Friday March 29th 2024

Interview with Led to the Grave

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Interview with Led to the Grave at O’Brien’s Bar

By Jim Slimedog

Led To The Grave are a brutal, thrashy, death metal-y bunch of young lads who are from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They take their scenic beach resort environment they’re from and drive it headlong into the sea with energetic, thrashing, grinding, apocalyptic sounds. As lead singer Chris Crobar said, “I hate the fucking beach.” And except for the scantily clad ladies I couldn’t agree more. The interview takes place in the bands van outside of O’Brien’s in Allston MA.

Slimedog- So how did you guys get started?

Chris Crobar (Lead vocals/Guitar)- Me and our old drummer, Jeff Moody, just jamming some riffs- I was in a hardcore band at the time and I wanted to switch it up a little bit and play some metal stuff. We started jamming out and C.T. and Pete hopped on board.

C.T. (Guitar/Vocals)- At that point I was pretty desperate to be in a band. I had been a guitar player for years and I said, “Screw it, I’ll play the bass.” I was playing bass for a little while and it wasn’t really my thing. Found a bassist, Pete over there, to take over the reins so I wouldn’t have to do it anymore and  I could play guitar.

Slimedog- How would you describe your style?

Chris- Metal, I don’t know. There are so many different sub genres in metal; I guess it’s hard to tell. I mean we have thrash, a little bit of death here and there, a little splash of punk, little splash of black metal, it’s just metal, I guess.

C.T.- We play what we feel at the moment.

Slimedog- To me your black metal with death metal thrown in there. You have the thrash but the vocals are a bit death metal-ish.

C.T.- I’d say the vocals, definitely, have a lot of that influence.

Kenny (Drums)- Maybe I’d say “Dark Thrash.”

Pete (Bass/Vocals)- Unholy Thrash. (Laughter)

Slimedog- Oh, yeah- it says that in your bio.

Pete- But it’s all metal. Rock’n’roll metal.

Chris- It’s what we do. (Laughter)

Slimedog- I know you guys are from the Cape Cod area. How is the scene there?

C.T.- It’s actually really good. Cape Cod has a lot of upper end fancy pants people and it kind of turns kids into having their own little subculture. A lot of bands, a lot of music coming out of Cape Cod, mostly because there’s nothing else to do.

Pete- A lot of good music.

C.T.- Great music coming from the Cape.

Chris- It’s also cool because all the punk bands, all the metal bands, all the hardcore bands get together and do shows. It’s not like strictly metal or strictly punk. We’re all friends, we all get along. I think it makes the scene much tighter, everyone coming together to have fun.

Slimedog- That’s something we hoped to accomplish with our site, bringing metal and punk bands together. But we’re finding out that has already happened which is great and it’s something we plan on taking credit for. How does the Boston scene compare with Cape Cod’s?

C.T.- It actually helps us a lot because we can bring people from the Cape and that adds to the people we already know here, which is a great scene, also, especially in Allston.

(What follows is a discussion about clubs on the Cape and though regular bars are reluctant to book these types of bands The Chatham Village Hall is a popular place to put on shows. Chris also mentions he is starting up WasteEdge Booking which can help Boston bands interested in playing there and to get in touch through their site.)

Slimedog- Who writes in the band?

C.T.- It’s a pretty collaborative effort among all of us, everyone throws in their two bits.

Slimedog- Who writes the lyrics?

Chris- I do most of the lyrics but we mostly throw things around, work on it together. As far as music it just starts off with some riffs and shoot back and forth with each other. Then shoot it to Kenny to see what we got goin’.  Not to put our old drummer down but since we started working with Kenny it’s been refreshing, he has really good ideas.

Slimedog- Do you have any recording plans?

Chris- We’re going to go on tour for about three weeks in October and after that we’ll focus on getting a few songs together.

C.T.- We almost have a full length album ready.

Chris- Probably gonna be a full length and see if any labels are interested in putting it out. We feel that’s the next step. A little more help with promotion and stuff from a label would be nice.

Slimedog- Where’s the tour going?

Chris- A few dates in New England, then hitting the whole East Coast. Little bit of the the South like Georgia, Kentucky; pretty much an East Coast tour with a few Midwest dates thrown in.

Slimedog- Where do you think metal is and where do you think its going?

Kenny- I think it’s in a good place and its going even better places.

C.T.- It’s like there’s so much new music that’s so awesome, new bands everyday.

Kenny- I wouldn’t even call it competition, everybody loves everybody, it’s great.

Chris- It’s like everybody is there for each other, to help each other out.

Slimedog- Andy is very excited about metal; he says metalcore is going to be huge in a few years.

C.T.- It’s funny when you look at it, it’s like you have music and then you have metal, there’s so many subgenres of metal to put it in its own category.

Slimedog- I think the metal scene is always great.

C.T.- What I like about the metal scene is they’re not here just to go to the bar, they’re there to see the bands. Other types of music the people go to the bar to drink and hear loud music, they could care less about whose playing, they’re not going to buy a cd. At a metal show people wanna buy merch, they wanna know what you’re doing.

Slimedog- Who drinks the most in the band?

Chris- It’s either me, Pete or C.T.

C.T.- I guess if the question is whose most likely to end up passed out on the ground- that’s definitely me. (Laughter)

Slimedog- We just did a thing about dive bars, how about a favorite dive bar?

Chris- QuarterDeck Lounge in Hyannis. (All agreeing)

Slimedog- Why?

Chris- Everywhere you look there’s shit all over the walls, drinks are cheap. Just dingy, small, whole in the wall place.

C.T.- Everybody’s there for pretty much one thing.

Pete- Drinking- no club, no dancing.

Chris- I was there last night talking to some girl and she said, “This place is a fucking dump.” (Laughter) She said, “I like to dance.” It’s this girl from Bulgaria, if she says that; and that’s cool, but it’s the perfect place, the perfect place to get drunk.

C.T.- Unless your grinding on a support pole there’s no fucking dancing. (Laughter)

Slimedog- Who, in the band, is most likely to become a serial killer?

Pete- Ah, Crobar (Chris) sad but true.

Slimedog- Is that unanimous? (All agreeing) And why is that?

C.T.- He’s got some inner rage, you see that rage come out sometimes.

Pete- He wouldn’t hurt a fly, though. He’s a big teddy bear.

At this point Chris Crobar’s inner rage would appear to come out as he proceeds to grab the bewildered Pete and using a hammer violently nails Pete’s head into the dashboard. Slimedog wisely slips out of the van unnoticed in the confusion to seek out the local police station to report the atrocity. A seriously great band to hear and hear live and hopefully, C.T. will still be on guitar when you see them. You can check out Led to the Grave’s band profile here and their CD/EP review here.

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