Today, sees the debut of “Technicolor”, the brand new single from Grand Am. The track will also appear on Bravo’s Imposters (airing on Thursday, May 10th). Grand Am will be playing their first show at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC on May 17th.

Band Member James Panepinto on the track:

“‘Technicolor’ is one of the first tracks we wrote as Grand Am – we actually wrote this before a lot of the heavier stuff we did. At the time we were searching for a sound and identity as songwriters at the start of this project, and this song tells that story of what we were chasing. There is always an element of questioning yourself and your creative decisions as songwriters (and in life) and the story here is one of pursuing what you want while balancing on that line between hope and fear.”

Band Member: David McMillin on the track:

“The Grand Am recording sessions are a flood of ideas. I go to New York for a day or two, and James and I try to explore as many directions with songs as possible before I head home to Chicago. With so much packed into a small window of time, it’s hard to remember everything that actually happened in the spaces after we hit record. The outro of ‘Technicolor’ was one of those forgotten pieces. When James sent me the mix, I felt like I was listening to another band in another world. It’s such a different side of Grand Am — one that feels more delicate and more contemplative. The three layers of competing vocals make up one of my favorite parts of the entire album. All the parts are positioned around the central lyric ‘Am I too far gone?’ It’s a question I ask myself all the time. I have yet to figure out the answer.”

James Panepinto started his career assisting Grammy-nominated engineer Emily Lazar and Grammy-winning engineer Joe LaPorta who have worked their magic on records from the likes of David Bowie, The Shins and Vampire Weekend. He wasn’t focusing on the fact that he was broke, living in New York and figuring out what to do with his life after abruptly leaving a cozy job in healthcare. Instead, he was taking notes and spending late nights in the studio to make music of his own. “When I first started out, I was working 60 hours every week as an unpaid studio intern,” Panepinto says. “That may sound brutal, but it was one of the best experiences of my life.”

That year paved the way to the past decade — a period during which Panepinto created hundreds of instrumental songs for alternative post-pop project Grand Am. In 2016, he finally decided to open the trunk of ideas, and he found a vocal passenger in David McMillin, lead singer of Chicago-based rock band Fort Frances. “James sent me five demos that absolutely floored me,” McMillin, a singer-songwriter who has been featured on shows on The CW, Netflix and NBC and earned lyrical honors from American Songwriter, said. “Then, he sent me around 50 more.”