SG: Well that depends on which story you have heard! Well, yeah, I was in a bar watching Steve’s (Steve Stine on guitars) band Dozer (PM: Not to be confused with the Swedish stoner band!); I had been over to the states about 3 times on a holiday. People were saying to me “you gotta see Dozer” and it wasn’t until this 3rd time that I went over I got to see them. Even though they were playing covers I thought that this guitarist was great. So I got to have a chat with them whilst they were having their break and then another chat afterwards. So I asked Steve what he was up too, what stuff did he write? Then he said “I don’t write anything” which surprised me. Steve is a guitar teacher so he tends to spend most of his time doing that. Steve said he had no one to write for or with. So I said, “well now you have”! During a subsequent chat I found out he was getting married in Edinburgh, so I invited myself to the wedding as non of his family were going, I ended up being his best man at his wedding and basically we started writing from there on. I have kind of likened my meeting Steve with when Ozzy met Randy Rhoads, and what a partnership that turned out to be, truly magical. Looking back at everything now I felt it was time that the world heard Steve Stine’s stunning guitarwork.

PM: What was the song writing process like? Transatlantic, or did you go over to the USA for a period to write music?

SG: The album was all written at different sides of the Atlantic, we have never been in the studio together; we would pass ideas over email etc and record in our own studios. Steve and I would create a backing track and Dave (drums) and Hat (Bass) would go to a studio and records their parts to our backing tracks. Steve and Hat would mix the whole thing in a studio in North Dakota and that was the only studio collaboration!

PM: Quite an advert for modern technology then, especially as you cannot tell that the vocals and music were recorded in different studios.

SG: It’s been a great ride you know. It has been quite a free writing process. I can write what I want, about anything I want, when I want. We have become quite a song-writing factory. We have 16 songs on the album and there are 3 more tracks available on the different versions (EU, Japan and USA release versions). But the best thing is we have already written another 25 songs so we have another album in the bag already but we are still writing. It is going really well and I just love writing with the guy (Steve).

PM: Do you focus on just lyrics and melody or do you have input into writing the music?

SG: Steve wrote all the music, I chopped and changed some of the arrangements around but the basic tracks are still originally as Steve wrote them, I only wrote the lyrics. I have loved what he has done and vice versa. It was strange at the start, as Steve has never written for anyone else before.

PM: Your vocals are more to the point than what they have been in the past?

SG: Well now I am telling stories, not that I have not in the past, but I am using my range a lot more rather than screaming everywhere.

PM: Who came up with the artwork concept?

SG: That was something that we filled someone’s head with! I wanted to put both the flags on there, as it was an anglo-amercian project, I can’t really say 50/50 as I am the only British guy on the album! As countries we have done historically lots of things together and I thought this worked well for this band. In the one live show that we have done we used the flags as a backdrop and it worked well. That was the only concept we gave the artist. He then listened to the album and picked up on ‘911’ about the twin towers disaster and kind of took it from there.

PM: Does the album have any favourite or special tracks that you like to play?

SG: Well the track order took the longest time than anything else in the recording process to work out. We all had different ideas on how the album should flow. ‘911’ was first as it was a special song and also when we did it live the kids went nuts for it so It was a good start to the album.

PM: Will we see any Grimmstine shows in the future in the UK/Europe? I have noticed you have put a message on myspace to get the people talking.

SG: We plan to tour the States from April 2009 onwards, so if anything comes up in the meantime, I would definitely be looking it if it was worthwhile. We will tour whatever as I feel we have raised the profile enough. We paid for a radio hit of about 600 stations out there (in the USA) to get our name about and the response was great, but we still did not get a tour deal. But we have picked a few areas and we will tour whatever. I have pencilled in some dates in October next year, I say pencilled as you know it is expensive to get the rest of the guys over to Europe so I would rather have a lot of dates planned to make it worthwhile. I think we also have plans for a South American tour so it looks on the up.

No conversation with this man would be complete without delving into some classic historical British metal, and I mean Grim Reaper.

GRIM REAPER

PM: How was the gig at the biker rally in Crook, Co Durham in July?

SG: That’s close to your home, cool. Well biker rally’s can be really funny; it can go one way or the other you know, they can be a funny crowds. Thankfully this one went well. I mean I was shocked when these six 18 year old kids were down at the front singing to all the Grim Reaper songs (PM: A Product of downloading no doubt!) and that was it really, the rest of the crowd got into it later on, but we had a good night there.

PM: You played some shows in Italy/Greece recently, how did they go down?

SG: Well that was Steve Grimmett’s Grim Reaper. The Steve Grimmett band as such is currently on hold, if that’s the correct, yes it is the correct terminology to use. Basically, I enjoy doing the old GR tunes, and the kids they just seem to love it.

PM: Do you still feel honoured that the EU market still craves Grim Reaper music? E.g. keep it True appearances etc….

SG: Well before the Keep It True show I was about ready to pack it all up, and when we played there, you know, bloody hell, the response was phenomenal.

PM: Why do you think our cousins in Europe hold true the British Metal scene whilst the UK seems content with passing it by and ignoring it to a certain extent?

SG: I don’t know! When we did KIT, we arrived really late, long story, won’t bore you with it, but we arrived just in time to have a couple of beers and have a bite to eat. Well we got up in the morning and we are in the restaurant and these kids started coming down to breakfast wearing denims with all the patches, spandex (black/white, pink/white) etc, and I was like….what???? I thought we must have gone through a timewarp last night I swear to god, I could not believe it. We got to the show and there was even more, a total time-warp and it was a phenomenal show and this replicated at Bang Your Head and all over Europe. We had done about 6 shows including Headbangers Open Air, and its bloody brilliant! All over Europe it happens, I don’t understand why it’s not like that over here (the UK).

PM: Do you think this has a lot to do with promoters and the record labels (and the expense of the UK!)?

SG: Spot on. The labels are just are not interested and it’s all about making money with them. The larger labels seem to forget when they go for the “pop” stuff that it only has a certain shelf life, then they are crying in their boots that they are having to let people go at pressing plants etc. The older metal had more longevity in my book. How stupid are these people. Now, there were 30 or 40 independents doing the true metal stuff back in the day then they all got snapped up by big labels, and to be honest if those big labels stuck with it their bank balances would have been a lot healthier now.

I also think it is down to the downloading thing, and that pisses me off a lot actually. I recently found out that one website had 20,000 downloads of our new album (Grimmstine), now that just kills the labels and the bands instantly. I am not saying that we would have put all that money in our back pockets, it would have been nice, but it would have allowed us to put money into the tour rather than be selective. I mean guys like me at my age have mortgages to pay, so going out on the road is a big risk, you still have to pay the bills. Ok when I was 20 years old, it did not matter that I went out for weeks, months on end on tour, as long as I slept and was fed that’s all I cared about. Now I have to think about the bigger picture. To be honest it’s not about the money, but downloading has robbed us of the chance to look after the band on tour. I am not out to make millions, well you can see I never have, but I just wanted to have enough to pay the bills and put on some good shows.

PM: Do you have sympathy for the younger bands who struggle to get a record deal?

SG: To be fair, the “fans” have done it themselves and the bands now are suffering! I am quite good friends with Nightmare Records in the States, I cannot remember what album it was, but recently they released an album, they had 700 sales and found out they had 100,000 illegal downloads. It speaks for itself really.

The first major band that Steve was involved with, was a little known band called MEDUSA, I thought it might be nice to ask about those days.

Medusa (UK)

PM: There was a re-release in 2005 ‘Clash of the Titans’, were you involved in this release, was it sanctioned by the band? (Majestic Rock – RIP).

SG: Yes that was all official. We never actually had a proper release of the Medusa stuff.

When Lance and Eddie went on to form ‘Wrathchild (UK)’ that was the end of the band really and I went onto Grim Reaper.

PM: What got you started in the singing/music business in the late 1970’s?

SG: My girlfriend at the time caught me singing in the bedroom, I was a bedroom singer! She thought I was really good and within 2 weeks show had got me this audition for this local band and err I did one show with them at the ABC Cinema Miners Show in Cheltenham and that was it really, I got bitten by the bug. After about 8 months in another band I was approached by Lance to join what would become Medusa (UK). That is as they say history, I still enjoy it to this day, even though I have made no money from it, I still love it.

Steve Grimmett was also the voice of the commercial peak of ONSLAUGHT in and around 1989/1990, although there have been many stories over the years, what really went on?

Onslaught (UK)

PM: ONSLAUGHT had a big contract for London Records (for what would become ‘In Search of Sanity’), a commercial breakthrough for the band, were you involved much in the writing process of the album?

SG: Err, no! The album was already written, Sy’s vocals were recorded but it just was not happening. They sent me the stuff, the backing tracks, and I asked to re-record them my way, which at the time they agreed too. I basically got the job and then I was in the States a few months later re-recording the vocals. London records had basically rejected the album and they were not happy with the original vocals, I heard these tapes and I don’t know what happened with Sy Keeler because he was a far better singer than what was recorded, I just don’t know what happened. That’s history.

PM: Have you seen or spoken to the band recently in their “comeback” guise? SG: I have not spoken to Steve Grimes in a while, Steve was kind of my best buddy, but I have been in contact most recently with Nigel Rockett.

Good Luck with GRIMMSTINE and your other projects, and thanks ever so much for your time.

With time running low, all that was left was for me to thank Steve for his time and leave with a smile having spoken to one of the greats. Thanks also to Mike Exley for arranging this interview slot.

For more on the band check out http://www.myspace.com/grimmstine
http://www.myspace.com/metalheavenrecords

Interviewed by Paul Maddison

MTUK HOME