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The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel on new live album, tour and his ‘life-changing’ time in Philly

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Adam Granduciel serves as the mastermind behind The War On Drugs, which started in Philadelphia and has gone on to claim the hearts of music fans around the world, picking up a Grammy for Best Rock Album in 2018 with "A Deeper Understanding" (Photo by Charlie Hardy).

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Fresh off the release of a new live album, the band The War On Drugs has marked Tuesday’s tour stop at Philadelphia’s Mann Center as a “big homecoming.”

“That’s the fifth show of our tour. The one that’s circled on our calendars,” said frontman Adam Granduciel. “That’s our home.”

Live Drugs Again,” released Friday, is the band’s second live album and is the next release after 2021’s “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” — which earned its spot on several end-of-year best lists, including Pitchfork and Spin, and was named album of the year by Stereogum.

“Live Drugs Again,” the second live album from The War On Drugs, was recorded on tour between February 2022 through December 2023 in America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia (Courtesy of The War On Drugs).

Granduciel said the band’s first live album, Live Drugs (2020), served as the end of something, while the new record acts as a celebration of dedication.

“It’s like a real celebration of the six other people on the stage besides myself and their dedication to the project,” Granduciel said. “And the levels to which they elevate the recorded material.”

The album’s release comes in tandem to the Zen Diagram Tour, co-headlined by indie-rock band The National.

Tuesday’s show will bring Granduciel back to the place where the Grammy award–winning band began. He called Philly home from 2003 until the mid-2010s before resettling in Los Angeles.

“My time that I lived in Philly was 100% the most inspiring sort of time I could ever imagine having in a lifetime,” Granduciel said. “I credit living there and being open to whatever Philly threw at me at that time of my life. It’s like a special sort of intersection that happens when you’re ready to soak up what is thrown your way.”

The highs of his time in Philly also coincided with some low points.

“It [anxiety] was just consuming my day-to-day life, because every waking second, [I] was wondering whether or not I was about to go into a full-blown panic attack,” he told NPR during a 2017 interview.

“I was feeling very sort of disconnected from whatever a normal life was or a normal sort of mindset,” Granduciel told WHYY News while reflecting on that time.

Work that emerged through that rough stretch appeared on “Lost In The Dream,” the breakthrough album released in 2014 that catapulted the band’s success.

The War On Drugs will perform at The Mann Center on Sept. 17 with The National as part of their Zen Diagram Tour. (Courtesy of The War On Drugs)

“I’m not ungrateful about being able to make something when you’re going through all that and then have people respond to it in the way that they did for that record,” said Granduciel. “I mean, that basically changed my life.”

And despite residing across the country, Granduciel said the trip back to Philly “still feels like I’m coming home again.”

Tickets for Tuesday’s show are still available through Ticketmaster. The show starts at 6:30 p.m. Lucius is set to open.

The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)
The War On Drugs rocked out at The Mann Center on Sept. 18, 2024 during a stop for their joint Zen Diagram Tour with The National. (Cory Sharber/WHYY)

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