Social Blasphemy Recording Artist -Grate interview is up
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1. Tell us about this sludgy noisy industrial crust metallic force which is new to my readers.
Wow, that was a new one! I congratulate you on your inventiveness (?), haha! Well, we're a three-headed metal band with basically just one thing in mind,
which is making noise and sending messages. I have come to realize that a band is unique position on a very powerful platform if you have things to say. Most messages that bands deliver
are weak in many ways and may sound catchy or cool at best, but they are often just echos of others. The fact that we are just 3 members makes things much simpler than
4 or 5 guys. 3 guys are more than enough to make our kind of noise and the lesser people involved the shorter time to get things done and lesser arguing and fighting, haha!
I'm just beginning to realize what sludge is and that it is huge with a huge fanbase and the same goes for noiserock. I come from a world where there is rock, pop, and punk and that's it!
What we do isn't even close to that map let alone on it at all, but then again it's a backwater place full of retards...
Well, that was a long story even longer and to matters even worse: In 2001 I became so utterly bored and restless with my old band. It was always "we're not ready" and
"we're not worthy" and all that. We were just kids and had no idea what we were doing, but I still felt that we should aim higher like "learning by doing". Nothing happened
and I gave up. Grate came farther in 3 months than the old band had done in years! Tours, albums, fans, thank you very much!
2. You remind me alot of Fudgetunnel , early prong , early pitch shifter. Even moments of bands like Unsane, Jesus lizard and Today is the day
What bands influenced Grate?
I like those bands actually, except for maybe Prong and Pitch shifter. Prong did a few albums I liked, but I don't know very much about Pitchshifter. Should I check them out?
I have to say that I don't really feel that we are influenced very much by the other bands, of course it would be very easy for me to lie and say that we only listen
to Beethoven and Bach and never even heard of those bands just to pretend to be unique and "thpecial", but nothing is that easy. I grew up on the records my parents
gave me, which was The Beatles and Pink Floyd and when I was a teenager I found The Damned and Discharge and I still love these bands. You could never hear those
influences unless you knew they were there and even I couldn't tell unless I knew it, haha! Then again, when I write a new song I tend to compare to other songs
by other bands and sometimes I think I can hear similarities and that is when I doubt that particular song. It's mostly my imagination in the end,
but I am very much aware that I do not wish to sound like other bands, for good or for worse.
3. I know very little about your label social blasphemy tell how you came to work with them and what are you looking from them.
Social Blasphemy Records started as a small sublabel to Preachers Cath Records, which is an alternative/metal/gothrock label. Both are very small with tight budgets and
focuses on music and bands that are alternative to classic genres, a little off the radar or just a little strange. While Preachers Cath leans heavily on goth rock
Social Blasphemy goes for metal in various ways, such as Aisumasen, The Preachers and Schyttfock. I think they share 3 employees between them and maybe one or two
interns, but I seriously doubt they manage to get paid, haha! But there is a lot of love, let me tell you!
4. If you were to explain " You should be " in 5 words how would you do so?
Clever, simple, aggressive, heavy, war.
5. Gothenburg has always seemed more a black and death metal scene . How would you say you fit in the music scene there?
I'd like to say that Gothenburg has always been a very angry musical city in general for a Swedish city. The punk bands, the metal bands and the hardcore bands are
all angrier, faster, heavier, have stronger opinions, etcetera and when I look at the equivalents in Stockholm I see only bleak copies, when I look at Umeå I see
some competition (Meshuggah!), but the rest of Sweden are pale in comparison. I think that GRATE fits in nicely in the Gothenburg metal scene even though we are basically alone
in our genre, because it's obviously too easy to say that we play sludge or noiserock and now that Abandon has disbanded we are definitely alone! When we opened for
Crowbar we saw 150 people looking at each other in doubt, but after half a song we saw their feet moving and soon the nodding heads.
6. What bands are impressing the member of Grate currently.
Many bands impress me today even though most of them are honestly not very good. In my book "interesting" is the keyword and if it's weird, it's basically good automatically.
It still doesn't mean it's good for real, but it has a chance to enter my playlist. Hexxis from Denmark is a perfect example. I love that band, but are they good?
I think Monarch! is excellent, but I don't know why. The same goes for Sunn O))): I like them,but what are they good for?
7 . Is there a theme for the music Grate creates you have rather interesting album covers to say the least?
Yeah, all albums have their own themes even though I'm not sure why how or why it began. "I For On" has an '80s splatter/slasher theme, which the front cover proves
in a big way. I've talked to a lot of people who claims to have seen that movie and they refuse to listen when I explain that we designed and took the pictures ourselves, haha!
The model Emmy was a girl I used to work with, I helped out with the makeup along with my brother Hannes and our other brother Daniel handled the camera.
"What You Think" has a '90s metal theme, the decade when aggressive music really took interesting ways. My brother Hannes was the one that was put on making the cover
and my only wish was that he took inspiration from a certain Clive Barker movie that I don't remember the name of anymore. The result was nowhere near that wish, but
way better than I had ever hoped for.
8. What is a live performance like?
For us it is very simple: we get on stage, display anger and determination, break stuff and stare out the audience, haha! Breaking things is nothing we chose, it just
happens. Not a single gig without things having to be replacedin the first couple of songs. Stupid, really. On our first ever gig, we broke almost half the entire
drumkit, a guitar amp and a microphone stand on the first bar of the first song, haha! At the Crowbar gig I broke my guitar in the first song...
So it's quite intense and a lot of fun. People come up to me afterwards and said that it was very uncomfortable having me staring at them, but that they loved it because
they felt involved or chosen in some way.
9 . How does Social media and digital media change the way extreme underground bands create music in 2017?
Well, anyone with time on their hands and a few good ideas can get kind of famous. It doesn't even take a lot of talent, only the open mind to seee
opportunities here and there. Social media opens a lot of doors that were never there before. When I was in my first bands there were none of the things we today
take for granted! You literally had to work your way up fan by fan and not invite thousands of random people just because you have a great app, haha!
Also, I think quantity goes before quality in the creative side of music too and not just in the music industry. I believe people think money, time and first in stead
of "is this good enough?", "it will be ready when it's ready" and "don't mess with my babies". The rest of the time they chase clicks or views...
10 . If you all were not making music what would you do to pass that time?
Personally, I have 2 dogs, 2 cats, a snail, 2 birds, a wife, 2 kids, build cars at Volvo, build guitars and repair computers at home...so I think that kind of
answers your question, haha! But then again, I also meddle with pictures, videos and stuff, so I certainly keep busy.
11. Are the members of Grate creating music in other projects ?
Danyael also plays the bass guitars in Ashes And Rain, Andreas plays the drums in The End Of Grace and I also work with Windymills and Aisumasen.
12. If you could make a proper video off new album what track and why for that video?
Personally, I really like "Mincemind", because it's very dramatic and very strange as well as very heavy at times. I don't really like to appear myself in videos or
pictures, even though I know that I am extremely handsome, but I think I have no choice but to show my ugly face soon, haha! Since the album is about WW2
it will obviously include images or references from it. I also like "Wrench" a lot, because it's extremely aggressive and a hommage to my favorite band from my
youth. Then again, there is video for "Losing Streak", which shows aerial bombings and the ruins afterwards...really terrible and tragic. There is also a video
for " Shoulder Launched", which is basically footage of atom bomb explosions...the horror, the horror...
13. If a major label came to you and offered you a deal would it interest you or are indie labels the only way to release music in 2017?
I have turned down label offers many times before, but I have come to the conclusion that if someone should offer me something today, I would gladly accept it.
Working with indie labels today means just as much work for the bands as for the labels: The bands have like and share and click and post stuff on every possible
social media and the labels keep doing what they are doing. It's a very give and take situation, but if you're in the big league, you only have to care for the
music and the fans in different ways.
14. Thanks for the time any closing thoughts here
Thank you back and keep it up! And to all you fans and future fans out there: Thank you too, because without you we wouldn't be here. We salute you!
Just remember that LIFE IS GRATE!
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