Nick Stumpo is a guitarist and singer for the band Grace's Grandsons, yet he is the only one who isn't a grandson of Grace, the Italian grandmother. The band formed when the boys were in high school outside of Philadelphia, and was named for the grandmother of four of the members. I talked to Stumpo about the band's background and influences.

Q: How many members are in the band, and where are you guys from?

A: We're all from outside the suburbs of Philly. There are five of us. I play guitar and sing, Luke Puglia is the drummer, and his brother, Andrew, also plays guitar. The lead guitar player is Gavin McBrien.

Q: How did you all get together?

A: It's kind of weird actually; everybody but me [are] cousins, so they've known each other for pretty much forever. I met Luke through playing hockey, and our dads became friends playing hockey. One day I went over and we started fooling around with some music. I guess we actually formed the band like a year later. Those guys are all related except for me.

Q: How did you come up with the band name?

A: It's kind of cheesy; we're not big fans of it, but we never got rid of it. At one of our first practices [Grace] was upstairs, and afterwards she was sitting there crying, so I guess she liked it or whatever. She's right off the boat from Italy and stuff, so I don't even know if she knew what we were singing, but she liked it.

Q: How long has the band been together?

A: That would have been my junior year of high school; I'm a sophomore now, so four years ago. Our first show was when the Eagles were in the Super Bowl; we played a tailgate party. That was my senior year of high school, February 2005.

Q: Who are your musical inspirations?

A: Our biggest influences are probably the band Phish, Dave Matthews Band, and people like the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead. If you kind of like mixed all of them that would characterize our sound pretty well. We bring in harder elements too, but not like metal or anything. Sometimes bands are thought of as light and airy. We definitely jam a lot, but there is stuff that's louder, like traditional rock and roll.

Q: Do you write your own material?

A: Right now we have just a handful of songs of our own. Mostly we play covers at shows and a few originals, and we phase them in and out since they're works in progress.