MacD on Music: Edge of (Grim) Seventeen

Throughout musical history, there have been many fine artists that, for whatever reason, decided to take a break.

People such as Miles Davis, John Lennon and Eminem have all stepped away from the spotlight at different times.

Of course, these breaks are always followed by a comeback, and this week I’m talking to a Derry artist who’s been on the comeback trail for the past few years, GRIM17.

GRIM17 has been on the scene for a long time now, taking a break for five years before re-emerging in 2020 with a string of releases coming since then. I spoke to him recently about his career up to this point and what he’s currently up to.

“A couple of years back, I came back out of hiding after I took five years off, through alcoholism, substance abuse and severe depression, so I just was not doing music at all.

“I came out of hiding because I had all this music I wasn’t using and my life started to equalise a bit. When I started to do that a guy got in touch with me from the south of England who was running a small record label called Lights and Lines.

“I sort of half knew him through this Canadian guy that did an online radio show, and the guy in the south of England, Mike, got in touch and basically said ‘I like some of the new stuff you’re putting out and I like the story behind what you’re doing so I’d like to put your music out’.

“What I actually did was remaster an old EP of mine and put four extra songs on it and put it out through his label as an album. Last year I put out an album of new material that did quite well. As a promotional technique, what Mike suggested doing was a single a month with a B-side.

“There’s a B-sides album, all the B-sides collected on one album.

“While I’ve been doing that, I also helm the master and mixing side of the label because of my background. I went to the Tech and got a HND and HNC from Southwest Regional College through the Nerve Centre.

“I do a lot of mixing and mastering and through that I got some extracurricular work doing that for other people. I’ve been trying to refine my live set to get out and start doing live again.

“A lot of my stuff is very electronic based so it’s easier to do it live with a laptop and different equipment. Because it’s electronic and because I’m very convoluted of thought and creativity it can be quite complex. I’ve been trying to distil it down to actually get out and do some live stuff.”

Next, we spoke a bit about his influences: “Well, I’m wearing a Tom Waits t-shirt and I have Tom Waits tattooed on my arm, so I love Tom Waits. In a lot of ways, I’m a basic, European white man who’s hurtling towards forty so I love Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, a lot of the old grunge stuff.

“My first love was Pearl Jam. That was the band that really spoke to me. My first exposure to Pearl Jam was, a cousin of mine left a tape of ‘Ten’ in the house so I just took it for my own but he didn’t leave the case and it didn’t have the tracklist and it didn’t say Side A or Side B so I didn’t know which was which.

“For the first few years of knowing the album I thought it started with ‘Jeremy’. Then, it started to make more sense when I learned it was the other way round.”

“My biggest influences would definitely be Tom Waits. I love a lot of jazz, like the Neil Cowley Trio, the band Tool, Aphex Twin, that type of stuff, Radiohead, they sort of bridge the gap between alternative rock and electronic. Mostly just Tom Waits, just because of the experimentation.”

And that’s it for GRIM17. His music is available to buy on Bandcamp, including his latest releases ‘Messing With Your Faith’ and ‘So Easily Bored (The Messing With Your Faith B-Sides Album)’.

Now onto other business. First of all, CHERYM’s debut album ‘Take It Or Leave It’ was released last Friday so if you’ve not got it yet, fix that now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Got it? Good. Now we move onto another new release. Derry singer-songwriter Colm Warren, former frontman of punk band The Twenty.

In recent years, Colm has been pursuing a solo career with a much softer sound. His latest single, ‘It’s Alright’ is out now and is accompanied by a video that is definitely worth checking out.

Now, finally, time for the socials. Colm Warren can be found on Instagram @colmwarren and GRIM17 @grim17again.