A SHOWMAN WHO’S LEFT IT ALL ONSTAGE
Digging up the old bones of Michale Graves is quite the process, especially now that he’s concentrating on his third acoustic voice. This ex-Misfit frontman is getting ready to promote his latest release, The Lost Skeleton Returns, which was made available in June of this year. The album gives fans a first-hand look at Graves’ life in the world of Monster Rock as it marries legacy songs with a few new numbers. Pouring his soul out onstage, Graves will be coming up to Canada to play three dates. In what might be the weirdest interview I have done to date, I sat down in a conference call with Graves and his business partner and executive producer, Mark Allen Stuart, to talk about the many stages of his past and than many stages of what is to come.
BeatRoute: Is this acoustic thing a new concept for you or have you been doing it for a while now?
Michale Graves: I’ve done quite a few acoustic shows in the past, but what is going to make the acoustic shows that are coming up so special and extraordinary is because they’re going to be promoting the acoustic CD that we’re putting out. The idea for the CD came about while we were doing one of the Vagabond acoustic performances at Joe Misfits’ house. I sat there and began to tell stories about the genesis of the songs that I was playing, it was in Joe’s living room and there was a handful of people there. Mark got this idea to go into a studio and go into a controlled setting and try to reproduce the feeling that was brought across that night — the way that I was telling the stories about the songs and then performing them and that’s what we ultimately did. So, the acoustic performances that are coming up are going to be extraordinary and very exciting for me because now we’ve had the opportunity to capture one of the things that made my performances and the acoustic voice that I have so special.
BR: How did you acquire the stage name Graves?
MG: It’s a funny story. When I first got into The Misfits, we were working on stage names for my persona for my character. The first name that was floated that started to gain a reaction amongst the group was Mike RePhone and I needed to come up with something really fast before that became the official name. So, I told a story about going to visit my grandmother, who has been passed away for many years now. I was very close to her as a young boy. As I was in the cemetery it was winter, I was about 16 years old trying to locate grandma’s plot. I stepped into a large hole that was I guess dug for a new grave or something and I fell into this thing. So, after articulating that story to everybody… somebody started calling me Graves. Thank goodness that that story stuck and took to the group or my name might have been very different.
BR: So what would your epitaph say?
MG: I think we need to ask an outside source.
Mark Allen Stuart: Michale’s epitaph is going to say one thing and that’s gonna be: a showman who left it all on the stage. If you have seen or heard Michale perform, especially live there is just nothing holding him back. There is nothing left. It’s part of his trademark in the way he performs and his rise in intent and mission to create something essential for the audience. He leaves it all on the stage.
BR: What was it like to be the voice of the world’s most recognized horror punk outfit?
MG: I think that the best thing to do would be to pick up The Lost Skeleton Returns album that was just produced. That feeling of what it’s like is captured on that record, in the legacy songs that were recorded and included on that album. It’s hard to put it into just a few sentences. It’s too big of a feat and too much life and experience to sum it up in even a few sentences. It’s definitely in that music in the legacy songs as well as the six new songs.
MAS: It’s kinda interesting to note that the new album and the way that we conceived it. Michale had been perusing the acoustic voice and the full band folk rock, as we call it. We never wanted with this album to cover The Misfits. He’s recollected to me that it was some of the most incredible and dynamically growing experiences that anyone could ever imagine. On top of that, being internationally recognized! Doing those legacy songs, Michale’s voice has developed over the years. This album’s concept is an anthology. What we wanted to do was earn our right back in to the genre of — and this really isn’t as much horror punk as it is what we call “monster rock” — but earn our way back into that genre by creating an anthology. That anthology has all three periods of Michale’s voice. We are incredibly excited to say that both the fan base and from the critical side is that this album is being recognized as a very unique and distinct piece of work.
The internationally-recognized Michale Graves performs at Dickens on August 17.
By Lori Meyers
