The Greeting Committee on Their New Single Release, “Anything But You”
To kick off their headline tour, The Greeting Committee sold out a show in their hometown of Kansas City before moving coast to coast. I managed to catch The Greeting Committee’s Toronto show on December 3rd at the Drake Hotel, and the energetic atmosphere left the crowd on their feet, singing along with The Greeting Committee word for word.
Their new single “Anything But You” follows the rhythmically catchy song “Hopscotch”, the first release from the band since their sophomore album Dandelion in 2021. “Anything But You” takes a larger step into a musical era where The Greeting Committee feels most at home. Composed of Addie Sartino and Pierce Turcotte, joined by Noah Spencer and Micah Ritchie, the band has created a warm and welcoming world both within the written word and on-stage.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Since I’m catching you on tour, do you have any pre-show rituals that you must do before heading on stage?
[THE GREETING COMMITTEE]: Yeah, we used to have a ritual we did with the original band members but since that changed, we kind of decided to just not have one because I think we felt like we were forcing the idea.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What has been your favourite show to-date?
[THE GC]: I would say the best crowd has to go to San Francisco for this tour. New York City was actually a really great crowd as well, so they might be tied for best crowd.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What does it feel like to finally have “Anything But You” out now into the world?
[THE GC]: Super exciting, I really love this song! It’s so fun to play live, and I play guitar on it, which I never really get to do. It’s a nice challenge for me in that way.
[UNPUBLISHED]: The new single follows a month after the release of “Hopscotch”, the first single released since the Dandelion album. How do you feel you are evolving as a band as you step into this new era of music?
[THE GC]: I feel like there’s been a huge evolution and maybe that’s not heard as much sonically but I think for people that have followed along with us, and have come to the shows now as a four piece as opposed to five, - I hope the word that comes to mind through that evolution is elevated. I feel like we’ve always taken it very seriously on how to put together the best show that we can with the new music. Not making it so intensely serious has been really enjoyable for both years and we’re really trying to focus on putting the fun back into writing music. It’s really easy to get sidetracked, and take everything so seriously. I think we’ve done that for many years. Whether it’s out of fear or just out of preference. But Chris and I were very eager to get back to having fun with it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Was there ever a moment during the process of creating “Anything But You” that you found the most difficult, either production wise or during the writing stage?
[THE GC]: The chorus for “Anything But You” came to mind immediately. The verses were really difficult because I had such a specific vision for that song and for as difficult as it was, I wasn’t very worried. I knew that I could put it off until the studio because I had worked with the producer, Jake Luppen, multiple times and knew that sometimes just being in a room with him, bouncing off ideas leads to me rewriting versus anyways. So, I was not worried whereas with Pierce, I don’t think he’s had that experience with Jake yet. He doesn’t procrastinate, I feel like he’s very on top of things so I know it made him a little bit anxious to not have those verses going into the session. But for me, I just had this Notes app of sentences and phrases that I wanted to touch on. It was like I was stockpiling lyrics that I just hadn’t put together in the right formulation yet so I really liked that approach to it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your writing style has always been very raw, intimate, and honest. I feel like some artists may find it difficult to be this open with their audiences. Why do you think it's necessary to push through this possibly uncomfortable window to express these ideas?
[THE GC]: I think it’s important because I’ve been on the other end of it so many times, and I still am to this day. I mean, I’m in music because I love music. And I think I really resonate with being that 15-year-old kid holding on to music so tightly as like a life raft, if anything so I think that the only way to achieve that with being an artist is to open myself up to all of that as well. It makes me feel less lonely to see people resonating with certain lyrics and certain moments in our music.
[UNPUBLISHED]: If there is one thing that listeners can take away from this new song, what would you hope that would be?
[THE GC]: I think that’s what’s so tricky about this new song. It’s really just meant to be easy. I think when you’re in love, and you’re writing, it’s not that complex. I think a lot of the time we try to make it very complex and I think I wanted to approach it with the simplicity of how beautiful that is. To just have those moments, you know, with the windows down and feeling euphoric, - just trying to capture that as best as I can.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you give us any extra details regarding what listeners can expect from this upcoming album, including any new experimentation or new themes you haven’t touched on before?
[THE GC]: Yeah, we plan to sit down to write and hope to get music out to people right at the beginning of 2023. I think the reaction that “Anything But You” has gotten has been really reaffirming to both of us, it’s really validated in what we want to do and it’s great to see that people are along for the ride in that journey. There’s a lot of optimism there for us so I’m very excited to do that. I don’t think we have any specific vision in mind but I think we don’t want to stray too terribly far from what we did with these new tracks but who knows. I think we’re just very open minded right now.
