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The grass is always greener

No short-term memory loss for GrimSkunk

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Journalists seek the naked truth—and sometimes, goddamn us, we get it. The cover of the May 2, 1996, issue of the Mirror featured locals GrimSkunk, interviewed inside by Chris Yurkiw, in connection with the release of Meltdown, the band’s second album. There they were on the cover in their birthday suits, an artfully placed headline the only thing keeping the paper out of a plastic wrapper.

By 1996, GrimSkunk—Franz Schüller, Joe Evil, Peter Edwards, Alain Vadeboncoeur and Marc St-Maurice—already had quite a history. Born in ’88 out of the ashes of hardcore unit Fatal Illness, they’d built a big following for their distinct sound, a blend of pugnacious punk, hippie tripping and big, baroque prog rock of a decidedly nocturnal nature—perfectly suited to the pot-friendly crowds they attracted, and encouraged, with a fierce pro-legalization stance. They’d also seen tragedy, in the sudden loss of their manager (and a true mensch) Simon Galipeault to a skateboarding accident.

But at that point, bassist Marc “Boris” St-Maurice had yet to bail on rock ’n’ roll for a political life, founding the Bloc Pot party. And GrimSkunk had yet to found their label Indica, which these days is a whirlwind of activity due to the success of their recent signings les Trois Accords, Dobacaracol and Priestess. And they’d yet to record their next album Seventh Wave.

Lead guitarist Peter Edwards took a moment to look back at GrimSkunk’s story.

Mirror: GrimSkunk were on the cover of the May 2, 1996, issue of the Mirror. Looking back almost 10 years at that period, what do remember most distinctively?

Peter Edwards: One thing I remember about that cover story is that we did the photo totally nude. It read “Skunkadelic.” That was cool. Recording the Meltdown album was also a trip. We recorded at a studio in Vermont called Time Machine. It was owned by a family of billionaires. They had come into money because they developed and patented the triggering system for air bags. I will never forget that estate. Everything you might need was at your fingertips, and there we were—a bunch of punks with bottles of whiskey. We sure had a good time. Making the video for our single “No Sympathy” was also a blast—literally. We had spun out of control on the highway and rolled our band van somewhere in north Ontario on our way back from a Canadian tour. There is a photo of the wreck in Meltdown. We decided to make our video about a highway accident, so our director Anthony got an old van that we were able to blow up in a massive explosion. That was fun! Also, when thinking back to that time, it is amazing how many friends we made in the USA, Canada and Europe. The most memorable part by far is the people we partied with. Word up to the party people from 1995!

M: What major changes has the band seen since then?

PE: Well, we lost Boris to his quest to decriminalize the herb. I remember the night when our drummer thought of the name Bloc Pot as a joke—we were on tour in Nantes. At the time we didn’t really believe Boris would actually make it happen, but he did. Kudos to him for winning in the Supreme Court of Canada. Also, we created our record label Indica in 1997. Now the label is doing quite well.

M: What’s GrimSkunk up to today?

PE: Vince Peak from Groovy [Aardvark] is our permanent bass player now and we are stoked! He’s a brother. Franz, Joe, Alain, Vince and myself are currently working on a new GrimSkunk album, and I am hyped because it’s starting to feel like 1996 again in our studio. We’re really liking what we are doing this year. I expect that this new album will be out next spring. It’s also good to see that Montreal is doing well and people are having good times. As my friends Psychotic 4 would say, “Bang your heads to the new revolution!”