Today we’d like to introduce you to Grave Lurker.
Hi Grave, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Grave Lurker emerged from the ashes of Klaxxon, King Bastard, and Treeburner. Tory Bohl is on vocals, D. Bruno on stunt guitar, Z on bass & vocals, Alex on rhythm guitar, and Michael on drums. We started playing together in 2018, and our mutual love of horror movies formed the basis of the lyrical themes. Impetigo, Autopsy, and Exhumed are all influences on the musical style, but we also include grindcore and black metal elements. We recorded an album with Matt Qualls several years ago at Young Avenue Sound and Easley McCain and released 500 copies on CD.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Struggles have been relatively minimal. We do this for fun, so the only real difficulty is getting the gear to the venue. We used to practice at a house where the neighbors called the cops on us frequently, but we never got cited. One of the cops named Ace said he was a fan of heavy metal and would come to a show, but he never did. We practice at a different house now, and the neighbors just move rather than call the cops on us.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Tory makes Italian food, Bruno is a wildcard from parts unknown, Z peddles potent potables, Alex is a public defender, and Michael is a union man. If we put on our work clothes and stand together we look like Village People rejects. We specialize in playing death metal that would also sound great as surf rock. We actually plan to play a show as Surf Lurker someday, but who knows when that will happen.
One thing we are very proud of is our support for A Betor Way, which is a harm reduction and syringe services program operating at Sycamore View and Summer every Friday night. We have played their benefit show Betor Fest three years in a row and strongly support the work they do.
One thing that sets us apart from other death metal bands is Michael’s exclusive use of a single kick pedal. It has allowed us to avoid using certain songwriting tropes and helped us develop a personal style. But sadly, it also means we cannot cover any of the Macabre songs we want to.
What does success mean to you?
Success to us is having someone genuinely enjoy hearing us play. We do this purely for fun and never pretended like we could turn this into a source of income. Discounted beers from the venue is the closest we come to getting paid for doing this. When we made the CD we thought maybe we could sell enough to make it pay for itself, but then we just started giving away copies to our friends and now they’re all gone. They are real glass-mastered CDs though, so they will last hundreds of years. When the aliens come and sift through the rubble of our long-dead civilization, hopefully they will find a copy and listen to it. Now that I think about it, I want to change our answer above about success. We define success as being heard by non-human intelligent life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gravelurker.bandcamp.com/
- Instagram: @gravelurker901
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gravelurker901/
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/gvDJOWoJjCc
