Love Letter To A Record: Nelipot’s Jordyn Grant On Bombay Bicycle Club’s ‘I Had The Blues But Shook Them Loose’

Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.

In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.

Jordyn Grant, Nelipot – I Had The Blues But Shook Them Loose by Bombay Bicycle Club (2009)

We weren’t friends in high school (frontman Jordan and I), at times I think you could say we were probably less than friendly to each other, just different kinds of people doing school in their own circles.

It wasn’t until the end of our final year, between HSC exams and graduation, that we really started to become friends and Bombay Bicycle Club’s I Had The Blues But Shook Them Loose was the spark that ignited that. You could almost say that without this record, we probably wouldn’t have found enough in common between us to even start playing music together. We spent the better part of 2 weeks driving between the beach, house parties, and 7/eleven singing ‘Lamplight’, ‘Cancel on Me’, and of course ‘Always Like This’ at the top of our lungs. It was a proper good time.

To date, I Had The Blues But Shook Them Loose has been with us on over 10 East Coast road trips, 4 decent relationship breakups (predominantly Jordan’s), & and the soundtrack to an estimated 1,095 evenings spent pouring cheap drinks in good company.

I don’t know if Bombay Bicycle Club knew they’d made something quite this great when they finished writing this album but a decade on from its release, crackly vocalled indie-post-punk revival hits us as hard as it did in 2009.

The record was a catalyst for what became a band, a friendship, and a love for each other. We honestly can’t thank it enough for that.

Following on from releasing their critically-praised single ‘Garden Hose Rainbows’, Central Coast-based indie-rock trio Nelipot have just revealed their new single ‘Lucy’s Better’ – engineered and mixed by Jack Nigro (DMA’s, Skegss) at The Grove Studios.

It’s a sassy, frenetic indie-punk guitar-smasher of a jam that packs a covert hip-shaking dancefloor groove and you can give it a listen below. Also catch the trio touring live across the East Coast in the coming weeks (dates below as well!)

NELIPOT 2019 TOUR DATES

THU 22 AUG | THE TOTE, MELBOURNE VIC

THU 29 AUG | HENRY’S ROOFTOP, MANLY NSW

FRI 30 AUG | SELINA’S, COOGEE BAY NSW

SUN 1 SEP | GOOD INTENT 1ST BIRTHDAY, SYDNEY NSW

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