Gravelle-Perinbam Interview
Q: Can you talk about your history as an artist/band?
Rob:
Let me begin by saying thanks so much for having us on Pitch Perfect!
People are probably most familiar with John and I from Ivory Knight (https://ivoryknight.net/), which has gone through a few iterations since 1987. Somewhere around 2009, I started recording the odd cover song under my own name. I selected classic rock songs that I could mold into my style. When the pandemic hit, band practice ground to a halt, which gave me a golden opportunity to work on my solo material like never before. John was also available to contribute to the recordings, thus the Gravelle-Perinbam project was born!
John:
I’m John Perinbam, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist (bass/drums/piano / keyboards, guitar). I’ve been singing as far back as I can remember - my late father said he remembered me singing in the crib! I don’t remember that, but I do remember singing along to my Uncle Sam’s Beatles records probably around age 4 or so. I started writing my own songs at a very young age and, with my siblings and some friends, playing ‘concerts’ in front of my family.
My first ‘real’ band to perform in public was called Trojan Hammer. The guitarist was Jeff Waters, who went on to fame as the mastermind behind Canadian metal legends Annihilator. We played covers of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Accept, Saxon, Scorpions, Sabbath, Dio and others.
Shortly after Trojan Hammer broke up I formed Ivory Knight (with drummer Paul Malek, who played on the early Annihilator demos). We released a well-received cassette demo called Voices In Your Nightmare and recorded a couple of other, less known demos. With some line-up changes, the band gradually shifted towards a more mainstream hard-rock style and was renamed Sudden Thunder.
When the guitarist left, we auditioned many candidates before finding Rob Gravelle via a ‘musicians wanted’ ad we placed in the local newspaper. I think that was around 1992 or so. We played a ton of shows and recorded a self-titled CD Sudden Thunder before dissolving the band in 1994. The band reunited briefly around 2009 and the CD was remixed and reissued in 2012. Over the years I’ve worked on many projects, some with Rob, including Sudden Thunder, the reformed Ivory Knight, alternative rockers Dr. Squish, and cover band The Broke Brothers etc.
With Ivory Knight we released two critically-acclaimed CDs - Up From The Ashes (2001) and Unconscience (2004). Ivory Knight appeared in the Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles article "O Canada, Our Home and Metal Land! The List - Great White Metal A-Z;" in issue #92, among greats such as Rush, Saga, Voivod, Annihilator, Exciter, and Anvil! Additionally we’ve played a ton of shows, some in premier venues.
I was the founding bassist of popular Ottawa-area cover band Raw Sugar, with which I played literally hundreds of shows from 2007 until I left the band in 2011. I also create and release my own music (more info: johnperinbam.com) and am the frontman of (Ottawa’s) Enforcer. In 2009 or so, I released a CD called Knightfall, which was produced, engineered and mixed by Annihilator’s Jeff Waters. Rob plays most of the guitar solos and co-wrote (with Jeff and myself) much of the album.
Ivory Knight reunited around 2013 and played many shows. A CD called UNITY was released around 2018. Gravelle-Perinbam started as Rob’s solo project outside of Ivory Knight. Much of the focus was on creating progressive metal covers of classic rock songs. The first song I worked on was a cover of the Cheap Trick classic, Dream Police, on which I sang all the vocals. Sandor de Bretan (ex-Annihilator, ex-Sudden Thunder) handled the bass. Later Rob did a cover of Deep Purple’s scorcher, Highway Star, on which I sang and played bass.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, with Ivory Knight being unable to meet, Rob and I just kept on working - but in our individual home studios rather than in the band practice space! I released a solo single, a rock ballad called “Picture on the Wall” in 2020, and Rob and I released the covers “Mouse in a Maze,” “Private Life” and “Suspended Animation.” Gradually as I took a more active role in the overall production, we decided to add my name on the songs on which I’m playing a significant role.
With these songs and the Gravelle-Perinbam project benefiting from increased exposure and generating more and more interest we decided that our new original composition “Black Veil of Silence,” which was originally intended for Ivory Knight, would be released under the Gravelle-Perinbam name.
Q: What inspired you to make “Black Veil of Silence?”
Rob:
I had most of the music written when I introduced the song to the band about a decade ago. It may have been John that wrote the main riff. I honestly can't remember! In any case, I had music at that time, but no lyrics. The band helped to polish the arrangement and John wrote the lyrics and melody to go with the music. The band never got around to recording it, so it sat on the back burner for years until the opportunity presented itself for John and I to take it on under the Gravelle-Perinbam moniker.
John:
If I recall correctly, around 2011 or 2012, Rob composed the music for an early version of the song and introduced it to our band at the time, Sudden Thunder. I composed the lyrics, melody, and the original bass. However, shortly afterwards, the band dissolved and the song was shelved.
More recently, Rob re-introduced an updated version of the music to Ivory Knight. I re-wrote the lyrics and we started arranging the song in band rehearsals with the intention of releasing it under the Ivory Knight name. However those plans got sidetracked during the COVID lockdowns. Over that period of almost two years, our side projects were gathering steam and so, with Ivory Knight being inactive, we decided to release the song as the first Gravelle-Perinbam original.
The inspiration behind the lyrics was my feeling / observation that despite all our advancements in technology to make information widely accessible, there seems to be a disturbing trend towards rejecting scientific expertise in favor of politically-motivated and often divisive, inflammatory rhetoric. The “black veil of silence” refers to the unwillingness to challenge controversial and unsubstantiated views.
Q: Can you talk about some of the themes on the song?
Rob:
I think I'll let John take this one.
John:
Sure. The verses refers to the atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and hatred created by so-called “populist” leaders who seem to have few real ideas but seek to gain power through divisive rhetoric, conspiracy theories and character assassination, as well as the promise that they alone can deliver stability and prosperity, and that some group or person is to blame for any and all problems.
The chorus refers to rejecting conformity, thinking for oneself, and choosing to NOT go along with the crowd which embraces unsubstantiated claims and theories. The bridge is about the “leader” being exposed for the fraud that he is.The last verse is about opening our eyes, recognizing bullshit for what it is, and punishing those responsible for its deliberate propagation. It’s also a bit of light at what would otherwise be a very dark song.
Q: What is your creative process like?
Rob:
In general, I like to practice to a drum machine in my studio. That makes it really easy to lay down ideas that come up while I'm rocking out to the drums. Eventually, I wind up with enough parts to assemble into the skeleton of a song. At that point I'll introduce it to John or the band to arrange and/or add lyrics to it. Then there's the covers. I really enjoy taking classic rock songs and making them my own. It's always interesting to see how they turn out. Sometimes, a song just takes on a life of its own and winds up sounding nothing like the original. Those are my favorites.
John:
I must admit I don’t really have any formal process. Some songs have come out of fiddling around on an instrument, usually guitar or keys. I wrote the original “Theatre of the Insane,” later re-arranged and recorded by Ivory Knight, while learning to program a drum machine that I had just bought. I wrote “Watch You Walk Away,” a song later demoed first by Ivory Knight then by Sudden Thunder, while stopped at traffic lights - I sang the melody into a portable recorder, then went home and composed the music around that. The opening drum and corresponding guitar pattern for “Devoid” by Dr. Squish came to me while I was taking the bus.
Q: What is your recording process like? And has it changed over the years?
Rob:
Recording technology has really evolved over the years, and I got to experience it all, from analog tracking in big studios to digital recording on computer at home. Both have their pros and cons. In the old days, you had to know your parts inside and out before hitting the studio, or you'd wind up paying an arm and a leg. Recording at home gives you the luxury of being able to experiment and try different things. On the flip side, getting professional quality sound is a challenge. We've tried to mix the two over the years, by tracking at home and then sending the raw tracks to a professional engineer for mixing and mastering. That has always produced uneven results, depending on the quality of the bed tracks, and the skill of the engineer. Nowadays, we do pretty much everything ourselves so that we can control all aspects of production. Sure, there are always things we can pick out in the final product that could be better, but that's how you learn and improve.
John:
We don’t have anything etched in stone on the process as long as the finished product sounds great. For the Gravelle-Perinbam project so far each song has begun with Rob creating a rough version of the the song with guitar, keys, and programmed drums and sending me an MP3 file.
I then record my bass and vocals in my home studio (although on “Black Veil of Silence,” Ivory Knight’s Steve Mercer handled the bass guitar duties). I usually lay down the bass, followed by lead vocals and once I’m done with that I’ll usually have a pretty good idea of what I want for backing vocals. So far I’ve recorded all the backing vocals myself.
On “Black Veil of Silence”, as well as the next song we’re working on, after we had recorded the guitars, bass and vocals against the programmed drums, I had the idea of recording live drums. It started out as “let’s see what I can come up with” and we liked what we heard! So I’m playing drums on these songs.
Once my tracks are done, I upload them in WAV format for mixing. So far Rob has handled all of our mixing. Once we’ve agreed that the mix is done we proceed to mastering, which I handled on “Black Veil of Silence.” My recording process has definitely changed over the years. When I started creating music we did not have access to high quality recording capabilities at home, so we would create demos with the intention to eventually save enough from gigging and demo sales to go into a professional recording studio.
It all started out with two cassette recorders and a mixer then progressed to multitrack cassette recorders. Finally that was replaced with an ADAT-based system and some decent outboard gear, with which I was able to create professional-sounding recordings. Shortly after that, I added a PC to record additional tracks. Gradually as PCs became more and more powerful and capable of handling proper multitrack recording the ADAT was no longer needed.
Nowadays I don’t use any outboard gear, just an iMac running Logic Pro, a good quality USB interface, good headphones and studio monitors, and a great vocal mic. I play an electronic drum kit which I record via MIDI, eliminating the need for miking the drum set and having a suitable acoustic environment.
Q: How do you usually go about writing lyrics?
Rob:
I'll let John speak to that.
John: For most songs I just keep listening to the music over and over until it speaks to me and gives me an idea of what the song is about. For other songs the lyrical idea has come to me first.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
Rob:
Our next release will be a cover of a really cool ’60s songs. We're just about done mixing it now and, man, does it sound good! Keep an eye out on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/rob-gravelle-450614847/) and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/RobGravelle) for it.
John:
We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed creating it! Also, check out our websites robgravelle.com and johnperinbam.com for all the latest! Rock on!
Q: Can you talk about your history as an artist/band?
Rob:
Let me begin by saying thanks so much for having us on Pitch Perfect!
People are probably most familiar with John and I from Ivory Knight (https://ivoryknight.net/), which has gone through a few iterations since 1987. Somewhere around 2009, I started recording the odd cover song under my own name. I selected classic rock songs that I could mold into my style. When the pandemic hit, band practice ground to a halt, which gave me a golden opportunity to work on my solo material like never before. John was also available to contribute to the recordings, thus the Gravelle-Perinbam project was born!
John:
I’m John Perinbam, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist (bass/drums/piano / keyboards, guitar). I’ve been singing as far back as I can remember - my late father said he remembered me singing in the crib! I don’t remember that, but I do remember singing along to my Uncle Sam’s Beatles records probably around age 4 or so. I started writing my own songs at a very young age and, with my siblings and some friends, playing ‘concerts’ in front of my family.
My first ‘real’ band to perform in public was called Trojan Hammer. The guitarist was Jeff Waters, who went on to fame as the mastermind behind Canadian metal legends Annihilator. We played covers of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Accept, Saxon, Scorpions, Sabbath, Dio and others.
Shortly after Trojan Hammer broke up I formed Ivory Knight (with drummer Paul Malek, who played on the early Annihilator demos). We released a well-received cassette demo called Voices In Your Nightmare and recorded a couple of other, less known demos. With some line-up changes, the band gradually shifted towards a more mainstream hard-rock style and was renamed Sudden Thunder.
When the guitarist left, we auditioned many candidates before finding Rob Gravelle via a ‘musicians wanted’ ad we placed in the local newspaper. I think that was around 1992 or so. We played a ton of shows and recorded a self-titled CD Sudden Thunder before dissolving the band in 1994. The band reunited briefly around 2009 and the CD was remixed and reissued in 2012. Over the years I’ve worked on many projects, some with Rob, including Sudden Thunder, the reformed Ivory Knight, alternative rockers Dr. Squish, and cover band The Broke Brothers etc.
With Ivory Knight we released two critically-acclaimed CDs - Up From The Ashes (2001) and Unconscience (2004). Ivory Knight appeared in the Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles article "O Canada, Our Home and Metal Land! The List - Great White Metal A-Z;" in issue #92, among greats such as Rush, Saga, Voivod, Annihilator, Exciter, and Anvil! Additionally we’ve played a ton of shows, some in premier venues.
I was the founding bassist of popular Ottawa-area cover band Raw Sugar, with which I played literally hundreds of shows from 2007 until I left the band in 2011. I also create and release my own music (more info: johnperinbam.com) and am the frontman of (Ottawa’s) Enforcer. In 2009 or so, I released a CD called Knightfall, which was produced, engineered and mixed by Annihilator’s Jeff Waters. Rob plays most of the guitar solos and co-wrote (with Jeff and myself) much of the album.
Ivory Knight reunited around 2013 and played many shows. A CD called UNITY was released around 2018. Gravelle-Perinbam started as Rob’s solo project outside of Ivory Knight. Much of the focus was on creating progressive metal covers of classic rock songs. The first song I worked on was a cover of the Cheap Trick classic, Dream Police, on which I sang all the vocals. Sandor de Bretan (ex-Annihilator, ex-Sudden Thunder) handled the bass. Later Rob did a cover of Deep Purple’s scorcher, Highway Star, on which I sang and played bass.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, with Ivory Knight being unable to meet, Rob and I just kept on working - but in our individual home studios rather than in the band practice space! I released a solo single, a rock ballad called “Picture on the Wall” in 2020, and Rob and I released the covers “Mouse in a Maze,” “Private Life” and “Suspended Animation.” Gradually as I took a more active role in the overall production, we decided to add my name on the songs on which I’m playing a significant role.
With these songs and the Gravelle-Perinbam project benefiting from increased exposure and generating more and more interest we decided that our new original composition “Black Veil of Silence,” which was originally intended for Ivory Knight, would be released under the Gravelle-Perinbam name.
Q: What inspired you to make “Black Veil of Silence?”
Rob:
I had most of the music written when I introduced the song to the band about a decade ago. It may have been John that wrote the main riff. I honestly can't remember! In any case, I had music at that time, but no lyrics. The band helped to polish the arrangement and John wrote the lyrics and melody to go with the music. The band never got around to recording it, so it sat on the back burner for years until the opportunity presented itself for John and I to take it on under the Gravelle-Perinbam moniker.
John:
If I recall correctly, around 2011 or 2012, Rob composed the music for an early version of the song and introduced it to our band at the time, Sudden Thunder. I composed the lyrics, melody, and the original bass. However, shortly afterwards, the band dissolved and the song was shelved.
More recently, Rob re-introduced an updated version of the music to Ivory Knight. I re-wrote the lyrics and we started arranging the song in band rehearsals with the intention of releasing it under the Ivory Knight name. However those plans got sidetracked during the COVID lockdowns. Over that period of almost two years, our side projects were gathering steam and so, with Ivory Knight being inactive, we decided to release the song as the first Gravelle-Perinbam original.
The inspiration behind the lyrics was my feeling / observation that despite all our advancements in technology to make information widely accessible, there seems to be a disturbing trend towards rejecting scientific expertise in favor of politically-motivated and often divisive, inflammatory rhetoric. The “black veil of silence” refers to the unwillingness to challenge controversial and unsubstantiated views.
Q: Can you talk about some of the themes on the song?
Rob:
I think I'll let John take this one.
John:
Sure. The verses refers to the atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and hatred created by so-called “populist” leaders who seem to have few real ideas but seek to gain power through divisive rhetoric, conspiracy theories and character assassination, as well as the promise that they alone can deliver stability and prosperity, and that some group or person is to blame for any and all problems.
The chorus refers to rejecting conformity, thinking for oneself, and choosing to NOT go along with the crowd which embraces unsubstantiated claims and theories. The bridge is about the “leader” being exposed for the fraud that he is.The last verse is about opening our eyes, recognizing bullshit for what it is, and punishing those responsible for its deliberate propagation. It’s also a bit of light at what would otherwise be a very dark song.
Q: What is your creative process like?
Rob:
In general, I like to practice to a drum machine in my studio. That makes it really easy to lay down ideas that come up while I'm rocking out to the drums. Eventually, I wind up with enough parts to assemble into the skeleton of a song. At that point I'll introduce it to John or the band to arrange and/or add lyrics to it. Then there's the covers. I really enjoy taking classic rock songs and making them my own. It's always interesting to see how they turn out. Sometimes, a song just takes on a life of its own and winds up sounding nothing like the original. Those are my favorites.
John:
I must admit I don’t really have any formal process. Some songs have come out of fiddling around on an instrument, usually guitar or keys. I wrote the original “Theatre of the Insane,” later re-arranged and recorded by Ivory Knight, while learning to program a drum machine that I had just bought. I wrote “Watch You Walk Away,” a song later demoed first by Ivory Knight then by Sudden Thunder, while stopped at traffic lights - I sang the melody into a portable recorder, then went home and composed the music around that. The opening drum and corresponding guitar pattern for “Devoid” by Dr. Squish came to me while I was taking the bus.
Q: What is your recording process like? And has it changed over the years?
Rob:
Recording technology has really evolved over the years, and I got to experience it all, from analog tracking in big studios to digital recording on computer at home. Both have their pros and cons. In the old days, you had to know your parts inside and out before hitting the studio, or you'd wind up paying an arm and a leg. Recording at home gives you the luxury of being able to experiment and try different things. On the flip side, getting professional quality sound is a challenge. We've tried to mix the two over the years, by tracking at home and then sending the raw tracks to a professional engineer for mixing and mastering. That has always produced uneven results, depending on the quality of the bed tracks, and the skill of the engineer. Nowadays, we do pretty much everything ourselves so that we can control all aspects of production. Sure, there are always things we can pick out in the final product that could be better, but that's how you learn and improve.
John:
We don’t have anything etched in stone on the process as long as the finished product sounds great. For the Gravelle-Perinbam project so far each song has begun with Rob creating a rough version of the the song with guitar, keys, and programmed drums and sending me an MP3 file.
I then record my bass and vocals in my home studio (although on “Black Veil of Silence,” Ivory Knight’s Steve Mercer handled the bass guitar duties). I usually lay down the bass, followed by lead vocals and once I’m done with that I’ll usually have a pretty good idea of what I want for backing vocals. So far I’ve recorded all the backing vocals myself.
On “Black Veil of Silence”, as well as the next song we’re working on, after we had recorded the guitars, bass and vocals against the programmed drums, I had the idea of recording live drums. It started out as “let’s see what I can come up with” and we liked what we heard! So I’m playing drums on these songs.
Once my tracks are done, I upload them in WAV format for mixing. So far Rob has handled all of our mixing. Once we’ve agreed that the mix is done we proceed to mastering, which I handled on “Black Veil of Silence.” My recording process has definitely changed over the years. When I started creating music we did not have access to high quality recording capabilities at home, so we would create demos with the intention to eventually save enough from gigging and demo sales to go into a professional recording studio.
It all started out with two cassette recorders and a mixer then progressed to multitrack cassette recorders. Finally that was replaced with an ADAT-based system and some decent outboard gear, with which I was able to create professional-sounding recordings. Shortly after that, I added a PC to record additional tracks. Gradually as PCs became more and more powerful and capable of handling proper multitrack recording the ADAT was no longer needed.
Nowadays I don’t use any outboard gear, just an iMac running Logic Pro, a good quality USB interface, good headphones and studio monitors, and a great vocal mic. I play an electronic drum kit which I record via MIDI, eliminating the need for miking the drum set and having a suitable acoustic environment.
Q: How do you usually go about writing lyrics?
Rob:
I'll let John speak to that.
John: For most songs I just keep listening to the music over and over until it speaks to me and gives me an idea of what the song is about. For other songs the lyrical idea has come to me first.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
Rob:
Our next release will be a cover of a really cool ’60s songs. We're just about done mixing it now and, man, does it sound good! Keep an eye out on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/rob-gravelle-450614847/) and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/RobGravelle) for it.
John:
We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed creating it! Also, check out our websites robgravelle.com and johnperinbam.com for all the latest! Rock on!