BACK TO BASICS
Interview With Grave For The Fireflies
Orange County
From Issue 2.3, January/February 2006
Bassist and singer Jordan’s former music teacher once told him that punk music is for the lazy after he brought in some Green Day songs to play. The teacher told him that the music was too easy.
“I think if someone says that [punk is not challenging], they’re being pretentious,” Jordan said of those who believe that punk is for the talentless. “It doesn’t matter in our case. What we have, how we play-we’re proud of it.”
And with good reason. Grave for the Fireflies released their “Bitten” album a couple months ago, have been playing up a storm at local venues and their music is something to get excited over.
At a time when thrash has replaced the meaning of hardcore (as in 80s Black Flag hardcore), Grave for the Fireflies is a band that has gone back to basics which gives meat to their music for anyone craving good stuff to listen to. When they play, you can make out the sounds of each instrument and you can understand the lyrics. Their songs don’t sound all the same and they don’t overthink what they are singing about.
Singing something like, “Put some guy pants on,” or “Fuck your fashion scene” are pretty easy to understand and yet, it makes sense because it’s true. Those are lyrics from their song “Eyeliner” off their new album.
On Bitten, there’s an overriding sense that this band sings for those who have become bitter over the state of music, its turn towards fashion, close-minded music listeners and people who only go to shows to socialize and could care less about the music.
They sing out against the whole “emo” mold (eye liner and girls’ pants on guys).
“We don’t dress up like clowns to play,” singer and guitarist Richie said. “We don’t bullshit people.”
“Yeah,” Jordan said, “we’re suburbanites from Orange County.”
“It’s just that, most of the other bands [in Orange County] are emo or metal hardcore,” Richie said. “I’m not saying we’re totally original.”
Grave for the Fireflies also consists of Annia on guitar and David on drums. While Richie said they may not be all that original, it’s obvious they are more fans of the music they play than anything else. They like seeing bands play and they can’t stand the poseurs and the people who have to turn music into something more than just the music.
Started in 2000, the band began as just another high school band, but it became serious over the past couple of years. They plan to release another album in March and subsequently have been in the studio working on it.
Jordan started taking his guitar lessons his junior year in high school and hated the lessons. He later picked up bass and began writing simple punk songs.
He later went on to teaching Annia how to play the guitar so she could play in his band. Annia took piano lessons at 8, but said that didn’t help her with the guitar because she never really picked-up on how to play the piano.
“I was excited when [Jordan] asked me,” Annia said of when he asked her to join back when they attended Fountain Valley High School.
Richie had been playing the guitar since he was 10. He said his dad showed him a few things and then Richie just taught himself the rest.
They are avid fans of the music and started playing because they were inspired by what they heard and saw at shows.
Now, they are the ones playing at the shows, though they say that’s not how they think of themselves at all. Instead, they are just fans and like many other fans have observed what some say Orange County lacks when it comes to the music.
“In Orange County [venues], it’s all about how many people you can bring in,” Jordan said. “There is no scene in Orange County. My theory on California (because we’ve played in Oregon), is that there’s too much going on in California. Over here, there’s Disneyland, the beach. But why does Orange County suck? I think venues made it suck. They all have dollar bills in their eyes. There’s some hardcore bands in Long Beach. I’d like to be associated with that. They’re all doing something.”
“And at shows out there [in Long Beach], all the kids watched,” Richie added. “They didn’t just leave [after their favorite band played].”
It’s obvious when they talk about the scene and when one visits their Web site, that they’ve grown sick of the commercialism rampant in music.
Their Web site reads, “our surrounding cities are plagued with unoriginal pop rock bands that cry about shit topics, ex-football players playing pop punk and metal/hardcore bands who clone their hometown heroes a little too closely.”
They say they sing for the “underdogs” and the kids who don’t quite fit in (they call their fans the “Death Kids.”)
With all of this talk of death and being social misfits, they realize they tread a line that borders along trite. And so, they’ve backed off on a lot of that dialogue because as with everything else, dark stuff in music has become cool as has black eyeliner on boys and bands who wear matching outfits onstage.
“For me,” Jordan began, “I just wanted to make a punk record that sounded like it’s influenced by 80s L.A. punk, old L.A. skate punk stuff.”
They play punk music with a little bit of integrity as Jordan put it, “where it’s not Halloween every night for a show.”
And as a record, that’s how “Bitten” stands and that’s how this band stands-two things quite respectable.
“The idea of it at the time, was to do a dark band, which is kind of cliche at this time. With all the My Chemical Romances, we’re going to try to lay off that stuff,” Jordan said. “There’s too many Atreyus; we don’t need anymore of that shit.”
True to his word, Grave for the Fireflies (which comes from an anime movie Jordan saw), is a band that is not following what is popular. However, it is also not self-righteously claiming to be something different or original. They’re just continuing a tradition that’s embedded in the music they play: no holds, searing vocals against edgy music meant to shock and wake people up.