Grove Street: Treading The Path To Righteousness

There is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind right now that the UKHC scene is alive and well. The scene has served as a breeding ground for some of the most talented and dedicated groups that the music industry has seen, with fans giving them a run for their money in the dedication department. One of these groups that has been lucky enough to see the light of day is GROVE STREET. With the release of their debut album The Path To Righteousness, we caught up with drummer Josh Williams to find out exactly why it’s taken a full decade of the band’s existence to release a full-length record. 

“I think if you spend too long writing something, people stop caring, right? But I thought the longer we take, the more this has got to be a good thing,” says Williams. GROVE STREET’s debut album has been a decade in the making. With countless EPs under the belts, their next logical step was a full-length release. But instead of rushing into it, the group chose to enjoy their time on stage and writing, instead of focusing too heavily on producing a whole new body of work.

“I think you reach the top of the mountain where you’re like, ‘oh God, I hope, I hope people care,’ and then for me, I’m just like, ‘oh, do you know what? I don’t care anymore. Just, get it out’.”  But people obviously care. Within just a handful of gigs and a single EP under their belt during the early days of GROVE STREET, the group had amassed a dedicated and enthusiastic following – with just three shows to their name, they had headlined a show in Newport, a long way away from their hometown of Southampton.

The band itself began in a student house in their native city. A house full of music students was destined to spawn different iterations of the same band, yet sticking with GROVE STREET seemed the right choice. Since its inception, the group hasn’t exactly taken itself too seriously – being named originally after Grand Theft Auto’s Grove Street Families gang is enough of a clue. 

Despite this light-hearted beginning, the band is able to take themselves seriously when the moment calls for it. “The Path To Righteousness was about overcoming every single hurdle and personal and mental battles in your life. I guess some of it’s not negatively focused, but it’s more ‘let’s take something negative and spin it round the other way’, I guess.” 

The Path To Righteousness is written in the same collaborative genre that the group has found works for them, with a large portion of their material being written in an old school practice room that Williams built in his parents’ garden. They share the lyric writing duties, often finding it the most difficult part of the process as many artists do. 

“I think it’s very easy to overthink lyrics as a whole and be like ‘oh, it’s gotta be some beautiful poetic masterpiece’, and I find that what we do is come up with too many metaphors or try and be all ‘if you dig between the lines, you’ll find these little hidden gems’.” This is a winning formula for the group, choosing instead to not fall into the same trap that so many other bands find themselves cut off by. It’s easier to keep the process simple, not running the risk of overcomplicating lyrics and sounding too pretentious in a genre that is so famous for being raw. “Thinking about it now, no one’s ever gonna look that deep into it and pick apart every single lyric; they just want something cool that’s catchy to sing along to.” 

The collaborative nature of their writing is so obvious when listening to The Path To Righteousness. It switches from thrashy tracks, laden with groovy hardcore riffs flawlessly, each track being slightly different from the one before and coming with its own unique twist on a genre that we think we know.

The cohesive nature of the record screams testament to the group’s ability to work together seamlessly after all these years. They know what they want from their writing, and they aren’t afraid to let you know. “I find there’s listening to a record, like when I’m driving my car and I’m distracted. And then there’s really listening to what every single instrument and every single lyric and every single vocal phrasing is actually doing,” says Williams. “I find when I’m actually listening to stuff, when I’m walking my dog, I’ll put a little pin somewhere and then go, ‘oh, wouldn’t that be cool if we took that idea, but we did this instead’. I mean, that’s all anybody is ever doing nowadays, right? We’re just taking something and we’re ripping it off. Plain and simple. I’ll take A, I’ll take B, and I’ll make C from it.”

 The quickly growing UKHC scene took to GROVE STREET extremely quickly a decade ago, so it’s only right that they do the same now and honour a band that has been a continuous source of incredible music for the last ten years. Sharing bills with genre legends like TERROR, MADBALL and KNOCKED LOOSE is just the beginning for a band that deserves the sky as their limit.

The Path To Righteousness is out now via UNFD. 

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