Happy Wednesday, my friends. With Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III released back at the start of October, it is my absolute pleasure to feature the apex of this five-album concept series from Gridfailure, the experimental noise project (to put it way too simply) out of New York. From the mind of David Brenner, this installment continues to explore the downfall of all we know through an immersive… expansive array of soundscapes. With a loaded list of guest appearances (more on that below), there is so much to explore in these 80-something minutes. Seriously. It’s a lot and it rules. Familiarize yourself more with David’s responses to our Profile questions below. And if you need to catch yourself up a bit first, here’s Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery I and Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery II. Now get to it!
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How and when did you first get into playing music, or metal more specifically, and how did your band get its start? Any pushback from family/those close to you?
I’ve been into heavy music since I was in elementary school in the 1980s when I got into skateboarding and the older kids from the neighborhood were all listening to Anthrax and Slayer, and Faith No More’s “The Real Thing” was everywhere. I started playing bass and formed a punk band, Militia Men, in high school and my parents hated all the mohawks and studded/shredded clothing, but if I kept my grades up, they let me do my thing. We argued about things and there were realistic limits, but they supported me practicing a couple times a week, playing local shows, recording, and so on. In the tumultuous decades since, I’ve played in Dead By Dawn, Heidnik, Vise Massacre, Theologian, and more. Now I’m in my late 40s and have worked in the music industry for my entire adult life and still play obscure underground shows, and my parents/sisters have come out to see some of my bands/projects play live.
How would you describe your band and what you play to someone who is completely in the dark?
My main/solo project Gridfailure is an abstract/harsh audiovortex of an overall dark ambient/experimental noise style infusing elements an open-ended wealth of genres, with folk, jazz, classical, EDM, black metal, drone, punk, dark hardcore, industrial, and more having already been tested. I produce many solo records, yet some infuse a variety of collaborators. I’ve released somewhere around forty albums since forming it in 2016, including several splits, collaborative albums, compilation tracks, and more. For Gridfailure live, I usually gather a few close allies and have played solo. I have the club turn out as many lights as possible and I project dizzyingly psychedelic videos across the entire stage, and we simply improvise the entire set without playing any album material. It’s a true experiment every time.
“Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III” is the apex album in an ongoing five-album concept series. It’s over eighty minutes long and is the most broad and diverse blend of genres on any Gridfailure record to date. It also infuses the most intense cast of contributors I’ve ever worked with; over two dozen friends/family members play on it. Steve Austin (Today Is The Day) supplies guitars, vocals, and additional lyrics to five of the fifteen songs, which collectively infuse work from Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Ionophore), Mac Gollehon (live/session for David Bowie, Duran Duran, Onyx, Blondie, Héctor Lavoe), Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe, GRIDFAILURE-live), Richard Muller (Giant Spider, GRIDFAILURE-live), Greg Meisenberg (A Fucking Elephant, Dead Register, GRIDFAILURE-live), Lane Oliver (Yatsu, Diminishing), Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves), Christopher Henry (Fuck Your Birthday, Humans Etcetera), Graham Scala (US Christmas, Interstitia, Bleach Everything), Dan Emery (Thetan), BJ Allen (Zero Trust), Clayton Bartholomew (Mountaineer), No One (T.O.M.B., Dreadlords), Morgan Evans (Walking Bombs), Hazard (Hasard, Les Chants Du Hasard), Pranjal Tiwari (Cardinal Wyrm, S.C.R.A.M.), Jared Stimpfl (Secret Cutter, Orphan Donor), Natan Vee (Cardinal Wyrm, Fyrhtu), Mike Giuliano (Big Happy), Josh Thorne (Cadaver Industry), Alex Haber, Rosa Henriquez, Pete Tsakiris, Isaac Campbell, and Rob Levitt.
Besides Gridfailure, I am also in Diminishing (Lane Oliver from Yatsu and myself), and a few other bands/projects that remain unnamed/in the conception process.
Is there anything about your latest / upcoming album or about your band that no one will find in any interview or review that you care to divulge?
I include a lot of field recordings – storms, fire, mechanical sounds – into a lot of my records. The entire “Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery” series was sort of created out of this, early in Gridfailure. Back in 2016/2017, I captured a ton of random vocals, acoustic guitar, hand drums, and more out in very turbulent rainstorms and more, which I’d stretch through all five of the albums in the series. During one such recording session, I had the window in my DIY home studio open during a total maelstrom with two different mics aimed out the window with rain slapping into the joint. I also went out into this storm with two live mics and recorded bloodclot vox in my side yard in the middle of the night in the middle of this terrible storm and felt a few solid shocks, then tracked mud, rain, and a shot mic back into the bunker.
Any funny stories from playing shows / tours / festivals, etc?
Gridfailure only plays a few shows per year – mostly around NYC where I and some of the live collaborators are based, as well as Philly, New England — as its improvisational/random nature usually makes it quite difficult to flesh out a steady live lineup. At the first Gridfailure show (2018 at the Meatlocker in Montclair, New Jersey) I must have overloaded the outlet with all my pedalboard setups and blew sparks out of the wall/fried the outlet before we even played the first note of our first show.
What do you see as some of the great things happening in and around the metal scene (yours or just in general) and what are some of the worst things happening right now?
Technology has made it so easy for new music to be received and consumed, however it has also made it impossible to navigate through the mass amounts of bullshit. The fact that most artists care more about Spotify than anything else really aggravates me; I can’t stand/don’t use Spotify and I think it’s one of the worst things to happen to independent music. Soon, AI will overthrow all media outlets, and many folks will no longer even write their own lyrics/concepts. However, in times of desperation and uncertainty, true art is created in great multitudes.
Most folks have passions for a cause or causes that are close to them. What, if any, are some of the most important issues (social/political/humorous/etc.) for you / your band and how do you insert those issues into your music?
Man-made apocalypse, ecological collapse, socio-political unrest, revenge, the takeover of artificial intelligence, cannibalism, and other end-of-days/dystopian aspects fuel the concepts and lyrics of Gridfailure. I’ve contributed time and money to play live/donate to Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, natural disaster support, local garbage cleanups, and other ecological/socio-political actions. The environment is my number one concern. When the first Gridfailure & Megalophobe collaborative album, “Dentridic”, was coming out, we committed to planting one new tree for every digital or cassette preorder received. I ordered fifty white pine saplings from the Arbor Day Foundation, and I believe we received like a dozen preorders by the time the record was coming out, so we rogue-planted all the trees anyway.
Do you have day jobs or hobbies you want to share?
I co-own/operate Earsplit PR with my wife, direct videos for my own projects and other bands/artists, and am basically immersed in music, art, media, communications, and so on all day/every day. I draw, paint, cook, listen to vinyl, mountain bike, distance run, and make a ton of content with Gridfailure, Diminishing, and more.
What advice do you have for music critics and outlets out there? How can we all better serve the genre in the eyes of a hard-working musician?
So many major outlets (or those aspiring to be mainstream) are focused on instant traffic and clicks rather than discovering and spotlighting new/interesting acts. Click-bait over content. Relatable and compelling content and building a solid foundation of readers/listeners who trust your content and continue to return for more is more important than topically spotlighting the already hot band of the day. I think Nine Circles does an excellent job of bridging things; covering the bigger acts of the metal world to draw folks in, but your focus is heavily on new/underground acts, you hit interesting dregs/outre stuff with Rainbows In The Dark, and so on.
Any specific long-term goal(s) in mind?
I’d like to direct and score a film, and write a novel. Perhaps both of those would be connected to Gridfailure. But overall, I would basically just like to let the project continue to morph and see where it goes, while continuing to learn, work with allies, and hate/ignore the mainstream and trends.
When you’re not obsessing over your own material, what are some of your favorite albums to listen to currently?
Deadguy – “Near-Death Travel Services”
Anastasia Minister – “Song Of Songs”
Leila Abdul-Rauf – “Calls From A Seething Edge”
Bludgeoned By Deformity – “Epoch Of Immorality”
Melek-Tha – “War Is Coming”
Mulatu Astatke – “Mulatu Of Ethiopia”
Faith No More – “King For A Day… Fool For A Lifetime”
Big Pun – “Capital Punishment”
Pensées Nocturnes – “Grand Guignol Orchestra”
John Carpenter – Lost Themes IV: Noir
Les Chants Du Hasard – “Livre Quart”
Nas & Damian Marley – “Distant Cousins”
Iggor Cavalera / Shane Embury – “Neon Gods / Own Your Darkness” split LP
What is the near future outlook for you or your band? Any specific events on the horizon that the masses should be aware of?
Following “Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III”, of the two-dozen or more albums/projects I have in the works, the Gridfailure & Tovarish collaborative album is in the final mixing stage now, music for the first of several Gridfailure & Pornohelmut audiovisual collaborations is done and the video is underway, the fourth Gridfailure & Megalophobe collaborative album is nearly complete, I’m getting back to work on my Americana-inspired Gridfailure album, I’ve got a lathe-cut release coming together for Anti-Corp Music, and more. Gridfailure-adjacent, a two-part album under the Brenner & Molenaar banner with Christian Molenaar is nearing completion (both of which will be released this year), and Diminishing is working on new music right now as well. I recorded vocals and synth for a track on the new Today Is The Day LP (and recorded parts for Mac Gollehon for the same track as well) which is coming up, and I’m going up to Steve’s lair Austin Enterprise in Maine to record an album for SuperNova Records.
Summarize your band in one word.
Confrontational.
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Many thanks to David for the time!
Sixth Mass-Extinction Skulduggery III is out now in partnership with Nefarious Industries. For more information on Gridfailure, check out Instagram or Facebook.