Barbecue's?

"We have two of them actually - two Weber's," he admits with a
chuckle. "One is for the 'Fast-cook' items like chicken, burgers, and
sausages. The other Weber is for the slow cooking items. Kevin
[Garcia], our bassist, is a really adept Grillsman. More or less, we
take the buyout, the money that they give you to buy your meal with
at the venues, and go the grocery store and buy what we need and
cook it up. It's a nice way too, especially on this tour because
everyone's so nice, to build a sense of community out on the road."

This current tour the band is on is a co-headlining gig with Saves
The Day.

"[Saves The Day] should have played last, and we should've
played before them," says Fairchild. "It flip-flops. We do four
shows then they do a run, and then we do a few more."
The lineup is, to say the least, an eclectic melange of styles -
from the quasi-punk, straight ahead rock of Saves The Day, to the
sprawling, orchestral psychedelia of Grandaddy.

"Everyone on this tour is super, super cool," says Fairchild. "I
wanted to do something that was a bit unexpected. It was actually
[Saves The Day's] idea to do a tour that no one would anticipate.
We also have our friends that are in this band called Dios, and
they are starting the shows every night. They're from Hawthorn,
California, which is the home of The Beach Boys as well. They
actually sound like The Beach Boys with some Neil Young thrown
in - they're incredible. And, the Fire Theft is playing as well." The
Fire Theft reunites three members of Sunny Day Real Estate -
singer, Jeremy Egnik; drummer, William Goldsmith, and bassist,
Nate Mendel.

On Sumday, Grandaddy's third and most recent release, the band
seems to be reconciling with getting older. Lines like, "It seems
that I'm ceasing to be/In the season of the old me/I wouldn't trade
my place/I got no reason to be/Weathered and withering/Like in the
season of the old me," are the words of a young man coming to
terms with, and taking inventory of who is.

"I guess it does come down to age to a degree, but I think a lot of it
is trying to become comfortable in your own skin and realizing
sometimes when you screw up badly and disappoint yourself that
it's just kinda the way it is," explains Fairchild. "That these things
can't be the ultimate stumbling block because it becomes really
dangerous because you're preventing yourself from moving
forward because you're stuck on past failures."

Grandaddy has long had a much larger audience in Europe than
they have had here in the States, but Fairchild says things have
changed in the past year.

"It's seems like it's up to speed here finally, and the audiences
match up throughout the world now. I don't really stop and to think
about it too often because I don't think it's healthy. I mean, we can
always be more successful, and hopefully more and more people
will like our music." And, more and more people are finding their
music, especially music critics. Sumday has been listed on nearly
every critical year-end poll published for 2003.

Grandaddy has some solitude to hone their craft as well. Their
hometown of Modesto is about 90 miles East of San Francisco.
Pretty much in the middle of the state, or, as Fairchild jokes, "If you
drew a bullseye on a map of California, Modesto is where it would
land." It's rural in comparison to its neighbor to the West, and
Fairchild says that though they love their hometown, there are
some issues that they must mitigate when they return.

"Again, we try to keep our lifestyles as similar to our friend's as
possible," he says. "It seems to be a pretty easy segue back into
normal life, generally. But, I think the trickiest part is actually
keeping yourself motivated in a town like Modesto. When we are
doing stuff it's a great place to work because there aren't the same
distractions that you would find in more metropolitan areas. And
there still is a lot of creative fodder, and we still find things to
comment on. Sometimes it can be tricky to motivate yourself
because of the familiarity. But we have a totally professional studio
set up at (Singer and creative force behind the band) Jason
[Lytle's] house. We actually have two studios now - one for
smaller scale stuff and we have the main studio as well. It's where
we rehearse as well. It's good."

And, while Grandaddy are by no means selling out stadiums and
selling millions of albums, they are experiencing some success.
Their friends back home are proud of them as well, but in a small
town sometimes "Big Time" success can be hard for some of the
locals to swallow.

"Any time there is a perception that there has been some success,
and I don't think we've become that successful, but anytime that
perception exists there's always going to be a couple people who
that feel the need to knock you down even though you probably
don't need any knocking down," says Fairchild. "I don't think we do.
It's pretty hilarious, actually. I've had that happen to me a few times.
At home someone will come up to you drunk at a bar and go, 'Hey,
rock star! Oh yeah, you're too good for us now.' I think to myself,
'I've been gone for a year. Now I'm back, and I'm here.'" Well, at
least until the next tour starts.