7. GrotusBrown
Well I was a Mr. Bungle fan, of course – being the right age for all that kind of shit at the time – and Mr. Bungle came to town and they played in Vancouver, I think it was at 86th Street or something, and Grotus opened up – I guess they were an independent or unsigned band that were friends with Mr. Bungle. But I was so there for Mr. Bungle, that’s it, it was like a really big deal for me, and so when Grotus took the stage there wasn’t a lot of people at the venue but I tell you what man, from ten seconds into their show I was front and centre and what my mind made me feel that I was watching was, I think, a lot different to what they were – I just saw it as something else; I saw it as this sort of dystopian, futuristic, Blade Runner-ish thing, yet mixed with the dirt and the vegetarianism and, just like, factories that are just making machine music with these kind of prisoners in it just relentlessly beating coal into this machine – afterwards I listened to that record relentlessly, and I followed that band around to the point that I pissed them off! I was that kid! I was at their shows like, "hey if you guys need a place to sleep tonight you know you can come to mine…"
It was such a big deal to me and I remember that right around that time there was a bunch of stuff that resonated with me – Barkmarket; NoMeansNo had a record out that I thought had a similar vibe – but for me Grotus was huge – and Slow Motion Apocalypse which came after, I loved that too – and it’s funny because later on with Strapping I used a line from a Grotus song, on The New Black, and had to talk to Alternative Tentacles about the rights for it and all this shit, and they ended up saying that Lars, the singer from Grotus now does audio editing for, like, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and all this shit. So I found them and I sent them a mail saying "hey, I don’t know if you remember me but I was this kid that used to follow you around and I’m in band now, can I use some of your lyrics and blah, blah, blah". And he got back to me and was like "yeah, we all remember you, you used to fucking hang around us after the shows!"
