All of the feelings
So I went & saw Gerard and Grant at GRAPHIC at the Opera House on Saturday. It was amazing.
Grant started with a story he'd written about a sort of super villian called the old fox, who bought up all the words of the dictionary so that people couldn't use irrelevant words anymore, so that everything would only be expressed with the most basic necessary words. Then he killed all the superheros but one and ..... no idea I didn't understand much, but it took place in Australia, which he'd somehow placed into 9 dimensions of time, to add to the 3 dimensions of space, and there were Aussie animals and politicians and history involved, it was pretty amazing. In the end the last superhero defeated the old fox by tricking him somehow with the last word left in the dictionary. The story was accompanied by Peter, a cello player, who impro'd and looped/layered a soundtrack along with Grant's crazy reading/acting. It was awesome.
Hilariously, the guy sitting next to me was SO excited when Grant walked out, he screamed and whistled... and then fell asleep during Grant's story. Just nodded off on his own chest. He woke up again when there was more screaming and applause at the end of the story. I was like DUDE, you paid 70 bucks to see someone you obviously adore, wake up!
Grant introduced Gerard and they sat down and chatted. When Gerard came out onstage he was so nervous. (The concert hall is a bloody huge hall with a huge stage, it's pretty intimidating and they kept peering out like they couldn't see us through the lights so they were both a bit nervous I guess.) But he settled in pretty quick and they were talking about the start of the band, 9/11 etc. He was saying how he has this overwhelming sense of empathy (he was awkward mentioning it almost like it was a problem for him that had interfered with life from childhood) so when he was there during 9/11 he couldn't find room for his own feelings, there was too much emotion going on around him. He always feels the atmosphere/emotions around him so strongly and he said "Like right now, this room, this room feels good!"
They talked about the band and why it ended. They both talked about how their heroes died young and so they fully expected to die young too. Grant mentioned Mary Shelley and Jim Morrison. Gerard said he thought the end of the band would be HIS end, that he would not live past 30 and had no plans to, really. He said he sometimes would try crazy things with "this'll be it, this'll be the end and the band will be over" sort of thinking. Talking about the last couple of years it seems like he was pretty down and lost and just trying to keep something going that really shouldn't be anymore. He put on a lot of weight and found it hard to walk up stairs and play with his daughter. He admitted kind of hesitantly that he was writing a concept album about a group of parents who had lost children... then he kind of paused while the audience took that in and said "but... that's really not the story I wanted to tell, you know?!" He said rumours were going around the record company - "they're writing about dead kids!" - and it was getting a bit out of control. Then he just decided to be honest with himself and stop being so angry and reacting to previous albums with new weird directions and just get back to making art he wanted to make.
He said since the band ended he's been making some art every day again - some good, some crap, you know. He repeated a lot the need to be honest with himself instead of making something in reaction to other stuff. Said he's made a bunch of music.
Talked a bit about the attitudes after Revenge and someone yelled out "Fuck the Daily Mail!" Grant jumped in with "hey there are a lot of newspapers we'd like to fuck! FUCK THEM."
I'm making this sound like it was all Gerard talking but Grant was asking questions and talking about himself too. Grant is so adorable. I couldn't always understand his accent but what I did understand made me love him. He and Gerard obviously love each other and were happy to be doing stuff together.
They had some cards with questions sent in by Sydney comic shops. What kind of superheroes would they be, what would their team name be, what would their band name / album concept be. Gerard kept trying to answer the questions properly then Grant would say something weird and go off on a tangent. But their band name would be The Fart Cushions. Apparently they'd been talking about whoopie cushions earlier and planning to have Grant come out and "accidentally" sit on one, only for Gerard to come out laughing and say "ha ha sorry, here's your real cushion". Only that would also be a fart cushion and they would repeat the process a dozen times until it was just ridiculously unfunny. They were both seriously amused by this idea, you guys. 0_o
Grant's superhero would be called Vague and his colours would be vague shades of peach. Gerard's colours would be red and yellow but I can't remember why or his hero name.
Other options for band names were the G Strings, the G Spots... can't remember the other G-things.
There was a question about where their characters come from. Grant said his mainly come from people around him, aspects of their personality or stories they tell him. Gerard said all his characters are aspects of himself. Kraken is who he would want to be, tough or whatever, Rumor is the dishonest / story telling part of himself... the violin is his inner tortured artist (he said that with an ironic, slightly embarrassed smirk at himself). I thought that was interesting to hear.
I think they would've talked for hours but time ran out. Gerard said they'd do a signing but first Grant announced the premiere or Gerard's new song Millions, which was played as they exited (arms around each other and grinning together!). People stormed out to get in line, I tried to hover and hear the song. I was surprised by the almost generic pop-ness of it but I liked it and it got stuck in my head for a while after. Very guitary. (Oh that's what I forgot, Gerard rambled for ages about his new fuzz pedal, I can't remember the name of it but he loved it so much and said everything he's made has loads of fuzz.)
Oh! Another thing he talked about was trying to get the drums right for the Conventional Weapons songs. He wanted them to sound shit - the kick should sound like cardboard etc. He couldn't get the producers they worked with to make them sound as shit as he wanted, said the producers thought they were too good to make something sound shit (he acted out a full-of-himself producer saying "I don't even know HOW to do that!") so he was never happy with how the drums ended up, so the CW songs aren't quite how he wanted them to sound, but that's how they ended up sounding "...whatever it is they sound like..."
I tried not to read too much into his unhappiness with the not-shit-enough drums...
eta - Keep remembering things I forgot - Grant's story about Uluru, Gerard's anger at how much money people paid him to make music, Gerard calling the band a dysfunctional family, Gerard talking about Bandit and getting really distracted, talking about Mikey and how growing up all they had was each other, Grant's dismissive answer to a question about him and Gerard returning the "fictional Grant Morrison" from old comics, what else... must. remember. everything.
Anyway here's the song as recorded by some lovely person:
http://lolomgwtfbbqsauce.tumblr.com/post/63318886034/guys-gerard-is-singing-again-sorry-about-the
And here's a lyric video of it someone made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlCphCx34sw
Okay. Going to talk about the signing in a new post. Gotta get my feels together!
Grant started with a story he'd written about a sort of super villian called the old fox, who bought up all the words of the dictionary so that people couldn't use irrelevant words anymore, so that everything would only be expressed with the most basic necessary words. Then he killed all the superheros but one and ..... no idea I didn't understand much, but it took place in Australia, which he'd somehow placed into 9 dimensions of time, to add to the 3 dimensions of space, and there were Aussie animals and politicians and history involved, it was pretty amazing. In the end the last superhero defeated the old fox by tricking him somehow with the last word left in the dictionary. The story was accompanied by Peter, a cello player, who impro'd and looped/layered a soundtrack along with Grant's crazy reading/acting. It was awesome.
Hilariously, the guy sitting next to me was SO excited when Grant walked out, he screamed and whistled... and then fell asleep during Grant's story. Just nodded off on his own chest. He woke up again when there was more screaming and applause at the end of the story. I was like DUDE, you paid 70 bucks to see someone you obviously adore, wake up!
Grant introduced Gerard and they sat down and chatted. When Gerard came out onstage he was so nervous. (The concert hall is a bloody huge hall with a huge stage, it's pretty intimidating and they kept peering out like they couldn't see us through the lights so they were both a bit nervous I guess.) But he settled in pretty quick and they were talking about the start of the band, 9/11 etc. He was saying how he has this overwhelming sense of empathy (he was awkward mentioning it almost like it was a problem for him that had interfered with life from childhood) so when he was there during 9/11 he couldn't find room for his own feelings, there was too much emotion going on around him. He always feels the atmosphere/emotions around him so strongly and he said "Like right now, this room, this room feels good!"
They talked about the band and why it ended. They both talked about how their heroes died young and so they fully expected to die young too. Grant mentioned Mary Shelley and Jim Morrison. Gerard said he thought the end of the band would be HIS end, that he would not live past 30 and had no plans to, really. He said he sometimes would try crazy things with "this'll be it, this'll be the end and the band will be over" sort of thinking. Talking about the last couple of years it seems like he was pretty down and lost and just trying to keep something going that really shouldn't be anymore. He put on a lot of weight and found it hard to walk up stairs and play with his daughter. He admitted kind of hesitantly that he was writing a concept album about a group of parents who had lost children... then he kind of paused while the audience took that in and said "but... that's really not the story I wanted to tell, you know?!" He said rumours were going around the record company - "they're writing about dead kids!" - and it was getting a bit out of control. Then he just decided to be honest with himself and stop being so angry and reacting to previous albums with new weird directions and just get back to making art he wanted to make.
He said since the band ended he's been making some art every day again - some good, some crap, you know. He repeated a lot the need to be honest with himself instead of making something in reaction to other stuff. Said he's made a bunch of music.
Talked a bit about the attitudes after Revenge and someone yelled out "Fuck the Daily Mail!" Grant jumped in with "hey there are a lot of newspapers we'd like to fuck! FUCK THEM."
I'm making this sound like it was all Gerard talking but Grant was asking questions and talking about himself too. Grant is so adorable. I couldn't always understand his accent but what I did understand made me love him. He and Gerard obviously love each other and were happy to be doing stuff together.
They had some cards with questions sent in by Sydney comic shops. What kind of superheroes would they be, what would their team name be, what would their band name / album concept be. Gerard kept trying to answer the questions properly then Grant would say something weird and go off on a tangent. But their band name would be The Fart Cushions. Apparently they'd been talking about whoopie cushions earlier and planning to have Grant come out and "accidentally" sit on one, only for Gerard to come out laughing and say "ha ha sorry, here's your real cushion". Only that would also be a fart cushion and they would repeat the process a dozen times until it was just ridiculously unfunny. They were both seriously amused by this idea, you guys. 0_o
Grant's superhero would be called Vague and his colours would be vague shades of peach. Gerard's colours would be red and yellow but I can't remember why or his hero name.
Other options for band names were the G Strings, the G Spots... can't remember the other G-things.
There was a question about where their characters come from. Grant said his mainly come from people around him, aspects of their personality or stories they tell him. Gerard said all his characters are aspects of himself. Kraken is who he would want to be, tough or whatever, Rumor is the dishonest / story telling part of himself... the violin is his inner tortured artist (he said that with an ironic, slightly embarrassed smirk at himself). I thought that was interesting to hear.
I think they would've talked for hours but time ran out. Gerard said they'd do a signing but first Grant announced the premiere or Gerard's new song Millions, which was played as they exited (arms around each other and grinning together!). People stormed out to get in line, I tried to hover and hear the song. I was surprised by the almost generic pop-ness of it but I liked it and it got stuck in my head for a while after. Very guitary. (Oh that's what I forgot, Gerard rambled for ages about his new fuzz pedal, I can't remember the name of it but he loved it so much and said everything he's made has loads of fuzz.)
Oh! Another thing he talked about was trying to get the drums right for the Conventional Weapons songs. He wanted them to sound shit - the kick should sound like cardboard etc. He couldn't get the producers they worked with to make them sound as shit as he wanted, said the producers thought they were too good to make something sound shit (he acted out a full-of-himself producer saying "I don't even know HOW to do that!") so he was never happy with how the drums ended up, so the CW songs aren't quite how he wanted them to sound, but that's how they ended up sounding "...whatever it is they sound like..."
I tried not to read too much into his unhappiness with the not-shit-enough drums...
eta - Keep remembering things I forgot - Grant's story about Uluru, Gerard's anger at how much money people paid him to make music, Gerard calling the band a dysfunctional family, Gerard talking about Bandit and getting really distracted, talking about Mikey and how growing up all they had was each other, Grant's dismissive answer to a question about him and Gerard returning the "fictional Grant Morrison" from old comics, what else... must. remember. everything.
Anyway here's the song as recorded by some lovely person:
http://lolomgwtfbbqsauce.tumblr.com/post/63318886034/guys-gerard-is-singing-again-sorry-about-the
And here's a lyric video of it someone made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlCphCx34sw
Okay. Going to talk about the signing in a new post. Gotta get my feels together!