HiFi Handgrenades.com

Hifi Handgrenades
Carry On
New Romance for Kids
2008

www.myspace.com/hifihandgrenades

1. Cut Strings
2. Stupid
3. Carry On
4. Smiling Judas
5. Hold Fast
6. Facing The Firing Squad
7. Heart Of Steel
8. Around Again
9. Sunset To Sunrise
10. Detroit Has A Skyline

I have been a huge fan of Detroit music and its history for quite some time. From the MC5 to The Stooges to Ted Nugent to Negative Approach to The Suicide Machines to the dozens of well known garage bands, Detroit has always been home to some great music. Hifi Handgrenades continues in that tradition. The band features veteran Detroit rockers John Speck, formerly of The Fags, two former members of The Suicide Machines in drummer Ryan Vandeberghe and bassist Rich Tschirhart, and Grande Nationals guitarist Tony Vegas.

Carry On, which was recorded at the Foo Fighter’s 606 West Studios, is Hifi Handgrenades debut full length debut for New Romance for Kids records. It’s one of those records that flies by way too fast. The ten songs clock in at just under 22 minutes leaving you wanting more, which is the mark of a great record in my opinion. Musically, upon first listen, a Loved Ones comparison is undeniable. Hifi Handgrenades play the same style of melodic punk rock that bands like the Loved Ones and Lawrence Arms have made extremely popular with the beards and western shirt punk crowd. However, lead singer John Speck’s time spent with power poppers The Fags give them a dash of pop sensibility that is missing with so many other punk bands today. Much like The Replacements and Against Me! before them, you can definitely see Hifi Handgrenades transcending the punk rock label and being known as just a kick ass straight up rock n’ roll band.

The stand out track of the album would have to be “Smiling Judas”, a fast Replacements-y rocker about two faced backstabbers that would not be out of place on Hold Me Up by The Goo Goo Dolls. The chorus of “You’re smiling / Look at your pearly white’s / You’re smiling / As you’re sharpening that knife” will have punk rockers everywhere singing along at live shows. Speaking of live shows, Hifi Handgrenades have been supporting the Foo Fighters on their recent tour through Canada, parts of the U.S. and Japan which, unfortunately, has not included any stops in Minnesota.

Carry On can be downloaded for free HERE. Registration is required.

For those of you who missed the ticket March 20, you could watch Hifi Grenades performance at Call the Office. The band will continue their show at CTO.

After rockin’ at John Labatt Centre as the opening band for Foo Fighter, the band will hit CTO for a second blow.

Hifi Grenades is a punk band from Detroit which consists of 4 well experienced musicians. Jhon Speck, the singer and guitarist was the front man for the Fags. The band also had played with some big bands such the Foos, Bad Religion, the Dropkick Murphys, and Billy Talent.

Check out their album titled carry 0n that lasts only 25 minutes but surely will blow your head off with their songs such as Superchunk’s Detroit has a Skyline.

Playing with the HiFi’s are Hijack Delta, C.C. Voltage (ex-Black Halos) and Limit of Approach. C.C. Voltage and HYFY play Mar. 21.

Tickets are $5 and doors open both nights at 9 p.m.

This is an interview between Eric Allen from the realdetroitweekly.com with the band.

Obviously, you guys have all known each other for a long time from playing around the Detroit scene, but how did you choose that you four would be the members of Hi-Fi Handgrenades?
Right around late-December last year, I was talking to Robbie, our former bass player, and he was pestering me to get something together because I wasn’t playing in any band at the time. It kind of just started as a fuck around — play once every month-and-a-half and just have covers that sounded like one cohesive band. After one practice, I felt kind of embarrassed because the level of musicianship was high and we were just getting together to do covers and arrange them. We were just kind of like, “Huh?”

What made you guys pick up the melodic hardcore sound of bands like Naked Raygun and the Replacements?
Robbie said we should do something like the kind of stuff we listened to when we were teenagers … stuff like Descendents, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion, old Replacements and Naked Raygun — shit like that. With the new material we are writing, it’s a lot more broad in scope.

I remember seeing your first two shows. How did you guys get so good with only a couple of months of practice?
I think that everybody has the experience of being in enough bands to know how to pay attention and open their ears. Everybody has played with really good musicians and learned from them. You have to learn under the gun and practice a lot. Robbie isn’t with us anymore, because he had personal stuff back here, and we got Rich from the Suicide Machines. He and Ryan go back, before the Suicide Machines even — about 11 years.

How did you guys get friendly with Foo and open for them on tour?
Our manager is a good old friend of mine named Gus Brandt. He has worked with the Foo Fighters for about 14 years and he just arranged for us to go to California for a little down time at Dave’s once they were done with their new record. We went out there, and the last day we were mixing down some stuff and Dave happened to walk into the room. We didn’t notice him — he was sitting in the back. The song ended and he was like, “That was really cool.” Dave goes, “What are you doing in a couple of weeks,” and that was the Foos tour. | RDW

This is the band performance when they became the opening band for the Foo Fighter.

Some say they’re good some think that they’re so so.

Here are some of the comments:

CarnageMerc: saw them in vancouver was kickass.

TrinityofFire: I saw them yesterday when they opened for the foo fighters at pacific coliseum vancouver BC

redhotchilipepper76: i didn t really like any of the opening acts for the foo fighters such as serj tankian(horable), against me (they were good), this is ok, SUPER GRASS ( dont like them) but i guess when the foo fighters come out hey absolutly kill

gitarwhore: I saw this guys when they opend for Bad Religion
xwarinyourheadx (1 month ago) that crowd looks pretty dead… that’s too bad…

flems17: It’s cuz they’re there for the Foo lol… it was similar to that at the ACC on March 22nd. It hadn’t even started filling up really.

A7X009: haha yeah. i seen them on the 27th. the crowd was dead. there was like 3 people cheering for them. but Foo Fighters were insane!

emometalguy1: hey i hadn’t heard of this band before. then i seen them with saosin last month and now i think they are great!!

DarrylCross: Is there any songs in particular I should look for of theirs? They’re part of a tour with Against Me! and FooFighters that I’m going to see next month… but I hadn’t really heard of them before….

emometalguy1: Smiling Judas, sunrise to sunset. i don’t know many of their songs, they only have 5 songs on the ep i have.
in my opinion this is the best song.