Q&A: ‘Grenon’ rages against political inaction on gun violence

Grenon poses after their Five by Two livestream. | Photo by Samuel Bendix

New Hampshire rock band Grenon will soon release a new song. As high school kids raised in schools haunted by the looming threat of gun violence, they want you to listen very closely to the lyrics.  

Briefly streamed earlier this summer, and now set to appear on their next EP, “Sugarcoat” is an angry takedown of government inaction following the 2018 Parkland School Shooting. 

“I’m so done with this, you’re so full of shit,” frontwoman Kacie Grennon sings in the song’s chorus. “Shove your excuses down my throat, choking on your sugarcoat.”

 Kacie and bandmate Nick Turgeon, in particular, say they remember the Parkland shooting vividly, with Turgeon recalling his school’s new active shooting response trainings that followed the tragedy. 

“I have really bad anxiety,” he said in a recent interview, “so that scared the crap out of me.” 

Spurred by Black Lives Matter protests earlier this year, Grenon launched a short campaign through Bandcamp. That allowed listeners to stream and buy “Sugarcoat” with all proceeds going to the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective, a charity fighting for improved access to mental health care. 

Though that fundraiser has ended, removing “Sugarcoat” from Grenon’s Bandcamp page, the band stopped by the Five By Two studio to play the song amid a larger set for the ongoing Five By Two livestream session series. 

As they loaded in, band members paused to answer some additional questions… 

Kacie Grenon sings during her band’s Five by Two live session. | Photo by Samuel Bendix

Dakota Antelman - Five By Two Music Journalist: So, you write Sugarcoat immediately after Parkland. Why write that then?

Kacie Grennon - Grennon singer, guitarist: I wanted to write something that really reflected my own feelings and really my generation’s feelings of ‘We’ve had enough of this. This needs to stop.’

No matter what your belief is on anything. It still is something that should not be happening and it needs to, obviously, change.

DA: You take some time to flesh out that song and record it. Then, though you’re sitting on it for a while only to then launch that fundraiser earlier this year. What brought you to that decision?

KG: We were going to release it with our EP that we are planning on releasing when COVID allows us to. But, then we wanted to just do a soft release of it, first, because it’s very true to the times, with the whole Black Likes Matter movement now.  

We’re done with this stuff. We don’t want racism. We don’t want any of this negativity. This is not cool.

...So, we really wanted to just turn it into more than just a song that people could relate to. That’s what makes it more than something just shallow. We want to be something deeper than just a band that can play music. 

DA: What do you feel when you play Sugarcoat?

Nick Turgeon - Grennon singer, guitarist: It makes me angry...but in the best way. It brings out emotions that I otherwise would not know how to convey other than through my guitar. It makes me play in a style that I don’t get to play that often which is very aggressive. That’s not usually my thing but especially with the subject matter, it really allows for those emotions to shine through. 

***

Our latest live session stream, featuring Grennon alongside You’re Fired will take place on this website on October 25 at 7:30pm ET.