| abstract | - Grinspoon are an Australian rock band from Lismore, New South Wales formed in 1995 and fronted by Phil Jamieson on vocals and guitar with Pat Davern on guitar, Joe Hansen on bass guitar and Kristian Hopes on drums. Also in 1995, they won the Triple J-sponsored Unearthed competition for Lismore, with their post-grunge song "Sickfest". Their name was taken from Dr. Lester Grinspoon an Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who supports marijuana for medical use. Founded in 1995, they came to fame when they were Unearthed by national, commercial-free radio station Triple J thanks to their track "Sickfest". This won them the competition for the Lismore area. The band was heavily influenced by the nu metal movement in their early career, including the bands Helmet and Prong, and developed a strong following among mosh pit crowds. Their sound changed in their later career to a more mainstream rock sound with their 2002 album New Detention and at this point they lost many of their earlier fans and gained a lot of fans in the mainstream. Lyrically, the band are very cryptic and disjointed, most lines from their songs are not related to the next line and the songs rarely make sense as a whole. This has been attributed to the writer Phil Jamieson and his tendency to pen short lyrics of only a few lines each, and then tying many of these together into a song, creating a lack of consistent themes. Grinspoon changed their sound to more mainstream rock by their 2002 album, New Detention, gaining fans and peaking at #2 on the ARIA Albums Charts; similarly 2007's Alibis & Other Lies also reached #2. Their 2004 album, Thrills, Kills & Sunday Pills, which peaked at #4, won the 2005 'Best Rock Album Award' at the ARIA Music Awards. The band was signed to Universal Records in United States by late 1998, they were promoted by the songs "Champion", which featured in Gran Turismo 3; "Post Enebriated Anxiety", which was on the international version of Guide to Better Living; "Chemical Heart", via the internet; and a cover of the Prong song "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck", from Grinspoon's Pushing Buttons EP, which was included on ECW: Extreme Music.
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