to the stage. This tour, however, came with more responsibility, and more room to grow, as the band was headlining instead of opening for another band. Retrospectively, they were not completely satisfied with how some shows went, but took them in stride, knowing that this was all part of getting back in the groove of touring. For Josiah, a good show constitutes good technicality on the part of the band, combined with good energy on the part of the audience. “The shows where we hit both of those are bliss and awesome, but if we hit either I’m really, really happy” Josiah asserts, “especially when it’s just energy— our energy is great and the crowd’s energy is great. That’s what makes me more happy and what I think is more important, but it’s nice to be technically on point as well.” Thankfully, Greer recognizes that everyone has bad shows. “It’s all about perspective, and if you’re playing badly there’s a way to turn it into a personally good show” Seth says, “Maybe it’s just time to not focus on playing, and focus on your energy and have fun, or laugh at yourself.”
Though if anything, Greer knows how to laugh at themselves. It doesn’t matter if they are on tour or recording— the sense of comradery within the band cannot go unnoticed. When they are together, the inside jokes and laughter seem to be infinite. The four have practically grown up alongside one another, pushing through, as Josiah puts it, those “crazy, formative years of you figuring out who you are as a person.” While those years are never easy for anyone, the band seems to be making their way through in merry spirits. “Without all the joking around and having fun, the music just wouldn’t be as good, for a fact,” Josiah claims, “there was a time where there wasn’t as much of that and we were not prevailing music-wise. I think we need to have fun to make good music, and sometimes it bites us in the ass because we’ll go to rehearsal and not do anything, and we’ll just goof around, but in the grand scheme of things I think it is extremely important.” The four clearly have a lot of fun with one another— whether playing music or not— and that’s truly one of the reasons why the band just works.
As cliché as it may sound, this is only the beginning for Greer. Seth agrees— “We’re going to keep going forever. That’s kind of the goal.” Their future ambitions as a band consist of “world peace,” “new iphones,” and, of course, “tours and albums and friends along the way.” While holiday cover songs aren’t within Greer’s release agenda (Josiah favors doing RuPaul’s “Hey Sis, It’s Christmas,” while Seth would like to cover Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” with the caveat that it is “super scary and messed up and creepy”), we can expect great things from Greer in the near future. Though if one thing is for sure, in their three years of being a band, Greer has certainly made many, many people happy.