For your reading pleasure only, here is the interview with Martin Allan Grey from The Guilty Hands, who we caught up with last week! Enjoy!
Piewatch: Hello Martin. First off, lets get one thing straight, what exactly are your hands guilty of?
Piewatch: You have been playing together for a while now (with some name changes), how did your journey begin?
Paul and Gareth have been playing together since school and they started in the usual teenage schoolboy band way, sealing a pact of honour and loyalty in blood before enjoying some flapjack. Meanwhile I was drifting from band to band looking for a home, and eventually they took pity on me, and here we are.
Piewatch: You are soon to be releasing your debut single ‘Gregory And The Birds’ (on iTunes and Amazon from July 13th 2009). Excited?
Yes – but sad that we can’t play more gigs to promote the launch since we lost our bassist Andy. However we’ll be playing again very soon, and we’ve sent the single out to all the websites and magazines so hopefully it will be reviewed well.
Piewatch: Your lyrics are…well… interesting, you deal with death, love, desire, pain (etc) yet with a light and joyful attitude towards everything. Where does the inspiration come from?
Overheard arguments, walks in graveyards, family secrets, Tennessee WIlliams.
Piewatch: One set of lyrics state “masochists begging their tormentor for another shot of unbearable bliss”; is this simple having pleasure through pain or is it complex as in pain through pleasure of mind?
I think it’s up to the listener to decide that. The actual story that inspired the song is about a man who visits a masseur and finds that the rougher the massage, the more he likes it – and it escalates with dreadful consequences.
Piewatch: Another outtake from the lyrics; “this isn’t love, but it’s enough” – bitter reality for most nowadays or more of an individual case?
It’s not as bitter as it sounds, in fact this lyric is often misunderstood. The narrator is not in love with “Gregory”, they’re more in awe of him and hanging off his coat tails. It’s about hero worship rather than infatuation, hence “this isn’t love”…
Piewatch: But enough about lyrics, you are up for financing via the Gibson showcase and at this moment it would appear you are odds on favourite to win the guitar. If you could choose the model which one would it be?
http://www.tapecircle.co.uk/spydaradio/images/acl08/shooter5.jpg
Piewatch: Are the instruments you play in a way extensions of yourselves, do you let them express what you could not in words (obviously singer excluded)?
I think the passion and emotion goes into writing the song. We deliver the songs live with a lot of energy but I’m not so pretentious as to say “when I lift my guitar in the air it symbolises the theme of freedom in this song”… however I do think that playing live allows me to express a more extroverted side to my personality.
Piewatch: Why play a gig in London if you can play in Belgium…? You played there on 4th of April; heres a video we found on YouTube - Link so everyone can get a glimpse of you on the road. We are also interested in your feelings, how was it to travel that far? What was the feeling like there and were Belgian waffles really that good?
For me, it was the best thing we’ve done together as a band. A lot of artists will tell you that they hate traveling, but for a band like us it was a new thing – normally we don’t travel together to a gig, we just meet at the venue with our instruments. The waffles were good (and so was the beer) but the people were better – they really enjoyed the gig and bought our t shirts, they were generous and friendly and we can’t wait to go back and play for them again. We’ve been promised a tour early next year, hopefully we’ll have more details on that soon.
Piewatch: We have dealt with past and present, but what about the future? What are your goals?
To get more people listening to our music and coming to our gigs. To increase our fanbase so we can play more outside London, and even outside the UK. To get management, a booking agent, a PR agency. To get played on the radio. To be remembered after we’re gone.
Piewatch: Lets say you become tremendously huge. Which level would you like to go? TGH movies? TGH action figures (if they would be the talking kind which messages would they give out)? TGH cult maybe (I think cults are really trendy nowadays)?
If we got to that level, I wouldn’t allow any merchandise except monocles and tie clips.
Piewatch: If you could be anywhere in the world with anyone at this precise moment, where and who would it be?
Onstage with my sexy friends in The Guilty Hands of course.
Piewatch: Let’s wrap things up here, anything you would like to add?
Catch The Guilty Hands on the following links
