Grafton Primary: Perfection Management

Indie-disco kids Grafton Primary give The Dwarf the skinny (jean) on all things GP.

“Perfection management is the key word there. In one sense it drives you to new heights and it means that you never feel you’ve peaked because you always know there is more that you can do and you can develop limitlessly and that’s a beautiful thing but it can make the process longer,” Josh Garden of Grafton Primary says, when trying to explain whether the process of being perfectionists slows down the process of recording new material.

So does perfectionism hinder Grafton Primary – in the sense of recording albums and getting music out?

“I think to an extent yes… it’s definitely taken longer that it should of.”

“In more recent times we had the album title Primary Colors (prior to Eon). The problem was there is another band in Australia called Eddy Current Suppression Ring, who about four or five months ago put out an album called Primary Colors. We hadn’t even mentioned it to anyone, that that was our album title… It’s weird you know, it’s nearly like these ideas are floating around in the ether and one or the other people seem to simultaneously come up with the same thing - there is stuff floating around out there and everyone tunes into it and one of the reasons why there is this whole mythology about who’s ripping who off and whose idea belongs to whom… and it’s like no one owns an idea!”

So how does it work when two members of the band are related (Josh and Ben being brothers in blood and musical band mates)?

“It works pretty well, I think partly because we were raised in the same household and we have some of the same ideals regarding perfectionism… we’re both pretty fussy about how things sound,” he says.

“Also, I think even though we are extremely different we also have a huge amount of respect for each other, I think that is also part of what makes the act so dynamic… we can hold such opposing ideas with the one sound and you can really only do that with family because the ideas are so different that it would probably lead to a rift with most bands. I think you have an understanding that there is a deeper love than your everyday group,” he says.

Grafton Primary has been playing live gigs since April 2006, with some years prior spent perfecting the sound of Grafton Primary in the privacy of their own space and the release of their EP Relativity in September '07. Josh and I reflect on how the rise and popularity of the band has been over that period of time.

“Its definitely been slow and steady… prior to that there had been two and a half years of actual studio work, we work-shopped a lot of ideas and did a lot of production work… found our feet, experimented and did a lot of stuff and really only started doing live shows when we started to feel like we had stuff we wanted to put out into the world and were understandably happy with. It wasn’t just a case of we just gonna play some shows so we can drink booze and sleep with people,” Josh says.

“To be honest we didn’t really want to play live shows when we first started producing because we were just so obsessive that we didn’t want to leave the studio, but now that we have been gigging for a couple of years and I’ve played some pretty awesome shows and you can kind of see what the whole point of performing is. Of the two of us my brother is quite the perfectionist… he does stress a bit more at live shows.”

Josh and I talk about whether they are happy with the association with Triple J that steams from being a recipient of that award?

“Those guys work really hard to promote Australian acts… I don’t care what people think of the station – whether they love it or hate it. ...They really do give precedence to Australian acts, at the same time they do have certain standards and they do have certain songs that they prefer to play on their station – it encourages people to do the best recordings they can, to do the best production they can, to write the best songs they can – its not a god given right to be played on radio… you’ve got to put as much effort as you can in what you do.”

Eon will be released on both digital and physical format. As a lover of the physical CD and accompanying case and artwork, I ask Josh how he feels about digital versus CD.

“It’s a double edged sword – I miss the availability of a physical product and the artwork and the kind of detail that goes into it… on our album we have gone the whole hog and we actually have some art and stuff and that will be in the physical format however in the age of environmentalism there is something pretty amazing about digital downloads.”

So what’s life as a Grafton Primary man really like?

“Well I think the way of now… there is a lot of independent acts and people are starting to realize that yes it is a lot more work – yes you have to enlist yourself as well as the people that a label will dredge up for you. Doing the whole publicity, photography, arranging your artwork, it’s a lot of work! It’s a lot of administration but at the same time if you have got a good manager and you’re happy to hook up the other connections you need you can actually tailor your network to something that you exactly want and say I want this PR person, and this manager, this booking agent, this artist… you do have the level of control… don’t anyone be under the illusion that being independent means having all this time to yourself all the time… it’s a hard slog… it’s a long term vision.”

Grafton Primary’s Eon is out now though. Sonic Constructions.

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