Earl Vallie

In 2022, the songwriter known as Grant Earl Lavalley exited stage right. His departure coincided with the emergence of Earl Vallie.

Let’s take a step back so as not to confuse anyone.

They’re the same guy, but in early 2022, Vallie decided that it was time to sunset his old moniker in favor of his given name. Vallie made the change in order to free himself from the shackles of his assumed identity, and the resulting songs on his latest record are definitely a departure from his work as Grant Earl LaValley.

When comparing his first full-length as Earl Vallie, Ghost Approaches, to his prior releases, it’s clear that Vallie has embraced livelier tones and a more communal approach to his songcraft. For the record, he worked with the accomplished Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, and his imprint on the finished product is clear and substantial. The eight-song collection is self-described as “boldly weird and defiantly life-affirming,” and that’s apparent from the opening notes of the first track, “Ready to Die.” Contrary to its title, the song is a rallying cry to press forward in the face of adversity. It’s an attitude that bleeds over onto the balance of the album. 

We recently caught up with the Los Angeles/Joshua Tree-based artist to chat about Ghost Approaches, working with Greg Saunier, and more:

You split your time between Los Angeles and Joshua Tree. Where are you currently?

I'm in Los Angeles right now, but yeah, I split my time completely between the two. That mainly has to do with the weather and having more options and places to play more places in Los Angeles. In the summer, I'll come to Los Angeles because it's so hot in Joshua Tree and my cabin doesn’t have air conditioning or anything like that. 

Nice, so, you live in a cabin out there. What's that like? Is that a place where you find yourself writing a lot of music? 

I feel like I write more music in Los Angeles. Actually, that's not necessarily true… but up until recently, I found myself writing more music in Los Angeles when compared to Joshua Tree. But, I've pretty much built my cabin more or less from the ground up. So, it wasn't really until this past year that the cabin was in good enough shape to be working on any projects in it. Building it was the actual project more than anything else. 

Your new album Ghost Approaches is out now via Perpetual Doom. It’s your first release under the Earl Vallie moniker. You previously performed as Grant Earl Lavalley. Why did you decide to make a name change and what does it represent to you?

I wanted to move on from the preconceptions of what I was or having to be something, or from doing things a certain way. The Grant Earl LaValley stuff was great, but I feel like artistically I’ve gone to a different place… and I think that part of that was because I allowed this change to happen. Doing that freed me and allowed me to go in a different direction

Did anything change in your life for you personally or as an artist that changed the way you approached songwriting that made you want to change your moniker?

That’s an interesting question. I don't think that anything specific happened, but I spent a lot of time out in Joshua Tree by myself working on projects alone. Before that, I was really focused on illustration and that's a really lonely kind of art form where you spend hours by yourself at a table. I've kind of started to pick that up again, but I live with my partner now, so it's not quite the same as just spending a lot of time by myself.

I think part of the change has to do with my desire to be more communal with my art. I want to write songs with people and I just want to be around people, you know? So, I think that's a realization that I had while I was undergoing this change. 

I knew that you were an illustrator primarily before you really got into music and songwriting. So, was that desire to find a more collaborative art form the reason why you wanted to get into music?

Yes, absolutely. I was doing comic books and some gallery stuff, but I was mainly doing comics and flyers. So, part of what I was doing was storytelling in a way, but I was always interested in music and videos because I saw it as a way to tell stories in a more collaborative way.

After living for long periods of time in the mountains in Mendocino County, California, I had a lot of lonely moments and wanted to move past them. Plus, I was so inspired by music, so I thought, why don’t I actually try writing songs that resemble some of the musicians that I admire so much?

Which artists or musicians made you decide that you wanted to give music a try? 

Leonard Cohen and Towns Van Zandt. I listened to them a lot while I was in Joshua Tree by myself. While listening to them, I just thought that I could do what they were doing. They both play beautifully, but their styles and chord progressions are simple. And I just really thought like, man, I could probably write a song that gives me some feeling at least. So, I started writing songs. 

Were you in bands or anything before that moment? Did you have any musical involvement or was this your first time?

Yeah, I was in a couple of bands before working on my own stuff. I was in one band in San Francisco. It was kind of like a weird noise rock band, and I was the singer for that. I never really played many instruments. I played drums a little bit and I was very limited on the guitar up until I started writing my own songs. But yeah, as a kid I played drums. As far I being in a band, I was never quite up to par to play any instruments. I was always a singer and I always loved to sing. 

In San Francisco, I was in a band called Limousine and we were kind of like a weird noise rock/industrial band. I was in that band with my friends Burt Burgeon and Sarah Burnett. We had a lot of fun. We did, like, blood rituals every show.

Before that, I was in a band called Hills Have Eyes in Columbus, Ohio, which is where I'm originally from. It was a like a Locust-inspired screamer band. I was the screamer.

You were the screamer. Nice.

Yeah, and I'd thrash around and cause a scene. I didn’t write any of those songs, though. I just did my screaming thing and wrote some crazy, nonsensical lyrics.

So, it sounds like the performance aspect was a big part of those previous projects. I've never seen you play live, unfortunately. I hope to someday. Do you carry that emphasis on ‘the performance’ over to your solo work? Or are you now more focused on a straightforward, ‘playing my guitar and singing my songs’ type of thing?

Yeah, it’s now more of a straightforward, playing my guitar, singing the song sort of thing. Actually, the last show I played, I was talking to some guys that were watching the show, these young guys, and they were like, we like that style of just standing and playing. They were like, “you just stand and deliver. Mad respect.”

It's not necessarily because I don't want to perform. It's because I need to focus on my guitar playing. Ideally, I would have a rhythm guitar player and I’d be able to perform more, but I’m not there yet with my band right now. 

For this record, it's so cool that you got to work with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof. I’m a huge fan of his. How'd you first connect with him and how'd he wind up working on this record?

I had just moved to Los Angeles and my friend Sarah Harris was dating him. We played a house show in Pasadena. Greg was at the show. I was supposed to be playing with my buddy, who was going to play bass, but he bailed last minute. 

I was about to play the songs that needed the bass and Greg actually came up and winged it with me. So, that was really cool. It was just a one-off.

But, a few months later, the pandemic hit and I was working on some demos. Sarah hit me up and asked what I was up to. I wound up sending her the demos and both she and Greg liked them. One thing led to another and I ended up going out there a couple of months later. We spent four days recording on top of those demos. It was a dream come true. I've loved Greg's work for a long time and he is one of the most inspiring drummers that I've ever seen perform. So, getting to work with him was pretty incredible.

Tell me about those recording sessions. What was the process like working with him on the record and how'd he shape the sound of the album?

I think he just shaped it by piecing it all together very well.  As as far as the recordings go, we took a lot from the original demos. I think we only started four songs from scratch. We used a lot of the originals as the foundations and we recorded on top of them. Then we composed one or two songs together that I didn’t have completely finished. Greg’s influence on the songs was basically like him saying that he wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. So, like, telling Greg how to play the drums on a certain thing was pretty shocking for me.

The things that he did speak up about were very specific, and he stuck by them. I think that made the record really great. We did a lot of back and forth for a few months on the final mixes. The mixes are really where he just made it just sound so fantastic. 

What were some of those specific things that he stuck by?

I think just like in the sense that he would get there and we would just go for it. He was of the belief that we should get in there and not try to sculpt things right away. It’s almost like he has a first-thought, best-thought approach to things, which I really appreciate. One of the specific things is that he really doesn’t go in with a specific plan. He goes with the flow completely. So, whatever the songs are asking for, we’re doing that before we can even question it. 

That's interesting because I know you mentioned that for some of the tracks you used the actual demo instead of tracking it again. Was that Greg’s idea after he heard them? Or did you attempt some additional takes at first? 

In the beginning, I was leaning toward doing whatever we agreed to do. Greg right off the bat thought, well, there’s a lot of great stuff already here. I’d hate to just throw it away. So, he said, let's keep the stuff that you did already. I figured if he thought it was good enough to keep in there, then it must have been. 

You described Ghost Approaches as a cry of resilience. Why do you view the record as that? And speaking of resilience, what obstacles did you have to overcome to make this album? I know you were quoted recently as saying that you felt like your career as a musician was done before this record.

Yeah, I did feel that way. I just didn’t know what to do anymore. My previous records had more of a brooding sound, but I wanted to bring more joy into my life. I felt like being bolder and that the brooding period of my life was over. I had worked through it on the Grant Earl Lavally records. At the same time, moving completely away from that stuff and maintaining my own sense of self was a challenge. That was a hurdle that I was trying to get over. So, once I got to a point where I felt comfortable writing songs that I could belt out and writing rock and roll songs, I felt like I had achieved or like started a new era in my artistic and personal life.

Yeah. And the first track on Ghost Approaches, “Ready to Die”, is an interesting title for an opening track because the song feels very alive and vibrant. “Death” is obviously typically associated with an ending and finality… but just considering it as a whole, it seems like more of a rebirth.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's kind of what I meant that song to be. It's kind of an adventure, but it's also about going to work. When I play that song live, I always tell the audience that I wrote “Ready to Die” about going to work. The music video for it was filmed at a warehouse where I work. It was deeply influenced by Springsteen and, you know, the working man’s plight and all of that. Being a musician and working all the time really isn’t easy. There’s a certain mentality that you have to adapt to in order to do it. “Ready to Die” is kind of sarcastic about having to work while you're a musician. Sometimes you just wanna give up, but at the same time, it’s a fun journey, you know? It’s a fun life.

One of my favorite tracks on the record is “My Baby's Broomstick.” I felt like there's a bit of a no-wave influence in there, but maybe I'm just reading too much into the saxophone. How'd that song come together and what inspired that track sonically?

Yeah, absolutely, Sonically, I really wanted to make a song that might feel really good in a greasy basement bar. When writing it, I pictured a back alley, some trash cans, lots of slime… like a rat in a trash can. That type of scene. I just wanted to write a fun rock and roll song. 

I really appreciated the sequencing of the album. I thought the flow of the record was really unique. It starts out with a ton of energy and then seems to tone it down a bit for a few tracks before picking it up again around “Reap the Seeds of Love.” How much thought and consideration did you put into the flow and sequencing of the record?

I put a lot of thought into it and Greg actually had a lot of opinions as well on how we should put the songs together. Our opinions came together on it pretty seamlessly with the order of things. I write songs like I would want to hear an album. I keep that frame of mind during the whole process and it’s kind of intuitive. You have to just feel it and ask yourself, “what works next?” I try to think “what would keep me listening to this album?” And I think that ebb and flow, that like up and down emotional roller coaster really does it for me so, that’s what we went with. 

Is there a song on the record that you're particularly fond of or proud of? 

That’s hard to say. I feel like the most breakthrough moments on the record were because I had some of these songs for a while before recording them. Buy the songs I’m most fond of are the ones that are most different than something I could imagine that I could write, like “Autumn Leaves” or “Hollow Skies.” Those feel like catchy pop songs to me and I always wondered if I could pull that off. I feel like I achieved what I was trying to do with those two songs because I'm not much of a hook kind of person. Although, I like writing stuff like that now that I was able to do it with those songs.

Were these songs that you had written a long time ago or was this something that came together rather quickly?

“Ready To Die” is one that I had for a long time. That was the first song I wrote in this new direction I was heading in. The others started as little pieces of catchy things in my voice notes or on a tape recorder. I always go back and mess with those. For the most part, my songs develop over long periods of time. Occasionally, one will just come right out and it’s done, but they simmer for a while.

Ghost Approaches is available now via Perpetual Doom. You can purchase a copy on vinyl via their website or on Bandcamp. Vallie’s music is also available on all streaming platforms. Keep up with Vallie by following him on Instagram