Grouplove perform songs from 'I Want It All Right Now' in The Current studio
by Mac Wilson
October 05, 2023
Los Angeles band Grouplove had a busy summer as part of a triple bill supporting Pink and Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo on a North American tour. And just before embarking on that tour, Grouplove also dropped their latest album, I Want It All Right Now.
While the band were in the Twin Cities as part of that summer tour, they had some time off to explore the area’s restaurants and running trails, and they also took some time to visit The Current studio to play songs from the new album and to chat with host Mac Wilson. Watch and listen to the compete session above, and read a transcript below.
Interview Transcript
Mac Wilson: I'm Mac Wilson from The Current and I am joined in our studio today by group love. Dan, Hannah, Christian, thank you for stopping by today.
Hannah Hooper: Thanks for having us.
Mac Wilson: So you are out in the midst of a really intriguing tour. One of the most unique triple bills that, it really works in my head, but Pink, Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, and Grouplove playing together at Target Field. What was your first thought when this triple billing came together?
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, so different. Just the sheer scale of it is different, but we were so excited and in almost like a psychedelic way, because it's just such a unique tour with amazing women on it, which is very cool.
Mac Wilson: We were talking about when you take the stage relatively early, you almost take on the role of you know, getting people to their seats while you're playing. In your head, how is that a little bit different, obviously, from playing a headline show of your own? Do you have to adjust your own headspace or do you just kind of let it fly?
Hannah Hooper: No, no, you adjust your headspace for sure. I, like, it took a couple of shows to get used to it. But we have realized after walking around these stadiums, that a lot of people are up in the like, what's that area called?
Christian Zucconi: Nosebleeds.
Hannah Hooper: Nosebleeds. Like a lot of people. Like, we've gone up there and had like standing ovations, you know, during Pink's set. And so, now we play to them. And they're just, they look like tiny ants. But there's massive screens where they see us, so there is that connection. And it's very... it's weird.
Mac Wilson: So these are indeed stadium shows. Are there any particular — like, I'm thinking from in terms of architecture: Are there any stadiums that have really stuck out for you over the last couple of weeks?
Hannah Hooper: Yes.
Daniel Gleason: Fenway. Fenway Park, did two nights.
Mac Wilson: Yeah. Were there people up on the Green Monster? Or was that behind you? How did they set up the stage?
Daniel Gleason: There weren't people on the Monster. It was, yeah, and there's nobody behind the stage. But you know, you're flanked everywhere you look. And the facade of the Fenway Park with the press boxes in the back is just really cool. There's like nooks and crannies to that stadium that nowhere else really has, you know? And the history, and you're kind of walking around, and there's, you know, major events happened over there or over there. And that's a really cool aspect of it. Wrigley [Field in Chicago] is another one that'll be sort of like that, I think, with all the history.
Mac Wilson: So you're going to the actual cool ballparks — no disrespect to U.S. Bank Stadium, the Vikings stadium in downtown, that's like a giant room that you're inside — these are buildings with actually some character, and that's got to be exciting to, you know, learn your way around each of these new spots.
Christian Zucconi: Yes.
Hannah Hooper: It's very, it's very cool, because actually, Dan is quite the historian with these places, so he — and he's seen Pearl Jam, like, everywhere, in every stadium, like many times, so he has so many memories coming in — and it's really cool for many reasons. He's also like a huge baseball fan. So I played my first game of catch the other day at Fenway.
Daniel Gleason: On Fenway, like, on the dirt.
Hannah Hooper: Like, never worn a baseball mitt before and didn't realize it feels like you're wearing like an extension, leather claw of your hand. And catching a baseball, just the sensation of it was so new for me, and to do it there, I just felt super lucky.
Daniel Gleason: It's just cool to be connected to that history, you know, where you're like, "FDR spoke at Fenway Park." You know, to kind of like rally the country for World War II. Like, even aside from, you know, the baseball and all the lore and mythology and all that, like, substantial stuff happened at these ballparks, because it is, you know, America's pastime, to be cliché, it's, you know, it matters.
Hannah Hooper: It's really cool.
Mac Wilson: We were chatting a little bit beforehand, and you said that you've had some time to explore Minneapolis St. Paul, being in town for a couple of days. So with the pacing of this particular tour, you do get that time rather than like the more breakneck pace of where you're headlining and you're going city to city to city; you've had a little bit more opportunities to stretch out. So what are some of the sights that you've been able to see while you've been in town?
Hannah Hooper: Well, just to clarify, we actually had our first real day off of this tour here, because our bus broke down. So we've been driving ourselves to every show, which has actually been, depending on your perspective at the moment, like pretty bonding for the band, because it's like the return to the OG days. Would you say Christian?
Christian Zucconi: Yeah.
Hannah Hooper: I just wanted to hear your voice.
Christian Zucconi: I do have a voice, but I'm happy listening to you guys.
Hannah Hooper: I love your voice. Anyway, it was a — but, what did we do here? We walked — first of all, we got in this weird thing where we've been like checking our steps, which is like pretty dorky — but everyone just walking. Yeah, everyone, I think everyone does it now; we were like, "Dude, I got 18,000 steps today!" Just like walking across all the bridges. We went to Brasa, which is like, had amazing chicken. I think I told you the story, but I after I was just like, eating this incredible chicken two days in a row, and like all the crazy sides like the plantains, and was dipping everything in this green sauce. And I was like, "Excuse me, miss, what is this green sauce? It's so delicious." And she's like, "Oh, it's basically just mayonnaise." And I was like, "Oh my God, I've been eating tablespoons full of mayonnaise for the last two days!"
Christian Zucconi: It was so good we went back twice.
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, it was so good.
Christian Zucconi: We went along the river for a while, south of the city. And it was really pretty. And I saw everyone like commuting to work on their bicycles, and running and exercising.
Hannah Hooper: Well, you're being really modest right now, because why did you go along the river?
Christian Zucconi: I started running lately, in the last year or so, so I've been taking care of myself. And it's fun to like, get that time.
Hannah Hooper: What did you not only clock yesterday, but how far did you run?
Christian Zucconi: Twenty-seven miles.
Hannah Hooper: He ran 10 miles!
Christian Zucconi: No, it's nice to get that time. But also this is like, that was the longest I've ever run in my life was in Minneapolis. And it was the most beautiful run I've ever been on. Just like take that time early in the morning and just kind of like clear your head. It was nice to do here. And I look forward to coming back and doing it again when it's little colder.
Mac Wilson: Yeah, right. I'm thinking in terms of altitude, this has got to be a pretty good spot. It's not like in in the mountains or anything, so we hopefully are just the right spot for you.
Christian Zucconi: Yeah!
Mac Wilson: We are in The Current studio with Grouplove. And you mentioned, too, that you went to the National last night at the Armory. And you telling the story about that, it made me think about the way that bands support other artists over time. Now bear with me, this is the memory that popped into my mind: Several years ago, there was a triple bill at Xcel, just down the street, where it was R.E.M., Modest Mouse, and the National opening up. So the National had to like get all of their best songs into half an hour. And that's sort of what you're doing on this tour supporting Pat Benatar and Pink. That's kind of like live music at its purest; you are getting the best half-hour of music in your entire catalogue, and you're presenting it as efficiently and yet trying to connect with as many people as you can. That's got to be wild. That's sort of limiting. It's also got to be really exciting, in a way, just playing the best of your best.
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, I mean, I would say we've been changing up the set a lot. And we also just dropped a new album, I Want It All Right Now. And so we've been playing a lot of the new album, which we like, we can't say like fans or people that I've heard us before think it's the best, but for us currently, in this place in life, like the new is the best, right? It's the most exciting. It was just written. We feel the most connected to it. So that has been, it's been cool to like get to know the songs live at such a massive, in such a massive space and like sort of see what's connecting, and what isn't.
Christian Zucconi: And what feels, like, right at the time, too. And they all feel good. But it's nice coming out like swinging with one of your best songs, I think for sure.
Hannah Hooper: It is a wild feeling when we're playing the last song of the set, and we're like, "We just started!" Like, we're just we're just getting into it. Like, I'm just about to do a flip or something.
Daniel Gleason: Feels like a fever dream. You like get done, and you're like — while it's happening, it feels surreal — but you get done, and you're like, "That was actually really fun, right?" Like, "We had a great time."
Christian Zucconi: Yeah!
Daniel Gleason: And then like two hours later, you're like, "That was amazing." It just, it happens so quick, that it's hard to even... It feels, like you were saying earlier, like you have those days where your brain feels outside of your body. That's kind of how it feels to play in those places for that short of a time.
Hannah Hooper: Yeah.
Mac Wilson: I've been thinking about the title of the new record, I Want It All Right Now, and how — correct me if I'm wrong, it's my interpretation of the title anyway — it's sort of a sentiment that a lot of us have had, like, coming out of the worst of the COVID 19 pandemic. You want your music out to the world, you want to do everything right now. It sort of mirrors that feeling like "OK, we need to make up for lost time in a lot of different ways."
Hannah Hooper: I love that interpretation. I honestly, I think that the title, just like our songs, kind of like gets like a new meaning almost every day, but like, I like that one. So I'm just leaning into that.
Mac Wilson: I'm curious about one of the metaphors, meaning wise, in one of the songs that you played in our studio today, "Cheese"; I thought of that self-help book, Who Moved My Cheese, where you're trying to adjust to these seemingly small changes that you, that might pop up on any given day, but they have the potential to really, really throw you off. That's something that, I mean, I've struggled with over the last couple of years, and I'm curious if that's the central metaphor, or whether it's money, or what is the cheese in this song?
Christian Zucconi: The cheese is like a place in your mind where you go to feel OK, I think. But I don't want to tell you what it is, because it can be anything you want it to be. But I think when we wrote that song, it's like, life's moving so fast and it's so chaotic, especially as you age, you want to hold on to all these dear, kind of core memories that kind of help you define who you are, and not lose sight of that. And it's always like, keep that close, like remember your beautiful self amidst all this, like, crazy world events that are always happening more and more.
Hannah Hooper: Stay close to that.
Christian Zucconi: And like, stay close to your purity. I think that's where it kind of comes from. But if people want to think it's about money, too, that's cool.
Hannah Hooper: John Congleton, who produced the album, he was always like, "Let's make that cheese. Let's make that cheese." And I was like—
Christian Zucconi: "Stack that cheddar!"
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, stack that cheddar. I was like, "That's not what the song's about."
Christian Zucconi: It's also not about real cheese. So that's important that people don't think we're singing about like things we like to eat.
Hannah Hooper: Also, if you're in music, there's no cheese.
Mac Wilson: Yeah.
Christian Zucconi: If you're singing.
Hannah Hooper: You gotta love it.
Mac Wilson: So Grouplove, you're here playing a Target Field tonight with Pat Benatar and Pink, and I'm curious what the next step is for you. Do you have plans now to, after sort of road testing all of these new songs, are you going to be able to stretch out a bit more and do your own thing like a separate tour all your own?
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, we're going to do a tour at like, end of February through March, which we haven't announced yet, so I guess we're dropping it here. We're like, workshopping some names of the tour right now. We got a good one going, which is "The Rock and Roll, You Won't Save Me" tour, which is a line in the last song of the album. But it's going to be so fun to go from playing these stadiums to go and play to our fan base with this new album and really just like reconnect. And we are thinking of sort of playing smaller rooms on purpose, just to like, have that dichotomy of just like insanity and then like coming home to our fan base a little bit.
Mac Wilson: This is déjà vu for me, because I had a very similar conversation a couple of years back with Metric, where they put out a new record, they went out with Smashing Pumpkins, and they were like, "Well, you know, Smashing Pumpkins fans, they were kind of like, apathetic towards the song." Like, it was good, but it was OK. But then they went off and they really got a grip of what their new songs were all about, and then they did their own thing, and that helped them in the end. So that's sort of striking me as a parallel here.
Christian Zucconi: Yeah.
Mac Wilson: I asked them at one point, if they met Billy Corgan, they're like, "Well, no, not really."
Christian Zucconi: I once met Billy Corgan when I was working backstage at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. I was like stocking dressing rooms. And he was going around, and I had a CD I wanted to give him, and I went up to give it to him, and he had like an assistant who — he wouldn't take it — and he was like, pointed to her and she took it, and there's like, 10, 12 other CDs in this pile. I was like, "Oh, he's never gonna listen to that!"
Hannah Hooper: Oh, man. I've never heard that. That's wild.
Mac Wilson: So you've got a Billy Corgan story. But now I'm curious, do you get the chance to sit down and chat at all with Pat Benatar and/or Pink?
Hannah Hooper: We haven't yet, but I feel like this tour for us is really split into two parts. And one is where we're the opener, and the next one we're like, do we call it main support?
Daniel Gleason: Yeah, yeah.
Hannah Hooper: Feels so ... I feel like it's that... So the next part of the tour is just us and Pink, and DJ KidCutUp opening, and I think that that's going to lead to a little bit more of a hang. But right now, it's pretty chaotic; we're all just like traveling. OK, so basically no, we haven't told Pink, or Pat Benatar.
Daniel Gleason: Well, that's something, even just saying that Pink has seen you perform, like, "Pink knows who I am." Like that, in and of itself, that's exciting. She came and saw us and Andrew met her. She came and saw us at Ohana Festival in California, so I've seen her. We just haven't, like, I mean, her show is so massive, you know? And she's got her family out. So I'm sure it'll happen somewhere down the line, and I've heard she's lovely.
Christian Zucconi: It is. She wrote us all these beautiful cards on the first night of tour saying like, what a fan she is and how happy she is we've joined the tour. And she offered us the tour after seeing us at Ohana, so it's a nice, organic way to go about it.
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, it was really cool. And I had something to say, but I think it just left my mind.
Mac Wilson: It's outside of your head.
Hannah Hooper: That's right. It's right here. It's right here. But it was cool. Oh! We're gonna get "Dirty Little Freaks" from Pink's song tattooed on all of us on this tour at some point, because we are dirty little freaks. And I feel like that song is, "Raise your glass!" Anyway, if you don't know it...
Daniel Gleason: Chris, you know it! I'm gonna get, we're gonna get.
Christian Zucconi: I'll do it. I'm gonna do it. I'll be a team player and I'll get it.
Hannah Hooper: If you want to get it with us, it's like, full chest, Old English "Dirty Little Freaks."
Mac Wilson: I don't have any tattoos, and I'm kind of scared of doing it. "Dirty Little Freaks," that's too many characters for me. Like keep it shorter, like "Trouble." Like, I would get "trouble" tattooed on my body.
Christian Zucconi: DFL — or DLF!
Hannah Hooper: DLF — it's very close to something else!
Mac Wilson: Yeah! Boy...
Hannah Hooper: But DLF, it could be like that, you could be like our like, like insider, like, interview crew.
Mac Wilson: Well, the next time you see me, maybe I'll have "DLF" tattooed in old English across my chest.
Daniel Gleason: Maybe in like 50 years, that's gonna stand for something, like, bad. Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Mac Wilson: This is all gonna come back, one way or the other.
Hannah Hooper: Yeah, I know.
Mac Wilson: So, all right, well, Grouplove and I, we have plans for the future, and you have plans for the future, too, and we're wishing you the very best luck. We're loving the new song, "Hello," especially.
Christian Zucconi: Thanks for spinning it.
Daniel Gleason: Thanks for playing it.
Hannah Hooper: Thank you.
Mac Wilson: That you have been playing, and that you played today. So thank you again for stopping by, and best of luck.
Christian Zucconi, Hannah Hooper, Daniel Gleason: Thank you so much.
Video Segments
00:00:00 All
00:03:59 Cheese
00:07:09 Hello
00:10:35 Interview with host Mac Wilson
All songs from Grouplove’s 2023 album, I Want It All Right Now, available on Glassnote Records.
Musicians
Christian Zucconi – vocals, guitar
Hannah Hooper – vocals, tambourine
Andrew Wessen – lead guitar
Daniel Gleason – bass
Ben Homola – percussion
Credits
Guests – Grouplove
Host – Mac Wilson
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video Director – Eric Xu Romani
Camera Operators – Micah Kopecky, Eric Xu Romani
Audio – Derek Ramirez
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor
External Link
Grouplove – official site