JACK GRISHAM AND THE LIFE UNDONE Share New Single "ANTHEM"

Jack Grisham and the Life Undone have shared the fourth single from their upcoming self-titled debut album, 'Anthem,' exclusively via Coda Music and YouTube, prior to its arrival on all digital platforms September 22.

'Anthem' is an ode to Jack's wife that lives up to its title. He notes, 'My fourth wife saved my life. This one is for her—I wanted a shift in my life, a lover, a partner, my soul sacrificed.' The song's massive hook and massed vocals celebrate the absolute height of non-judgmental human connection. 'I wanted a thief at my grave / You lifted / You breathed / I'm the one that you saved.'

Jack Grisham, frontman of legendary group T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty), had stepped away from music and was happily writing novels and making films when a chance meeting with German musician Lars Triesch at the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas, offered an opportunity to make a truly authentic album with a kindred spirit. A lifelong aficionado of California punk and modernism (his house was designed by Cali modernist architect Ray Kappe), Lars was well aware of Jack's talents. 'Jack is an extraordinary songwriter with such a natural feel for structure and harmony,' Lars told IDIOTEQ. 'Of all the great characters who came out of the early California punk scene, I couldn't imagine anyone else for this record.'

The result is the single-minded, gorgeously melodic Jack Grisham and the Life Undone, a record that marries hard pop and alt rock to the fearlessly eclectic spirit of early Southern California punk rock.

The album will be released exclusively via streaming service Coda Music before becoming widely available on all digital platforms on October 30 via Lost In Berlin Records. Grisham will hold a Coda LIVE! album listening event on October 2, where he will listen to the album together with fans and deliver a track by track commentary, accompanied by story telling and a Q&A. The album features the previously released singles 'Pain Goes Around,' 'Pieces of the Sun' and 'Church Bells.'

Jack was central to the genre-fluid, stylistically voracious sound of the original T.S.O.L., a hugely influential pillar of early 1980s SoCal punk. He also spent much of the '90s touring with Epitaph Records punk/alt-rock supergroup The Joykiller. He returned to T.S.O.L. in 1999 until their farewell shows at the turn of 2026.

While navigating remote songwriting 6,000 miles and nine hours apart, Jack and Lars resolved to write songs that resonated even with just a vocal and guitar. They then convened for ten days of intensive tracking at Lars' place in Kleinmachnow, outside Berlin. Jack had sent Lars a playlist of ballpark references that included the Banshees, Beatles, Damned, and Who, but that went out the window once tracking began. 'I'm a fan of chaos,' Jack explained. 'The first couple of songs that we did were harder…but then we s-canned everything. Now we're going here because this is chaos, and this appeared, and it wasn't planned.'

Lars played drums, guitar, and sang backups for Jack's vocals. They were joined by producer/multi-instrumentalist Kurt Ebelhäuser (Blackmail, Scumbucket), Lars' former collaborator in the '90s Koblenz punk scene; engineer/co-producer Michel Wern (Donots, Broilers); and Jack's onetime T.S.O.L. bandmate Trevor Lucca (D.I., Dick Dale) on guitar.

Living together throughout the recording process helped bring a cohesion to Jack Grisham and the Life Undone's thirteen heartfelt tracks, despite these spanning guitar-fueled alt-rock, harmony-heavy Britpop, Americana-adjacent acoustic songs, and low-cal SoCal balladry. Upon his return stateside, Jack revisited some of his vocals with producer and longtime friend Paul Roessler (The Screamers, 45 Grave) in Los Angeles, who also added keys and backing vocals.

Jack's lyrics explore sobriety, isolation and, for the first time in his 46-year career, aging. 'I've been sober for more than half of my life and on a pathway of spiritual progression,' he mulled. 'I've basically used the second half of my life to make amends for what I did in the first half.'

The Life Undone moniker refers to both the therapeutic practice of dissecting and examining someone's psychological state, and to a feeling of incompleteness, of a life still being revealed.

'I don't write for anyone but me,' said Jack. 'I'll never do this because someone else will like it. I've learned that lesson hard and it almost put me in the grave.'

Jack Grisham and the Life Undone track list

01. Pain Goes Around

02. Pieces of the Sun

03. John Says

04. These Things

05. Church Bells

06. Dull Boy

07. Loser

08. Angel Funeral

09. Lazing in the Bed All Day

10. Black Ties

11. Anthem

12. Phone Call

13. Darker Side of Nowhere

Jack Grisham and the Life Undone's cover art is an original oil painting by Craig Barker, presented across three stages of completion on each of the album's first three singles.

About Coda Music

Coda Music is a fully licensed, on-demand streaming service with the full major-label catalog and the artists listeners expect from a leading music platform. What makes Coda different is its more human approach: listeners can discover and share music with people whose taste they trust, explore communities shaped by sound and vibe rather than rigid genre labels, join live artist-hosted experiences, and direct $1 of their monthly subscription to the artist they choose to support.

Photo Credit: Swen Siewert

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