Интервю с Erik Gärdefors (GRIFT)

Interview with Erik Gärdefors (GRIFT)

Satania: How did you found GRIFT and what is the idea behind the project?

Erik: I found Grift back in 2011. My idea has from the start been to write so honest music and lyrics as possible. In my case it often results in melancholic tunes and words.

S.: What did GRIFT give to their fans, what did it teach them for the past six years? What else does it want to give them?

Erik: I’m not here to teach or preach! People often tell me that they found some kind of consolation when they listen to my music, that’s something very great for me to hear because I think I do this for myself like therapy.

S.: Why did you pick that name?

Erik: I wanted a simple name with an inexorable meaning. The Swedish poet, Johannes Edfeldt, wrote about a grift and when i read it I thought it could fit as a bandname.

S.: With what the part of Sweden, where you live in, is more different than the other parts of Sweden? What inspires you there?

Erik: I try to do something out of the environment I live in every day. If I was born in Paris or on the desert of Sahara I had tried to do something out of that instead. So, it’s not so much about a different place, it’s more about the fate where I’m born and where I live.

S.: GRIFT’s music is inspired by Swedish poets. Can we say, that GRIFT are musical landscapes, bringing the dark soul of Swedish’s poetry.

Erik: Maybe in some way. I guess that because I’m reading poets I got a vocabulary to try to express myself. And it must be in Swedish, because I’m not good in English at all.

S.: You want your music to bring existential questions and thoughts. Which is the most painful existential question, which GRIFT wants to answer?

Erik: I’m more interested in questions than answers. With my lyrics I try to evoke the big neverending questions that always will hunt us.

S.: I read a review of Syner, in which they call you DSBM and they compare you to Lifelover as an emotional impact of music on the audience. How would you comment this?

Erik: I’m not into DSBM at all. It’s not my coup of tea. But I can understand that people compare Grift with DSBM bands, mostly for my type of vocals I guess. The desperate howlings…

S.: Actually how much Black Metal is GRIFT if we’re talking about the trivial meaning, which is in that definition?

Erik: I don’t know, and I never think about it. I can’t escape from where I come from. When I was a teenager and found the Norwegian Black Metal scene I was possessed by it. And I have that pulsating in me since then. But nowadays I also listen to a lot of other kind of music, and I see no reason to classify Grift as this or that, it’s pointless to do.

S.: Your split with Drudkh is something really deep, distinctive and saturated. How did this collaboration happen? Tell us more about it.

Erik: Roman and I have been in contact in many years, so we wrote to each other about poets, history and music, and then we just thought that it was a natural thing to do something together.

S.: I really felt your new album a little different. What is the message, which Arvet is trying to spread?

Erik: It’s an album about the home, the biological and social heritage we can’t escape from but that many of us constantly longing away from.

S.: You don’t do a lot of concerts out of Sweden. Where were you playing and are planning on playing?

Erik: Actually I have done a lot of concerts this year. Both as a full band and also solo acoustic concerts. This year Grift has performed in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Poland.

S.: With how many musicians you go out on stage and which ones are they, if you of course can share that?

Erik: We are four people when we play with the full band. They are three old friends of me.

S.: How does a show by GRIFT look like? Do you use shamanism and how shamanism is covered in Swedish culture?

Erik: We stand like silhouettes on stage. I use to have some incense with me, some branches, horns and so on to evoke the right kind of atmosphere.

S.: What are you preparing for Bulgarian fans as a show and merch?

Erik: I guess I will bring some CD’s, LP’s and t-shirts.

Some final words. Thanks for your time! See you on the road!

Erik: Thanks a lot. It will be really interesting for us to play in Bulgaria for the first time!

Official GRIFT resources:

www.facebook.com/griftofficial

www.griftofficial.bandcamp.com

www.instagram.com/griftofficial

UPCOMING CONCERTS 2017

24-26.11 AUTUMN SOULS OF SOFIA | SOFIA, BUL