Hey Dan, so how did you come up with the name of Graveltrap?
It was a completly random pairing of two words that we thought sounded good when we were 15! We were down the pub (like you are at 15) and were trying to come up with another tag other than ‘placid’ or ‘kneedeep’ both of which suck ass big time and didnt sound right…so we kinda liked the sound of two random words…radiohead…terrorvision…greenday etc etc. We only ofund out that it meant a formula 1 sandpit about a year later!! I wish we had a better reason for our name but it just kinda stuck…I was thinking of changing it to Trapt about a year ago but lucky i didnt what with that shittty new metal band and all!
You come from Milton Keynes, that town seems to have churned out a hell of a lot of great bands – is it a pretty friendly scene and do you all get on there?
We have loads of good friends in MK bands…Phema, Lupa & OddManOut are some of our best friends. When we first started gigging there wasnt much of a ‘scene’…just two venues in the whole city but one of them was run by our friend Paul who gave bands like us a stage to play on at the Pitz Club which was really when it all started. Bands like us and phema started playing regularly at the Pitz and started to gain a little following. We all came from the same school so knew each other but it was really when an ex-clown called Lee opened up ‘Blinding Music’ practise studios (RIP) that bands started to meet and hang out. That place gelled the whole scene together and we used to go up there all the time for a smoke and just chill out with other bands…and learn backgammon!! Thats my lasting memory of Blinding – a hell of a lot of skunk and backgammon…oh and a bit of music now and then…! I think because of these people and and a supportive rock journalist in the local paper we were able to help carve out an alternative rock scene which is now overflowing with new bands and fans which all centres around the Pitz…without The Pitz it would never have happened.
You have a lot of talent and seem to have an extremely refined sound for a young band with an average age of 19. So what’s this down to?
We’ve all been playing our instruments for fun for years…not just to be in a band, and although its taken on more responsibility recently weve always enjoyed practise and got a buzz off of progressing musically.If things start to get a bit stale and boring it usually means we’ve been slacking and not putting enough effort into the music and although we’re still predominantly 3 chord punk, every new song we do we’ll try something new for us and if everyone picks up on the vibe and buzzes from it then we know we’ve done a good song. Its the only thing that keeps it interesting as although playing live is amazing too, I really like that feeling of ‘wow – that rocks…lets do it again!’ that you get when doing a new song.
The album, ‘Concrete & Udder Chaos’ sounded great to me – were you happy with it as a band or do you think that you have a lot more to offer than that?
For us the album do*****ents where we’ve been for the last 5 years. We’ve got together the best songs that we’ve made since our first demo and rounded them up onto one CD, and that mostly inlcudes songs about growing up and being at school. Songs like ‘Kickin’ Chickens’ was written in 98 and was one of our first songs write up until ‘What About The Marigolds’ which we wrote just before the record. We are definatly happy with it in all respects, especially the production that Iain Wetherell did for us, but at the same time i think the sound of our newer stuff far exceeds the formulaic pop-punk of old. We’ve had a few slatings from various magazines about it being a pop-punk record…and it is! It sums up our experience of going against the grain of school authorites and our various encounters with girls and heartbreak and not fitting in…because thats what we felt at the time and what we wrote about. So we wanted our first album to sum up graveltrap as its been and what we’ve encountered as hopefully other people can relate to the same things. As regards what we have to offer i think we have a lot more…we’re taking what we’ve learnt from pop-punk and mixing it with a lot more riffs and time changes/breaks. All our new stuff excites us musically and is also a lot darker in sounds and lyrics. I think we’ll always be the punk rock band with the sing along chorus’ but we’ve learnt a lot from other bands about build-ups and breakdowns and how to shape the music to take you to different places. We’ve learnt that rocking out has more impact if you throw some slower bits into the mix and that more can be done on guitars than just thrashing on power chords…although nothing beats it 😉
What was it like touring with Solabeat Alliance, Whitmore, and Mixtwitch on the Over The Moon Tour?
We had a great laugh man. We learnt so much from them guys and as we played first we could just sit back after our set and watch a class punk show every nite!! We’re gonna hook up with them all agin in the next few months as we’re touring with each of them in succesion, so its gonna be like Over the moon part two for us…just extended over thee months! They all really nice guys and we got on well with all of them…sola beat let us sleep in their luxury van for a few nites and glen from whitmore put us up almost every other nite, and his mum did our washing! Mixtwich are just a constant barrel of potatoe twinged humour…even hearing one of them say ***** creases me up. When we first met the bands everyone was polite and quite reserved (until that nites party) but when we picked mixtwitch up from luton they’d been drinking all day and were wasted!! that was our first and last impression of them!!
I was actually on the boat for the first gig on the Thames, you didn’t play – what was the story behind that?
Well john had decided to make his own way down to London for some reason rather than coming in the van. It was about 20 mins before it set off and there was no sign of him…then i finally get through to his fone and he’s on the underground about six stops away. So with 10 mins to go I decided to run down to the nearest tube station to wait for him and show him the way to the boat…i waited for ages then got a call from Jon at Moonska (on the boat) that it was about to set sail and to get back. I just remember pegging it down the peir to see the boat just pull away from the harborgh and everyone on top waving at me…i felt like such a dick!! Then to top it off i saw Muzz (with his broken arm) and Alex pissing themselves and giving me the finger from the top deck. I was gloriously gutted and suitably embarresed!! So i did what anyone wud do…went straight to the offy and got a quart of vodka, sat in the park and got pissed!! I found some other mates who had missed the boat too and we got heavily sloshed and tryed not to think about how much i wanted to kill john!!
Where do you see yourselves as a band in three years time?
With the same three people playing our music to hopefully a bigger audience. You can never tell where you gonna end up in the music industry but as long as we keep doing it for us and people dig it then thats all that matters to me. I never want it to grow stale though and we’ve been lucky enough to feel as though we’ve progressed consistantly over the last few years so hopefully we’ll continue to do so. Whether we get another lucky break and reach the point of major label sucess or whether we keep playing the clubs and releasing records on Moonska, we’ll continue to do it as long as its fun and people are enjoying our music.
Do you have any advice for young people looking to form bands of their own?
I dont really have any advise for people looking to form bands as i think if they want to do it they shud already be in one. A lot of people i know talk about being in bands and forming bands and it never happens. If you enjoy playing your instrument and writing your own stuff then you will find other similar minded people if you stick to your music…just hang round the music block at lunch, take music GCSE, whatever it takes to get in with other musicians then just do it. Write a song, show the others it then play play play play play and play. You gotta practise at least once a week if not more. Cover other songs to make you tighter if you want, but just play. And when you good enough (and not until) record a basic demo and send it to your local venue. Practise and gig when ever you can, thats all id say.
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
