Interview – Grant Hunter – Monstera Deliciosa

Australia’s best grindcore band?
Newcastle's GRANNYFIST, because they're the most fun. They don't get too bogged down with showy technicality and despite conforming to the sex/gore lyrical subject matter that is pretty common in grindcore music, they are rarely mean spirited just for the sake of it. I've seen so many sexist, racist, homophobic grindcore bands that are just out to offend, which is fine or whatever, it's just not very clever. I know a lot of people dig that, but I find it just gets old very quickly. Grannyfist have good songs with catchy pop hooks. Plus they wear plastic bags on their heads.

What is your favourite thing about grindcore as a genre?
I like how excessive and ridiculous it is, it's fast, sometimes hilarious, but sometimes dull as shit. It depends on the band. Like with any genre of music, the good ones are amazing and the rest are just boring. I don't really listen to much heavy music, i generally get a quick hit and then probably listen to something else.

What band would do most want to tour Australia this year?
My first answer would have been BOREDOMS, and fortunately they're touring in October. There's heaps of bands I would love to see tour out here, but i never have enough money to see touring bands anyway, so I don't really care.

What do you find most enjoyable about releasing DIY music?
I kind of just like the process of cutting things out, making cover art, all that stuff. I think it's important to support music that otherwise might not get heard, but with the internet making it really easy for bands to get their music out there digitally, I don't know how absolutely necessary a label like mine actually is. I don't know what i can actually offer a band that they can't achieve themselves, but i do feel that bedroom labels, DIY, whatever, that's the stuff that is really interesting to me, these kinds of fringe labels that act as a representative identity for a particular scene or time or place. As i'm not really pumping much money into our releases, and our distribution is limited at best, I guess it's more about making something nice and physical and exclusive for people to enjoy, and building a solid stable of artists that i think are making interesting and worthwhile music. Hopefully that's what people are looking for in our releases. But it really is just like a fun and time consuming hobby for me, I don't have any particular motivation behind it.

What is your favourite part of Australia?
Newcastle would be great if it wasn't full of thugs. It's a bit ratty, but that's OK. It's near the ocean, which is nice, and if you're a touring musician you're geographically in a good place to base yourself, being really close to Sydney and halfway between Brisbane and Melbourne. It's small enough to be able to do stuff and get noticed, there's room to create opportunities for yourself, and not as much competition. The music scene here is quite small but there's a good support base for noise shows and stuff like that at the few decent venues in town. I don't really have a favourite place in Australia, but I'd like to retire pretty soon to some place in the middle of nowhere to just draw pictures of batman in a cheap house.

Any plans in the long distance future with MD?
I'm currently releasing music on CDR and cassette in pretty small but unlimited editions, meaning i'll keep making them as long as people want them, which is quite manageable in terms of my time and money at present. Obviously I'd like to be putting some vinyl out eventually, and I also plan to move into self-publishing some art books or something, but long term I have no real plans. In the short term we have new music coming out from COCK SAFARI, CONSTANT LIGHT, STITCHED VISION, YUSUKE AKAI, LUCIA DRAFT, and probably the new POLYFOX AND THE UNION OF THE MOST GHOSTS album.

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