Grave Maker – Jon McRae, Wayne Kong
Posted on October 28, 2008 at 5:30 pm by Luke
During the last leg of the Through The Noise Tour, I caught up with Jon and Wayne from Vancouver’s hardcore act Grave Maker in London, Ontario. They were stoked to be playing with such a good lineup and were more than willing to talk about the West Coast music scene, the unfortunate happenings of the past two weeks, and of course, their love for Paramore…
WayTooLoud!: So who are you guys and what do you do in the band?
Wayne Kong: My name is Wayne and I play drums in Grave Maker.
Jon McRae: It’s Jon and I sing for Grave Maker.
WTL!: What got you guys started in music?
Wayne: I grew up skateboarding, I was skateboarding early and I’m sure my age group and demographic will all say that a big portion of us picked up those Punk-O-Rama compilations and I would jam those things all the way from 1 to 5. I would listen to all the tracks then eventually I’d start to just pick stuff out, I was so stoked on Face To Face and Millencolin, then Good Riddance and Straight Faced, kind of the harder bands of that genre led me to go to a Good Riddance show and I saw Champion and local hardcore bands opening for them and it kind of just opened a new door to lead me into this genre.
Jon: I started playing in my first band when I was in grade 12 in high school, started getting out of trouble and tried to start being a better fucking kid! I started playing drums for some band back home in a small, small little town, doing shows and bringing hardcore bands through. Then as soon as I struggled my way through high school, the day I graduated I moved to the city and played drums and started touring right away. I’d play drums and roadie, anything I could do to be away from home, to be on the road. It’s been awesome! I’ve tried to be away from working the 9 to 5 for as long as I can!
WTL!: Most people start getting into the scene in grade 9 or 10.
Jon: Well, I moved out of home when I was really young so one of the first hardcore bands I saw was in ’98, Trial, then in ’99 was Bane when they were on tour with Grade on their Canadian tour. That’s when I first met those dudes, I would’ve been like 13 years old and those dudes crashed in our basement! First time I ever heard about ‘straight edge’ and ‘vegan’ and I didn’t understand any of it! Then I got into punk rock and disappeared for a couple of years then I came back and started playing hardcore on my own. Traveling and touring!
I was definitely into doom metal and grindcore stuff when I was younger, I’m definitely not close-minded when it comes to aggressive music… and Paramore obviously, gets me through for fuckin’ day! (Laughs)
WTL!: From the start you guys were very focused, and successful, on doing-it-yourself, do you feel the DIY lifestyle is still relevant after being signed?
Wayne: Oh yeah! We’re signed to a DIY label, we’re signed to a label run by a hardcore kid who’s on this tour with his band! It’s awesome, we’re sharing the same bus, crashing on the same floor with the guy who’s nice enough and to have faith in us to put out our record! It’s really cool to be able to see all of the labels still putting out hardcore records, a lot of them are DIY, it’s kind of a long way to break out of DIY at this point.
Jon: It’s cool, Think Fast! [Records] and everything he said, and same with Smallman [Records], hearing the history of the label, I heard the dude fuckin’ started it because he didn’t want to be part of the big corporations, so he started his own label so he could release his own band and punk rock record, thought that was super awesome! When we got on Smallman I was super psyched to be part of that DIY label!
WTL!: You guys are Canadian right?
Jon: I’m Canadian, he’s American.
WTL!: Vancouver and Seattle?
Jon: Yeah, fairly close so… (Laughs) These dudes stay in Vancouver with us, we’re a Vancouver hardcore band! A Canadian hardcore band!
WTL!: It seems like in Seattle all the underground music is connected in some way, which is what we’ve heard from bands like Himsa and Book of Black Earth.
Wayne: Especially with Himsa, I mean talking about hardcore and metal, there’s a huge connection there, especially all their earlier stuff.
Jon: The dude who sings in Himsa used to sing in a hardcore band back in the day, Undertow, and he works in a venue there and goes to our shows. Met a couple of the dudes in Book of Black Earth too, it’s a good family there. It’s not a humungous scene so everyone’s connected and everyone knows each other, the metal kids come to the hardcore shows and vice versa. Seattle has a couple cool venues, it’s sweet! But they’re much older then we are and they hang with other people, but I see some dudes kickin’ at shows too. Metal dudes, hardcore dudes, punk dudes, skinhead dudes, they all hang out
WTL!: You mentioned straight edge earlier, are you guys?
Jon: We’re three for four, three of us are, but it’s a personal thing, our bass player [Jason Bailey] isn’t and we love him as much as all the rest of us!
Wayne: I’d be bummed, nobody to party with or hang out with!
(Laughs)
WTL!: What prompted you into the straight edge lifestyle?
Jon: Well earlier I mentioned I disappeared for a couple of years and got into drugs as a kid, to make it short. Fuckin’ disappeared and dropped out of school, I got kicked out of school and got into a lot of trouble and then I found my way back to my roots. The kids that got me into hardcore in like ’98 and ’99, those dudes took me back with open arms, then I found a crew of kids that were straight edge to keep me away from the dudes that were getting me into trouble, then I stuck with it and started going to shows, playing music and tried to stay clean! It’s been about six years now, just had six years in September. But it’s a total personal choice, most people don’t even know that I’m straight edge ‘cuz I don’t talk about it, just my own thing.
WTL!: “Bury Me At Sea” came out in the summer, what have you guys accomplished since then?
Jon: Accomplishments for me would be playing with Hatebreed in July! Since the records come out we did one short two-week tour down the west coast of California. Then Wayne, in his other band, went on tour with the Poverty Bay Saints from Seattle for six weeks then we started up again and we’ve been on tour since like September 12, I guess. We did three weeks in the U.S., eight days down in Mexico then toured back up and met up with this [Through The Noise] tour, doing across Canada. It’s like the first kind of big tour, three and a half months right now.
Wayne: This is definitely a bigger tour, we’ve just been touring non-stop. The record came out halfway through and it’s just awesome!
Jon: We’ve done five and a half months and we left in January, we took one break in L.A. to record our record, we did all that on a three-song demo, fuckin’ crazy! We did central America, we did Mexico, we did Canada and all through the U.S. and our record came out in July… it’s been a fuckin’ hectic year, it’s been awesome!
WTL!: That’s how new bands usually are, busy.
Jon: We’re really lucky that we got four best friends in this band that are willing to drop everything in their life.
Wayne: School, work, girlfriends, you know what I mean, everyone can just drop out of life and just go on tour, it’s playing a show everyday, we’re just gone.
Jon: It’s a struggle to be on tour for some bands for three or four weeks because someone misses their girlfriend or someone has to get back to work or go back to school or whatever. We’re really lucky!
Wayne: Most people have all these things tying them back home, we tried to cut the petty ties, the stuff in our lives that would deter us from doing this as full time as we’d like; jobs, girlfriends…
Jon: We’ve got each other!
(Laughs)
WTL!: Do you guys have any other day jobs, bands, other projects?
Wayne: I’m in another band called Poverty Bay Saints, a street punk band out of Seattle, we just put out a new 7-inch on Organized Crime Records, they’re also doing our 12-inch. Really psyched on that band, a lot of fun!
Jon: I honestly haven’t been able to work, worked a little bit in the summer time but this band has been our time, a seven days a week job. When we first started we were on our computers after shows just booking shows as we go along, doing all the shit that keeps us on the road.
WTL!: Do you find it easy to work yourself towards this, you feel so passionate that you have to go to your computer to work on it?
Jon: It’s always that we want to, it’s never a chore. It definitely gets stressful but never in a negative way.
Wayne: It’s never mundane work, you’re working to keep yourself having fun and doing what you want. It’s not like a job where you’re working for someone else’s goals, helping some boss put in a spreadsheet or something like that, you’re at the computer typing out all this work for yourself, trying to get yourself out there on the road, to be able to play every night and have the time of your life! It’s really redeemable!
WTL!: So, in a way, you are your own bosses?
Jon: Oh yeah!! It’s awesome!
WTL!: What’s the writing process like for Grave Maker?
Jon: “Bury Me At Sea” was probably the most rushed experience of my entire life! We started this band in… well long story short, we were all playing in separate bands in Seattle that weren’t doing anything so Brian [Kemsley - guitar] and Wayne were writing music and Brian was writing lyrics, half the lyrics I’ve written, Wayne pitched in. When we were recording this record we did pre-production in Sacramento and all of us were like “Shit, we got 11, 12 songs that need lyrics…” so we were all stressing writing. It’s awesome ‘cuz these are my best friends and my family so half the lyrics I’ve written, Brian has definitely written some and Wayne has written a little bit, between the three of us we got the record done!
As soon as we finished it, I already have in my blackberry and my laptop just pages of documents of lyrics and I can’t wait to record again! It’s going to be way more planned out and give ourselves way more time! We toured for a month and a half and our last show was at Showcase, Corona in Southern California, then the next day we were at the studio in L.A. for three and a half weeks, it was so rushed! Then as soon as we were done in L.A. the tour started again, we were out again, and we were listening to the mastered versions in Mexico City on a broken ass computer, trying to listen to the speakers, being like “Is this stuff gonna be the final product? We can’t even tell.”
Wayne: “Yeah sure, might as well!” (Laughs)
Jon “The deadline is now… okay fine, click yes!” So we’re so excited to record again!
Wayne: We put Jon on the spot and gave him like a week to learn how to sing before the demo.
Jon: I recorded the demo after singing in the band for two weeks and I was just a total nerd and talked to every singer I knew ‘cuz I knew a lot of hardcore bands and just took it all in, everyone was giving me advice, the first two months were hell! I’m still learning, I’m still a nerd and talking to singers all the time and this year I’ve definitely learned a lot.
WTL!: How did you manage to hook up with Andrew Neufeld and Rick Jimenez for guest vocals on the record?
Jon: We were in L.A. so our bands and our friends in This Is Hell were on tour, and my friend Rick Jimenez from This Is Hell did guest vocals and like a week later Comeback Kid was on tour and I’ve known Andrew for four or five years, they crashed on my floor and all that stuff, cooked for them, and I toured with them in Europe last November, roading and stuff, and I was like “Dude, you wanna sing on the record?” and he was totally down! He came in and laid down a huge vocal track.
WTL!: A lot of the lyrics on “Bury Me At Sea” talk about a personal despair, or even losing hope, is this from a bad experience?
Jon: I would say the lyrics on “Bury Me At Sea” are mostly, as far as Brian and I write, are mostly about not being accepted, the life we wanna live and touring and stuff and people giving us the cold shoulder, and personal struggle with addiction, which we’ve obviously overcome now but we still go back and write about it hoping that people can kind of connect with that and sing along with us. It’s a way to connect but in a positive way because we’re never negative on stage, we’re never pissed off, it’s a way to get it out. The lyrics may seem a little bit negative put they’re meant to be positive.
Wayne: It’s an outlet.
Jon: I want to keep all the lyrics written about real life experiences, I want kids to be able to relate with problems they’ve been through and struggles and shit.
WTL!: Where did the title “Bury Me At Sea” come from?
Wayne: We were trying to figure out names and I’m kind of a nerd about sailing and we just started throwing around these metaphors ‘cuz we were so psyched to get out on tour, feeling our band is like a ship and being out to sea is like being on tour and being away from our friends and our family and meeting people all over but being out of your element and always being on the water and facing whatever comes your way. That’s what we always wanted to do as hard as we can and as long as we can so we kind of came up with, let’s head out there and just do it until we can’t do it anymore! Bury us at sea!
Jon: When we were recording the record we had such a huge year ahead of us, [thinking] this is the record we’re going to be touring on so it was so fitting. Bury me at sea… bury me on tour, that’s where we’re gonna die! That’s how we felt ‘cuz tour dates were so long and all these plans that we want to do so it just seemed very fitting.
Wayne: Set sail with no desire to land with our ship.
WTL!: So the van, I have to ask!
(Laughs)
Jon: Ask away man, ask away! So far we haven’t been buried at sea but we were almost buried at the side of a fuckin’ mountain in Revelstoke, B.C.!
Wayne: This tour is just way too good to be true, some shit’s gonna happen! The worst two things a band could possibly go through, completely crash and wreck your van in a horribly violent accident and loose everything you have, and then later another band get everything they own stolen, all their gear, everything! With half our merch in it!
Jon: We lost thousands of dollars worth of hospital bills in that accident, fuckin’ van and trailer and everything, and all we had left was our merch, which we put in Comeback Kid’s trailer, [which was just stolen]! We definitely thought about quitting, it definitely crossed our minds when we were in the hospital hooked up to IV’s with broken bones and stuff but we were like “man… we can’t let our friends down!” and this is what we want to do so I took a couple days off and the bass player for Comeback Kid and the singer for Shai Hulud filled in for me. I went in the hospital and just relaxed, I stayed in the bed for five days, my ribs were all busted, my elbows and knees, split my head open. These dudes got it just as bad as I did, except they kept going on tour and kept playing every night with people filling in for me. Then I flew to Ottawa and I’ve been on tour since the Ottawa date.
Wayne: It was crazy man, just crazy! Brand new van and trailer! Had it for four days, not even I don’t think.
Jon: We worked so hard to get up to that… but we’re alive man! Just saying that on stage, all the pain and misery and shit that’s come from that accident, the one thing I can be thankful for is we’re still alive! Still here with all my friends that came out tonight to see us, definitely makes it easier to get over it, over the pain. Still got a lot of pain killers!
WTL!: Still hurts?
Jon: Yeah, I blew out my left eardrum and smashed out the side window with my head, two-inch gash which blew my left eardrum.
WTL!: Can you still hear out of that ear?
Jon: No man, I got no balance! I have to ask our bass player [Jason Bailey] if he can hear me. I have no balance, totally messed! Then my rib cage, thrown around I thought I broke all my ribs in the accident, bunch of muscle damage in my elbows, my shoulders all jacked.
Wayne: I’ve got scars all over my face and hands.
Jon: [Wayne] flew out the side window on the first or second roll, he was about 20 feet from the road, we were about 75 feet from the road. He flew out in a sleeping bag, he was asleep.
Wayne: I barely remember, went head first, straight superman out there.
Jon: He has five stitches in his chin and his whole face was all bloody and gross and our friend Matt was caught under the van for an hour and they wouldn’t let us move the van ‘cuz it was on his stomach, thought he had internal bleeding, and the fire guys picked up the van and his leg was [to his chin], broke his leg instead of all his ribs.
Wayne: Got so lucky, can’t even imagine!
WTL!: Is your ear going to get fixed or will that be permanent?
Jon: They said six to eight weeks and it should heal by itself, hopefully! But it’s hard ‘cuz I’m playing every night and I have to wear this ear plug when I shower and I always forget, so there’s this fluid in there, it’s always weird inside my head, people think I’m drunk but I don’t drink, they think I’m drunk ‘cuz I’ll be sitting down and I’ll get up and start walking and I’ll be teeter-tottering and fall over on someone and have to apologize. (Laughs)
WTL!: Wow, your balance might be of for a long time!
Jon: Yeah I know and I hate it! I look like an idiot!
(Laughs)
Jon: Was that glass?!
This is the moment during the interview when we heard glass shatter from outside my car, where we were having our chat. Long story short, we stepped outside the car only to find some kids who broke into, so they say, they’re own van with a wooden drawer through the driver side window.
Back inside the car…
WTL!: It seems like many bands are drawn to the Blasting Room, how has the Blasting Room helped with your debut record?
Wayne: They mastered our record for us and I think they did an amazing job, I’m so juiced on how the drums sound and everything! We’re really lucky. It was all Ryan and Larry at Think Fast! Records, they hooked it up for us.
Jon: It was really, really awesome doing that with Think Fast!, they helped us out a lot!
WTL!: So how did you get hooked up with Think Fast! Records?
Jon: Well you might have to ask Bailey about that one but we went into L.A. not knowing who we were going to sign with and possibly releasing it ourselves. We had a couple record labels that were looking at us, and as we were recording Ryan and Bailey were keeping contact a lot during the recording process and while we were on tour, emailing back and forth and he totally took a chance on us ‘cuz any band can say they’re gonna tour forever. So [Ryan] took a chance on us and it’s been awesome ever since!
WTL!: Tell me about the intense cover art and why did you choose Ryan Eyestone for the artwork?
Wayne: We choose Ryan, he did our 7-inch artwork as well and he’s just so awesome to work with, so fast and great communication. We all are huge fans of all of his art, he’s done stuff for a bunch of bands we’re all into and are really stoked on his art. We we’re really lucky that he was into us too and he helped us out a great deal. The cover art is kind of a take on one of our songs, “The Boatman”, an old sailor with two coins in his eyes and all kinds of sea stuff stuck in his beard.
Jon: The thing is with that Ryan Eyestone dude, it’s basically as I said that this is the most rushed thing I’ve ever been a part of in my entire life. We we’re like “Dude, we need the art in like two weeks!” and he dropped everything he had and kept contact with us and talked like every day about it and kept sending us sketches, it was super awesome to work with him! Highly recommend him!
WTL!: How do you guys keep yourselves entertained on the road?
Wayne: For the most part, none of us really entertained ourselves, we really entertain each other, bouncing off the walls, joking with each other. I don’t think any of us have the desire to have a TV in our van.
Jon: I barely listen to my iPod, so we just talk man, talk about life! We’re best friends, every city we play we meet up with friends, new friends we’ve met on tour or friends we’ve known forever, go out for dinner, play shows and meet new kids. Just hanging out, getting to know people, living life, learning!
Wayne: We just hang out with each other.
WTL!: Who would you like to tour with who’s feasible but not obvious?
Jon: I just want to tour with The Carrier from Boston, Massachusetts, and Shipwreck A.D. and some of my favorite bands who aren’t doing much right now, like Have Heart and Down To Nothing. I think Down To Nothing are busier then they were.
Wayne: Ceremony, I’d love to get Grave Maker hooked up with those dudes, those dudes are awesome, so much fun!
Jon: I have no desire to play with big bands at all, I’d love to just tour with hardcore bands. This tour is amazing, these shows to me are huge, we’re playing for a few hundred kids, [Toronto’s] Opera House, capacity of 800 people and tonight [at Call The Office], this is as big as it’ll probably ever get.
Wayne: Whiskey Rebels, Pressure Point and Polar Bear Club!
Jon: Polar Bear Club yeah! All the bands on this tour I’d tour with all again; Misery Signals, Comeback Kid, Bane, Outbreak, we all wanna do separate tours with all these bands again.
Wayne: I’d tour with every hardcore band out there!
(Laughs)
WTL!: What have you been listening to lately?
Wayne: Polar Bear Club, and I can’t stop listening to Wisdom In Chains. Pressure Point’s “Resist & Riot” record is a non-stop rotation for me.
Jon: Whiskey Rebels, every Blood for Blood record.
Wayne: That Kelly Clarkson “Breakaway” record’s pretty cool.
(Laughs)
Jon: What else, Death Cab For Cutie’s “Plans”, Explosions In The Sky. I turn into a huge wuss when I have my iPod by myself or when I’m driving. But I think that if we played a hardcore show every night and listened to nothing but hardcore it’d be overkill for me. It’s nice to enjoy all styles of metal and punk rock, street punk and wussy early music.
WTL!: Is there anywhere in the world you’d like to tour?
Jon: Yes, everywhere! If Bailey was in here he’d be naming weird ass countries like Antarctica and stuff, he does talk about it. Personally I’d love to tour through Southeast Asia and Japan hopefully, it might be in the future for us, we’re talking to people over there. I love Europe, I toured Western Europe last year and we get to do it for two months starting February 11, all Eastern and Western Europe. Get to go see Ireland for the first time!
Wayne: I’ve been to Ireland when I was younger but I can’t wait to go play there, Denmark and Ireland are pretty big on my list!
Jon: South America, I’d love to see Brazil and Argentina. I know the kids are pretty crazy down there, we did Central America but didn’t get to go any further south. Yeah pretty much everywhere we can, there’s hardcore kids everywhere it’s just a matter of being brave enough to venture into scary areas. Even Russia, everyone’s trying to tell us its scary and dangerous, we did Central America and people tried to scare us about not going down.
Wayne: We’re headed to Serbia, we’re really stoked! We’re trying to hook up Iceland and Greenland, I heard its gorgeous there, I’d definitely love to play there!
WTL!: Well that‘s all of my questions, thanks so much for this interview!
Jon: Yeah no worries man!
Wayne: Thanks!
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