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The Cover Story
grandson: “It’s so disappointing when artists feel they need to pick between their morals and their ambitions”
Struggling with substance abuse and mental health, Jordan Benjamin has been through the wringer these past few years. But seeing a world on the slide and fans desperate for righteous, dissenting voices rattled the artist known as grandson out of soul-searching introspection, and galvanised the desire to make third album INERTIA a battle cry fit to wake the world…
- Words:
- Sam Law
- Photography:
- Alexis Gross
Jordan Benjamin doesn’t know how many people come to Kerrang! because they’re interested in political theory, but he’s pretty sure that if you keep reading you’ll find you’ve got some skin in the game. Because things are fucked up right now. As a musician and activist, he’s felt the insidious creep of money and power in the closure of cool punk clubs as sterile corporate venues thrive, in streaming services’ stranglehold on the commodification of his art, and in the slow death of real journalism. Yet that’s nothing compared to the spread of neo-fascist ideology, the manipulation of government by shady billionaires and the regression of rights for women and queer people.
Distant and obscure as the machinations of government often seem, it can feel impossible to make a difference. But the seeds of change aren’t sown in Westminster or Washington, D.C. Not really. They’re scattered by passionate rabble-rousers just like him, to take root in open hearts and minds.
“Alternative music is supposed to be rebellious,” Jordan begins. “But what the fuck are we rebelling against nowadays? We’re in the craziest, scariest times of our lives and it’s just not there. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. It’s heartbreaking to watch people give up. This new wave of fascism and race politics is being met with so much less resistance than last time. The tone is so different. There is so much less cohesion about how and when [we] stand up because of a mistrust that’s been built across the political spectrum. Everyone feels like they’ve been left behind. People don’t want to speak out. They want to get in good favour with these institutions contributing to this moment. The resistance isn’t nearly as vocal because people are preparing for this to be the new normal.”
The artist better known as grandson isn’t about to let that happen without a fight. He’s positively crackling this morning. The Californian summer sun is creeping high above Los Angeles, still a few hours off its scalding peak, but rather than basking in the ambiance of the City Of Angels, Jordan paces endlessly through a leafy garden, seeking answers to difficult questions he might never find.
Initially, this feels at odds with the ‘grandson’ we’ve met before. The ‘YouTuber pluckiness’ and podcasting mic of his first K! cover for Death Of An Optimist back in 2020 has been swapped for urgency, uncertainty and a smartphone selfie-cam held chest high. The deep-set introspection dug into around 2023’s I Love You, I’m Trying is turned inside-out, his probing mind more interested in the motivations of others than wrestling with demons of his own. And as he unpacks the themes of third album INERTIA with a jittery reflexivity at odds with the suspended animation of its title, it’s clear this is the old grandson, just with his anger, agitation and nervous energy cranked to 11.
“No-one’s going to give you an award for choosing to question things”
Back in late 2020, Jordan ventured that his outlook for the future was “cautiously optimistic”. Donald Trump had been voted out of the White House. Joe Biden felt like a promising president-elect. Five years down the line, that optimism still flickers, but it’s struggling to hold back the dark.
“I believed more in narratives of good and bad back then,” he shrugs, openly acknowledging his disenfranchisement in a two-party system awash with anti-working class lobbyists. “I thought if I threw my weight in one direction on the political spectrum things could change and the tide would turn. Since then I’m a lot more pessimistic, a lot more cynical, a lot more angry. I cling to that optimism as a lot of people do, like a life-raft to hold on to in your imagination. Things might get better. But as [that optimism is harder to find] and I see people allow themselves to be duped by hatred and fear over and over again? I just had to make a fucking angry record.”
INERTIA fits that bill fantastically. Rapid-fire banger AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY ROBOT, for instance, is a damning critique of the dehumanising march of technology. LITTLE WHITE LIES tackles the resurgent, often wildly hypocritical use of organised religion as a political tool to push conservative agendas. SELF IMMOLATION, meanwhile, is an incredibly powerful chronicle of how on February 25, 2024 Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest ongoing violence against civilians in Gaza, and the grim absurdity of pictures from that day where police came to the scene with guns raised and precious little comprehension.
Deep down, INERTIA isn’t about violent rage, however. Taking the term from a conversation with his father about how many people default through life, “on a path you didn’t intend to be on, as one person or a society” Jordan hopes these songs can provide the impetus to rock people off course.
YOU MADE ME THIS WAY feels like a keystone in that, stressing the need to understand and find empathy for those on the other side of the political spectrum, “without the kind of ‘whataboutism’ that leads people to do things like inviting a climate scientist and a climate denier to a debate when 99.9 per cent of the community have already reached a consensus.” It’s also about confronting one’s own echo chambers, as Jordan did with the Jewish community where he grew up when he realised that their unapologetically Zionist beliefs in no way aligned with his own. ‘Republican or Democrat,’ he rhymes, acerbically. ‘You can stab me from the front… or stab me from the back!’
“This soundtrack is meant to wake you up to the reality that we are encouraged to numb and anaesthetise ourselves”
Lead single BRAINROT kicks off the conversation with a bang, challenging listeners to find space away from the mind-numbing torrent of content to find the space to form thoughts of your own: ‘Watch the stars walk the red carpet / Watch the cops shoot the wrong girl in her own apartment / Become a slave to the free market / Where you pick up the gun or become the target…’
“Social media started out as a tool,” Jordan expands. “It’s allowed me to connect with people all around the world and for my music to be played in places that I couldn’t even imagine. We grew comfortable with it. But social media began to grow its own consciousness, which you could call ‘the algorithm’. That algorithm got trained on ‘who you are’ and it is designed to show you less and less that might disrupt your ideology lest they risk you leaving that platform. The thing that you are is the thing that you become doomed to stay. And these weapons are only being sharpened.
“When I was a kid and I Googled something, I didn’t receive AI interpretations of the question or targeted ads. It feels impossible now to get through all of the clutter of what’s being bought and sold online just to form an independent thought. Never before have people been exposed to this kind of casino-like assault on out senses. We need to learn to compartmentalise ourselves from the internet. It is so important to live in community and experience the world outside of our phone. The world can still surprise you. Maybe you can surprise it, too.”
grandson has become substantially bigger than Jordan. It’s a realisation he’s steadily been coming to over the course of INERTIA’s creation. While the distillation of his struggles with mental health and substance abuse made I Love You, I’m Trying his most biographical record to date – a powerfully cathartic moment for the man himself – it was over the course of touring those songs that he realised the hunger, both in himself and the fans, for bigger ideas and more righteous outrage.
“More than ever, grandson is an idea,” Jordan says. “The experience of writing that other deeply personal record and realising that it just wasn’t as fulfilling, for me or my audience, helped me tap back into what we all want from this project. I continue to speak in the first person. I continue to hold it very tightly as a reflection of my thoughts and beliefs. But it is at its best as this [shared experience]. Getting my ego tangled up in that only diminishes the core message that grandson is about all of us. All of us got into this mess together. It’s going to take all of us to get out of it.”
Step one in building this new version of the band was moving away from Warner subsidiary Fueled By Ramen to set up his own his own company XX Records.
“[All of the things people say about major labels] are true,” he says. “There is a push towards alt. pop and digestible melody. There are legal departments with opinions on your video treatments. There are things that are so dangerous for incredibly talented kids in their early 20s who are inherently people pleasers filled with ego. But also there is a facelessness, a gamification of trying to work within that system to be able to pull these levers to access your own fans or your own marketing budget. And there was a game of political compromise. There are plenty of well intentioned creators and free thinkers who just can’t let their passion flow.
“I am one of the lucky ones to be able to get out of that system without being embroiled in some lengthy legal battle for my voice. And I have to honour that by making decisions with integrity. Now that I am the one financing this project – now that I am the executive – I have to hold an uncomfortable mirror up to my own project. Ultimately, it just makes me want to help other artists. If this album does well, my intention is to create something for other people with something to say, an independent label with that kind of [renegade] brand identity that seems to be lacking in the industry right now.”
Nailing down a truly satisfying renegade sound would be pivotal, too. Inspired by the sensitive, modern masculinity of bands like IDLES, Turnstile and old tourmates Deftones opened possibilities: “Attending those shows, I was like, ‘Oh, I can make heavy, abrasive, weird music, but I don’t need to put on a leather jacket and not take it off for five years!’ That was so refreshing to me.”
And although still a fan of the ‘rocktronic’ style of artists like Sullivan King and Kayzo – and happy to be a featured vocalist for their work – it was clear that the core grandson style should be more organic. Harking back to his childhood heroes in old-school rock of acts like Audioslave or Red Hot Chili Peppers, a vision of a four-piece band with guitar, bass and drums began to take shape.
“My music feels the best when there's that freedom, that thing where a bunch of musicians are playing together and their heart rate goes up so they start playing faster, or they lose a note but then they find it again,” Jordan grins. “That’s what I lean on. That’s what I love. It made me feel like there was a way to explore my anger and social commentary in a way that felt fresh and cool.”
Depressed by the results of sessions with some “big artists and big bands” around the start of 2024, and disenfranchised with the kinds of collaborations he’d been involved with previously, he realised that it would be better to get by with a little help from his friends Andrew ‘No Love For The Middle Child’ Migliore (drums) and Maxwell Urasky (bass), plus touring guitarist Leo Varalla. Working out of Andrew and Max’s East Hollywood flat, they hammered out most of the body of the record in just over three weeks, then spent the rest of 2024 honing what they had with veteran producer Mike Crossey (twenty one pilots, The Gaslight Anthem, YUNGBLUD), whose “psychotically driven” perfectionism chimed with Jordan’s own need to wring maximalist sound from a minimalist set-up. From the “thunderstruck” opening riff of BURY YOU (more Refused than AC/DC, really) to spring-loaded closer PULL THE TRIGGER, they succeed at every turn.
“As the music became more analogue – as the project became less digital – we were literally ‘pushing air’ in the studio with all these loud amplifiers and drum kits, truly creating a force in the room. I began to think about the catharsis that comes from that sense of motion in sound, like a mosh-pit at a music festival, and what that could do for someone who’s asleep at the wheel.
“That’s how you change the world,” he grins. “One riff at a time!”
On September 27, 2024, grandson had planned on celebrating the end of INERTIA’s recording with a set at Louisville, Kentucky’s annual rock extravaganza Louder Than Life. Mother Nature had other plans, unfortunately, with Hurricane Helene putting paid to the event in a storm of devastating wind and torrential rain. Battered but unbowed even in the face of that elemental onslaught, Jordan teamed up with good friend and Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello to find another stage on which to throw down. Eventually, they convinced the 250-cap Whirling Tiger to open its doors for a free show. Plucking victory from the jaws of defeat and delighting a throng of overwhelmed fans re-galvanised that belief in the world-changing power of music.
“To see a man who has torn down stadiums getting into a room of that size to put on one of the best shows I have ever experienced,” Jordan beams, “was one of the highlights of my career.”
In truth, he had been studying Tom’s earlier work for much of INERTIA's development. Aside from the aforementioned Audioslave, Jordan actively studied uncompromising rock superstars Rage, Green Day and System Of A Down to understand how they achieved stadium-level stardom with authentic revolutionary purpose. And why hasn’t anyone managed that since the mid-2000s?
“First off, those bands wrote truly great songs,” Jordan laughs, noting he’d be surprised if INERTIA was a commercial success. “Way better songs than I ever have. But in terms of what it takes to ‘be popular’, it’s about being in the right place at the right time. Around the turn of the 21st century, young people were disillusioned, sarcastic, pissed-off and [ready for those bold sounds]. I think that attitude might come back around. Especially in terms of ‘male popstars’, there’s an absence of an easy corporate [template] to hang your hat on right now. Hopefully with that kind of vacuum we might see weirder shit fill the space.
“When weirder acts get popular the subject matter tends to get more critical, more self-aware. I hope that we see artists talking about what’s happening in their communities in the same way that SOAD talked about the Armenian genocide or RATM talked about racial violence in Los Angeles. When you get to the best to ever do it – a Bob Marley or a Bruce Springsteen – it transcends politics and becomes about just speaking your own truth.”
“I wanted to make songs that pack enough punch that I can’t get rid of them”
INERTIA’s penultimate track sees grandson team up with UK firebrands Bob Vylan for a punchy, powerfully haunting diatribe on misplaced hostility. Fostering creative relationships with like-minds from the other side of the Atlantic opens the door for that sense of tangible geographic specificity to which Jordan is referring, but it also underlines the universality of the forces oppressed people need to fight. At the same time, finding an artist willing to speak out highlights how many will not.
“It’s so disappointing when artists – people I consider my peers – feel they need to pick between their morals and their ambitions,” Jordan nods. “But it will take really good songs about politics becoming really popular to get people who pretend to care [to chase likes online] not just to use their Instagram but their microphone. There are artists out there like Bob Vylan, Kneecap and Fontaines D.C. who can begin to create that change. It’s an exciting time across the pond where that freedom of thought and speech is still protected and encouraged. Here in North America [we have artists like Rise Against, Macklemore, Run The Jewels and Kehlani] but young, popular music is apolitical for the most part, and there isn’t that same sense of community. In rock there is this competitiveness and bitchiness that is not conducive to the sharing of thoughts and ideas.”
In the end, it’s about taking a lead and hoping that others will follow. Having already tapped into the raw energy of the live arena through recording, grandson hopes to keep up momentum and inspire other creatives out on the road. Having already supported his friends in Linkin Park at their massive comeback shows, sharing the stage for renditions of One Step Closer, Jordan is acutely aware of the value in being inspired and helped up by the heroes that have cleared the way. And with a prestigious headline slot on Glastonbury’s Left Field Tent due on June 29, he’s more willing than ever to connect across genres and the creative sphere. Nothing has been more important, though, than jump-starting his own passion for radical rock and finding fuel for years to come.
“I made my goal very clear when I sat down to write this record,” Jordan signs off, emphatically. “I wasn’t looking for a radio Number One. I wasn’t looking for a GRAMMY. I was looking for a set of songs that I couldn’t shake from my setlist for the rest of my career, a collection of bangers that fans enjoy listening to and we enjoy playing, which pack enough punch that I’d be doomed to play them forever more. Any time I was unsure of my direction I tried to make choices that would enable a four-piece rock band getting onstage to be as powerful as they possibly could. Did we manage to accomplish that in the end? I guess you’ll just have to buy a ticket and find out…”
INERTIA is released on September 5 via XX Records in partnership with Create Music.
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