A Conversation With Generous Gods, Whose Debut Digital 45 is Out Today

The Atlanta psych rockers look to the desert for inspiration

Album cover art by Vicky Troiano

Joshua Tree is a mystical place steeped in music history.

Located 140 miles east of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree, both the town and national park, has made its mark on pop music since the sixties.

The Eagles captured its alien magic on the album cover to their self-titled debut. Cosmic country hero Gram Parsons met his end at the Joshua Tree Inn before friends stole his body at LAX and burned his body in a ceremony at Cap Rock. U2’s love affair with America culminated in the release of The Joshua Tree, their seminal album that most would agree is the band at its peak.

If one ventures off the beaten path away from the weekender influencers, Joshua Tree is still a place of artistic revelation in the age of national park strangulation.

Earlier this summer, I came across “Spilling My Blood,” the southern-psych debut from Generous Gods. It’s a stunner of an introduction, full of sitar and vintage reverb taken to the next level with a horn section that sounds straight from Bobby Keys’ work with the Rolling Stones.

After connecting with band leader Gray Griggs over our love for Grateful Dead (defenders of their studio work with both being massive fans of Wake of the Flood and From the Mars Hotel), we discussed Generous Gods’ sound influences. Self-described as “an antidote to plastic pop and a hypnotic odyssey for the sonically adventurous,” Generous Gods look to psychedelic music’s fuzzed-out analog past while writing with an ear for contemporary songwriting. Sure, their songs recall the kaleidoscopic garage rock of the mid-60s Nuggets era, but they’re also buzzworthy in their modernity.

It turns out Joshua Tree may be just as influential as any band, though. When it came time to record their new digital 45 titled Your Psyche Is Showing - released today through Once Around the Sun Records - the band headed from their hometown of Atlanta to Joshua Tree to record.

Self-produced by Griggs, mixed by Bryan Walthall in Richmond, and mastered by the prolific Dave Blackman (Echo and the Bunnymen, Softcell, Coldplay, and a thousand others), Your Psyche Is Showing is the sound of a lost weekend in the desert.

Griggs recalls the first time traveling there on a road trip from Georgia. Arriving through the desolate eastern end, “the effect on us was seismic. It’s like turpentine for the canvas of your brain.”

When it came time to find a recording location, there was only one answer. “Paris is great, Rome is lovely, and Lisbon is amazing, but Joshua Tree will right your mind and ease your soul,” says Griggs.

The two new songs, “Snake Oil” and “What Was Left Unsaid,” were recorded in the desert by Griggs and a rotating cast of characters. Unlike almost everything released in the last few decades, the tracks feature no digital production, a wise choice to give them their proper retro sound. Griggs recalls, “we kept things analog all the way and used as much dusty, nearly broken vintage gear we could get our hands on.” 

Outside of his gold ‘72 Les Paul custom (“it sounds great but is heavy as a log”), Griggs and Generous Gods aren’t into excessive gear. Staying true to their throwback mission, “we like old instruments and amps, but we're not the band that's modding our guitars or knows how to do much other than string them, really,” jokes Griggs.

In addition to the vintage instruments, keep your ear out for Griggs’ nine-pound pomeranian named Bowie, who joined them for the session. Excited by studio energy, Bowie made himself a presence. “He would bark or growl, and it’s damn near impossible to scrub that from a recording, so we eventually gave up trying and just let it happen.”

Not all things California come up roses for Griggs, though. For anyone that has lived or spent time in the Golden State, the lyrics of “Spilling My Blood” paint a familiar character. When asked about the inspiration, Griggs recalls his time living in Sacramento, which he describes as “a peculiar city.”

“Everyone I hung out with had, at some time, or other, lived in LA or wanted to move there,” says Griggs. “In Sacramento, you're either getting pulled to wine country, or the Bay, Los Angeles, or Tahoe. You don't ever feel settled there.”

The city's transient nature and the group that Griggs spent time with laid the groundwork for the song. “They partied hard and often,” remembers Griggs. “It was late nights, the blazing California Sun, and wanting to get the hell out of the city.”

Generous Gods have already made an impression on the scene with these three songs as they climb up the Spotify charts, currently featured on the Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists.

But it’s just a starting point that has given motivation to the band, who are now working on their debut full length intending to release in the fall. “Someone asked us the other day if we'll be putting any new ‘material’ out soon,” says Griggs. “We don't have material. Material is what you build a barn with. We have songs and loads of them that we love and want people to hear.”

In addition to the admiring feedback on their early singles and working on an album, there are also plans for touring in 2022, and the whole thing has the band feeling undeniably positive. Griggs says, “there's an energy that we have and a wind at our backs that makes it feel propulsive and seamless.” 

With a wide array of influences, there’s no limit to where Generous Gods will take their psychedelic sound. But for now, their path is through the enchanted landscapes of the desert.

Your Psyche Is Showing is available now on Once Around the Sun Records. Listen to it here on Apple Music and Spotify.

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