Wind-up RecordsThe Griswolds' sophomore album High Times for Low Lives drops today. The album features the lead single "Out of My Head," a song about frontman Chris Whitehall's relationship with his ex-girlfriend, with whom he broke up with while he was in his native Australia and she was in Los Angeles.
"To get any kind of cell service, you'd have to climb this mountain...probably about a 30-minute hike," Whitehall tells ABC Radio. "So I got cell service and I called her up and we literally split up right there on the top of this mountain, and then came back down, and I think the song just happened that night."
On High Times, The Griswolds made a concerted effort to write more personal songs about real emotions.
"It's very, very raw and honest, nothing went through any kind of filter," Whitehall explains. "When someone hears any song on this album, especially 'Out of My Head' as well, you're getting raw feelings, basically. You're getting band member emotions going straight to listeners ears."
While "Out of My Head" is, as Whitehall says, the "most different, left-field song on the album" sonically, that theme of lyrical honesty carries throughout the album. Take the song "Rufio," for example.
"It's quite literally a song about being unfaithful," Whitehall says. "It's not fun that that happened -- and I lost my girlfriend because of that, that's my bad, my fault -- but we didn't want to dumb that down for fans. We wanted to tell a real story on that, as dark as it may be."
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