Graf Orlock
- Story by Kevin Stewart-Panko
L.A. action buffs put the "hard R" in grindcore
When it comes to why bands get together in the first place, we think we've heard it all—from the blather about personal expression and if-I-didn't-have-this-I'd-be-in-jail hyperbole to Blöödhag, who seem hell-bent on referencing every sci-fi novelist ever, to the religious wingnuts on both sides of the anally-raping-the-Nazarene fence. But students forming a grindcore band in response to being kicked out of film school for copyright infringement? A band angry about Tinseltown's refusal to make action movies like Predator, Commando, and Cobra anymore? A band whose debut album, titled Destination Time Yesterday, was originally a "complicated critical cinematic theory dissertation" involving "a 10-minute short film about a briefcase that, if anyone walked up to it, they got sniped, intertwined with a story about a Canadian assassin going back in time to assassinate key American political figures so, in the future, Canada has geopolitical supremacy"? This is the sort of thing Los Angeles' Graf Orlock deliver.
"The great thing about '80s and early '90s action movies," continues guitarist/vocalist Jason Schmidt, "aside from the kitsch parts, is that if you actually look at them, they're really flimsy reflections of '80s politics. Like Red Dawn is supposed to be an involved political diatribe about Soviet invasion of the Midwest; Predator is reflecting this ridiculous Reaganite involvement in Central America."
The golden age of bullets-never-hit-the-good-guys action flicks resonated so deeply with the members of Graf Orlock (named after Max Schreck's vampire character in Nosferatu) that, after a stint as a sample-heavy instrumental band, when they decided to add vocals to their Creation Is Crucifixion/Converge-ish grind, they hit their movie collections for source material.
"Our lyrics are from the screenplays of movies we're referencing and those that we're doing songs about. We all sing, so when there's two of us singing at once or trading off vocals, we're playing different characters from a certain scene of dialogue."
You can especially hear the dialogue-based, call-and-response in burgeoning "cine-grind" classics "Hauser" and "Panic at the Galleria." You can also hear the sound of a band determined to do something different within the confines of a conservative and crowded scene.
"Few bands are really doing anything that, if you saw them for the first time at a show, you'd remember them. A lot of bands have a prescribed way of how their songs are played and how they act onstage. We come along doing our thing and most people are pretty confused. But we've found that, as people learn more about what we're doing, they get more interested and drawn in. People don't want to branch out, throw people for a loop, or even have representative imagery different than stuff that's already been done. I'm tired of how you're able to look at a record or a band's shirt design and automatically know what genre they are."
