Michale Graves
Penetrating the Dharma
&
Exploring Truth
Michale Graves is a survivor. He helped resurrect the
Misfits and brought them to even greater fame after Danzig lost his groove.
Graves is a man of conscience and joined the Marines in the aftermath of 9-11,
only to be disheartened by the high level of violence and our government’s
pursuit of hegemony. Since the new millennium, Graves has pursued a type of
musical and spiritual enlightenment that includes speaking up against the
Orwellian messages that are imbedded in mainstream media. His new songs have an
element of political protest in the vein of Neil Young, Steve Earle and
Flogging Molly. He’s in good company. Graves War of Information tour is a
career retrospective with music and song that includes an affectionate tip of
the hat to his early breakthrough days with the Misfits as well as his iconic
solo excursions. Graves crafts musical textures like a kaleidoscope, creating
colorful patterns that reflect his love of life and his search for truth.
Michale Graves headlines the Back to School Punk Fest @
White’s Bar on Saturday August 11th. Doors open at Noon. Advance
tickets are $8 and are available @ White’s Bar or online @ etix.com
You are in the midst
of the War of Information Tour. It’s been on the road for a few weeks. How are
you being received?
It’s now routed to New Jersey. The fans have been very
receptive to the new band…a lot of good people, a lot of good friends.
Your tours seem to
have political/spiritual themes, you know. Some of the past tours were Almost
Home, illusions Live, Web of Dharma. Do you view your shows thematically and do
you try to give your fans a particular message on each one of these particular
themes, these shows?
I do. I believe that music is so powerful and it should have
some sort of message. It should be saying something. It needs to be filled with
something…. just so I have motivation and principles behind what I’m doing.
Since I was young I’ve always been chasing something. I’ve always had this
attitude to go out there and talk about life and about issues such as virtue
and integrity. I don’t believe in just going out for the sake of going out.
There are some people
who say politics and music make strange bedfellows, but you of remind me of the
integrity of artists like Flogging Molly, Steve Earle. They say it out loud.
Are you inspired by them? Do you feel that you all have important things to say?
Absolutely. There’s a problem in our country where
everybody’s sleeping. They just come home from work and they turn the TV on and
they’re hypnotized by Dancing with the Stars and worrying about their hair
falling out and how they can make their eyelashes longer. It’s all an illusion
created to distract us from the true nature of life and reality. I’m doing my best out here on this tour to
wake people up to the true nature of this country where we imprison so many -
we have more people in our prison system than any other country on the planet.
It’s an unhealthy
society for sure. You know do you think it’s risky for you personally to put
your views out there in such a bold way?
Yes, especially now that people are saying things like 9/11
was an inside job and talking about government corruption. I have people that
have certainly given me the rundown on it and have warned me and are looking
out for me because there is certainly a certain element of danger. In certain circles,
it is dangerous to talk about the causes of
9/11, people become angry and emotional, and I understand that. But
again, that’s the thing. When you take the emotions away from it and you apply
reasoning, you look at facts and try to see a clear picture.
I want to just touch
this briefly, and I don’t know if you want to talk about it, but I read that
you enlisted in the Marines. If that’s true, what prompted you to do that and
then what was it like for you?
It was the same thing that prompted me that prompted so many
other people after September 11th. We were angry. We wanted to go
after the enemy. I guess for me it was a lot of different reasons. I was under the
spell of fear. I come from a family that was trying to secure my future. I was
getting married and I wanted to have a family. It was tough to be part of the
music business and at the same time create a future for my family. I looked at
my military service and decided that I could not be a part of them because of what
our government was doing around the world. I didn’t want to be a killer in that
way. I didn’t want to do that anymore. There are many people my age that fought
in Afghanistan and Iraq and woke up and were angry that we were being lied to
in such a huge way. A lot of people my age in their 30s and 40s are very angry,
and that’s why you see such huge splits in the military for people like Ron
Paul. That’s why you see these veterans marching up and down the streets in our
cities because they’re aware and they know.
Yeah, and there’s a
lot of PTSD going around too.
There is a terrible epidemic of PTSD in the guys that are
coming back. You know in World War II the average soldier served maybe four or
five days of combat. These guys are going over there for combat tours for over
a year. It’s a terrible, terrible thing that’s happening.
I was listening to some of your You Tube
stuff. I was blown away. You’re really a great singer. I just didn’t know how
great you were until I took a deeper look. You have this great range of fine
timbre to your voice. Your version of the Dylan song, Positively 4th
Street, was the best cover song I’ve ever heard of Dylan’s. How do
you describe your vocal chops?
Oh, I don’t know… in the late ‘90s I studied with a really
great teacher in New York City…who taught me, again you really taught me how to
get hold of my voice and the mechanics behind it and how to take care of it and
how to get through when it’s tough. So again I was just blessed by God to have
natural talent and my parents always made sure that I recognized that talent
and did everything I could to continue to nurture it, so it was a lot of hard
work.
Is it okay to go to
the Misfits? I want to hit that just a little bit. It seems that you entrance
to the Misfits in ’95 really held a new dawn for the band, reenergized them it
seemed to me. You were ready to rock hard. What was it like for you as the
newcomer, the young upstart?
It was tough because I was the new guy and I was young. I
was 20 years old when we started to tour. I did it in a whirlwind of activity,
hyper-energized. It was very exciting obviously because I’ve always had these
rock and roll dreams and when I began to discover how important the Misfits are,
the music became even more exciting I it was like a history lesson. It was really a great challenge for me and it
was a very difficult - you know, how do
you continue something that’s so great. As a young man, I wanted make sure that
my contribution would always bring respect to that legacy. It was difficult
hanging out with all these other people, being introduced to a big world of
business and lots of money. It was very tumultuous. Again, my dreams have come
true, so…
What was your
greatest experience with them, with the Misfits?
Wow. I think my greatest experience was getting over to a
lot of people and touring overseas and seeing that the world. It was a much smaller
place than people realize and I was able to travel with that band and learn a
lot of things. I think the greatest experience I got out of that back then was
creating something that was timeless with those guys. We were trying to be
creative and I think and we hit it right on the head. There were lots of good times
we had. It was all about being creative and working and putting something
really wonderful and beautiful together.
You’re really a great
song writer and you take chances and you create lyrics that sometimes are …
Sometimes Beautiful and Best of Me or Angry and Radio Deadly. How do you
describe your lyrics or the creative processing in developing your lyrics?
Again, I’m just a regular man, like everybody else. I
experience life and take things in. There is this constant longing, this ache
inside of me to then regurgitate it back out and the only way that I know how
to do it is through music. The creative process is just that, the things that
are affecting me and moving me, you know, it’s very much an inspirational
process because I do a lot of automatic writing where I just put words down on
the page, whatever is on my mind in the moment. So I just put it down while I’m
strumming my guitar and I then I go back later and I decode it. It’s almost
like searching for the right moment and the right spot where I sit down and
write. I’m searching for something that moves me and when I tap into that, it
starts to build and I see the different pictures in my mind and then I know
I’ve tapped into something that’s the magic. I don’t necessarily know where it
comes from. It certainly comes from my soul. I do my best to remain truthful to
my craft as I put it down to paper and it becomes a song.
I think back to some of the earlier stuff with the Misfits. Now when I
hear you, you’re more of a singer with a lovely voice than a Death Metal
screamer. Was the change simply a function of embracing a different form of
music or just embracing a different vocal style?
I’ve lived such a lifespan that there are so many styles and
approaches I’ve used for singing a song. I like it hard and rough but then at the
other end of the spectrum I could croon like Frank Sinatra or smooth like Jim
Morrison. I love to listen to opera as well as grunge the other side - I like Kurt
Cobain and that grittiness. I’ve jumped to different styles because of my
wanting to write music that way, and again just to explore my voice as well.
It’s fun to see what my voice can do and what it can’t do and, to test it and
see what it will respond to. I love all styles of music and I equally enjoy
creating and composing in those styles.
How do you take care
of your voice? I’ve wondered if you, because I think you have a great voice, do
you try to take care of it like through vocal exercises, diet, honey, tea,
rest?
To be honest with you, I used to. I used to take really
great care of my voice…I used to warm up before and after the shows. I don’t
take such good care of my voice anymore because I think that I’m a little bit
overconfident with it. I know when it’s stressed. I know what it can and it
can’t do. I don’t warm up before shows anymore but in the studio I like to. Let’s
put it this way. If my vocal teacher knew how I’ve sung on the road he’d be
very angry with me. (Laughter) You know
I do my best. I do my bit in front of the piano and I stretch myself out and I
see where my low is and I see where my high is. I still work through the vocal
exercises from time to time. I just to stretch myself out and see where I’m at.
You mentioned piano. I was going to ask you about all your years as a
professional musician and singer, what instrument you’re most proficient with
or most comfortable with, how many instruments you play and so on. Can you
speak to that?
I think right now I’m probably most proficient on the
guitar, you know guitar bass. I love playing bass, and I play the piano. I love
to play the piano. I play some harmonica and that’s about it. I used to be able
to play cello. I knew a cello player growing up and I used to be able to play a
little bit.
What would you say,
you’ve had a pretty long music career now. What would you say is your greatest
triumph?
Wow. I’ve been doing it 17 years professionally… my greatest
triumph? I always go back to creating music with Damien Echols while he was in
prison and was facing a death sentence. That was an amazing, amazing time for
me because getting to know Damien and corresponding and communicating that way
with no sound. We were going through the creative process together. We weren’t
speaking to each other though we were writing back and forth. It’s difficult to
try to describe the things that we were thinking about and the music that we
were trying to create. It was really important for me because Damien is a son
of the south. I came down to Mississippi and Arkansas and spent a lot of time
down here. I made some really great friends and played with some really amazing
musicians and just learned what the south was about. I went out with some,
there are some real hillbillies up in the Ozarks, and I guess I really got a
taste of the south. So I always look back on those times, I mean as difficult
as it was, and as tough as it was, I really look back on that fondly.
Do you foresee a Misfit reunion?
I’ve been trying. I try real hard, even if once a year I talk
to those guys. I do recheck with Jerry, and I recheck with Doyle and Chud, and
we’re doing our best, you know, at least I’m doing my best to at least get us
into a room and play. So many people ask me in interviews. It’s not on me. Of
course I’d go back and play those songs. I know everybody else wants to see us
and hear us. There’s a whole new generation of kids, a lot of people that wish
that they had seen us and want to see us. We should never have stopped playing.
What do you want to
do next? Is there anything else that
you’ve been thinking of creatively that you’d like to try next?
I’m really starting to, I’d really like to direct, get into
film a little bit more and work my way up to directing. I think a producer of
film and TV-type stuff. I’d really like to in the next couple of years start to
make the shift of not being the guy that performs, not being the guy in the
spotlight and taking a back seat in order to produce and direct films. I’ve
been on that pathway for the past couple of years. So, you know, I’m ready for
that.
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