From Texas Beat magazine, May 1992
(Some spelling and typographical errors fixed)
Course of Empire
by Keith A. Ayres
Zoo Entertainment recording artists Course of Empire call Dallas, Texas their
home, but they have created their own dark, moody, yet brash sound that is
gaining the band national recognition. This attention is coming as a result
of their album, initially released by Carpe Diem (which translates to "seize
the day") being re-released by Zoo Entertainment and gaining national
distribution in the process via Zoo's parent company Bertelsmann Music Group
(BMG).
On Monday, April 13th I spoke with guitarist Mike Graff by telephone from my
production facility located in South Austin, Texas at approximately 2:00 p.m.
The following transcription is a portion of what was discussed.
Give us a little background information?
MG - It's pretty much our words as far as what he wrote down for the bio. I
was goin' to film school and I met up with a guy named Anthony Headley and we
started working on ambient videos and things. We had a film professor named
Don Pasquella who was making ambient videos very much in the Brian Eno,
Thursday Afternoon mode. We thought we'd be film makers, but we didn't have
the money to expose silver. Makin' films, workin' films is a very costly
process, so we started just using the aesthetic video to, you know, in its
own right it has properties of its own. And started making ambient videos
and doin' the soundtracks for some of Don's stuff. After a while we realized
we were more interested in making the music than foolin' around bein'
frustrated with film. So, that's where we started rehearsing, in the TV
studio over at SMU. The rest of the band came together, I guess after, that
was the spring of '87. And then we got together with Vaughn [Stevenson] at
December of '87. Then we added the other guys in time to have our first
show at [Club] Clearview, opening up for Three On a Hill for their record...
did you ever happen to come across a tape that Three on a Hill did? It's a
live album.
I may have that...
MG - Yeah. That was the first night we opened up for them for that and I
also played guitar for the recording of that record. So, we actually had
one gig a couple days before that at Clearview for a Fourth of July thing.
That was really our first gig where a lot of people saw us. In March of '89
was when we added Chad [Lovell] and became a five-piece. There was a period
whyen we recorded our first tune (not the first song we wrote, but the first
song that went on a record) which was "God's Jig" and it was on the Triple
XXX compilation called Dude, You Rock! Chad had quit the band like a day or
so before we were supposed to do the session and so David Castell got this
fellow by the name of David Abbruzzese to come in because Anthony couldn't
play the part, it wasn't his part, and he played with us for about, I don't
know, a couple months, probably four months and since then he's gone on to
play with Pearl Jam. He got very lucky.
Is the band on tour now?
MG - No. We just did a couple dates in Austin [and] Houston last weekend.
We're gonna be goin' back out on tour in the middle of May... up the East
coast and back through Chicago and the Midwest.
The burning question. Why did the band separate with Carpe Diem? And
what's on the horizon as far as the management front goes?
MG - Well, Carpe Diem was a very new company started by a guy named Alan
Restrepo, who's very new to... music really, but not new to music, he's a
longtime fan of music. But, as far as knowing how to run a company and do
the, you know, really work a campaign for a record and do what it takes to
get the distribution and all that he's really new to it and he knew that
he really didn't have the means to work the deal the way somebody else
could. So it really came down to him wanting to get the record licensed
and that's pretty much the whole purpose of the way we did it 'cause Al
just couldn't (??) it by himself. There are plenty of other labels that
can do the stuff themselves and do an efficient job, but distribution
really was the main thing for us as to why we licensed the record to
somebody else. And now we're on the other label. That's BMG, Zoo Enter-
tainment which is owned by BMG.
Are you currently looking for management? Do you have any leads?
MG - A couple have come forward, but none that we're really ready to move
on because there's other [people] like our lawyer and people that are
tryin' to help us out with it. And so we're still waitin' to see who
else is gonna come forward before we make a leap like that.
Do you have any good road stories from any road gigs you've done
recently?
MG - Well, (laughs and clears his throat) let's see... there's the ham
sandwich with the Skatenigs, I guess, but that really didn't have to do
with us. Skatenigs are famous for wearing skirts and such. You're in
Austin, right?
Yeah.
MG - You know about Skatenigs antics, right?
Right!
MG - Pretty much. That was the only real interesting [incident], for
some reason we seem to be playing with a lot of bands with tit dancers
now. Like every band we play with has tits on stage, but no real
funny harrowing stories.
Could you name a few of the bands who have the tit dancers?
MG - Well, Skatenigs have tit dancers. EVOL had a tit dancer, that we
played with in Austin last weekend. And then in Houston there's this
group called Bozo Porno Circus that opened up for us that had like
three, no four tit dancers [and] at the climax of their show [they] all
started getting into this, like, four way lesbo trip, which, I don't
know, it was good for a laugh, I guess.
It doesn't have much to do with music, does it?
MG - Everybody's into getting' naked and that kind of thing. Whitey
gets naked, Billygoat gets naked. Everybody gets naked these days.
We're, like, the only group that plays with our zippers zipped up these
days.
Tell us about life on the road. What kind of food, accommodations, and
stuff the band goes for?
MG - It ends up most of the time at the Motel 6 [and we're] sneakin' in
the back way with seven of us and usually there's a Denny's right next
door to it, so we eat a lot of eggs and hash browns. On the road that's
about it unless somebody can direct us to a little vegetarian restaurant.
Most of the time it's just eggs and hashbrowns save us. The room ends
up a bit smelly.
What's your favorite song from the first album?
MG - My favorite tune is probably "Copious." The acoustic guitars in
with the more industrial treatments of the drums and stuff. More hybrid.
Is the band currently working on a new album or what's the story on
recording?
MG - We're tryin' to get set up. We just got our own private rehearsal
space and our own lil' studio and we're getting equipment in the next
week or so in order to start doing our own demos and it's really gettin'
lost in recording and such. But, we won't really start workin' on an
album with an engineer and a real studio 'til the middle of summer
probably. We'll have somethin' out by September, I don't know what it's
gonna be. BMG says they won't be ready to really put our record out 'til
January of '93, so we want to put somethin' out before that. That's our
plan at this point.
How is the first album doing, sales wise?
MG - It's hard to say because the video is only just now startin' to
float around, disseminate. And if it shows up on 120 Minutes it won't be
for another couple of weeks. It's really still premature. We still got
another tour to do for it and as far as press and the whole deal,
everyone's startin' to push it at you. It just takes a while, like
Matthew Sweet's album was out for like, five or six months before it
started to click and fall into place, so really don't know. I imagine
that we haven't sold that many. It's only just been out on the shelves
while we kinda get our stuff together.
What song is your video of?
MG - "Coming of the Century." I know that they're showin' it on a cable
show in Austin.
Probably CapZeyeZ, Dave Prewitt's program.
MG - Yeah, that's it.
How do you describe your music?
MG - Wow, that's a pretty big question, I could go on for a long time.
A lot of times in print we see our group described as metal industrial.
Metal is the last thing we are. Our music came out of the industrial
movement, that was a big influence for us, [but] our music is more,
like, I defined it more organic way out of that. That's kinda what
"Copious" and "Thrust" are both about. It's about waking up and
finding yourself in the clouds of this... death machine and tryin' to
find a way out of it. And that's what "Dawn of the Great Eastern Sun"
was sayin', that at the end about tryin' to find a totally organic,
just... situation to where you don't bug any questions. It's just you
and (pause) I guess the earth or god, whatever you want to groove to.
It's about solace I guess. Solitude, away from the maddening crowd. I
would say it's more post industrial than metal industrial. We're
tryin' to move away from that, [it's] on the way out.
Is the band more socially or politically motivated?
MG - We're starving artists, socially conscious or environmentally
conscious because that's what hits you when you walk out your front
door and smell exhaust. But, that has to grow into a political
consciousness if you care about tryin' to clean it up or anything. The
situation we're in right now is just so radical and we've been de-
sensitized to it enough that I think that everyone is gonna get very
political after this next election. I think certain things will be
happening that people didn't really think about before. Like oil,
everything in our society is built upon cheap oil. That's not an in-
exhaustible supply. Once that runs out, that's one place where, every-
body in the city is gonna have to eat. For some reason, if the oil
supply was to shut off, there's people out there that would have us all
by the balls.
Any closing comments?
MG - No, no big, uh, no big comments I guess.
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