Ελληνικά
Shortly before their upcoming show in Athens, mighty Grails, who need no introductions, had a talk with Metal Invader about… well, everything! Curious to find out? Go on, then!
Hello! We are very excited to have you on Metal Invader and I personally because my first interview is with you. I suppose you’ve been very busy lately…
Your European tour starts with the Athenian crowd, after 8 years of absence. How do you feel about this? What do you expect from the thirsty Athenian crowd and what should we expect from you?
Yeah, we’re super excited to come back to Athens. To give some perspective – we just played our home town of Portland for the 2nd time in 8 years, so I guess Athens isn’t so far behind.
Your latest album is called “Chalice Hymnal”, can you unfold the story behind the album title?
“Chalice Hymnal” was the title of the hymn book at Emil’s grandmother’s church in rural Georgia (USA). It just seemed a good fit with the lush spiritual vibe of the music.
How easy or difficult is it to compose a new album after years of inactivity? What has been the stimulus for that to happen?
A few years ago, we had reached a point where the band seemed to be over. We had all become very busy with other musical projects and there were some strained interpersonal relationships within the band. But after some time away, we realized that we didn’t know how to actually stop doing the band, it had become such a central part of our lives. So we made some adjustments and decided to make another record. Once all of that had been done, the music came together quite easily.
Tell us, what is the band’s next step?
We’re planning to meet at the end of the summer at Emil’s family property in the backwoods of Georgia to write the next Grails record. There are a lot of ideas bouncing around right now, so we’re very excited to see what happens.
We’d like to know about the process of composing and recording, especially when your members reside in different places.
We’ve been living in separate cities for a long time now, so it’s become the normal way of working. It’s just a lot of sending tracks and sessions back and forth online. Typically, Emil will record drums in a proper studio setting and then the rest is recorded and mixed in our home studios.
Name your favorite release so far and tell us what makes it so special for you.
It’s very clichéd of course to say that your favorite release is the latest one, but that’s the answer. It seems that the longer the band exists, the more it becomes itself. From an anthropological perspective… cultures and languages develop and flourish when a group of individuals isolate themselves in some manner from the rest of the world and are forced to look within and amongst themselves to find the tools they need to communicate. So.. the language we’ve created is just further along in its evolution now than it was at the time of the last record.
If your band decided to change its artistic direction completely, what would you work on and what do you think it would sound like?
Well… we already did that, actually. We started another band called Lilacs & Champagne about 5 or 6 years ago. It was started to be a sort of psychedelic hip-hop/sample-based project, but it’s often merged naturally back into a Grails-sounding thing.
If you could describe the band in five words…what would those be?
Love-making music for agoraphobes
Let’s get a little personal. Tell me, what is your everyday life like? Being in a band and touring definitely has its ups and its downs.
Touring is something we do because we enjoy it, but also to keep a balance of tension and release. If we don’t get out on the road and play music and blow off some steam, then we’re just working endlessly in our little windowless caves all of the time. Each activity is equally important and feeds the other.
Are you a political person? I can think of a couple of song titles right now that include the word politics. I believe that whatever we do in our everyday life is really a political act. Do you agree with the concept?
Sure, I agree with that. The concept of “personal is political” was originally associated with the feminist movement of the 60’s, but today seems widely applicable. Just living and thinking freely feels like a direct act of rebellion in our modern dystopia of digital monoculture and misinformation.
The epilogue is yours, send a message to your Greek fans! I thank you for this interview and we’ll talk soon face to face this time…hopefully, in your gig in Athens.
Thank YOU! Looking forward very much to the gig and to see Athens again. Hope to see you there!!
