Album Notes

Depending on how you look at it, Drew Grow’s album Next Lips has either been 2 years coming or 33.
The Portland musician has been making music since he started playing in a “god rock” band at 19. Born into a devout Christian family, Drew has always viewed music as a personal and spiritual experience.
You wouldn’t necessarily have known that, however, by listening to any of the music he’s made before “Next Lips.” Grow caught his first break playing guitar for folk-pop outfit Five O’Clock People and later toured the U.K. with Athens, GA band Vigilantes of Love. In 2002, Grow finally put together his own group, a five-piece band called Careen.
Careen achieved moderate success (renowned producer Joe Chiccarelli produced and mixed their second album, Crash Couture) but it’s the story of Careen’s failure that puts Next Lips into focus.
Careen was conceived as a response against overly self-conscious shoe-gazer rock. “I wanted us to be the Steven Kings of Rock ‘n Roll,” Grow says. The music was polished and accented by poppy synthesizers and catchy guitar riffs. At the time Grow was making it, this was revolutionary. But by the time Careen released its second album, bands like The Killers had beaten them to the punch, relegating Careen to a place in the diffused haze of the spotlight they craved.
As they began recording their third album in 2005, everything just went to hell. Members were getting married or steady jobs – nails in the coffin of most young musicians. The tour van got repossessed. The studio they were recording in was forced to shut down because of noise complaints. On the last Careen tour, Drew decided to play a solo set one night, with band members filling in on various different instruments. Even though, at the time, Careen was as tight as they’d ever been on stage, the audience responded more to Drew’s music than the band’s.
“That was the moment that we all knew it would be over,” Grow said. “It dragged out a while longer because I didn’t have the courage to end it and stand on my own yet, but none of the old band mates deny that I touched something that night beyond where Careen could ever go.”
Drew set out on his own in the winter of 2005 – which ended up being a dark and lonely time for the artist. But in the midst of sickness and depression, he continued to nurture the seeds that remained from Careen’s last days, transforming them into something all his own. Recording digitally in his apartment, he created songs about faith, relationships and love that are dark, raw and ultimately hopeful.
“Back in Careen, I was doing pop music as rebellion, much like I spent a lot of my life fighting against my religious roots,” Grow said. “But music is sacred to me, and as I’ve searched for a sound that is what I want to hear, I find I’m drawn to the feeling of gospel and worship music reclaimed by people like Johnny Cash, PJ Harvey and Spiritualized.”
Coming out of the studio over a year after Grow started writing Next Lips, the album presents itself as a reconciliation between Grow’s current life and his upbringing. It’s an album of worship in the most personal and secular sense: A celebration of new inspiration and confidence.
With Next Lips, 33 years and multiple bands into his life, Drew Grow has finally found the music that is his own.