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An Interview with Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection
Posted: Sunday, March 08, 2009
By: Lola Babalon
Writer

Since 2000, Daniel Graves has been making a name for himself in the industrial scene, beginning with Aesthetic Perfection and, more recently, the more melodic Necessary Response. In the past few years, he's moved from Hollywood to Europe and released new albums from both projects. The first Aesthetic Perfection video, "The Great Depression," from the project's second full-length album, A Violent Emotion, has recently been released, and Graves is currently preparing to head out on the road with Combichrist. He answered some questions about the making of the video, the large amount of touring he's been doing, and what he's got to be so angry about.

You've just released the first Aesthetic Perfection video. What was the shooting process like?

Graves: The process was very hectic. When you're on the type of budget we were, there's no such thing as a plan. Props, sets, locations...nothing was set before arriving in Berlin. I showed up there with a few sketches of my ideas, and the director looked them over, and we began to conceive how this would be done. In the end, we shot it 100 percent guerrilla style: just five or six people running around Berlin, shooting where we didn't belong, pissing off neighbors, getting drunk and getting high and making something from all the chaos.

Who was your director?

Graves: It was directed by Hendrik Schmidt, a.k.a. Zeitschnitt. He's a German independent filmmaker who's now breaking into making music videos. I know him through my friends from the Berlin-based band Din [A] Tod. He did a great job remaining cool and calm amidst the stress.

The video seems to capture the energy of the song incredibly well. Was the concept something that you brought to the table, or was it more of a collaboration?

Graves: Like I said, I basically laid out a handful of crumpled pieces of paper in with poorly drawn sketches of what I saw in my head in front of him and said, 'Can we do this?' He was really open and honest about what was realistic and what was impossible. He, of course, brought his own ideas to the table, and we just went from there. I would say it was a 50/50 effort.

Are there any plans for further videos from this release, or will you wait for the next?

Graves: I have a concept in mind for 'Living the Wasted Life.' I've talked with a few filmmakers, been referred to another few, and tossed around how feasible it will be to make happen. If the stars align in my favor, I will shoot it before my next release.

You offered limited edition T-shirts to help finance the video, which was a very creative way to get fans involved in the process. Is that something that you may do again in the future?

Graves: To be fair, that idea came from my friend David, a.k.a. genCAB, but the idea of getting fans directly involved is something I've always been interested in. The Internet makes the world so small and allows artists a direct connection to their fans in a way that was never possible before. I didn't sell the video T-shirts to make money; I wasn't even expecting to make enough profit from them to pay for the video. I just wanted to offer something to my fans that was limited to them and only them. I'll always try to keep my fans as involved as possible.

You've also just announced a tour. Can you tell us more about prospective dates and which areas you'll be hitting on the road?

Graves: We'll will be supporting Combichrist during their upcoming European tour. Along with Auto-Auto, the three bands will be trekking together from Sweden to Greece and stopping everywhere in between. All the dates are online at the Out of Line Web site, the Aesthetic Perfection MySpace page, the Combichrist MySpace page, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Are you going to have a chance to play any cities you haven't before?

Graves: I'm really excited about playing in Croatia and Serbia. I've visited Croatia before on holiday a couple of times, but I'm very excited to play there. In fact, the majority of dates are in cities I've never played before: Antwerp, Paris, Munich, Gothenberg...the list goes on. It's safe to say I'm more than excited.

You seem to be out on the road a lot these days. What's the best part of being on tour for you? What's one part you could do without?

Graves: Touring is a vacuum: a vacuum of emotion, a vacuum of time. You're traveling, but more often than not you don't have the luxury of actually seeing the city you're in. You see the inside of the tour bus, the inside of the hotel room, the inside of the club and perhaps the inside of a small liquor store. I'm not saying I don't enjoy it, and I'm not saying there aren't moments of complete and utter insanity, like people expect it to be, but you have to take it all in stride and accept the negative aspects with the positive ones, because nothing is ever as awesome or awful as it seems.

Are you really as angry and angst-filled as your music comes across? Most of your lyrics seem like they come from a very personal perspective.

Graves: As an artist, it's important to know where your stage persona ends and your day to day persona begins. Not to suggest that when I'm on stage or in front of the camera that I'm not being genuine – that's not it at all – it's just that that side of me couldn't function in the real world. It's a side of me that's selfish, self-destructive, masochistic and hedonistic all at the same time. It's hard to explain, but I guess the simple answer is that it's me, but the part of me that has to be suppressed. I let it out in small doses as a way to prevent some sort of meltdown. As serious as it sounds, I definitely have a sense of humor about it. I hate when people take themselves too seriously.

You've been living in Europe for a couple of years now. Has that influenced your outlook at all? What would you say the biggest differences between Hollywood and somewhere like Austria or Germany are?

Graves: It's all about the little things that make up life. On the whole, it's still the Western World; it's not as if I'd moved to New Delhi or something, but immersing yourself in a new culture and a new language definitely opens your eyes in ways you don't immediately recognize. In a lot of ways I'm more sympathetic to foreigners who come to America in search of a better life and the struggles they have to overcome in order to do so, but in other ways I'm much less patient with them. If I go into a store in the USA and someone can't speak English to me, I lose my temper with them. It's rude, but I think of all the shit I had to endure in Germany in order to be allowed to stay there. For example, people at the Immigration Office in Germany refused to speak English to me, even if they could. They would say to me in German, 'This is Germany; we speak German here. If you want to live here, you have to deal with that.' It seems everywhere I turn in the USA there are people catering to non-English-speaking people, and I'm not supportive of that at all. Still though, removing yourself from your own culture and experiencing life in another country is an experience I would suggest everyone have.

What are you currently working on?

Graves: At the moment, I'm just working. I'm writing material for Aesthetic Perfection and Necessary Response. We'll see what comes out of that!