GRAVE PLEASURES (03/10/15)

Line up change, new name and brand new album “Dreamcrash”: it’s more than obvious that Grave Pleasures is now reborn and more than ever ready to hit the stage at La Flèche d’Or, after a noticeable show at Hellfest festival this summer. For this special occasion, RockUrLife had the pleasure to talk with three members of the band, including the two masterminds, Mat “Kvohst” McNerney (vocal) and Linnéa Olsson (guitar).

Grave Pleasures name reminds of “Unknown Pleasures” by Joy Division, a band that is also similar to yours. Was it something intentional?

Mat “Kvohst” McNerney (vocals): No, not at all. The Joy Division’s reference is something that was around from the basement time. To be honest, I don’t own a Joy Division record and I’ve never really listen more than a few songs that I like. I feel like Joy Division as a band is like an omnipotent influence, it’s like if you’re a singer you would be lying if you say you were not influenced by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and so on, because it felted down into so much different music that now you’re just always influenced by them without even knowing.

Uno Bruniusson (drums): It feels pretty alien when I hear that reference. I like Joy Division, but I don’t hear it in our music, I hear more Alice Cooper. (laughs)

Linnéa Olsson (guitar): The name, we realized it after, “oh fuck yeah, “Unknown Pleasures” of course”.

M: Pleasure is a word that feels so good when connected to dark music. Use a word like this rub people of the wrong way. I think it’s cool.

U: Can you say “happiness” in French? (laughs)

Joie!

M: Joie Division!

Exactly, “la division de la joie” is Joy Division in French. Your strengh is that you all come from the metal scene without playing metal since Grave Pleasure is more into post punk and deathrock. Is it something you agree with?

U: I think all of us still continue to have metal in our music listening. We all listen to punk music for instance.

L: I think we were very ok about the fact that this isn’t a metal album. We could have made a metal album if we wanted to but there are elements of metal in the album.

M: It’s a rock band. There are many ways to hammer a nail into a hole. You can use a sledge-hammer or a small hammer but you gonna get the nail in there. When I was painting, I was learning this. If you use different colors within that black, you get a more true picture of black, so it means that heaviness and darkness don’t need to be done with just black. For me, when I’m on stage playing black metal, I have the same magic feeling inside as I do with this band, but you’re just using different tools to get the same.

L: We could have done this album in a certain way but I think we wanted to show darkness in an other way.

U: It’s now three weeks or something we are on tour and every night its mainly a metal audience.

So maybe we can say that metalheads are discovering post punk music through bands like Grave Pleasures?

M: Yeah it’s combination of that, but it’s also because we are living a time where people are opening up. Music scene is opening up a lot and the metal scene is so different from the one in the 90’s when I was getting into it. Nowadays, even the kids wearing patches, we know that they tastes are like massively more extensive than it was in the 90’s.

What symbolize the black box lost in the desert on the “Dreamcrash” artwork?

L: It’s a very poetic metaphor of something going wrong. And this box is containing all the reasons of why it’s gone wrong. When we were making the album, we were talking a lot about what was happening in our personal, creative and subconscious lives and the sort of concept of a crash, a massive failure, disaster and what is left after that came up. Matt found those pictures of black boxes and they were really emotionally charged. There are only boxes, but you look at them and they make you feel a little by noxious.

How did you know Jessica93?

L: We have friends who work with him and his label and booking agent. Again, we could have brought super metal band on tour, but we wanted to try something else and it’s really great! We all knew him before going on his tour and were the one who wanted to bring him on tour with us because we like him.

M: We didn’t know him in person, but he turned out to be a fantastic little creature.

How was Hellfest festival this summer?

M: It was a very special experience. It’s not every day we get the chance to play in front of a crowd of that size that was excited about us. It was surprising to get on stage and see so many people singing along on the songs, having a good and welcome reaction on the new material.

Let’s talk a bit about this special gig you had with King Dude in Germany. How the idea came up to play with him?

M: I think the idea came from Linnéa. She had the idea of putting the show together. I know the guy for a long time but never met him. We’ve been email buddies for a long time and I guess we talked about the idea of doing a show but I think it came into reality thanks to Linnéa.

L: The band has spent lot of time in Berlin rehearsing with us. So Berlin is a special place for us and that’s why we wanted to have a special gig there.

M: And it was a great evening, because if felt a little bit like anything could happen. It was perfect venue for it as well, in an old theatre. And King Dude is a bit of a livewire as well. Having him with us feels like it gave an other understanding of what we are doing.

Is it the kind of artist you could collaborate with?

M: I don’t know, because we did this album and it was a crazy time putting it together so I’m really excited about doing the next record.

U: I’m obviously not saying no that either, but first I would like to play more shows with him!

L: I think we all feel like we are only starting to get warmed up, so exploring what we can do on our own. And also collaborations have to come super naturally. If there’s a good friend in the studio, it doesn’t matter if its King Dude or if it’s my fucking neighbor, if it’s working out in a good way then it’s what you should do.

How was it to have Nergal (Behemoth) in the crowd? We are usually more used to see him on stage.

(laughs)

M: I see more him on pictures actually! (laughs)

U: I toured with him and had him in the crowd probably 50 times before or something like this. He is both a super supportive and down-to-earth guy. He is a great man.

Is it difficult to have three different nationalities in the band?

U: It’s super fun!

L: It’s fun indeed, also with the crew being from different nationalities and this band is made of different characters and its…

M: I personally hate it! I’m miserable.

(laughs)

That’s why you’re living in Finland? (laughs)

M: Oh fucking hell, can’t wait to get back to Britain! (laughs) I’m joking, I’m really joking.

U: On this tour, we have two French, one Italian, one Brit, two Swedes and three Finnish people. Or two Finnish people and one in between.

One in between? (laughs)

M: I think it’s great to get away from yourself and experience things through other people’s eyes. As an artist, it’s the most inspiring thing to be in the situation when you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you.

Are you somehow inspired by serial killers? (ed. “Fear Your Mind” lyrics)

L: That’s a very relevant question.

M: I’m much more interested by society’s reaction of those people. I started getting into that with my old band, reading that kind of stuff. I think it’s very scary because the more you read, the more you can relate to this people because you understand them as people. I think it’s much more interesting to look at the context. The song is more about the hysteria about serial killers than serial killers themselves. I used different names because I wasn’t focusing on one I was focusing on the idea of how you can get into that state. We are at a point now that they are so many shootings that people are starting to realize that it’s not the person’s problem, it’s what happening around.

U: It’s pretty relevant. The other day, there was this school shooting in Oregon and we saw on this website that, a few days before the shooting, he had uploaded to some torrents site some documentaries and one album… “Dreamcrash”. We don’t know what to do this information…

Anything coming up with Hexvessel (ed. Mat’s other project) in the future?

M: Yeah, we have an album coming in January.

What are the next plans after this big tour?

M: We have some more live plans, we are getting on another tour in January and there will be some other gigs in between, maybe in Japan.

L: And we will back in Paris on the 26th, January!

Our website is called “RockUrLife”. What rocks your life guys?

(ed. Man coming to say their dinner is now ready)

U: Food! (laughs)

M: Having a “pastis” in France.

L: Having beers with your friends.

M: I like traveling. This touring life is like a love/hate relationship but I couldn’t live without it!

U: Life is roc-king!

All: Thank you very much!

Website: gravepleasures.com