The Grabs

The band is a side project for its members: indie singer/songwriter Eleni Mandell, guitarist Steven Gregoropolous (Wild Stares, W.A.C.O., Lavender Diamond), bassist Nigel Harrison (Blondie) and drummer Elvira Gonzalez even an audio sample from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Mandell calls the quartet "the side-project rock band of my childhood dreams."

The Grabs came about as a result of Eleni and Steven discussing a band that would be poppy, fun, and light-hearted and would sound great in the summer. Not necessarily the words one would use to describe Eleni's body of somewhat darker, critically acclaimed recordings. Eleni exclaimed, "Let's write really catchy, fun post-punk pop songs." "That's too easy," responded Steve. Although the two had never previously co-written a song with anybody, they wrote an album's worth of songs in no time, then recruited founding Blondie member and veteran A&R nabob, Nigel Harrison. Eleni asked Nigel if he could play on a new project she was working on. He agreed immediately but thought it would be a song or two, not 13 songs. Still, he dove in and called Eleni "the best singer and songwriter I've ever known since Deborah Harry."