By SHAWN MACOMBER
“This life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear”–Stephen King, THE INSTITUTE
“Come from the shadow of yourself, if you dare”–Stephen King, THE WASTELAND
When Adam McGrath first got his license in the early nineties, he would drive his mother’s Mercury Sable down Baremeadow Lane in Methuen, Massachusetts with the headlights off, a boombox between the front seats blaring the dubbed tape du jour, allowing the total darkness of the open farmland to disintegrate the gossamer veil between living and dead.
“I still very frequently dream of the town and landscape that I grew up in,” the guitarist and songwriter–whose innovative work with the seminal, uncategorizable bands Cave In and Clouds obliterated similar boundaries between various genres and subgenres of rock, metal, indie and noise–tells RUE MORGUE. “I’m consciously aware that I am visited in my dreams by friends and family who have passed on. I cherish these moments which enable me to still feel a real connection to them. I may have gotten older, but in my dreams, these loved ones have remained unchanged and just as I remember them.”
It is a betwixt and between vibe that animates McGrath’s debut solo album, METHUEN’S LOT, a stunning and affecting work that builds a bridge between two very organic eras of music–seventies folk rock (Folgelberg, Seals & Croft, Young, Tom Waits) and nineties alt-rock (Sebadoh, Flaming Lips, Failure, Magnetic Fields)–but, then, from a storytelling and thematic perspective is very much anchored in the eighties with this golden-hued, heartfelt sense of the strange magic and pathos of our strange existence on this planet.
Indeed, that the record artwork and title serve as an intertwined homage to both Kurt Vonnegut and Stephen King speaks volumes.
Today, RUE MORGUE is proud to present a short Q&A in which McGrath talks about his love for VHS heyday horror and genre paperbacks, the way being born and raised in the small town New England of King’s lore has shaped him, and why now, nearly thirty years into his musical career, felt like the perfect time to go solo into those shadows.
So, why go solo now?
I’ve been thinking about making a solo record off and on for the past ten years at least but never actually committed to any timeline. I certainly didn’t have it in me to start another band or side project at this point–I am very content with the schedule, time demands, and dynamic of Cave In. One of the big catalysts was seeing (Cave-In drummer) JR (Conners) perform in his solo project Marilith last fall and take on a whole new musical alias. Realizing that I’m not getting any younger–and also that I would really love to have another musical outlet outside of Cave In–I decided to start demoing a batch of acoustic-based music I knew I would later be able to perform completely on my own. I asked (Cave In guitarist/vocalist) Steve (Brodsky) if he would be interested in producing and recording the project, and I was stoked that he was in.
How did Steve’s involvement change things, if at all?
Steve helped me shape, arrange and improve my songs from the original demos, but he also had great suggestions as to what was missing from the body of work I initially presented to him. He suggested finishing the Dennis Wilson “Thoughts of You” cover I had demoed years ago, adding lyrics to an old ambient sound collage demo recorded during the pandemic that would become the track “Methuen’s Lot.” I have very raw and primitive piano skills and Steve thought it would be worth pursuing a piano song to make a well-rounded album showing all aspects of what I could sonically offer.
I had asked Steve to help me record a solo EP, but it turned out to be a full-length album by the time we were done recording in his basement studio in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It was great thing to be focused on during the darkest and coldest days of winter.
New England is fertile where so many cool, forward-looking, groundbreaking cultural things–your own work in its various facets serving as a prime example–yet it is also a place that forces you to recognize the long tailwind of history. For me, listening to the traditional nods and innovative ambitions on your record feels…well, very New England. But maybe I’m overintellectualizing it in a stupid way.
I’d say New England is the spiritual back drop in everything I do creatively and is woven into the fabric of who I am. There’s a way people move, talk and carry themselves around here that is very much ingrained in me for better or worse. The rotating seasonal changes always have direct effect on your mood and even the way you carry out your day-to-day life. It’s sweltering hot in the summer and beyond freezing in the winter. New England is also rich in history and covers many different types of landscapes–cities, suburban towns, seashores, vast forests, dynamic mountain ranges. All of it inspires me.
And then, during my early school years, I was very lucky to meet a core group of friends with whom I could bond over music. We were products of the early nineties MTV generation which would later serve as a gateway into the underground punk and hardcore music scenes. We were also very lucky to have a regional scene and great local bands around our hometown such as Piebald and Converge which were crucial in providing motivation to get our own band–Cave In–going and carve out our own sound. Sounds, methods and processes I still use to this day in the creation of my own music.
“Baremeadow Lane” is perhaps the best example of a New England song on the record: Its lyrics mention an actual street in Methuen, seasonal changes, and reflect upon my teen years living in my Massachusetts hometown that was the only world I had known. It also has deep family connections as well because it was on that same street that my grandmother grew up on a dairy farm.
The press notes accompanying METHUEN’S LOT cite Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut, naturally, but also Cormac McCarthy. Can you talk a little bit about how the darker side of literature influences your work?
I went on a Stephen King bender last year and have such a great appreciation for his work. ‘Salem’s Lot as well as the eight Dark Tower books were direct influences on this record.
Can you give me an example?
I liked how the town Jerusalem’s Lot was like a main character in ‘Salem’s Lot and felt that Methuen was similarly a major character in my work. From the Dark Tower books, I took that its more about the journey than the destination, which is reflected in the lyrics of “Empty Moon.” In Wolves of the Calla, the main characters need to fight off a band of horseback riding metal wolves dressed very similar to Marvel’s Dr. Doom carrying Star Wars-looking lightsabers and Harry Potter snitches. The details and combination of what makes this enemy is something straight out of a nightmare.
The cover is a nod to Kurt Vonnegut’s BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.
Yes. From Vonnegut I always loved the way he found a way to make humor and absurdity in the dark and tragic world. And the Cormac McCarthy book that had great influence on this record was The Crossing from The Border Trilogy. McCarthy’s books can be so heavy and dark. I’m sure I have looked up from a page of many a McCarthy book as white as a ghost. In The Crossing the main character Billy is visited by his deceased brother in his dreams. He is consciously aware in his dream that his brother is dead but does not tell him. He would rather spend whatever time he could with his lost brother rather than “betray the dream” and tell his brother that he has died. The song “Betray the Dream” is inspired by this scene and is about being visited by your deceased friends and family in your dreams and trying to completely soak in that moment in the dreamworld.
The Cave In “Blood Spiller” video from a few years back as well as some of the titles on METHUEN’S LOT leads me to believe you might have some experience with eighties VHS horror.
There is certainly a lot of eighties horror culture infused within my circle of friends. We are of the HBO and video store generation, after all. Steve Brodsky loves the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films. I’ve always found it very funny when he gives me the classic Freddy one liners. The Lost Boys was probably my favorite horror movie growing up in that I loved the Frog Brothers teenage vampire vigilantes. I have to admit I’ve been very late to many classics: I only saw the original Halloween and The Thing within the last ten years. Both are absolutely incredible and are now among my favorite films with their great soundtracks. The Alien movies are also some of my favorites. The bleak and rumbling spaceship hallways are like another major character and add to the suspense and horror. I love the grotesque and beautiful non-CGI puppets in Aliens and feel that it’s become almost a lost art in modern films. Prometheus is often overlooked in its scope and vision and is one of my favorite Christmas movies ever. I believe it’s a wacky story about the birth of Christ told in a very Alien sort of way.
METHUEN’S LOT is available for purchase now via Pax Aeternum. And be sure to follow Adam McGrath on Instagram.
