Your name:
Laurence McDaid.
Where are you from?
Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. There is no
good reason for my home-town to have two names, but such is the contrary nature
of humanity.
Name of band:
GRIM.
Who else is in your band?
My laptop Nigel (the most reliable drummer I’ve
ever worked with...)
How would you describe yourself?
Electro-blues: Electro because of the
‘instrumentation’. Blues because, mostly, I get irritated by things other
people seem to find totally acceptable; the music I write, therefore, is a sort
of catharsis. It could be more obscure, but you have to make some things easy
for everyone.
Who are your main influences musically?
I love Tom Waits, but he’s a sort of obvious one.
Mark Lanegan, Beck, Eels. If it’s more or less rock music but with something
distinguishing, I tend to love it...
What do you hope to achieve in music?
Well, I’m an angst-ridden white European man; so
the old cliché would suggest I’ll never achieve my subconscious goal of my
father’s approval... If I could influence one person or band enough to make
music, though, I’d be happy.
What has been the highlight of your career so far, and
why?
I got this gig opening for the Neil Cowley Trio, a
fantastic Jazz piano trio. The audience were amazingly open considering the
musical differences. The highlight, though, was this Scottish guy in the
audience with the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard the chuckled uproariously at
all my self-deprecations between songs.
And what’s the moment you want to forget?
Failure can be more useful than success, and it’s
definitely harder to forget. Forgetting my own ego-driven arrogance might be a
step in the right direction, though.
If you could choose just one of your songs to represent
your music, what would it be and why?
‘Little Fizz’ is kind of a fan favourite; I suppose
it determined the direction I was going in. I’d always been an advocate of the
song written in twenty minutes, but hadn’t really followed my own advice up
until that one.
Where can we listen to it?
Where can we find out more about your music?
Anything else you’d like to say about your band that I
forgot to ask?
People have this mental block about music that’s
depressing, but I find even the music people ‘dance’ to of a weekend has
depressing lyrical content about heart-break, or rejection. People connect with
music because of a human need to empathise and relate to their peers. GRIM is
my attempt to do that my way. EP coming soon.
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