Grizzlee Train – Australian alt blues/rock two-piece consisting of guitarist/vocalist Brandon Dodd and Drummer/Harmonica player Josh Dufficy.
We were both lucky enough to grow up in paradise, really. The Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia is where we’ve both called home since we were born. We certainly can’t complain about living two minutes from the beach for our entire lives! I guess there are times where we almost wish we had a really tough upbringing, just so we could write amazing songs about growing up on the streets – but nope, we were both very lucky lads in the early days. We met when we were picked in the same local soccer team at the age of around ten years old. Whilst we were raised as beach kids, the whole surfing thing was never really for either of us. We had mates who did it, and loved it, but we both always seemed to channel our energy and spare time into music instead. Our first ever public performance as a duo was at our high school’s talent showcase night when we were in about the 8th grade (we were nervous as hell, but according to our mums, we nailed it!)
It was quite a strange coincidence finding another school kid the same age as you who also liked old-school blues style music and had dreams of being a rock star. But somehow it happened!
Our mutual love of the same music led to a stack of garage jam sessions (much to the disapproval of neighbours in both of our streets), which eventually led to us taking our mix of poorly done Led Zeppelin covers and entry-level originals to the streets of the Central Coast. Busking is where we really found our own sound and where our passion for all things musical really took off.
Once our high school days had finished we launched ourselves into the New South Wales east coast pub music scene. We were playing three hour gigs that still consisted of about 85 per cent covers, performing under the name ‘Sticks & Strings’ (not exactly the most creative name ever).
At this point we were both studying at university, one of us doing a music degree (Brandon) and the other studying marketing & media (Josh). We eventually reached a point where we decided it was time to ditch the covers gigs, re-invent ourselves and have a real go at making some kick-ass original blues/rock music. This is when the Grizzlee Train project came to life.
Literally one week after launching the new project we headed up to one of the largest festivals in Australia - the 2014 Tamworth Country Music Festival. Whilst we’re a long way from being a country band, we decided to head up there and showcase our music anyway. We returned to our busking roots and spent a week playing on the streets. Somehow we managed to be runners-up in the festival’s busking competition against about five hundred other acts…stoked! It was after this moment that the cogs really started turning for us. We were spending less time studying and more time playing gigs and living in our van. It was at the back-end of 2014 when arguably the biggest moment of our musical career happened…
We were playing at a mini-festival put on by one of our local pubs. We were asked to play the closing set on the smaller stage while the headline band were playing on the main stage, so naturally we only had a handful of people watching us. Luckily for us, one of those people was Australian icon and one of our musical heroes, Kasey Chambers.
Kasey came up and introduced herself after the show and told us how much she enjoyed it. Somehow we convinced her to set up some jam sessions with us, and before we knew it she was offering us a place in her touring backing band!
We left university and hit the road. The year and a half that followed was nothing short of unbelievable for us.
We’d gone from playing to empty pubs to playing all over Australia, New Zealand and the U.S to sold out theatres, stadiums and festivals. As part of Kasey’s band we supported the likes of The Eagles, Kenny Rogers, Paul Kelly and Lucinda Williams. On top of this, Kasey continually gave us our own slot in her set to showcase our Grizzlee Train songs.
It was this life of constant touring that forced us to really develop our musical skills, which led to us expanding our audience as well as winning competitions such as the prestigious Byron Bay Bluesfest Busking Championships in 2015.
Being able to live the lifestyle that we had dreamed about since we were little also allowed us to open our minds in the world of song-writing and has led to us producing some of our best original material yet – much of which can be heard on our second EP ‘Burned Him Again’ (released in January 2016).
To this day we continue to tour all over Australia, America and Europe promoting our music. We are also still fortunate enough to be working with the incredible Kasey Chambers. But even after a couple of amazing years in this wild music industry, this still feels like the beginning!
We’ve got plans for the release of our debut album in 2017 as well as a tonne of national and international touring – see you on the road!
Josh & Brandon – AKA Grizzlee Train
You can follow the journey of Grizzlee Train on their website and social media pages
Website: www.grizzleetrain.com
Facebook: facebook.com/grizzleetrain
Youtube: Grizzlee Train Official
iTunes: iTunes
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/grizzleetrain
Triple J Unearthed: www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/grizzlee-train