Biography
RHETT FRAZIER INC.
Biography
Vocalist and songwriter Rhett Frazier and drummer and synth whiz Donny Gruendler form the soulful musical powerhouse Rhett Frazier Inc., now emerging with their brilliant, eclectic debut, Escape from Dee-troyt.
The project only recently stepped into the Los Angeles limelight after years of collaborative woodshedding – but their meticulously crafted recordings and incendiary, diverse live shows have already gained them acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Resident DJ A-Ski of the revered nightclub Little Temple described them as “a combination of Funkadelic, Rare Earth, Flaming Ember, Frank Zappa and Al Green rolled into one along with that raw, gritty Detroit sound that would make the late, great Norman Whitfield proud.” LA Examiner’s Patrick Hamilton declared that Escape from Dee-troyt “takes Stax-era guitar licks, blues attitude and 70s R&B crossover appeal and blends it into a tasty milkshake of auditory heaven.”
Neither Rhett nor Donny are strangers to the stage or studio. “We’ve been the ‘consummate sidemen’ for a long time,” says Gruendler. He got his chops playing drums behind members of The Funk Brothers, Motown’s legendary in-house band, first in Detroit and later, around the country. Picking up a degree from Boston’s Berklee College of Music, he spent years as a hired gun, on the road with artists as diverse as jazz organist John Medeski of Medeski, Martin and Wood, and turntablist DJ Logic. Frazier, the product of a musical family, cut his teeth as a stand-up singer in his home state of Oklahoma, where he honed crowd-pleasing skills performing soul songs in front of often volatile audiences. “You’d really have to sell a song with soul and grit,” says Rhett, “when you’d be playing to a bar that was half Creek Indian and half redneck.” It was that very soul and grit that would land Rhett gigs with a series of bands, including with Austin guitarist Denny Freeman – who would in turn, introduce him to his future collaborator after both musicians had migrated to Southern California.
Freeman organized a one-off gig in Hermosa Beach, featuring Donny on drums and Rhett on vocals. “The gig went OK,” remembers Donny. “But I figured, ‘I’ll never play with those guys again, they weren’t into it.”
To his surprise, he was called back for a follow-up with the same personnel a month later, and struck up a friendship with the vocalist.
“We both thought we were the cooler dude,” says Donny, “and we found we had similar musical likes. I said, ‘Why don’t you come over for drinks?’” Hanging out at Donny’s house days later, the pair found themselves in front of an AKAI MPC, writing their first song together that very night.
Later, Gruendler was back on the road, but the collaboration continued, with both men swapping ideas via FedEx - although no plans of a true “band” or album had materialized. Eventually, they decided to splurge for a quick demo session for the couple of tunes they had worked out, expecting little. “But that day, we were sitting in a restaurant after the session saying, ‘Wow – these are actually really good tracks,’” says Donny. Soon, what began as a diverting side project for both musicians developed into a full-time collaboration, as well as a lifelong friendship. “Rhett’s the closest thing I’ve got to a brother,” says Donny.
Escape from Dee-troyt, then, is the culmination of that collaboration and bond, as well as the official emergence of Rhett Frazier Inc. In fact, the image of the vintage orange car that adorns the album’s cover inspired the official solidifying of the group. “We found that picture,” says Donny. “And immediately, we knew, this is the cover of the album, and this is on.” By now, both men have dropped all other projects and work-for-hire gigs in favor of devoting themselves to Rhett Frazier Inc. full-time. “We just wanted to see how weird we could get, just go off the deep end,” says Rhett.
The pair has reveled in the musical freedom that has come with running their own group for a change, indulging in a veritable library of influences from artists as diverse as Tom Waits, Prince, Danger Mouse and Wes Montgomery. They’ve enjoyed “playing Steely Dan,” as Donny puts it, cherry-picking favored studio musicians to fill in the gaps on the tracks. And each of them has found a perfect musical foil in the other. “If we weren’t doing this, Rhett would probably be this great, obscure soul singer,” says Donny. “And Donny’d be on the road with Miley Cyrus! He’s definitely ‘Inc.,’” says Rhett, “because I’m the one who’s into poetry, philosophy and history – and he’s the guy that manages to keep it all to a three-minute pop song.” Rhett credits his partner for inspiring musical ideas from him that would have been “stillborn” otherwise, while Donny recalls a particularly difficult moment during the sessions for Escape when Rhett challenged him to drum a part “how Donny Gruendler would play it.”
The resulting material is at once funky and playful, steeped in years of musical history and virtuosity while managing to remain forward-looking in both songwriting and sonics. A perfect example is lead track “U Can’t Stop,” with four-on-the-floor riffs that harken back to the best days of 70’s funk-soul that manage to retain a modern immediacy and attack, all topped off with Rhett’s striking falsetto and baritone crooning – “It’s a fate you can’t deny/The future’s caught you from behind/You can’t stop what’s already happened.” The inspiration for the song was existential, as Rhett explains: “I worked out a theory that there is actually no such thing as time.” The pair’s unorthodox songwriting process came in handy with concert favorite “BeLong”. “We made this backing track, and it just sounded like The Roots, not us,” says Donny. “So I said, ‘What would the Neptunes do?’ We took everything off the track except for the drums and the vocal, and from there we piled on the bass and guitars. It became this completely other track – almost a full-on rock song.” The song is a tongue-in-cheek paean to an erstwhile girlfriend, with the chorus’ refrain “Won’t be long we’ll be long together.” “Nuthin” was another example of the group’s in-studio upheaval techniques – originally programmed by Donny in the vein of DJ Shadow, the pair stripped away all tracks save for one distinctive synth line once Rhett’s vocal was in place. “The thing about it is, once we figured out how to make music like our heroes, we wondered, ‘Why are we even doing this?’” says Donny. “We already own those records.”
Cocky, funny, funky and fresh, Rhett Frazier Inc. is borne of a deep love of music and a true brotherhood that results in inventive tunes and envelope-pushing experimentalism. “The whole point has been to make cool music that no one could touch,” says Donny – and now you can find that music on Escape from Dee-troyt.
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