Grady's Big Ben Richardson: Making It Count

We had to cancel our last tour because our drummer Billy had a stroke. You know, you can’t keep playing in a band like Grady after a stroke, where you have to kick it out 110% every night, even if it is just a mild stroke! (laughs)

We tried a bunch of other people out, and ended up with an Indian girl, Nina Singh, who weighs about 90 pounds. After a long day of auditioning all these drummers, she came in and kicked everybody else’s ass. She just nailed it, and we said, “Stop! We found it.” I don’t know if I’ve ever played in a band with a girl drummer, so it’s a bit different, but groovewise, she’s right in there. It’s like we’ve been playing with her for years.

You know, people ask me how Grady’s grown since the first album, but Y.U. So Shady? wasn’t really even meant to be a record; it was just something we’d put together as a demo. We recorded the whole thing and mixed it in three days. We made up about a thousand copies, slapped a cover on them and drove around Austin throwing them off the back of the truck. (laughs)

People just kept asking for it after that, so we took it into the studio and remixed it a bit, put a decent cover on it and started selling it. Warner Brothers in Canada heard about it, called me up and said, “Hey, we love this record – would you like to put it out up here on Warners?”

Banging Out An Evolution

Our first drummer Chris Leyton left the band after the first record.