 |
Nick
Cave: vocals, electric guitar, organ, piano
Warren Ellis: electric bouzouki, Fendocaster,
violin, viola, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Martyn Casey: bass, acoustic guitar, backing
vocals
Jim Sclavunos: drums, percussion, backing vocals.
The story of Grinderman begins within the working processes
of another band: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. At the start of
2004, when Nick Cave took a small team of Bad Seeds members
- violinist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P Casey and drummer
Jim Sclavunos - off to the tiny Misère studio in Paris
for a songwriting session, they effectively established a new
working process.
Rather than compose songs on his own and present them to the
band, Cave began to spin lyrics out of the air around Ellis,
Sclavunos and Casey's tight, intuitive trio. When expanded out
to the full Bad Seeds personnel, the result was Abattoir Blues/The
Lyre Of Orpheus, a double album with a raw, organic, driving
sound that some consider the best the Bad Seeds have ever produced,
selling in excess of half a million copies worldwide.
Nick: "There was only a certain amount I could write in
the office any more... With that little session in Paris with
Warren, Jim and Marty, suddenly it was so easy to get a song
out because you had the bass and drums behind everything and
you're singing a different way. Your mind works in a completely
different way."
The small combo configuration of Nick, Warren, Marty and Jim
had its public debut in a showcase performance to promote the
Bad Seeds' Nocturama album; the foursome continued working in
this streamlined format, getting together frequently for Nick
Cave "solo" tours, and functioning as a vital, active
band. The prolific output of the Misère sessions, as
well as various soundtracks and theatre scores that the four
were working on during this period, began to suggest potential
for a brand new band that might operate autonomously from the
Bad Seeds, with a radically different sound and musical approach.
In February 2006, the four musicians booked themselves into
London's Metropolis Studios for a five-day marathon of non-stop
demo sessions, resulting in several hours of raw material.
Warren: "It was meant to be really open liberating thing.
We went to places we would not normally go... and then tried
to push it even further..."
Marty: "Having Nick on the guitar changes the whole dynamic."
The following month, Grinderman called in the producer behind
the last two Bad Seeds album, Nick Launay.
Warren: "Launay gets good sounds down. We didn't want any
obstacles between the band sound and the production, so Launay
was perfect."
Together they recorded thirteen songs at RAK Studios in London,
and then returned to Metropolis in October to mix their self-titled
album, Grinderman.
Jim: "The name Grinderman seemed to suit the band. It sums
up the sort of music we are making. We grind."
As Memphis Slim put it back in 1941, "While everything
is quiet and easy/ Mr. Grinder can have his way..." |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Grinderman
Anti-
2007 |
|
|
|
