Grief
Miserably Ever After (Pessimiser/Theologian)
An interview with guitarist Terry Savastano
by Scott Hefflon
The band inaccurately known as Boston’s Grief release nine new songs, 58 miserable fucking minutes, packed with feedback-filled sludge and screams of self-hatred. Grief has been welcomed on the Boston pop music scene like a leprous distant relative, and that’s just fine by them. Shambling like a disowned monster, Miserably Ever After is reputed to have more “upbeat” parts and harmonies, but the end result is still about as fun as being pumped on downers at a slow-moving funeral while the dark sky bleeds acid rain.
Boston treats you like an embarrassing canker sore, when’s the last time you played in the city?
We played The Middle East about four or five months back and it was disastrous. We used to play Boston quite a bit, it just comes in waves. Sometimes we’ll play there for a year and a half, but then we won’t play there for three years. It’s the same as when we were in Disrupt. Same fuckin’ thing. The new CD came out, and we’re mostly concentrating on getting our new line-up together. We’ll be gigging sometime after that.
Who was the show at The Middle East with?
I can’t remember. It was one of those nights. I don’t know if Nightstick played with us or not. It’s pretty foggy, a drunken holocaust.
You have a new line-up?
Yeah, the drummer Rick split a few months back, and we tried out a few people but they didn’t fit at all. They were a bunch of goons, fuckin’ disastrous, a bunch of ’80s metal kids. They couldn’t grasp what we’re doing whatsoever. Randy, the bassist, who was originally a drummer, moved back to drums and our friend Eric, who does all our artwork, is now our bassist. Randy is an awesome drummer and Eric can play guitar, bass, and sing, but he’s never pursued anything seriously until now. He’s doing fuckin’ great, he’s already learned a shitload of songs. He did the covers for Come To Grief and the new one, as well as all the split 7″ we put out in between, so he’s always been involved in the band.
How do the new members affect the sound?
Randy uses a lot more fills and is just a more interesting drummer than Rick was. He beats the shit out of his drums, too. And the guitar work has more harmonies and intricate runs, though I hate to use that word. We’re not technical prog rock. It’s more like Trouble, Mercyful Fate, or Judas Priest, but still really slow. We just have more guitar harmony. We use a couple fast parts, and generally are evolving.
When did Grief start?
We grew out of Disrupt in ’90 or ’91. Dates like that used to be really important to me, but now I forget. It all blends together.
When you say fast parts, what do you mean?
Fast to us is entirely different than fast to most bands. Fast for Grief is dead slow. It’s still snail-paced extremely heavy music. I hate the terminology some people use, “bludgeoningly slow grinding music.”
Just for reference points, who else does or has done similar stuff to Grief?
Winter, from New York, definitely. They’re a major influence on us. Off the top of my head, I’d say Eyehategod, Buzz•oven, Cavity, from Florida, and St. Vitus. Trouble and Candlemass take the more technical route, but I like it all. Hopefully we don’t sound like anyone, but I’m sure we do.
Indie rock has a valium-popping sub-genre, really droning, and Grief is like an abrasive, nightmarish version of that.
I heard Otis from Boston, very tuned down and heavy, it’s just much more accessible than us.
Grief really doesn’t fit into any of the Boston rock movements. Definitely not power pop, nor the up and coming noise rock, nor the punk or hardcore scenes accept you.
We’re totally uncool to a lot of people. We’re really separated from all the clichés and cliques, and I love it that way. I don’t want to have anything do with them, and they don’t want to have anything to do with us. People hate us like they did Post Mortem. We have a notorious reputation for having fights at our shows, or things getting broken, or Jeff drinking too much and falling off the stage while playing, or whatever. That’s just the kind of band we are. And the people who listen to us, that’s the kind of people they are. It just works.
Isn’t it hard to build a fan base when you have to travel a lot to reach the few and far between?
We have to travel four hours to New York to play in front of people who like us. Rhode Island doesn’t like us, but they’re weird anyway, and Connecticut is practically non-existent. We go down south to Virginia and North Carolina and we do great. We have a great audience, we get hotel rooms, we get fucked up, we get free grass, it’s a good time. We drove 11 hours to get to Pensacola, Florida and got busted in Dade County, where Jim Morrison pulled his dick out. My van was all weighed down from the amps, and they thought it was loaded with grass so they pulled us over. We had to dump out our weed and break our bong on the side of the road, and then there was almost no one at the little rat hole in Pensacola anyway. It sucked. Minneapolis was probably the best show we ever played, but New York is our favorite.
Why the jump from Century Media to Pessimiser/Theologian?
Century Media dropped us, which is fine, because people were calling me because they couldn’t get our shit. Century is a major independent, but Chris (at Theologian) is very thorough. I see it everywhere and people call me or write me saying they got it. It’s a small label, but it’s got a very loyal following.
Any last words?
With tongue firmly planted in cheek, people in Boston may hate us, but that’s fine, because we hate them too.
