AESTHETIC PERFECTION - An interview with DANIEL GRAVES

by David Lees

November's been a busy month for Aesthetic Perfection with the launch of their new album, All Beauty Destroyed, and a European tour. I caught up with frontman Daniel Graves as they were preparing for their opening show in Glasgow.

You've said that the new album was considerably more introspective than the previous ones. Can you tell us a bit about what went into making it?

Well my previous two albums, they dealt with a lot of personal issues, things that were going on in my life but a lot of it was about external drama that I had with other people and when I sat down to write this record I kind of realised “Oh, my personal life isn't really so bad right now!” and I had this moment where I was like, “Okay, well what am I really going to write about?”. It sounds kind of stupid saying “Oh, my life's good, I have nothing to whine about” (laughs) but that's how it was. But I figured that, like most people, I have a lot of internal problems or issues that are worth exploring so I focused on those instead of externals dramas, just kind of what was going on inside me.

Has your song writing and production evolved in any way for this album?

Yeah, I think definitely. I think that the first record Close to Human is very straightforward, just shorter songs, I don't think anything really breaks the four or five minute mark, all those songs are pretty short, really straightforward. A Violent Emotion, the songs were longer and I wouldn't want to say more club-oriented but just that I was trying to add in more complexities to the music which made the songs longer and then with this one, with All Beauty Destroyed, I tried to mix the two, simple song structures but with a lot of interesting changes and things like that, so hopefully the new record is the best of both worlds.

A lot of people have said they see Necessary Response's sound bleeding into the new material since you ended that project, do you think that's true?

Oh yeah definitely. Because that was always my original plan was to make my musical endeavours as diverse and dynamic as possible and Necessary Response was actually only created because a lot of the songs that were on that record were originally intended to be on Close to Human, the first Aesthetic Perfection record but my record label thought “Okay, these sounds are too black and white, you can't mix them, you can't put them on the same record, you have to split the project”. So that's what I did and in retrospect maybe they were right because the songs, when compared to one another, they might not have worked on an album together but having to split my work into two projects focused me and made me think “Okay what I really, really wanna do is see this through and make an album that is as dynamic, that is as up and down, as possible while still remaining one consistent piece of work.”

How has the response been since its release?

I think overall, 90% of everything has been great, a lot of people love the - I don't want to say new direction - but the evolution that the music has taken, because it's definitely not A Violent Emotion 2 which is what I think some people had hoped for. Uh, the other ten percent has been total hatred and disdain and all that kind of stuff (laughs) but actually that also makes me feel good because if you can elicit some sort of strong response out of people, be it love or hate, at least you've made them feel something whereas if it's just indifference then you've really achieved nothing and so I consider it a battle won if I can get anybody to have a strong reaction to the music's direction. Like I said for the most part it's been overwhelmingly good and that makes me feel great.

You've been taking pleasure posting some of the negative opinions on the new album on your blog, why is that?

I think it was partly because I was amused by the fact that people felt compelled to personally insult me as if it wasn't enough just to write a review. You know, I think it's important for people to express their opinions and I do go out and I read reviews because I'm curious, but I think that personally attacking someone is just so...so tactless and so...I don't know, its lacking any sort of social understanding, I think it so ridiculous, so I had to laugh at it and I thought it would be fun to post all those negative reviews up because, yeah, it's funny.

This is your first headlining tour, how had it compared to playing as a support act? Are there any greater challenges in being the head-liners?

Of course. This isn't our first headlining tour, we did a headlining tour in the US earlier this year with Faderhead but this is our first headlining tour in the UK and actually we've toured the UK almost as much as we've toured the US, I mean we've been out with Combichrist here twice and once with Grendel. I think that it's always nice getting to open for a larger band because you have a built-in audience and you get to reap the benefits of things like a tour bus and all that kind of stuff, but in the end it's not your show and you still have to step back and realise “Yeah, this isn't my thing, I'm going to go out, I'm going to play my 25-minute set, whatever, give everything that I can but this is still someone else's gig” and you have to step back from that. But going out on your own headlining tour it's like you're taking the risk because who knows who's going to show up. Because of all the people you played in front of with all these supporting tours you don't know if anybody liked you and we're not in a tour bus, we're packed into a van and all the risk is on us, but I find that really, really exciting because we get the opportunity to give OUR show, we get to be up there for an hour, we get to give a more dynamic set, not necessarily focusing on winning people over but hopefully giving a show to people who are already familiar with the band so we're really, really excited and humbled by the fact that our first headlining European tour is mostly taking place in the UK.

How do you prepare for a live show, do you have any rituals or warm-ups?

I do vocal warm-ups, me and Tim the drummer we stretch, we blast Erasure and Ke$ha and sing at the top of our lungs and drink vodka Redbull and just get into the mood of having fun, because that's what it's supposed to be on stage, it's having fun. That's what we do, we have fun backstage so we can have fun on stage.

How did the video for Inhuman come about? Was there any particular theme you wanted to explore with that?

Actually with Inhuman...normally I'm a REAL control freak and trying to control every aspect of everything that goes on with the band and the Inhuman video was me actually relinquishing a bit of control and Out of Line, our label in Germany, they said to us “Okay, hey, we have this director and we like him and maybe you should try working with him,” and I checked out his videos and I was like “Yeah okay I like him,” and they gave me a couple of concepts and I chose the one that we ended up shooting because it really signified duality which is a lot of what the song is about. So I let them bring their concept to the table and I of course made changes to it but in general it was a very collaborative effort which is NOT normal for me. (laughs)

You do a lot of DJ sets besides touring, how does that differ from playing as AP?

I think that it's a whole other angle because a DJ set is just a party atmosphere. Performing live is all about having fun but it's a lot more cathartic, I would say, for me because I'm expressing something with my own art whereas with the DJ gig you're playing other people's music and so I really enjoy doing both but if I had to choose one over the other I'll take live shows any day. But Djing is just a lot of fun because I like drinking, I like loud music and I like being able to connect with fans in that way because you're with them, you're around them all night, you're not locked up in a backstage or anything like. I definitely will keep Djing, I love it.

Finally do you have anything you'd like to say to your fans in the UK?

I would say thank you so much for giving us this opportunity, like I said we're humbled and honoured by the fact that pretty much, more than half the dates on this tour of ours are in the UK and we just hope we can keep coming back.

Thanks very much for talking to us.