Hi Scott, are you doing?

Hi, I'm doing all right...

When have you started to play music?

I started playing music probably when I was about 13, I began playing bass guitar, eventually got a couple of pseudo bands together, and ended up singing and playing bass, but the bands never went anywhere largely because we couldn't find a solid drummer in the remote area where we lived (Northern Michigan) that had any idea about the kind of music we were doing. I moved to San Diego, California when I was 19 or 20, and it was there that I started experimenting with noise and so on in about 1993. I got serious about it in 1994, and in 1995 the first Gruntsplatter release came out.

What was or is the general idea behind this project? How have you chosen the name Gruntsplatter?

The name is actually an obscure reference to a scene in the British show "The Young Ones" There is a gut in the background of a scene dressed like a medieval executioner holding up a sign that says "Toby Gruntsplatter" I thought it was funny, and the word always stuck in my head for some reason. It's violent, but not serious necessarily. It's come to mean a lot more to me as the project has progressed. In America anyway, a "grunt" is the little guy, the soldier whose job is basically to stand up and die, the insignificant person, the throw away. So Gruntsplatter has sort of come to embrace that to me, the destruction of the insignificant things in life. Choosing your battles, and at the same time the way that the individual can get plowed under and no one takes notice.

Which moods do you like to spread most to the listeners? And Which emotions do you suppose the listeners will feel listening your music?

Well, a majority of my stuff, if not all of it, deals with darker moods, introspection, depression, sadness, disappointment, anger, hatred and so on. These are the things we are less likely to express in day to day life, so it is an outlet for some of these feelings for me. It is cathartic. It's not really a conscious thing even, when I work on music that's what comes out. It's also a really visual process for me, almost like I am scoring things that I see as I'm working. Though it is never simply about emotions, I always seem to have some idea or theme that I am trying to illustrate for myself, and that's where a lot of the visual side comes in I guess. As far as what the listener feels I don't really know, I would imagine some of the emotions I put into it come through, but everyone hears things through their own set of filters, and makes their own judgements about them. That's one of the things I love about experimental music, 50 people can listen to the exact same piece of music and come up with 50 wildly different interpretations of what's going on.

By which literature and/or historical references you are inspired?

I did a 7"/CS, "Pest Maiden," set based on the plague, that is something that has always interested me. That was largely based around the book "A Journal of The Plague Year" by Daniel DaFoe. It was a personal look at the way that life changed and the absolute tragedy and heartbreak and awe of it all rather than a more "historical" body count and science approach to it. That's probably the most concrete inspiration I have gotten from History and literature, but it inspires me in numerous other subtle ways. Writers like Ferdinand Celine, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Ranier Rilke, Hubert Selby, Antonin Artaud, and a lot of independent press stuff, puts ideas in my head, or phrases I latch onto for themes worth exploring. In history any times of tribulation, bleak periods where humanity struggles against something bigger than themselves, the evolution of a learning species, the exploration of myth, science all of those kind of thing find their covert ways into Gruntsplatter.

What does it mean to you to compose noise/dark-ambient? And What do you hope to achieve through your project?

What does it mean to me to do this... I don't know if I have a real good answer for that, it's just something, music, that I have always felt a need to do. It's an emotional outlet and an intellectual puzzle to create something from nothing that ads to a further understanding of life in some way. As far as what I want to achieve, at this point I have already achieved more than I ever expected doing this from a "commercial" standpoint, this last record was released on a side label of Relapse/Release called Desolation House, and has gotten distribution into all kinds of stores and everything. I never would have thought anything like that would happen with it, now it's just about continuing make the project something I can be proud of and try and keep the sound evolving. In the end I just want to feel like I did the best record I could at the time for myself.

Would you like to tell us about your latest CD "Chronicling The Famine"? Which are its contents, its style, to what does it inspired? Which kind of atmosphere have you underlined most? Which are your most representative tracks?

The basic premise of "Chronicling The Famine" is the passionless way that so many people go through their lives. The self centredness and need for immediate gratification that leads them away from things of substance to things of material comfort and lethargy. The chasing of the shallower goal... and the impact that that mentality as a global phenomenon has on the world as a whole. It's a doomed approach, commercialism and greed and selfishness are at the root of so many things that are degrading the world. The people who are "respected" are not the ones who create or discover, they are the ones who buy and entertain. Consumption and blissful unawareness are rewarded and toil and vision are largely unnoticed. So the album is my take on those basic ideas. I think the over all sonic result is much more bleak and apocalyptic than any of my previous stuff. It's still very dark, but it's dark in a different way than other Gruntsplatter has been. Stylistically, it's got a much heavier analog synth foundation, it is in some instances more minimal, and in others much denser, and the album plays through more like a larger piece than a collection of tracks I think. That's something I have always tried to do, but this one sounds the most complete as a large piece compared to previous work I think. I don't know what I'd say the most representative piece is, they are all there for a reason and to illustrate for me different elements I was trying to explore. And that's really the only point that matters, a majority of the people that listen to this record are not going to take from it the ideas that went into it, they are going to interpret things in their own way, so I satisfy my own ideas, and then enjoy hearing from people who like it the different things they get from it. The concept is to guide me in making the music it isn't to dictate anything to the listener.

Which are the substantial differences into your CDs from the first release to " Chronicling The Famine"?

Well, I guess one difference is better gear and a better understanding of how to record and do things so they sound how I want them to. The first few releases a were split releases, so those were more collections of tracks and the ideas were more specific to the individual tracks. With the 7"/Cassette I first explored a bigger theme over a larger amount of time, a historical one. With the first full length CD, "The Death Fires" I continued with working from a larger theme. That record is dark, but it's dark in a sad way I think. It was about the way in which people approach death and mortality, and was largely drawn from personal observations of family members who have died. The new record is again based on a larger theme, but is more philosophical or editorial than based on anything literal like it had been on previous work. The sound has grown, but I think they all still sound like Gruntsplatter, the common elements remain, lots of layering, movement etc. but because of the ideas behind them and the gradual upgrade of some equipment and understanding of the process they have all sounded different from one another.

How does an album of yours born? What does it happen in studio recording?

I find that to really get going on something I need to have a concept that I can explore. At that point I can look at different angles of the idea and start breaking that up into tracks, and having something conceptual to think about brings that visual "film score" element in and makes it easier to focus and decide on directions I want to go in. And ultimately I think it makes for a much more cohesive end result. I don't tend to do a lot of tracks and then not use half of them or something. Most of what I do for an album is worked on until it goes on the album, I tend to have one track that I end up not using and replacing with a new one but for the most part there isn't a lot of waste. And I record until I feel I have a complete record, not to fill time or make it a certain length or certain number of tracks, when it sounds like a complete piece it is done. Then I spend a lot of time getting the track order down making sure things flow from one to the next to give it a more whole presentation.

Which are the past artists who have formed your musical culture? While who are the ones you listen to and appreciate most nowadays?

Well, I have always listened to a lot of different stuff, and I'm sure it's all had some influence on me. I started on underground metal and punk in probably about 1984, much of which I still love, and from there found industrial and goth and noise and so on... I think if I was to point to the projects that made the biggest impression on me, and most impressed me creatively they would be VoiVod, Controlled Bleeding, Einsturzende Neubauten, Today Is The Day, Godflesh, Nick Cave, Black Flag, PBK, Neurosis and Siouxsie & The Banshees... I don't know that any of that is obvious from my music, I kinda doubt it, but those projects always come through. As far as what I listen to now, I still like all kinds of stuff, I haven't gone through phases really, I'm just as prone to putting on an old punk record as the newest noise release but other projects that always seem to impress me include... Bad Sector, Dissecting Table, Control/Exsanguinate, Nothing, Schloss Tegal, En Nihil, Isis, Ruhr Hunter, Radiosonde, Canaan... there are just so many, I love music, and there is so much that I enjoy it's difficult to narrow it down in a way that I don't feel like I'm leaving a lot of really great stuff out.

A movie, a book, a famous picture, a person of the past and a "shelter"?

I'm not sure quite what you are asking here, but if it's favorites... let's see... Movies... Apocalypse Now, Re-Animator, Das Boot, Santa Sangre, there's way too many... Books, most anything by the authors I mentioned above, I really liked "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn, "Confederacy of Dunces" by Toole, I read lot, again there are too many to list. Famous person... I couldn't really say, it would be among some of the influences I have already listed probably. Pictures, I love the art of Ivan Albright, Dali, Tanguy, Goya, Nerdrum, Witkin, etc.

Future projects? Is it coming any new release?

I'm putting together a collection of old unreleased tracks that will be released on CDR by Audio Savant in the next month of two called "The Organ Harvest" after that I'll just start slowly working on new tracks and see what comes up. I also have a couple of collaborations in the works that need finishing, Circadian is a collab between myself and Jason Walton from Nothing, that will focus on surreal sound experiments, and the other is The Black Hands Project between myself, Vadim from Chaos As Shelter, and Stephen O'Malley from Sunn and a bunch of other projects.

Is there something you would like to add to this interview?

Just to say thanks for the interview and your support for Gruntsplatter.