Early Graves - Chris Brock And Makh Daniels
Posted on August 28, 2008 at 5:56 pm by admin
Every now and then I get an album that’s a huge surprise. Not knowing anything about Early Graves when I threw in “We: The Guillotine”, I was completely blown away about how cool and crazy it was! With only a tiny little bit of digging, I found out a huge amount of cool things about them. Even with that, I still had to know more, so I fired off an e-mail to them, and got back some wonderful responses from guitarist Chris Brock and vocalist Makh Daniels. I still love that album, so if you’re looking for some crazy new thing, these dudes are it!
Way Too Loud: Lots of bands always like talking about their influences, and you’ve got yours posted on MySpace page for everyone to see, although I did notice that Rotten Sound was highlighted…
Chris Brock: I love Rotten Sound! I’ve probably played “Cycles” about 5 times a week in the van since that album came out. Its so fucking pissed and honest and the vocals are so fucking sick! “Cycles” and “Exit” have some grooves on there that are just nasty!
WTL: I swear I could hear some Morbid Angel in the song “Last Name Porter” pouring off. Can you hear the comparison yourself?
Chris: Funny that you say that, because when we were playing that portion of the song, we called it “Morbid Angle”, because it sounded like Morbid Angel and had that really angular riff at the end. Trey [Azagthoth] from Morbid Angel has been a huge influence on me as a guitar player for a long time. Every album that they come up with, his riffs are so crazy, have a ton of dissonance, speed and power in them. That dudes solos are outta control too, and the last song on our album called “City of Angels” has a solo on it that is very very very Trey influenced. I totally hear that comparison, although we’re definitely not a death metal band.
WTL: Can you tell me more about “Last Name Porter”? I know Steve Austin contributed some vocals and guitar lines to it. It’s one of my 2 favourite songs on the album!
Chris: “Last Name Porter” is actually part 3 of 3 songs. “First Name William”, “Rest”, and “Last Name Porter” are all one song. We have yet to play “Last Name Porter” live yet, or “Rest” for that matter, but someday I hope we can if we decide to get another guitar player. Steve sang on that song (he also played guitar on “Here There be Monsters”) and he basically read Makhs lyrics when we were in the studio and wrote some crazy shit on top of that riff. That riff was written with Steve in mind, because it’s a little weird, and not like anything else on the record, so I was really stoked to have him on it. He made that part really come to life in my opinion, and made it sound all fuckin’ evil! We were drinking really heavily during the recording process, so to hear what Steve was saying over one of our songs while we wasted of 10 dollar handles of whiskey was a trip!
WTL: How did the song “Here There Be Monsters” come about? And how did you get hooked up with Eugine Robison for guest vocals on that one? It was my other favourite song on the album!
Chris: That song started as a riff that our ex guitar player played at practice one day, then I started jamming over it, Dan [Sneddon, drums] started jamming over it, and then Tyler [Jenson, bass] jammed over it. We’d been listening to “Narcotic Story” quite a bit on the tours we did before recording the record, and Makh just e-mailed Eugene, and Eugene was down! We finished the record in Nashville and then Dan, our drummer, recorded him at our practice spot. Eugene was probably like, “Who the fuck are these creeps?”, but goddamn his vocals are fucking amazing on that song! And in general!
Makh: While he was recording his vocals in our practice space, Dan and I would look at each other all wide eyed and terrified and shit. It was hella funny cause we were like “What the fuck did we get ourselves into?!”, but the overall feel of his vocals definitely gave it a more eerie and emotional touch, especially with Steve Austin playing a ebow on the song. It just came together really well, and was so much of a departure from most of the record on a whole. I think it gave it a little breathing room which in turn is a good thing.
WTL: How does the writing process work?
Chris: For “We: The Guillotine” the writing process was basically me and Dan getting wasted off cheap whiskey and tall boys in San Francisco, and then hammering out riffs I would write and making demos to show the other dudes. Then Makh would write lyrics while probably drinking cheap whiskey and that was that. Its pretty simple for the most part: alcohol + riffs + alcohol + lyrics = Early Graves.
WTL: From the songs I heard from Apiary, they seemed to be pretty technical, but Early Graves comes off as much heavier, much more caustic, yet it seemed less technical, allowing the emotional power to pour off. Is that what you generally had in mind when making the transition from Apiary to Early Graves?
Chris: We aren’t anything to do with Apiary musically at all, other than we toured and played those songs for a while. Some of the dudes that were in Apiary originally are still good friends of mine, but that CD isn’t really us. I think Early Graves is just a totally different beast in general. Its faster, its more punk and grinding, the lyrics are coming from a very different place etc. When we made the transition, we were sitting in a parking lot playing a show at Thee Parkside with First Blood and All Shall Perish, and Trevor Phipps [Unearth vocalist, who runs the label Ironclad Recordings that the band is on] called and asked if we wanted to change our name. It was that simple. That night we literally flipped a coin while drinking some vodka tonics on either Early Graves or Hyenas (which is the name of a side project of ours with John from The Funeral Pyre). We were SO stoked to not have that name anymore because it wasn’t fair to us or the old Apiary to have that named attached to something So different, ya know?
WTL: How did the title of the second song come about? I’m hesitant to say the name due to a certain word… I did read about how it was related to vocalist Makh Daniels personal experiences as a minority.
Makh: The title was originally called “Sing me a Song Jim Crow” , which was a lyric from those blackface comedy shows they did in the 1800s. The more I worked on the lyrics and the more they developed I realized the title “House Nigger” was much more fitting. The song directly has to do with racism, covert and upfront. When I first started going on tour, I realized how truly racist and segregated most other parts of the United States really were. A real fucking eye opener on so many levels. The song is about experiencing it on those levels. On one level many minorities in punk, hardcore or metal (black/latino/gay/whatever) is seen more as some kind of fucking novelty rather than seen as genuinely being into it. On another level it’s about white privilege, racism in history, how it affects the present and how institutionalized racism has become to the point of no one noticing it anymore. I wanted to use that title specifically to throw people’s racism right back in their fucking faces. “Nigger” is a word that people use in private amongst themselves and it’s kinda like “Here. I’ll say it for you. I’ll scream it loud enough so you can hear it.”
WTL: How did the title of the album come about?
Makh: It just kinda came to me one day. I wanted an album title that would be representative of us as people, and I was having a tough time trying to get an album title that didn’t sound corny or pretentious. I just wanted it to get straight to the point without it being something like “Fast Music for Pissed off People”, or some crazy bullshit like “Smash Your Head With Rocks”. I was writing down some words and eventually “We: The Guillotine” just kinda popped out of nowhere. It was to the point, rolled off the tongue pretty good and it sounds kinda fucked up too! So we were down with it! (Laughs)
WTL: What was it like recording with Steve Austin?
Chris: I was extremely depressed the whole time I was there (which had nothing to do with him) and I was basically fucking miserable. I was drinking really heavily to try and not be so fucking bummed, and just try to get this album done. It was amazing to work with him though. That guy definitely got some things out of us that I don’t think we could’ve done without him. He drinks more Pepsi than humanly possible, his family is amazing, and he let us crash at his house for the 7 days we recorded and the 5 days we had to wait for our flight back. He probably thought we were the biggest drunks ever, but that dude is fucking amazing! Thanks again to him and his wonderful family for having us. Today Is The Day rules!
WTL: The production is very different from what Steve is know for - being one of the best at doing raw production. This time it seems quite different.
Chris: He recorded that fucker, Dan mixed it, then Zack Ohren mixed and mastered it. I think it sounds pretty raw and dirty, just the reason why we went to Steve. Converge, Burn The Priest, Deadguy, need I go on? The dude knows how to make a band like ours sound like we should. He’s amazing at what he does.
WTL: Who would you like to tour with? No rules here, anything goes!
Chris: Carcass, Shai Hulud, CURSED (if they were still a band) Slayer, Tragedy, Nirvana, Hank Williams 1 or 3, Rotten Sound, Deftones, Panic At The Disco (so there’s a bunch of hot chicks there), At The Gates, Morbid Angel, TRAP THEM, Nachtmystium.
WTL: Just in case this didn’t get covered in the last question, who would you like to tour with who’s both feasible, but not obvious.
Chris: The Funeral Pyre are a blast to tour with and they party ok, but their guitar player is so loud and obnoxious that sometimes you have to drink yourself stupid so you can be down to his level. The Oblige tours we have done were amazing. The Gaza dudes fucking rule. I’d love to go out with The_Network. That band is fucking awesome and intense as fuck live. The Handshake Murders are great dudes too. I just want to tour and tour and tour and play as much as we can. Anyone who is down, we are down!
WTL: Where in the world would you like to tour?
Chris: I want to go everywhere! I’d love to see Japan. I hear it’s crazy over there, and totally different than in the States. I’d love to see South America. I love seeing new places, and I just want to play anywhere that wants to hear 4 dudes playing their ass’ off and wanting to party with said assholes.
WTL: You probably haven’t been around long enough for people to bug you about your band name means, but are you preparing any good lies for it?
Chris: We have a good reason for our name. Early Graves means we’re going to die young. I wouldn’t doubt it! (Laughs)
Early Graves at MySpace
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