Noise and avant aural arsonist Gridfailure interview is up
instagram.com/gridfailure
1. Let's start with you started in more punk, crust hardcore world. How did Gridfailure come to be?
I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where the punk scene was vibrant in the 90s and my first band was The Militiamen (initially named Dementia 13) which was high-speed hardcore punk. We played live and did a few demos in 1994-1996; I played bass and did gang vocals. Even at that time I was into metal, hardcore, and more, but it was when I moved to Philadelphia in 1996 that I was jettisoned into a massive hotbed of crust, black metal, massive hardcore shows, more experimental genres, live hip hop, and so much more. The first band I started in Philly was Dead By Dawn where I was the low-end singer of two vocalists; we did a style of death metal/metallic hardcore with sporadic screamo and beatdown tendencies. This lasted for less than two years, but immediately upon its demise I was approached by a few dudes from Frontline and more who were starting a new band. I joined and we formed Heidnik; blasting, scatterbrain, super intense, slamming grind/metallic hardcore for which I was the vocalist for a five-piece act. This was definitely my most “successful” run with bands as we played with dozens and dozens of amazing bands. We had a parting of ways and I moved to Brooklyn, New York. For years I didn’t play in any bands; I worked 24/7 with Earsplit and never launched or joined any bands during that time. We did a Militiamen reunion show in 2012 and I began playing bass again. I jammed with NYC street metal act Vise Massacre for a couple years, but in 2015 I joined dark ambient outfit Theologian, which was my first foray into playing “experimental” music of any kind; using pedals, “found sound,” contact mics, and more in addition to bass, vocals, and things I was used to. I only played in the act for one year but during that time I basically branched into a billion directions, started recording my own music, playing new instruments, and so much more. I formed Gridfailure as my first solo project in February 2016 and released my first album in May of that year. Two weeks later a fallout left me no longer in Theologian and I simply took Gridfailure to my primary full-time act. In less than four years I’ve released nearly two-dozen albums, EPs, collaborations, and much more. I make my own videos, collaborate with tons of friends and excellent musicians from a wide range of genres, we pick up and play confrontational audiovisual improvisational live performances, I self-scored a horror short film, and much more.
2. Why the name Gridfailure?
Turn on the news and watch the ecological collapse of the entire planet due to human overconsumption. Look at the legions of climate science deniers who follow our current government into the ending of all limitations on pollution. Monitor the unprecedented amount of plastic suffocating our oceans, the record number of “five hundred year storms” that happen every year worldwide, the disturbing amount of deforestation and overbuilding, the division of our population against itself, the end of globalization, and the seemingly unhinged falling apart of society. Snapchat is commonplace, but science is ignored. Technology is exploding, humans are devolving, aggression is building, and our planet is reacting in self-defense. Racial divisions and hate crimes are boiling. We’re in a fucking worldwide pandemic, possibly on the verge of The Second Great Depression. This is all before we peel back the topical points and expose the inner stress, turmoil, and personal issues any human can endure. There’s a lot of duality to everything I write and record. I wrote ideas for songs that would become Gridfailure material in the eight-day blackout I lived through after Superstorm Sandy where our area was devastated. I record songs outside in live extreme storms. Why Gridfailure? Why not?
3. Over all the Full-Lengths, Collabs, Splits how do all the releases tie together?
Overall, they don’t necessarily connect as an encompassing or finite concept. Collaborative albums with other bands are generally a fifty/fifty split with influence, performance, writing, delivery, and so on, so both acts are equally represented in a new style or sound for both acts involved. I’ve just completed the second installment of my Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery album series, which is a concept series of five albums which are being released over several years amidst my other titles and collaborations with other acts. I also do a series of ambient albums usually released on Halloween called When The Lights Go Out and have some other conceptual or connected series’ ongoing or incoming. Sometimes albums have a theme; sometimes I have twenty collaborators on an album while some albums are performed by myself alone. Some recordings have tons of lyrics and vocal assaults, and some albums are fully instrumental. If it leaves the listener in some way paranoid, questioning, tensed-up, in fear, or ready to fight, cry, or go off the grid, my job is done.
4. In five words describe the sound of Gridfailure for someone about to dig in for the 1st time?
Paranoia. Downfall. Revenge. Repeat. I did it in four.
5. Gridfailure has become a live force now. Does it differ from the studio creations?
“Differ” is a light way of putting it. It’s nearly fully removed. I suppose over time the two are becoming a bit more synonymous in their harsh, improvisational, apocalyptic approach, but to date there has been ZERO planned Gridfailure live material. We have never played one song from any Gridfailure albums. Every live show to date has been fully unplanned. I create aura sounds, visuals, a few notes for folks ahead of a show, we usually kick a few ideas around and have a few signals set up, but overall, we the performers are just as unsuspecting of what we’re about to play as the audience. There is sort of a core trio lineup. Most shows feature drums – the early shows with Richard Muller (Vise Massacre, The Third Kind, Great Planes) and currently with Greg Meisenberg (A Fucking Elephant, OXX, Maid Myriad, Nefarious Industries label), accordion and effects from Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe), as well as myself where I’ve played bass, analog drum machine, powerelectronics, percussion, hand drums, and more in addition to vocals, and I also create the backing effects, live visuals/projections, and more. However, I’ve had lineups of one, two, and three other members, and have played a few shows by myself. I even met for the first time one live collaborator (Devon Ewy) about an hour before we played Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, not even sure he was doing until we set it up there. There will be more of a practiced, planned delivery of actual Gridfailure material coming up when things get back to where we can play live shows again (post-pandemic?), but I love the improvisational, chaotic, and confrontationally odd nature of how these shows go. Many of the Gridfailure live shows are playing in full here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRbk4oQvuhLgZmUZ1hyceog.
6. How do the Visuals and Aesthetics change the overall tone for the listener?
When we set up for a live show, in the dark, with disorienting high-contrast/high color projections, and we’re going in there totally improvised and fully confrontational with me running into the crowd or getting audience members to play hand drums or take part without notice, it usually adds a wild bent angle to a standard metal show. I’ve got a fully audiovisual album in the works with my bro Neil Barrett aka Pornohelmut where the entire thing will play as a fully immersive brainfuck.
7. You have been working with Nefarious Industries, a very interesting and left of center label. Would you call them a home away from home now for Gridfailure?
I have a steady working relationship with Nefarious as, through Earsplit, I’ve worked virtually everything the label has released since its inception over a decade ago. The guys who run it are both friends as well as folks I represent in my job, so it’s a very cross-bred, convoluted mess. And ass mentioned earlier, primary label honcho Greg Meisenberg plays on a lot of Gridfailure material and is a live member. Nefarious Industries is releasing the entire five Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery series albums, has released collaborative albums I’ve done with Megalophobe, Walking Bombs, Christian from Those Darn Gnomes (under the moniker Brenner & Molenaar), and will release other titles in the works. I’ll also be releasing material with Anti-Corporate Music and some other labels this year as well, and most of what I release is basically independent; no deals or blood contracts in place. But Nefarious just is home for me with or without Gridfailure and I respect and support everything the label is a part of so to me it’s just a perfect and obvious place to release music. The label is a virtual hotbed for entertainment; not a boring record to be found, and you almost never know what you’re going to get until it gets you. I am beyond honored to have some of my madness listed next to the likes of El Drugstore, Bangladeafy, A Fucking Elephant, Zvi, Titan To Tachyons, Maid Myriad, Nequient, OXX, Zevious, Those Darn Gnomes, Ricarda Cometa, and such an array of talented, creative, open-minded artists.
8. DIY or Labels in 2020 are Labels really needed or just good PR, Social media and Distro the need today?
It depends on the band; there’s no way of defining that without hours of dissection. Bands who are self-motivated and make the proper choices for themselves have been proven themselves to be more a formidable threat without label help, but bands who sign with certain labels can automatically be inducted into a built-in flow of listeners. I work with hundreds of bands from around the globe with Earsplit; everything from demo/brand new acts up to internationally established foundational bands who have played for decades and defined genres. But with Gridfailure, I lose money every time I tap into this beast. For each title I release, I usually get a few very cool reviews, perhaps a couple track premieres, get an interview or two. I’ll sell a few copies digitally and a few tapes or discs if I make them. But I simply create and release material too quickly for any of it to be heavily cultivated, not to mention that the material is too outre or abrasive for most folks to begin with. Different strokes for different folks. I just like to create and release and go and get on to the next thing; there are no Billboard charts or impressive sales reports coming in from this bleak entity.
9. You have worked with many folks so far; what has been the most fulfilling collab and which has been the biggest struggle so far?
I guess the “most difficult” so far has been the ongoing creation I am doing with Pornohelmut only because we’ve been dragging it out over so long and we’ve revamped even the initial tracks a hundred times and have yet to get the full album sorted to be fully envisioned. Not to mention the fact that we’re doing a collab with two solo audiovisual artists and the entire thing will be created to a video of itself. He’s in North Texas; I’m out here a few miles north of NYC. Neil is a ridiculously talented and creative percussionist and the music and vocals I need to deploy on this thing are mammoth. Now that I’ve cleared a few of these other records and projects, I am making this album one of my primary objectives for the next few months, and I know it will be one of the most rewarding, because it’s going to be one of the most explosive and wildest things I’ve ever touched. But my “most fulfilling” is a difficult question, since I am incredibly thankful, honored, and lifelong-attached to every human who has shown Gridfailure the faintest sense of attention, let alone put themselves out there to take part in my experiment. Every contribution means the world to me. I am not spiritual in any sense of the word, and I’m not a huge “people person” all the time. But the folks who have taken part in this thing are all lovely humans who will be spared in the end. I especially love my live collaborators, since it’s truly ballsy for anybody to just walk on stage with somebody and “go” without planning it. The only “struggles” are lack of time and money; and that’s the case for every fucking creative person on the planet.
10. You have made several videos for tracks from Gridfailure which one are you most proud of and why?
I’ve been trying to represent at least one track from most primary records with videos, but once I’m done making and releasing a record, I am pretty tired of hearing it (to quote my steady collaborator Christian, “It’s like drinking your own spit”) over and over, I’m generally on to the next record instead of spending tons of time on more videos for the new album. My “proud” videos are the live videos, where my bros came out to play a fucking crazy unplanned live gig and we had fun and the whole thing sounds insane. However, I really like making creepy, spiraling videos in the woods and back-alleys and random places, where a visual aura is created to the song, rather than a performed skit/storyline. The videos I’ve been making for the Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery series have been really intense and I like those, the videos for the Tasukete collab album I did with Megalophobe came out really cool. But I think my favorite making of a video was the “Internalizing” video when I just jumped the fence to the train tracks in a snow squall with my Fender acoustic. https://youtu.be/ay_uNl_lEMQ
11. Has there been times running Earsplit PR with your wife become a blessing or curse with Gridfailure? How do you separate the two and make sure your mind is at the needed issue at hand?
My wife is an extreme music lifer as well; we run Earsplit from home. Do I get too loud? Of course. But I don’t play while she’s doing yoga, and I try to refrain from having the neighbors amass with pitchforks in the middle of the night until at least mid-week. Gridfailure takes place after work is sorted for the day. I work, record, and create everything I do from home, but if there is no work there is no pay; no pay equals no roof, equals no Gridfailure. If you were asking if deciding to, “do this underground music thing both your livelihood and hobby,” was a great idea, I’d answer, “Next question, please.”
12. What bands, projects or artists impressing you in the Death industrial, Noise or P.E. scene currently?
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Khost, Gnaw Their Tongues, Nekrasov, Gnaw, Melek-Tha, Wolfskin, Kollaps. Just as outre but not quite in the realms of the genres defined in your question, T.O.M.B., Cutworm, Ak’chamel. Dwid from Integrity has been heavily active with Psywarfare again in recent years. Full Of Hell brings the Merzbow/Psywarfare attack to grinding hardcore extremes hitting new fans. I am always interested in hearing hostile, interesting, or noncompliant music in general.
13. What tools and instruments you use when creating Gridfailure?
Anything. Everything. My primary instrument is bass, my main thing is vocals, but with Gridfailure I also play electric and acoustic guitars, many styles of acoustic and electronic drums and percussion, keyboards and synthesizers, violin, harmonica, chains, powerelectronics, contact mics, immersion mics, field recordings, storms, wine bottles, incineration, mammals, wind… From whatever I can derive an aura or feeling and some sort of inspiration, I can create a song.
14. Are tracks just written or do you come with ideas of these going to be Collabs vs full solo releases?
Outside of lyrics, usually only a few notes about the song’s creation are written in advance. I usually come up with a lyrical idea or title, or simply a sound/unplanned recording, and a song will spiral forth from there. When working with a specific artist for a fifty/fifty collaborative album, usually each artist will instigate/initiate half of the tracks. It truly depends release-to-release even on my own albums.
15. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Blogs; are they the new tape trading of the late 80's and 90's?
Hmm…. Similar goal or result, perhaps, but tape trading was still a person-to-person transaction. Back in the day, tape trading was one person making a copy of their favorite/newest/craziest new album for a neighborhood friend and as soon as it was dubbed they would be then skateboard down the street to make the exchange, or you’d be packing it up in an envelope and mailing it around the globe only to wait for several weeks anticipating whatever that friend was mailing you. The trade was magical, even if that record sucked. Tape trading was more potent if one or both parties then disseminated or promoted said new music in a zine or on a radio show or even friend-to-friend in a mixtape. These days, the internet provides a thousand new levels of self-promotion; like tape-trading with anonymous folks perhaps. Instead of running off thirty copies of your new demo on TDK cassettes you picked up at CVS and giving them away just to make more next week, now you just give your demo away to an infinite possible number of fans in one instant. Instead of sending your tape to a label executive in the mail, you self-promote your own demo or record on your social media outlets. Digital mixtapes and artist-to-artist interaction/promotion and podcasts and livestreams are all new ways of promoting, but they’re just new ways of implementing the same tactics. Artists collaborating or promoting their friends’ acts and sharing their works to their fanbases is a new way of “passing that tape to a friend” but with a much higher caliber cannon. Either way, however technology shifts and evolves and no matter how humankind evolves/devolves/integrates their formats of communication, the goal is the same: getting your music to new ears.
16. Thanks for the time any closing thoughts here?
I’m thankful to anybody who has ever listened to Gridfailure, taken part in the project in any way, or who has tried to expose it to new audiences; coverage like this is gold to folks like myself and I thank you for the opportunity to spit some type out. I have a ton of new records on the way out this year, and I invite anybody who has a real yearning to try something new or wants to contribute to the project to reach out. However, the planet means more than any of our own insignificant projects or ideas. It’s the Great American Cleanup, and Earth Day is coming up. Plant a tree. If you document yourself planting a new tree and send it to me, I’ll give you my entire digital catalog.
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