GREER ANNOUNCES DEBUT ALBUM ‘BIG SMILE’
After two EPs and a three-year hiatus, Southern California indie rock four-piece Greer is just beginning to write their story with their debut full-length, Big Smile, out March 21 via Epitaph. The upcoming album is at once a return to form and a monumental step forward, tracing the sound of a band exorcising their demons and learning to trust themselves. Accompanying the announcement is their new single “Franken,” surging into emotional crescendos rising and crashing before pulling back into the ether with a resounding ache.
“Franken”
“Learning to heal through emotional fallout, ‘Franken’ displays desperation and denial of loss,” the band explains, “showing that the harder you deny and try to emotionally graft and force yourself to relive your losses, the more tragic the outcome. There is no healthy healing in forcing your denial onto others and using them for your own benefit. ‘Frankensteining’ your broken heart back together with the pieces of others around you may taint what it once was and turn a loss into a tragic and disgusting image for yourself, making it harder to move on or grow. Coveting broken pieces alone will only send you further into a pit of isolation and regret.”
The sting of isolation emerged as a theme often returned to over the course of writing and recording Big Smile with Rob Schnapf (The Vines, Beck) and Matt Schuessler (Kurt Vile, Cat Power). “After the pandemic and taking a break from the band, we had to pick up the pieces of all that was left behind,” they recall. When they reconvened in 2023, they went back to where it all started – drummer Lucas Ovalle’s garage. It was in this familiar environment that he, guitarist and lead singer Josiah, guitarist Corbin Jacques, and bassist Seth Thomson remembered how to be friends and shared all the anxieties and revelations they’d endured on hiatus through their songwriting process. Greer grew up again.
Between writing new songs, unearthing old drafts, and demoing them all, they entered the studio with over two hundred songs written. The thirteen that make up the album are the band’s emotional champions that track the tumultuous period between the start of their break and the peace they found on their way back to each other. In a sea of indie rock hopefuls, Big Smile is a thrilling reintroduction to Greer's ability to craft songs that stick with listeners like a memory they can’t quite shake.