Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band. 

Hi, I'm Sorush Ranjbar and I'm the founder and guitar player/composer of Granite Hands. The other fellas in my band are Erik Wisloff (Bassist) and Cesar De Los Santos (Drums).

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Granite Hands? How long has the band been around?

Granite Hands began as a solo project called "Granite" that I started while I was a senior Biochemistry student at UTSA. At the time, Cesar was drumming for this other band called Somewhere in Between and Erik was also a student at UTSA. The music in the band has been around since 2007 when I first wrote it, but it wasn't recorded until Spring 2015 and the band wasn't formed until November 2015.

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

I (Sorush, guitarist) write the bass, guitar, miscellaneous key parts, and the overall skeleton of the drums for the band. However, Cesar does a lot of tweaking on the drum parts and Erik does a lot of tweaking to the bass parts as well. There's never really any "topic" for our instrumental songs, just maybe a manifestation of how I am emotionally feeling at the time I wrote it. They are kind of a window into the past stages. For the newer songs we are writing, the composition is naturally shifting to a team effort kind of thing since we are becoming familiar with each other's jamming nuances and stuff.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

As a guitarist, I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin. Video game music was also a huge infuence on my composition, specifically the works of Nobuo Uematsu who did the final fantasy series. I'm currently really inspired by jazz musicians. I've been listening to Kneebody and Tigran Hamasyan a lot, I'm a huge fan of John Coltrane. We are all huge Hiatus Kaiyote and The Fall of Troy fans. Erik, like a true Norwegian, is huge on death metal and also into a lot of 70s funk. Cesar is a huge fan of Rush, Mahavisnu Orchestra, Yes, and Tool. We are all fans of neo soul music.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

My first moment I realized i wanted to make music was when I started playing Final Fantasy 7 back in 1998. All of the dialogue in that game is in text boxes, but the music just was so vivid and beautiful that it portrayed everything emotionally through the composition.

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …

To prepare for shows, we just talk shit to each other jokingly and make fun of each other. We really don't do anything else, it's kind of bad but somehow works out.

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

The biggest highlight of the band was probably getting nominated as one of San Antonio's Best Instrumental bands, despite the fact that we had less than 100 likes on facebook and I didn't have a band to play the songs with yet. With the nomination came a request to do a showcase, and that is basically what got the band to form. We also got honorable mentions by some of our favorite music blogs and did a filmed performance for the University of Texas at San Antonio's news group.

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

The dream tour would probably be with The Fall of Troy, Tera Melos, Mr. Carmack, Hiatus Kaiyote, and CHON on the same bill because they are all sick.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Listen to us and stay tuned for new music :)