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Those Essex boys Grasp are spearheading a musical riot. With their sound described as “maximum rhythm and power” and “Time To Go” - a recent single that made the charts on Biff Bang Pow - they are going from strength to strength. They were in fine fettle when Rob caught up with them recently.
How long have Grasp been going?
We love a journo that does their homework rob…in one guise or another since 1996, but the present line-up’s been together since 2001…
Whereabouts are the band based? Is that where they hail from?
Sunny Essex Mate, where else!
Sum up the Grasp sound in a nutshell!!
Maximum rhythm and power
How did the band develop the Grasp sound?
We’ve taken all our influences and we’ve worked them into a sound that we like to play. Nothing contrived, it just happened. Everybody gets compared to somebody but we think we’re fairly distinctive although our influences should be pretty obvious
Are there any songs that are particularly special to the band - are any autobiographical?
Not really, but they “are” something special. After all they are our songs aren’t they. And the ones that aren’t (i.e. the covers) well we’ve made them ours by ripping them to pieces and throwing them back together.
What is your experience of playing the songs live?
With so many gigs this year we are now pretty tight and know the songs inside out which means we can really enjoy ourselves rather than concentrating too hard on what we are doing. I’m told Mark has just replaced all the skins on his kit and so will no longer be trashing it at the end of each gig. I wonder how long that will last!!! The other thing is we have had some cracking audiences who have made us very welcome. So thanks to all the people who have been so friendly and appreciative up and down the country. You really have given us a great year.
Your success at charting must be a great feeling. Tell me about it.
Well it was a f*cking sweet and sour experience to be honest. We knew we’d sold a fair number of singles as our mates were buying loads of them, but then the chart people told us that bulk orders only counted as one. Now if we’d been after a fiddle we’d have done it properly, but we actually had people who couldn’t access the internet asking us to get them a single, and there were loads of them. To be honest, the charts are a f*cking joke. Anyone with a spare 5 grand and a few helpers could buy their way into the top 30. Having said all of that, getting to no.23 in the Radio 1 Indie chart was a major buzz for us, especially going in above Paul Weller…how f*cking funny is that? Alright he was there for 7 more weeks than us but hey, who’s counting? Especially as Andy’s(Taylor, Grasp Vocalist) big love is PW.. We f*cking pissed ourselves at that. Obviously thanks To Paul at Biff Bang Pow for having the patience to let us try and chart the single and for the work he put in.
Your sound and image have a pretty strong mod feel. Is that how you see the band?
You tell us Rob, what do you think? There’s people around who say we’re not a Mod band, cos we don’t have a hammond Organ in the line up… ok..no problem…mind you the cunt that said that thinks he’s a face and that we’re an Oasis Tribute band. Twat. He obviously didn’t listen to TTG then, with Dean Rees’ Hammond organ swirling through the guitar chords. We don’t really see ourselves as a mod band, but what the f*ck is a mod band? I mean, there are Mods in Grasp, there are lots of mods who follow Grasp, but there are plenty of other people who just love their f*cking music and want to hear us play. We want to appeal to as many people as we can really. You know how it is Rob, you run around shouting that you’re a mod band and the f*cking press murder you. How many bands in the 60’s called themselves a Mod band? The Small Faces, maybe the Action? And the 70/80’s? a bunch more, but where are they? They all got murdered by the press didn’t they. Mod to our way of thinking is a complete lifestyle, you don’t just join it like a club. Oh actually in the 80’s you did didn’t you? Mod by committee, what a lot of bollocks! Nah, we’ve got our influences and we’d rather be judged on our musical ability than anything else. We just want everyone to come along and have a great time. Whether they are a Mod or they just wanna party!
Who are your musical heroes?
Well Andy loves Paul. Weller. There’s a load of influences in the band mate, F*cking Weeksy (Gary weeks, Grasp Lead guitar) plays Guns n Roses / Dire Straits you name it in sound checks. one to piss us off, and two because he can seem to play just about everything. “Gary Jukebox” he’s known as, so f*ck knows what he actually likes. Mark loves the Who and the Jam. Moon is the man for him and you can see that in the way he hits the tins. As for me, well pretty much everything really apart from american soft rock, hip hop, any boy / girl band crap and that stuff they now call R&B you know that swing sh*t. The cheek of it calling it R&B.
Are there any new bands out there at the moment who you particularly like?
Oh yeah.. loads. It’s great right now isn’t it. We’re into all sorts of stuff, Ordinary Boys, Artic monkeys, futureheads, Kaisers, maximo Park ..It’s brilliant the number of new bands around right now. We do a lot of work with Culture Promotions in London now and were seeing loads of these new indie bands and its’ great after 10 years of total rubbish.
Is there anyone who you would like to support, or you would like to support you?
F*cking hell, can you get the Jam to reform? I dunno, Blocky’s trying to get us on with OCS but Craddock’s old man won’t answer the phone at present. We’d love to play with TOB or the Dead 60’s on a tour, that’d be pretty mental. In terms of we’d like to support us, blimey, I dunno. Blocky tends to give support slots to other local bands and that’s a really good thing. There’s a bunch of great bands other bands we’ve played with and in particular, the Palms in Barnsley and up in Yorkshire with the Lost 45’s. I have to say the Palms demo is probably one of the best I have heard in a long time. We wanted to do a gig with Contrast, who we thought were f*cking excellent, but they split…We’re gonna do a gig with a band called Scarf, who blocky’s looking at presently.
Have you any heroes - living or dead - in other fields?
I don’t really have any heroes. Andy T loves Paul W, Mark’s hero is definitely Moon, and Gary’s is Grace Darling. Blocky’s always said that he’d invite Bobby Moore and Ian Botham to a piss up if it were possible. That’s about it really…are you looking for something spiritual? Gandhi didn’t drink!
What about other art forms? Have any books or films had a big influence you?
The book American psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Mad book. Completely barmy. My missus said that I was totally weird while I was reading that. Don’t think I ever really got over it!!!!
Tell me about your plans for the future? When can we expect the next Grasp release?
We’re working on a couple of new songs at the moment Rob. Andy and me have written some new stuff and one of these is likely to be the next single we think. As for when, to be honest it comes down to a deal really, we’re looking for some recording money this time having sold a load of singles and we’d really like to pick up a decent contract from a big label. Biff Bang Pow are doing a tremendous job and Paul is breaking a bunch of new bands, but if we’re going to take the next step onwards we really need to get a full contract. We’ve got a load of songs, which we’d love to put on a proper album with Ian Page producing again, he did such a great job and it with so good to work with him. But we’ll have to see how it goes. You’ll probably see the next single in February really. Obviously its been nearly a year since we last spoke to you guys and so much has happened. We’ve spoken about the single, which was great, and we’ve been all over the country on the tour, which we really enjoyed. It’s just been a major f*cking buzz, but we ain’t finished yet!!! There’s loads of stuff happening now especially in London where we’ve really got back on the music scene again.
And to conclude the dreaded Desert Island Disc question. If you had to take one record, one book and one film (assuming you had a DVD player) with you what would they be?"
DIY DVD on how to build a boat, Book on cooking Al fresco and I will survive by Donna Summer.