Tag: Mike Crossey

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: grandson Returns with Bruising and Anthemic “GOD IS AN ANIMAL”

Jordan Benjamin is the Los Angeles-based creative mastermind behind the rising indie rock project grandson. Benjamin’s highly-anticipated sophomore grandson album, the Mike Crossey-produced INERTIA is slated for a September 5, 2025 release through XX Records/Create Music. The album reportedly marks an urgent, unfiltered chapter for Benjamin as an artist and songwriter, who’s operating on his own terms and speaking truth to power. 

Earlier this summer, I wrote about INERTIA‘S second single, “SELF IMMOLATION,” an urgent and impassioned Rage Against the Machine-meets-Incubus-era nu metal bruiser that thematically saw the rising Los Angeles-based artist unpacking what it means to have a cause to fight –and potentially die for.

Inertia’s third and latest single “GOD IS AN ANIMAL” continues a run of urgent and impassioned, mosh pit friendly rippers that seemingly channels RATM while thematically questioning what it means to be truly civilized, essentially questioning how civilized our society really is — or isn’t. If you’re enraged by the overwhelming cruelty and brutality of the status quo, this song is for you.

“Years ago while on tour I had this idea for a musical based off of George Orwell’s 1984, where a farm animal realizes to run the farm it has to move like a human,” Jordan Benjamin says. “After a couple iterations of that, I decided to release the title track from it on INERTIA, and trust that if that project is meant to be, it’ll find its way to the light someday. It’s certainly a fitting concept for the present moment in time. After all, we live in a ruthless world, supposedly ‘civilized’, where the dominating nations and religions scrapped their way to the top through the savage rule of the animal kingdom. We’re ultimately just apes, too smart (or stupid) for our own good.”

Directed by Joe Weil, the accompanying video for “GOD IS AN ANIMAL” is shot in a lushly cinematic Black and White that features Benjamin and the two funereally dressed women from the “SELF IMMOLATION” video rocking out to the song. The women’s interpretive dance, mimics the extraordinarily ordinariness of animalistic violence in our world.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: grandson Shares a Politically Charged and Anthemic Ripper

Jordan Benjamin is the Los Angeles-based creative mastermind behind the rising indie rock project grandson. Benjamin’s highly-anticipated sophomore grandson album, the Mike Crossey-produced INERTIA is slated for a September 5, 2025 release through XX Records/Create Music. The album reportedly marks an urgent, unfiltered chapter for Benjamin as an artist and songwriter, who’s operating on his own terms and speaking truth to power.

INERTIA‘s second and latest single “SELF IMMOLATION” is a Rage Against the Machine-meets-Incubus-era nu metal bruiser that sees Benjamin pairing a punchy and impassioned delivery with pummeling boom bap-like percussion, bursts of DJ scratching and a rousingly anthemic and mosh pit friendly, Tom Morello-like crunchy power chord-driven hook and chorus. Thematically, the song sees the rising Los Angeles-based artist unpacking what it means to have a cause to fight for — and to potentially die for.

“’Self Immolation’ was inspired by the Palestinian liberation movement across college campuses, inspired by the late Aaron Bushnell who gave his life in protest of the actions of the very military he served, inspired by the dead students of Kent State 1970, and written about what it means to have a cause to live for, to die for,” Benjamin explains. “I wrote it with my friends, each of us playing an instrument live together, in a stoned, free, creative place in Andrew’s studio one afternoon, and it was a feeling we locked into across the whole album. It was a blast to create, and we all felt a great deal of purpose and meaning in the session that day.” 

The accompanying video for “SELF IMMOLATION” is split between Benjamin and his backing band performing the song as two funereally-dressed women headbang and mosh behind him, edited footage from Kent State, protests, uprisings and fires.