Lead by Concord, New Hampshire keyboardist, singer, Andrew Grosvenor, Andrew North And The Rangers, after much hard work, became one of the most recognizable names in northern New England jam bands. Grosvenor (pronounced grove -ner, the “s” is silent) and his band mates put together a sound that is at once complex, entertaining, and sometimes goofball comedy. One would have to say Andrew North And The Rangers are a jam band and then some.
“I have a hard time categorizing this stuff,” he said. “I’m a big Phish fan. I come from that jam band end of the world. I’m always looking for that element of spontaneity in music. We’re also not the kind of band that’s going to go into a 20 minutes improvisation off of anything. We all believe in trying to keep decently structured but with room to explore within them.”
Whenever anyone in the music scene describes Andrew North And The Rangers, Phish and Trey Anastasio are usually mentioned as influences. Grosvenor concedes he and his band makes take special inspiration from the Vermont-based Phish
“It’s a huge influence on me. I” ve been a very big Phish fan for more than 20 years, the Rangers leader said. “I’ve been to a bunch of shows. That is kind of my home base music language. There’s a cleverness to the way they integrate classical composition with improvisation with funk music and rock music that I find is really inspiring.”
Like Phish, Andrew North And The Rangers are often pulling musical ideas from a range of different genres and putting things together and seeing what happens. Like Phish, they don’t take themselves all that serious but they’re very serious about musicianship.
To play this kind of complex, experimental mesh, often in odd time signatures, one must be a serious musician without ego problems. There is too much work to be done to be sidetracked with nonsensical behavior. After spending years in bands that got along and bands that didn’t, Grosvenor learned to work things out.
“I’ve been the person causing those ego problems without realizing it and I’ve learned a lot from that experience,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned in this band now that we’ve been together for six years, is that we have very different personalities in the band. We have very different musical influences in the band. It became obvious very early on that if I was going to be so committed to my own personal visions for how things we’re going to go and forced that on everybody else, then the whole thing wasn’t going to work and it was going to fall apart. I learned really fast to work with the group that we had and try to find everybody’s strength and take input and collaborate in the way that made sense for our group.”
Grosvenor composes all all of the music for his and the Rangers’ original songs Yet, everyone else in the band always has an impact on the arrangement, after he brings in his song ideas and outlines. That is how Andrew North And The Rangers put together their debut and so far only released studio effort, Phosphorescent Snack, recorded in Vermont.
“I do most of them,” he said. “I have the leadership role in the band. It’s fairly obvious from the name of the band. I’m happy to be in that leadership position and take that primary role. I try real hard to make sure it’s not about me. I bring most of the songs to the band and bring stuff to the band in a state of ‘Here’s how I think it should go.’ Then we take input and collaborate on where it should go after that. I’ve written the vast bulk of our songs and compositions. As far as arrangements, that tends to be more of a band process.”
One title that stands out from the Rangers’ repertoire is “Chicken In The Backyard,” a song inspired by a real life scenario.
“I tend to get ideas for songs when I’m maybe puttering around the house and doing house projects or when I’m running for exercise,” the band leader said. “I do it without headphones and without listening to anything. I get ideas and snippets of things, which is like the chorus of ‘Chicken In The Backyard’. We had backyard chickens in my house at the time. I take a snippet like that and I’ll mull it over and some will work themselves into songs over time. For me, it’s a fairly intuitive process. I just go with what feels right. It might not make literal sense but somewhere in my brain they’re kicking around. That one in particular is pretty abstract.”
Another crowd pleaser from the debut album is “I Want To Be A Ranger,” which reminds of 1950s youth wishing to join the scouts.
“That one started as a joke,” Grosvenor admitted. “There’s another musician in town. His name is Kyle Klose. He has a band called Holy Fool. It’s really excellent. For whatever reason, he would have a catch phrase. When he would see me around, he would just sing and he would be like “I want to be a ranger.” Grosvenor put his friend on notice that he just might make a song out of that.
“After about six months of that, I wrote it as a joke song. But, everybody liked it and it took on a life of its own,” Grosvenor said.
After playing in Connecticut bands during his college and post college years Grosvenor spent a year hitting New York City venues like the Knitting Factory, The Lions Den, and bars on Long Island. That big city required him to move 30 tickets at $15 a piece for a 30 minute set with eight other bands on a Sunday night in which he had ten minutes to load in and out with all of his gear.
“I learned a lot about how to function as a musician with how fast you have to get on and off stages and how you should treat the other musicians who are performing, being respectful and a good community member,” Grosvenor related.
Reality set in for the then 20 something musician. He had by then found out the hard way how hard the business is. His band went up to Burlington, Vermont for a solid year playing out. Nectar’s and other venues booked them.
“We were in our early 20s and had to start learning how to make a living, because we certainly weren’t as a band.” Eventually, Grosvenor moved to Concord, New Hampshire to become a grown up. After some years, not having music in his life motivated him to find a band here.
“It’s unique here,” he quipped. “It doesn’t work quite like any other place. There’s not many venues. The musicians and venues are all fumbling in the dark as far as putting anything with any structure together. It is what it is.”
New Hampshire, North feels, has some passionate jam band fans looking for that genre. “If you can deliver the goods,” he said, “you’ll get people who come out and they’ll come out again and again because they know each show’s going to be different.” Demographics in central New Hampshire are tough, without enough college students. Messaging helps, letting people know you’re there. “This music is happening and it’s exciting and you should come see it,” he said.
Outdoor festivals work best fo his Andrew North And The Rangers outfit than being under a roof inside a building. All six band members love playing outside but had really bad luck last summer, getting rained out and rained on several times.
“Some of our equipment got a little wet and doesn’t play right any more,” Grosvenor said. “When you catch the right day outside, there’s nothing better. I think that’s probably our favorite setting to play in. A lot of breweries in the state have outdoor music, late afternoons and weekends.”
A few spontaneously recorded Rangers live albums might be juicier than their studio effort Phosphorescent Snack. “I think they’re different animals. We’re in the process of another studio album. It’s really exciting to be putting that new one together because we learned a lot from putting the first one together. The first one was more about putting together a definitive version that’s a little more locked down from an improve perspective. The approach we’re taking this time is a little more looser, to leave a little more running room to improvise in the studio.”
“Live albums,” he continued, “let people know what to expect when they come to our shows, loose and spontaneous. It’s going to sound like what’s on those live albums.”
“North and his Rangers started out with four band members but morphed into a six piece while playing and recording. Another founding member is drummer Dale Grant who has decades of experience with a variety of genre bands. Grant is also a music theory brain.
“He thrives on working in weird time signatures,” North said, “songs that have weird stops or rhythmic pick ups and he will add that to songs where I hadn’t put anything like that because he hears it and will be able to integrate that level of complexity that might not have been there before.”
Bassist Chip Spangler possesses an incredible ear which shows when Andrew North And The Rangers host their first Wednesday of the month open mics at the Bank Of New Hampshire in Concord.
“I’ve watched him sit in with so many players. Sometimes it’s somebody coming in with an original song and they need a bass player. His ability to play along with people when he doesn’t know the song and anticipates where it’s going and hear what needs to happen is almost unique.”
Fourth original member Rob O’Brien plays the aerophone which is also known as a wind synthesizer. It can manufacture sounds similar to other wind instruments and beyond. O’Brien uses it when he’s not playing his alto sax. “He’s got that natural stage presence where he’s willing to go all out and dive off the stage or feed off that energy.”
Two newer members, initially brought in for a 2022 big show at Concord’s Bank Of New Hampshire, are percussionist Randy Hunneyman and baritone saxophone player Jillian Rork. Rork was at a fourth of July party with Hunneyman when she came up on stage to play saxophone. Hunneyman soon brought her to band practice.
“Both Randy and Jillian, chemistry wise, once we started practicing with them, they fit in so well. To bring just anther sound and such good personalities that they became full fledged members of the band really quickly.”
Rork also became part of side project and ANATR subset Jade Trio. That side project was created a year ago during a busy six week period when only North, Rork, and Grant were available for practice. The trio started rehearsing new songs that Grosvenor had composed and had wondered what would they sound like with just the trio playing them.
“Jillian’s son, James, who was ten years old at the time, had written a poem Jillian thought would make a good song,” Grosvenor said. “We worked that up into the song “The Road” which is only a Jade Trio song. We don’t have that in the band catalog. It ended up being an incredibly cool song. I’m really proud of that one.” North, Rork and Grant documented that moment in time by setting up recording equipment in the recital hall at the Concord Music School.
“We set up a bunch of microphone and did three takes of each song and took the ones we liked best. I really loved the vibe of how that album came out,” North said.
Newmarket’s Stone Church, Keene Music Festival, and Manchester’s The Shaskeen are among the name venues ANATR have played around the Granite State. It required the band four years of hard work to achieve the kind of name recognition to earn those rooms.
“It felt like absolutely forever. It’s like a million miles into the void. It took us a solid four years before we really got to the point where those rooms were really willing to work with us on a semi-regular basis,” Grosvenor said. “It can be hard. It’s that process of playing shows wherever they’ll have you. We were playing the basement at Penuche’s in Concord before we could work with some of those higher level rooms in the state.”
At some point, a growing band like ANATR will have to land venues outside New Hampshire. “We would love to but it hasn’t made sense yet,” Norths said. “Everybody in our band has a lot of day job obligations. Some of us are parents of young kids. We have been in a mindset seeing what we can do close to home and push that hard before looking to drive two hours out to Portland, Maine.”
It is also possible at this day and age to reach outside of New Hampshire using the internet. “Making that leap from being the local band that everybody knows and loves to jumping up a notch or two to the larger New England jam band live music conversation that we’re on the periphery of, and that’s fine.”
