Kitsch Magik Interview with GRVD

GRVD is a blackened noise project from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was able to chat it up with GRVD about a few things and to pick his brain a little bit.

You can check out GRVD in the link below

https://grvd.bandcamp.com/

Kitsch Magik: What got you into noise and what are some of your projects influences.

GRVD: I got into noise around 2012, but I had always been curious about the genre. I remember fucking around on my Yamaha keyboard when I was around 10, and I found the "sound effects" settings, and I'd just make these soundscapes and weird sounds for hours. I remember being 10 years old and hearing Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and really be into the ambient portions of that track. I think that was in a way a gateway into non-conventional music for myself. I had played in punk and hardcore bands in High School, but in all of those bands I felt kind of unsatisfied with what we were doing. I felt like there was too much control over the music, and I wanted things to be going into a more experimental, chaotic direction. I wanted the bands to be much more of an "experience" than a standard hardcore band you'd see at a bar. The last band I was in broke up in 2015, but I had started noise as GRVD in 2013. As GRVD started getting a little bit of traction, I started caring about that project infinitely more than the bands I was in. I got into noise because it gave me complete creative control over what I was doing, and I loved that. I can admittedly be a control-freak, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Noise gives me the complete power to express myself and make exactly the albums I want to. As for influences for GRVD, I'd have to say IRM, The Rita, Prurient's older material, Grunt, Atrax Morgue, Darkthrone, Gnaw Their Tongues, Infirmary, Nahvalr, Giles Corey, Genocide Organ, Swallowing Bile, and Waves Crashing Piano Chords, Xasthur, Xiu Xiu  .

Kitsch Magik: That's a great backstory and a list of influences. I know some people when they play live have a out of body experience. How do you feel when you play live. Is it an emotional experience? Do you try to create what you do on your albums? Or is it more on the unpredictable side of things?

GRVD: I haven't performed live very often. Over the course of the 4 years I've been doing GRVD I've only done 7 shows. When I do play live, I'm really only concerned with what's happening in that moment. My main concern is dropping all inhibitions and just doing what comes naturally. I'm a big proponent in going with your gut instinct. If I meticulously planned out every performance I'd feel like I'm putting on some kind of insincere act, and that's pretty shitty and annoying to see. When I perform, it's just about me getting out all of those feelings of anger or depression. If I end up beating myself to a pulp and busting my head open with a microphone, that's just how I was feeling in the moment. If I just relax and perform calmly, that's how I felt. The performance always depends on what I'm feeling in that moment. It's all about sincerity and feeling for me. As for trying to re-create the albums or what I do on those, I have no interest in doing that. If someone wants to hear those albums, they should just listen to those. Every album I make is meticulously crafted, and I take as much time as necessary to make sure they're absolutely how I want them to be. That doesn't apply to my live show, I don't care if those are trainwrecks, I just want them to be sincere expressions if that makes sense.

Kitsch Magik:  I know that some people love what equipment people use in live setting. What are some of the stuff that you use live? Also I think this is a question that I always bring up!!! What do you think noise will sounds like in ten years. Also if you had to have one wrestler come out to your stuff what wrestler would that be? And who would your tag partner be!!!!!!!

GRVD: I'm not much of a gearhead and my setup is super minimal, and I know absolutely nothing about wrestling lol.

GRVD: As for the how noise will sound in 10 years, I think noise is a static (no pun intended) genre. Like hardcore or black metal, it kind of revolves around the purity of the genre blueprints. Experimentation happens, sure, but noise is very much so a monolithic genre, which I think is both good and bad (but mostly good). If it's not broke don't fix it, and unless you really want to bring something new to the table and sincerely make something outside of the mold, trying too hard to be "different" really backfires, especially in a genre like noise. I mean, in most GRVD releases there are ambient elements and even really melodic elements at times, but I'm not trying to "change" noise. I just want to do what I want. That's really all I'm interested in when it comes to creative outlets.

Kitsch Magik: How do you come up with the artwork of the releases? Do you find images online? Draw them out? The artwork really speaks to what your about I feel like! I might be wrong!

GRVD: For artwork it's changed a lot over time. Initially I wanted to have people design artwork and I'd pay them or whatever, but the few times I tried this it was a complete failure. Not because they provided bad work, but because I really have an image in my head of what I want, and there's a visual aesthetic tied to the images that I take really seriously, that it's basically impossible for someone else to design something that is exactly what I'm imagining. For the first release I ever did. "The Ides of Romance I-IV", the image was taken from a photograph I found in Ann Arbor. I still don't really know the backstory of the image, but I took a picture of it and uploaded it on bandcamp. The image was just of this figure sitting on a box of PBR in a basement, and it was so simple and bleak I connected to it instantly. There's nothing I love more than just striking images. As I've continued on the artwork is found in various places; books, magazines, online sources, weird blogs I stumble across, whatever. How I find the image I think is secondary to how it is augmented and implemented to accompany the noise and the music on the release. I always whip up artwork first and then record based around the aesthetic and atmosphere that image gives off. With one of my most recent releases "Burden", I designed that artwork and whenever I'd record I'd have that image pulled up, and I think it was a huge influence on why that album is more "epic" in scale. I've encountered criticism for using images from outside sources, and I think that criticism is bullshit honestly. As long as it is transformative and augmented, I see nothing wrong with it. I don't claim to be a graphic designer or visual artists, I merely find images and textures, combine and transform what I want into a new image, and accompany noise to it. If someone has a problem with that, then their opinions on art and the functions of art aren't something I'm concerned with or respect. Those people are probably boring and draconian and are probably more concerned with reading the next Lena Dunham memoir.

Kitsch Magik:  What’s in the future for GRVD? any talks on doing a tour someday?

GRVD: Doing a tour has always been a dream, and if I was ever financially able to do a 2 week+ tour, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Until then I'll just keep churning out releases and doing my own thing.

Kitsch Magik:  any last words?

GRVD: Shout out to Contraktor, Bullshit Market, Frataxin, Methlab Explosion, Hypnic Jerk, WCPC, Farting Corpse, Crustgirls, Alocasia Garden, Pory from NOG Records, Paraplegic Erection, Cory Strand, Burial Weavings and all the other sick noise projects and homies out there. Much love to you all. Thanks a lot for interviewing me, and if you have the free time to watch any film directed by Xavier Dolan, I recommend you do it now.