Dan Grimm to release 'Ventucky' CD at Green Art People Aug. 29

'Ventucky' means paradise

Ojai singer-songwriter Grimm and his band will play at an album release party for "Ventucky" at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Green Art People, 140 N. Ventura Ave., Ventura. Also playing is Happens Again. Admission is free. Grimm's website is reverbnation.com/danisgrimm.

Sort of like a Grateful Dead show without the Dead, the weekly Green Art People gig on Ventura Avenue is about as fun as it can get on a Wednesday night. Some people kick it outside and exchange what used to be called mindless high school chatter, but most come inside and actually listen to the music. They'll get an earful this week when venue fave Dan Grimm of Ojai hosts a CD release party for his second album, "Ventucky."

Sometimes just a guy and a guitar, Grimm is bringing his whole band for this one, ably abetted by Jonathan McEuen and Jesse Siebenberg.

Green Art gal Lisbet Fry is one of Grimm's biggest fans. "His songs are so incredible, and his character is so strong — his ethics, his love of music," Fry said. "But basically, people rally around him and his songs in the same way they did around Jimmy Adams. And everyone plays with him — it's always the A-list, like it used to be with Jimmy, and his songs have always been intensely beautiful. That's why I call him the Honorable Dan Grimm, just like there was the Legendary Jimmy Adams."

Speaking for himself, Grimm had this to say about all that:

Dan, how's the music biz treating you?

It's good. I'm getting to work with the people I've always wanted to work with. That's one of the coolest things about where I am in music right now.

OK, so who would they be?

Well, there's Jesse Siebenberg, who I regard as one of the finest musicians in the world. ... And Jonathan McEuen and Todd Hannigan.

Yeah, those guys are all rock stars — that's for sure. How often do you play these days?

I'm averaging about three gigs a week right now.

Wow — that's a lot. How many are just you, and how many involve the band?

Usually, it's two solo and one band, or something like that.

Who are the boys in the band?

I've been changing guitar players around and Jesse is touring the world most of the time, so for the last two years it's been mostly Eric Sachs on bass and Marco Perez on drums, with Jonathan McEuen on guitar and J.P. Hesser on vintage organ. We just released our second album last week, "Ventucky," and I want to try to get one or two more out this year. This gig will be our official CD release party for "Ventucky."

Three albums in one year? That's a career for a lot of bands.

Yeah, but we're only doing five or six tracks a pop — that's about the playlist attention span these days.

This will be a preview for your next Green Art People adventure. Tell me about some of the other places you've played.

Jester, Deer Lodge, the Tavern, Cold Springs Tavern and the Good Bar.

What's your take on the local scene? What you think it needs, or is it fine the way it is?

I think the biggest two things we could do is focus on creating albums — really good music with really good engineers and production — and focusing on dynamics. Almost anywhere I go — Austin or Nashville — they have really slick players. The one way we can set ourselves apart is to change the volume within a song and between songs. I hear a lot of bands that ... crank it up and leave it cranked up the whole show and your ears get tired halfway through. Mainly, making music that's gonna last forever — that's the way to go.

Tell me a Green Art People story — you've played there before, right?

It's weird because you have listening rooms like Zoey's with a listening audience, which is great, but at Green Art people, it's weird because you have literally hundreds of people all listening at once. There's no other venue where I have played where there were that many people listening at once.

What do you do in the opposite situation, when you're trying to play and people are talking?

I have lived in a house full of musicians and one of the guys would scream at me when I was trying to write songs, so that was great practice and I'm totally desensitized. But a lot of people talking are listening in the back of their head, and a lot of those people tip or buy albums — more than you might realize, and often more than the people that were listening intently.

Wow, who knew? Maybe they're just guilty for messing up your show.

You can touch people without even knowing it until the end.

How many Dan Grimm songs are there? Could you play forever?

I think there's over 70 songs. I've only recorded a handful of them, so my big job now is recording.

Does bad love make for good songs?

Yeah, I think living hard any way you can and having those nerve endings zapped — that's the way to go.

What's the strangest gig you ever played — had a few of those?

Yeah, we played a convention of morticians.

(Laughs) Wow — that qualifies.

I don't think they even liked the music, or who knows? Maybe that's the way they look all the time. It was in Santa Barbara (with) a band I was in previously — our drummer was trying to get as many gigs as possible. Anyway, they just hung out. They didn't really even talk to each other — it was a group of about 30 people who were fairly expressionless the whole time.

That is weird. I notice on your list of influences you name Del Amitri. I haven't heard of those guys for a while — what a great band.

Yeah, I love '90s Scottish rock.

So who knocks you out as a songwriter besides '90s Scottish rockers?

Paul Simon's "Graceland," but actually, I like all eras of Paul Simon. He's amazing, but specifically that album got my attention. Also, Van Morrison a little bit, but Justin Currie from Del Amitri — he has that Scottish wit that comes through.

How does a guy make it out of the 805 — whatever "making it" is these days?

First, write really good songs and be sure they're published to the right people. ... I think if I keep working with the people I wanna work with ... for example, I'm gonna do some stuff with Pete Yorn's drummer, and we're gonna work with some of the guys from a band called Spacehog. Make good music and try and get it out there — some combination of giving it away and selling it for the right amount of money to be able to keep making it in studio. It's expensive in the studio to do it right, but it's worth it, you know? Do-it-yourself stuff is awesome. But sustainability, I think, comes from having engineers like you get from Castaway 7 Studio in Ventura and Brothryn Studio in Ojai, and playing with people like Joe Baugh and Jesse Siebenberg who can play vintage instruments and make it sound new.

So when did you know you could do this?

I've been doing it as a songwriter for other bands for a long time, but writing for other bands who aren't doing it the way you hear it in your head makes you want to do it yourself. So I jumped into the scene and played every week at Cafe Bella for some ridiculous amount of time until I had gotten some chops together.

Yeah, that was a cool little place down on California Street in Ventura until the neighbors started whining. You know the city says they want business to attract all these bozo tourists, then they rain on a place like Cafe Bella.

I think the city has finally realized there's money in music, which is why they've been having meetings with myself and other musicians. ... So to make the scene pop, I think it would be cool if we had a music district where there's no residents to complain, you know?

Like where the Alpine used to be, maybe? Anyway, if you could have a dream date with anybody alive or dead, who would that be?

I think it probably would be David Bowie.

OK, man, that should be more than I need to know ...