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Jan 25, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Dustin Aksland

Grandaddy are releasing a new album, Blu Wav, on February 16 via Dangerbird. Now they have shared its third single, “Long as I’m Not the One,” via a lyric video. Watch it below.

Grandaddy’s frontman Jason Lytle had this to say about “Long as I’m Not the One” in a press release: “While the lyrics arrived early and remained mostly unchanged, I ended up recording two or three other versions of this song and just couldn’t get it right. Too folky and/or too country was the culprit. Luckily, I hung in there and settled on this rendition. Just enough shine and dirt. Just enough modern and vintage. I’m still confused as to what it is, but that’s pretty normal for me.”

When the album was announced, Grandaddy shared its first single, “Watercooler,” via a music video. “Watercooler” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared its second single, “Cabin in My Mind,” via a music video. It was also one of our Songs of the Week.

The album’s title Blu Wav is a mash-up of “bluegrass” and “New Wave,” as the new album tries to combine the lyrics associated with bluegrass waltz’s with the synthesizers and electronic sounds of ’80s New Wave, with the latter being more in Grandaddy’s wheelhouse. This came about when Lytle discovered a classic country radio station while driving through the Nevada desert and heard Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz” and wondered what it sound like in more of a Grandaddy style. “There’s an inordinate amount of pedal steel [on the new album],” says Lytle.

In 2017 Grandaddy released their comeback album, Last Place, which was their first album in 11 years, since 2006’s Just Like the Fambly Cat. Blu Wav is their first new album since Last Place, but they’ve been busy with archival releases since then.

Earlier this year they released Sumday Twunny, a 20th anniversary box set reissue of their 2003 album, Sumday, which included Sumday: The Cassette Demos and Sumday: Excess Baggage, a 13-song collection of rarities and B-Sides that was also released separately.

In 2020, Grandaddy released a 20th anniversary reissue of The Sophtware Slump, which included a solo piano version of the album played by Lytle.

Grandaddy were on the cover of Under the Radar’s very first print issue, in 2001, in which we interviewed them about The Sophtware Slump.

Grandaddy also features Aaron Burtch, Jim Fairchild, and Tim Dryden. The band’s Kevin Garcia passed away in 2017.

Read our 2017 interview with Grandaddy about Last Place.

Grandaddy also contributed to our Covers of Covers 20th anniversary album, where they covered Metric’s “Blindness.”

We also interviewed Grandaddy for our 20th Anniversary Issue and you can read that article here.

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