Albany band set to release EP, first single
Staff Photos: Carlton Fletcher
By Carlton Fletcher
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ALBANY — Not that they minded or that they’d admit it, but it had to be hard for twins James and Jackson Tennyson — and, by association, Bo Edwards and Sam Yarborough, the other members of Albany band GrandVille — to hear, over and over, “Yeah, those guys are not bad … that’s Glenn Tennyson’s kids’ band.”
The Tennysons are indeed the offspring of Glenn Tennyson — the frontman for regional favorites Kinchafoonee Cowboys, who are celebrating their 30th year together this year — and there’s no humanly way possible that that fact did not impact them musically.
But just short of three years into the band’s existence, these four Deerfield-Windsor School seniors are taking steps to establish their own identity by writing original music and recording what will be a debut EP.
“Of course we were influenced by what our dad did; he started taking us with him to sound checks when we were 3 years old,” James Tennyson, GrandVille’s drummer and the older brother by three minutes, said during a recent conversation at the band’s rehearsal space in a Tennyson family outbuilding. “I remember sitting behind the drummer, watching him set up.”
“And I remember always having toy guitars when I was a little kid, especially this cool Spider-Man guitar,” Jackson Tennyson, GrandVille’s guitarist and lead singer, adds. (The band took its name from his car.)
“I got this silver drum set when I was 4 and taught myself to play,” James Tennyson remembers, the twins grinning at each other as they recalled those early days.
But while the Tennyson brothers spent many of their formative years listening to their dad’s band play, they didn’t exactly follow in the Cowboys lead singer’s footsteps. While Glenn Tennyson and his band were belting out hardcore country classics like “Cowboy Ways,” “Lonesome, Ornery and Mean,” “Kudzu Country Club” and their signature hit, “Eggs, Toast, Grits and Bacon,” his sons were more into the classic rock they fell in love with at an early age. It’s the music of the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles and the Allman Brothers — not Garth Brooks and George Strait — that’s inspired them.
Edwards, the band’s bassist, and Yarborough, who plays keys, have their own interesting coming-to-the-band stories.
“I started playing guitar when I was 7,” Edwards said. “I picked up my mom’s guitar, started messing around with it, liked it and taught myself to play.
“Jackson told me he and James were forming a band, and he said they needed someone to play bass. So I taught myself to play.”
Yarborough’s story is even more intriguing. When he joined the band, he had zero musical experience.
“I’d never touched an instrument,” the GrandVille keyboard player said. “I literally walked into (the Tennysons’) house one day and they asked me to join the band. I really had never listened to music that much, but they said they’d teach me.
“I tried guitar but couldn’t get it. Finally, Jackson taught me to play keyboards, and once I got it, I kind of took to it. I play piano, organ, synthesizers now, pretty much anything with keys.”
The quartet (which originally had five members) started playing together when they were 14 and 15 years old. They proved their moxie early on when they played their first gig among Deerfield classmates and staff at the school’s fall carnival.
“They set up a trailer on the track beside the football field,” Jackson Tennyson said. “What I remember most about playing was thinking that trailer was going to turn over.”
It’s what happened after that show, though, that turned out to be more significant. Walking the halls of the college prep school, these freshmen noticed that even the upperclassmen and teachers gave them a little more respect.
“Yeah, we were definitely viewed differently in the hallways,” James Tennyson said. “A lot of our friends came up and talked with us about being in the band, and a lot of teachers did, too. We even were asked to play at one of our teachers’ wedding.”
Not that the members of GrandVille allowed their newfound notoriety go to their individual or collective heads.
“That’s the thing about us, I think,” Edwards said. “I don’t think any of us thought we were special. We did not become ‘gods among men.’”
What GrandVille did do was play. And keep playing. Word soon got out about these wunderkinds, and suddenly they were in demand. They played memorable sets at Harvest Moon in Albany, at the Albany Museum of Art’s initial ChalkFest downtown, at last year’s HammerJam benefit concert, at the AMA Young Contemporaries’ recent “Bar Fight II” event, and perhaps most impressively, opened for the Kinchafoonee Cowboys at the famed Georgia Theatre in Athens.
“That was awesome,” James Tennyson said. “We printed out about 75 posters and drove around Athens before the show, putting them on just about every street sign we came to.
“We got the word out on social media, too, and there was a good turnout.”
GrandVille — “We were basically a cover band for the first two years,” Edwards said — stood out from most young bands with their mature-beyond-their-years sound and also with the music they chose to cover. Their initial sets were light on the classics every new band plays, heavier on deeper tracks by artists like the Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, the Eagles, Zeppelin.
That maturity has morphed into original music, most of it written by the Tennysons with musical contributions from Yarborough and Edwards. Now, a GrandVille set is likely to include four or five covers and as many or more originals.
“I started writing music a little over two years ago,” Jackson Tennyson said. “The way it works for me is that I don’t overthink things, don’t try to force the music or the lyrics.”
“Jackson will sometimes show me something he recorded on his phone, and we’ll take it and run with it,” James Tennyson said. “We work on it, see how it goes and either stay with it or let it go for the time being.”
If the piece takes off, all four band members will contribute to the mix.
“We want to bring cool songs to the table,” Yarborough said. “We’ll all put these parts in and see if they fit with (the Tennysons’) original vision for that particular song. It’s definitely collaborative.”
GrandVille have begun work on their first EP of original songs at Full Moon Studios in north Georgia’s Watkinsville. (“Shout-out to (producer) ‘Jay’ Rodgers,” Edwards says.) The EP, when finished, will be available on streaming platforms, on CD and on vinyl. They will release their first-ever single, “Terrible Things,” in the next few days.
The boys in GrandVille expect to continue playing their typical three or four shows a month (more during summer months) as they complete their senior year at Deerfield-Windsor. The question facing them after that milestone is whether the band will stay together, much as the Tennysons’ father’s band has over three decades.
Yarborough and the Tennysons say they plan to attend the University of North Georgia in Watkinsville for a year, then transfer to the University of Georgia. Edwards is not so sure.
“I love playing in the band, and I want us to continue, but I haven’t decided about college yet,” the bass player said. “It’s going to be one of those ‘we’ll see what happens’ things. I don’t want us to quit playing; it’s just going to be a matter of whether it makes sense.”
After talking about the band and its plans, GrandVille play “New World,” one of their original compositions. The song rocks, and yet it stands out because it’s not derivative of any specific artist that GrandVille’s members list as influences.
“It’s kind of our Stones song,” Yarborough says. “It’s the kind of rock most people our age don’t hear much anymore. That’s one of the things we want to do; introduce our generation to real rock music.”
GrandVille will be one of the featured artists at Saturday’s Flint River Rock Fest at the State Theatre in downtown Albany, joining Beauty, Far2Fresh and 4 Daze Dead at the 7 p.m. show.
Then there’s the EP, more shows and that big question hanging out there after high school graduation. Few who’ve followed GrandVille doubt that music will be in the band’s future.
“It’s something that you never get too old to do,” James Tennyson says.
“We want to make (listeners) feel something,” Edwards adds. “There’s power in the ability to make someone feel.”
And, then a final word from Jackson Tennyson, who admits that songs “just come to me whole sometimes, like a gift.” His parting words are the essence of why people make music to begin with. The words are deep for one so young, but they ring true:
“Music is life,” he says.
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