I won't ask you to divulge the roots of the name Gruntsplatter, I will however ask this: Does such a name often cause misconceptions about the project?

I have just recently started to hear that there are some people that do think that it's more of a shit noise project or a grindcore band because of the name and I guess I can see why to a certain extent. On the surface it seems like a violent sort of lighthearted name, and in some ways it is. In fact its origins are exactly that, but the more I thought about the different connotations that the name could have if someone cared enough to ponder it for a bit the more I liked it and the more I felt it was appropriate when I was deciding on a name, and still do. It's like a favorite pair of pants now. It feels like me, and I like that it's not a typical name for what I do. I think the art and the titles convey a lot about Gruntsplatter as well, and when you look at the whole package it is a clearer representation than the name on it's own.

In the past you have emphasized the importance of song titles for your work. In the instances where you title a track prior to recording it, what avenues do you take to "realize" the conceptual identity of the soundscape?

I don't necessarily title a track before I write it, but I do keep a notebook of potential titles, if I think of something, or read a phrase or word that strikes me as being particularly evocative I jot it down and as tracks are beginning to take shape I refer to my lists and see if what I have musically suggests anything in those notes and if so then I adopt it and use that as a sort of focal point for where I want to continue on with the track. The whole thing is a visual process, I listen to what I have and try and figure out what it is the soundtrack to for me personally. Sometimes I end up with something abstract for the title like "Ascending Marrow" other times it is more concrete. "Ascending Marrow" doesn't mean anything really, but as I repeated the track looking for something those were the two words that kept coming to me. With this new record there were actually a couple of titles I did have before I wrote anything, and wrote specifically for the title. "Waiting on the Body" and "Against The Dying of the Light" both had very specific intents, and are at the root the ideological core of the record. They represent the two extremes of facing our mortality, and that is basically speaking what the record is about.

That would be an excellent example then... So, on those tracks, once you settled upon the titles and meanings what process did you undergo to create a soundscape that properly explored the ideas you intended?

Well, those two titles relate directly to my grandparents who both have died in the last couple of years, and my grandmother actually died while I was working on the record. "When They Go" was recorded immediately after receiving the call that she had died. I literally hung up the phone, told my girlfriend and turned on my equipment... so those two titles were my examination of how the two of them faced their deaths. "Against The Dying of the Light" is my grandfather, I wasn't able to see him in his last days because we were in different cities, but he was described to me as being angry that this was it, he knew and he was angry that he couldn't have just a little more time, even if it was laying in the hospital. That to me is crushingly sad, so I tried to reflect the anger as well as the steady inevitability. It's the noisiest most chaotic track on the record, but beneath that there is the steady pound that never wavers. "Waiting On The Body" is my grandmother, after he died, she saw little point in much of anything and would talk about dying, and while she was perfectly active prior to his death afterwards she essentially surrendered and ultimately I think willed herself to death... so with that track I tried to get some of that loneliness and aloofness and yet still have the edge there of what was really at stake which was of course her life. To live into your eighties and literally be waiting like you do for a taxi for death rather than trying to get just a little more out of it... that too is a pretty awful thing I think. So obviously with these particular tracks I had a bit more emotion and content to run with than something that I jot down in a note book because I think it sounds cool or something... When I started working on "The Death Fires" I really had no idea it was going to end up being such a specific and personal undertaking, I'd had the album title/concept written down for quite sometime before I ever started working on the music and life twisted in a way that that made this recording a much more meaningful and exploratory process than it otherwise would have been.

Similarly, what is the environment in which you record? Basically, what I am interested in is whether or not the atmosphere in which you create your sounds mirrors that which you display on your recordings?

No, I don't have any sort of special environment for recording, it may diffuse some of the atmosphere, but all of my gear is in the corner of the living room because that's the only place for it right now. Once I put on the headphones and start in everything else gets pushed to the background. Headphones are isolation, and once things start coming together it's pretty easy to focus.

Do you record digitally? If so, how much editing is involved?

I just recently upgraded to digital, the split with Ruhr Hunter and the split with Slowvent were both recorded on 4 track as well as Umbra and anything else recorded more that 10-12 months ago. The "Pest Maiden" 7" was the first Gruntsplatter material I recorded digitally. Since then "The Death Fires" and also the Triage record. There really isn't much editing at all, maybe a fade in or out, but I still pretty much record tracks into the computer and they stand as they are. I'll write a foundation with my sampling keyboard and then input that into the computer and then from there I just start adding layers and textures through various means until it sounds like it needs to. I still use same the same methods I would if I was recording to an 8 track or something, the computer is just giving me more tracks, more clarity and more control.

In reference to the historical aspects of your work, how do find that experimental noise is a fitting genre for the sonic exploration of historical influences? For instance, when a historical premise inspires you to record what process is necessary for you to properly convey such motivations?

I really think that experimental music is a fitting genre for exploration of just about any subject, because it is so malleable. It can go where ever you make it go, you aren't limited to a fret board or a scale or anything like that and it allows for a more visceral connection with the listener than a lot of other styles. The abstractness of it all is conducive to letting the mind drift and find things it normally wouldn't. I have always said that themes in experimental music are completely arbitrary, because people will get out of it what they want to, not what you tell them to. They will see their own scenes and they will have their own reactions to things because there isn't a narrative spelling it out. My themes and titles are for myself, and the title may give the listener a direction or set a basic premise in place, but they are going to walk away with something totally different than I do. I've talked with people about it, and they take things that had never occurred to me from my tracks. It's a curious exchange that you don't get with many, if any, other styles of music.

Aside from the "Pest Maiden" concept which is divulged on the record sleeve, what are some of the more hidden historical events you have attempted to relate in your work?

The "Pest Maiden" 7" was the most concrete of historical explorations, generally it is much more vague. "The Flagellant" is historically based, but very loosely, on the idea of the flagellants who would punish themselves as repentance for the plague. That lonely and loathed perception of the world... "Dolmen" approaches that timeless monolithic feel that I get from my fascination with my heritage, the pagan structures left behind in Scotland, Scandinavia, that sort of thing. I'm not trying to personify something specific. "Bloodsoil" is another one that doesn't really mean anything, but the correlation between heritage, genetic spirals and the timelessness of those things were what I took from that track on the night it was recorded. Now it isn't necessarily the same thing, it just depends. I like history, and there is a lot of meat there to gnaw on creatively but "Pest Maiden" was the most specific and concise I have been exploring that type of thing.

You have stated that Gruntsplatter is your personal project with a sound that is very specific and directed; which is why your collaborative efforts are always released under different band names (Triage, Umbra, etc.) If Gruntsplatter is you and your ideas alone, why do you feel the need to limit the project to a certain spectrum of sound and explore your other ideas/influences in separate projects?

This is a good question and honestly one that I have never really consciously pondered. The ideas that I have used in the collaborations would have found their way into Gruntsplatter without a doubt had I not had the opportunity to purge them elsewhere. This is particularly true of Triage. For a few months I had been feeling like I really wanted to work with more analog sources, pulses, crisp sterile electronics. Triage had been existing in a half hearted state for a couple of years because we couldn't find a direction we wanted to go in that we both felt good about. I proposed these ideas I'd been mulling over, and my partner in the project, Chet Scott of Ruhr Hunter, was all for it. If he hadn't been than I still would have needed to satiate that for myself and the new Gruntsplatter record would sound a hell of a lot different than it does. So it's not that I force myself to contain certain things to collaborations to keep Gruntsplatter pure, I have just been fortunate enough to have other projects to explore things in. Gruntsplatter does have certain elements that I think make it Gruntsplatter that I try and maintain, but I'm not opposed to exploring within that project at all. I think a track like "...And So In Death" from the new record is different than anything I've really done in that the whole thing is constructed from live water manipulations, which was new for me. I'm working on some more straight forward power electronics tracks right now that, if they are released, will be released as Gruntsplatter so I'm not rigid about a specific sound for the project, and I think my discography shows that pretty well. In the end it has to strike a certain chord I guess to feel like Gruntsplatter for me, and that's the only real criteria to put it under that name.

How complicated do you find it to be within the electronic noise scene to establish your own sound, or is this possible at all? For instance, if one track from all of your projects were played seamlessly back to back - what would make Gruntsplatter sound different from Triage, and vice versa, etc.? Obviously there are certain bands that have been forerunners of certain styles over the years, but at this point with a saturation of acts popping up there are a lot of bands that literally cannot be discerned from one another, so I am curious to hear your opinions on this.

You are largely right I think about the glut of projects that are out there, but I do think that many of them do have their distinguishing characteristics... or things that maybe aren't necessarily distinguishing among a long line of similar songs, but things that do make them intriguing in their own way. The ability to discern has a lot to do with your depth of knowledge as well I think. It's like saying all grindcore bands sound the same or something like that, they do superficially, but many have specific strengths. As far as my own stuff, I actually think they are all fairly distinct from one another. They all have certain things that they focus on more than others, with Blunt Force Trauma it was harshness, Triage is that sterile pulsing analog drone, Grimes is beats, Umbra and Gruntsplatter probably are the most similar, but Umbra has a more dirty, lo-fi feel, and I think it's more ambient than Gruntsplatter. Gruntsplatter manipulates abrasive textures to create an ambient feel. I'm sure there are those that would disagree, but I feel like they all have their own individual feel and intent.

You have been relatively outspoken in regards to your distaste for certain facets of human life and the world in general. How would you describe your base philosophy of existence in general, and as unrealistic as it may seem, what would be your ideal solution/living conditions?

My base philosophy is essentially to find strength within myself, to respect only those that are deserving of respect, and to face the world with intelligence and conviction in my undertakings. It is truly curious that society is able to function at all given the shear numbers of weak, lazy and genuinely ignorant people in the world. Think about the people you work with, or have worked with... in all of my jobs anyway, the proportion of folks who had a clue to those who didn't was alarmingly small, and it's that way everywhere. How anything at all gets done is beyond me. I don't like the way that we have come to reward weakness and allowed the inept and feeble to carry on without facing the consequences of their faults. It happens in the work place, it happens in our social programs, there is nothing that shakes them by the throat so they stumble along with no reason to do things any differently. Until we reward people on their merit and ability and intelligence rather than sweeping up after and fueling the knuckle draggers things won't get any better. My ideal living situation... I don't really know, I live in San Francisco, and as far as cities go, I can't think of anywhere else I'd want to be. The thought of living out in the woods away from all of the noxious crowds is certainly appealing, but there is city stuff that I like as well and would miss, plus it's where the jobs are. I like it here, there is enough nature that you don?t feel smothered in concrete. I live pretty close to several parks, and the ocean so you can find some quiet and I like that. The problem with anywhere is the people really... and of the places I have lived they are the least invasive here, but then I don't go out a whole lot to things like shows or bars, riding public transportation is irritation enough.

What I actually meant by "ideal solution/living conditions" was what would your ideal solution be to the problems that you have with existence as a whole, and what environment for living would you create if you had the means?

Ah... well, the biggest problem I see is the unyielding population and the consumption of that population. I would really like to see a society where reward was based on merit and intelligence, where those who choose not to contribute are ostracized rather than coddled, where consumerism wasn't the driving force, the need for more, where we weren't Americanizing every corner of the globe big enough to jam a coke machine in. I read something recently saying that population control efforts in developing nations were actually decreasing birth rates, by educating them about contraception and all of that, yet the average person consumes so much more than they did 50-60 years ago... Now families have multiple cars, all kinds of electronics and gadgets that require resources, so even if we were able to dramatically cut the population, the consumption rate is so astronomical that there is little hope of making any substantial progress towards conserving natural resources. So in a perfect world at least 75% of the population wouldn't be here. People would take responsibility for themselves and have some fucking manners, justice would be swift for those that couldn't maintain their lives in an unobtrusive way... and everyone that wants one could have a puppy.

It is common fact that many, many people have these types of beliefs/opinions at varying levels of severity. Most are afraid to express them for fear of accusations of fascistic intentions. How would you classify your beliefs, and the degree to which you hold to them?

My beliefs are just that, they are my beliefs, they aren't ideology or dogma or an agenda. And I'm perfectly comfortable saying what I think or keeping them to myself. There are several in the experimental scene, and black metal as well that play the part of fascist/totalitarian, etc., whatever, they surround themselves with the symbols and talk and then when confronted will step back from it and not embrace these impressions that they are creating. Fascism, nazism, anarchism, just about any "ism" you can drudge up is not for day to day living. It is bloated dogma that is of little consequence, it makes people feel important and that's about it. "Might makes right," they say, but then what do they say when someone sticks a gun in their ribs and holds them up, or rapes their girlfriend? If might makes right then in these situations the perpetrator is stronger and would and should surely win, and the victim should die. But if you asked these people their opinion they would say the perpetrators were blights that should be destroyed. As I would. But the reality of the situation is that no matter how much you shoot your mouth off about something, the circumstances will always dictate your response. All of this said, I keep to myself, I concern myself with the people I'm close to and that's that. I spend my time with those that have the qualities I think are valuable, intelligence, conviction, sense of humor, etc. and I pay as little attention as I can to those I see as a detriment. When those people become invasive then I will do something to end the situation, but beyond that they aren't worth fuming about. I hate a lot of things, but I don't walk around hating, it's a waste of energy. There are too many other things, productive things, to put that effort towards.

Your distaste for humanity is one that certainly intrigues me. Have you ever pondered the end of all life as we know it, and do you think this would be a fitting termination of existence? And when I refer to "the end of all life as we know it", what I mean is the literal and immediate end of every single thing that exists in this universe, whether we know of it or not - within the blink of an eye everything is gone. There's no one/nothing to miss, and no one to miss you, etc. An absolute end devoid of consequence?

I pondered the genesis more than the termination of everything actually. I look for signs of evolution on the bus, I view people on the street like an anthropologist or a zoologist might. Comparing behavior to that in the animal kingdom. Singling out the ones that would be left to die or consumed by predators, the sickly and the strong, the packs and the loners, and the roles that they serve to each other. It's a curiosity for me... My contempt is for the people, not the rest of it, so I don't really have any desire to see it all go away. If or rather when it does eventually happen, I'd hope that it was something immediate and total rather than this slow bleeding we are nurturing now. I like to see nature inch back progress now and then, someone's house slides down a hill, things like that. It is a reminder that at any moment the earth can reclaim itself whether through some obscure virus, flood or whatever. People are so confident that they have everything under control, but it doesn't take much for all of that to be ripped away.