Overcoming great challenges with tenacity and optimism and a desire to keep moving down one’s chosen career path is a rare trait. Steve Grimmett, frontman, primary songwriter and inspirational leader for veteran British heavy metal band Grim Reaper has all these qualities and more.
Through crushing disappointment thanks to the vicissitudes and unseemly nature of the business side of the music business, Grim Reaper’s potential as a breakout band in the late 1980s was squelched, leading to a hiatus that lasted for nearly two decades. And just when the band started to regain some of its former glory, a little over two years ago Grimmett went through the devastating process of losing a large portion of his right leg after it became infected during the band’s tour in Ecuador. Still reeling from the emotional trauma of such a horrible, frightening, and painful experience. Grimmett channeled all his pent up feelings into Grim Reaper’s evocative and powerful new album At The Gates, coming out on Dissonance on Oct. 11.
The band is currently on tour in North America, and recently played shows in Toronto and Montreal. The string of dates wraps up with a four-city run in California, ending Oct. 13 at Eli’s in Oakland.
In our conversation, Grimmett was open and honest about the continuing toll the process of losing his leg, and his battle to return to the stage has taken on his emotional psychological state. He is deliberately talking about these issues in hopes that it will encourage more open and non-judgemental dialogue about mental illness – particular amongst men.
“At The Gates is basically about me being in hospital and losing my leg and how I felt, how I feel now going through mental issues, which I am still going through. It’s got everything in there, and if you can’t use your real life for writing songs, then what can you do. For most of the album, it’s right in there; you’re right in there with me. I have gone through PTSD and still going through that to be fair, and nearly a year ago, I lost my best buddy, my brother and that affected me big time too, and still is. So, you can try and hide these things, because as men that’s what we do, but it does catch up with you and it did. I hit a massive brick wall, and basically had a bit of a breakdown. It’s been a long climb up and I am still not at the top. Basically, doing this album has helped me with my climb to the top again,” said Grimmett from the band’s tour stop in Poughkeepsie, New York.
“My family has been absolutely fantastic and obviously my bandmates have been so supportive because during the writing of this album, I came to a bit of a sticky point where I hit that brick wall, I hit a writing block and they stepped in and helped out. So, I’ve got a lot of good people around me and without them, I wouldn’t be able to get back up and do what I do. I had that crash along the way in my recovery and I have that to get through and I have done all sorts of courses and stuff like that because I just can’t always help myself, so I need others to help me. If I can put a campaign out there, which I am going to do fairly shortly, about mental issues and men not talking about it, then I have done my piece. Guys don’t feel comfortable talking about it, but it’s so easy. It’s not a difficult thing to do, and there is help out there if you just ask for it.
“I am very open about it because, at the end of the day, I am a changed person at the moment. People that really know me will know that there is something wrong. I talked about it with my band because I have changed in a way where I don’t put up with shit anymore. Because being in a band is like a marriage, you know, and you can’t be dominant in that marriage. It’s about compromise, and I haven’t been very compromising because of the way I feel. So, I had a chat with the guys on the way over to apologize for what I am at the moment. I don’t want to be how I am; I want to be back to the person I used to be. So, I told them, ‘whatever I do, if I annoy you, that it’s not really me, it’s just a temporary me.’ But we will get there, and I am determined to because I don’t like feeling this way.”
What is helping in the recovery is the response Grim Reaper has been getting on tour, both in Europe and North America. What is particularly heartening for Grimmett, who has been with the band since 1982, three years after it was formed by original guitarist Nick Bowcott, is how young and enthusiastic many of their audiences are. Alongside lead axeman Ian Nash, is bassist Martin Trail who has been with the band since 2016, and drummer Paul ‘Needles’ White, who has been a member since 2014.
“It’s generally a pretty good mix, although we really don’t see too many of the old fans, but they’re still out there. But it’s mostly youngsters, really, sort of teenagers up to about 30. We are getting more of those and I think it’s because of modern day media and how easy it is to find and follow people and social media and stuff. That certainly happens when we play North America because they had never heard of us up until a few years ago, really,” said Grimmett.
“And Ian and I ponder this in our hotel rooms sometimes. How is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is it mostly all youngsters? But it’s just the change of society and social media. People of our age, my age, your age, are not so hot on social media. The youngsters are absolutely brilliant at it; they can’t breathe without it. I think that’s part and parcel of it, and I am certainly not complaining. It really is fantastic. It really makes you feel worthwhile and what you did in the past is worthwhile and that it means something to a whole different audience, a different age range; it still means the same thing to them as it did to fans when it first came out, and it’s absolutely awesome, it really is. Like I said, Ian and I tried to figure out why it was happening, but you can’t, so we just enjoy it.
“And, honestly its kind of made me resolve to keep pushing forward. The youngsters how have discovered our old stuff and they look forward always to something new. I am always getting requests on social media, ‘when is the next one, when are you touring, are you coming here, are you going there.’ It’s a constant thing. I probably answer 50 to 100 questions like that every day. The social media thing has been big.”
Part of the reason for the growing fan base of young people is because many of them followed Grimmett on his journey to recovery after the leg amputation in Ecuador. He regularly posted updates on his own social media channels, chronicling each step of the way, and interacting with fans offering him well wishes and encouragement.
“Interacting with the fans has something that’s always been important to me. Every time we finish a show, we quickly go towel off and go outside and meet the fans, take pictures with them, sign stuff they bought and all that. At the end of the day, without the fans we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing now. And it came naturally to use social media to connect with fans during my recovery,” he said.
“Here I was laying in bed in Ecuador and people were taking parts of my leg off a bit at a time. I usually only had about a half hour of internet every day, so I would split that up with talking with my family for 15 or 20 minutes, and the other time I was looking up information on prosthetics, treatments, physio and how I could get back up on stage, because I wasn’t ready to give up yet. And I was sharing all that with the fans, and that’s what kept me going, it really did. And within six months of getting home and having my prosthetic leg, I was there up on stage in front of the fans. It was a really touching, heartwarming moment and made the whole thing worthwhile.”
Listening to the first two Grim Reaper albums, 1984’a See You In Hell and the epic follow-up Fear No Evil were as good as many other of the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal albums at the time, save perhaps Iron Maiden, who had burst out of the NWOBHM pack to be one of the biggest acts in the world by the mid-1980s.
But as many a sad tale of music industry woe can attest, success in the music business often has a lot more to do with good fortune, good planning and having good people around you, that it does good songwriting and good recordings. Grim Reaper could be one of many poster children for how a bad record deal and shady business methods can lead to the derailment of a once promising career. After two excellent albums, the development of a burgeoning international fan base and increasing critical acclaim, the band’s third album Rock You To Hell was a disaster and was the centre of legal wrangling that shunted Grim Reaper to the music industry sidelines for nearly two decades.
“We started off with a record label called Ebony Records and obviously we were naïve about what happens in the industry. Nevertheless, we signed up for three albums with this label, and when we came to do the last one of the deal, it was absolutely shit, the recording was just diabolical. We found out RCA Records [who were distributing the album internationally], were paying Ebony’s boss money, some of which should have been coming to us. So, we called breach of contract,” Grimmett explained.
“He came back with a retort saying, ‘I am not in breach of contract, these guys are.’ And basically, he stopped us working. That’s the truth of the whole thing. So, for those 20 years we just legally could not work as Grim Reaper. We tried desperately to get out of that, and in the end, we did, because the guy eventually went bankrupt and didn’t have any money. We put the case back to court and said we wanted to contest it and he didn’t even attend court, so it just rolled over and that was that. And not long after that, we got going again.”
After resuscitating the band at a number of festivals and tours starting in 2006, a revamped lineup, featuring Grimmett and an assemblage of hand-picked musicians, including guitarist Nash who remains in the band to this day, Grimmett toured throughout Europe, and eventually released the band’s fourth album, Walking in the Shadows, in 2016. Now, with After the Gates, Grim Reaper is well and truly back where they belong – on stages around the world, blowing the doors of venues and inspiring their loyal fan base.
As much as Grimmett talks about the residual struggles he still endures, there is also a steely resolve and unbridled joy underlying it all – resolve to continue to write, record and perform Grim Reaper music, because it brings him so much joy.
“People ask me if I am going to retire and wonder why I don’t give it up after all I have been through. Well, why? As long as I am physically able to do it, I will always do it. Obviously, it’s a little more trying now with one leg, but I am still our here doing it. And I know it’s become a bit of an inspiration thing for some people, so I will carry on until I can’t.”
For more information, including upcoming tour dates, visit https://www.facebook.com/grimreaperofficial, or www.grimreaperofficial.co.uk.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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