JimZombie: How does it feel to be kicking off your first Australian tour in Sydney?
Daniel Graves: We are very honored and excited to be here. Not a lot of bands are offered the opportunity to come all this way, so we are indeed, very grateful.
JZ: How did the tour come about, was it more than just an invite?
DG: Joseph Chillari of Fiend Magazine and Riveting Promotions caught our show at the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig last year. Based purely on that show he brought up the idea of bringing us out.
JZ: How’s 2010 shaping up to be?
DG: It’s pretty early to tell… these Australian shows are our first gigs of 2010. Then after this we’re going to go into hibernation and work on the new record.
JZ: So there is a new record in the works?
DG: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got a good number of tracks to start with, like more than I normally do when I’m working on a record. It’s like when I first start a record I’m usually working with about four or five songs and trying to expand on those ideas and pull it out into a record. With the work on this album I have something like 15 – 20 songs I’m working on and its going very, very well a lot faster than I have ever worked before – it’s exciting.
JZ: Influences are a subtle changeable sort of guide, so what has been driving you forward on your new material?
DG: My new material, I don’t really know. Right now I spend most of my free time listening to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Queen and ACDC and I don’t know like I’m really fascinated by the song writing of these older rock bands. It’s completely different from any sort of song writing I’ve ever done – you just kind-of have a whole new perspective on music and song writing. So that’s what I’m really influenced by that stuff right now. I can’t really say that you would be able to hear that directly in the music it’s just something that I use to get perspective.
JZ: What about scene bands? Have you been listening to any of that stuff at all?
DG: I try not to listen to too much of that stuff in my free time. It’s not that I really try not to, it’s just that when I’m out on the road or doing stuff within the scene you hear so much of it and when your taken out of that you sort of crave something different. Not to say that I don’t like this sort of music and I don’t like a lot of the bands in the scene. The bands in this scene that I really dig are like SAM and X-fusion and all that pronoize stuff.
JZ: Having toured a lot and lived in various countries, what differences have you noticed across the scenes?
DG: It’s really hard to say because from what I’ve seen no matter where you go people love music. I think a lot of American’s get this feeling that the European scene is where it’s at and Europeans are always asking me the same questions. I think people get caught up in that “grass is greener” mentality and thinking it’s going to be better here or there. People love music where ever they’re from. Of course there’s a kind of truth about bigger cities like L.A, New York and Berlin, people are a bit more jaded because they get every band coming through all the time, they get like six, seven, eight shows a month catering to their tastes. Those are the crowd that are harder to win but you get jaded people where ever you go, I think it’s the same everywhere.
JZ: So, how do you expect tonight to go?
DG: I have no idea (laughs). I mean I really don’t know, in terms of the size of the Australian scene, I’m not to familiar with it – so I have no way to gage.
JZ: So you haven’t seen ticket sales so far?
DG: I know presales for tonight were 70 or something like that. That’s cool, I don’t know what Sydney is like, maybe 80% of people walk up and buy tickets at the door. I know I almost never buy a ticket presale (laughs).
JZ: So what do you expect to do while you’re hear, is it all about the music?
DG: Oh, no. I’m going to try and pack in as much touristy shit in my time as possible! We got up really early today just so we could go to the Sydney aquarium. We checked that out for a few hours and then went bowling and got drunk at like 11 in the morning because our body clocks are so off it didn’t seem like a weird alcoholic thing to do. I guess from an outward perspective it would appear that way.
JZ: So you’ve been screwed over by jet lag
JZ: So are you home sick for the US? Any chance of moving base again?
DG: Yeah, of course I moved out to Europe with the intention of staying a year and now it’s been four, so definitely a bit longer then expected but I really like Europe. I left the States because I needed a change in my personal life and needed to get away from a lot of the negative things pulling me down in LA. I think moving to Europe was the best thing I ever did. You have the pros and cons of everything but I’m really happy in Europe. I take every chance to go back to the States – you know 5-6 weeks, once or twice a year just to make it better.
JZ: Your doing Djing, how’s that working out?
DG: Well it looks like I will be starting a residency in Vienna within 2 months or so, that’s going to be interesting. It’s something that I haven’t even really taken out yet, it’s just something I do at home – practicing getting ready. So it looks like I’ll be spending all my down time from my live shows will be replaced with DJ gigs. I don’t know how it’s working out because I haven’t done it yet. I’ll find out soon!
JZ: So how did that come about?
DG: Like I said, we’re going to stop playing live after this pretty much ‘till the new record is done unless some unforseen awesome opportunity shows up in the middle of nowhere then I think we’re go’na lay low for a little while but you kind’a itch to get out and be part of the music scene and that’s something that I wanted to do because it’s a lot of fun and you get to go out there and interact with people and drink and act like an idiot.
JZ: Is there an ETA on the new record?
DG: I’m like the worst with that because I’ll so, oh I hope it’ll be done in six months then it takes like another year, year and a half. I don’t know, I can just say the progress is going really well, like I said it’s moving along so much faster than any other album I’ve ever worked on so I’m hoping to have it all done by the end of the year but don’t quote me – even though you will (laughs)
Daniel Graves (post tour message): Thanks to everyone down under who helped make this tour happen. To the fans, friends promoters and everyone in between, it was amazing. Cheers from Daniel, Tim and David.
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i luv that guy..he's awsome
[...] Interview: Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection (Australian Tour) [...]
Thanks
It was a good experience, doing a live interview.
Nice, that's a good interview. He comes across very nice.