A Stitch in Time

Interview with Tori Trash, Joey Strange, Crip and Danny Gunn from Patchwork Grace by Nicola “Nix” Crichton

Without blowing ones trumpet, the quote from Pure Rawk that has been used to describe them is pretty much bang on. “Take elements of trash, glam, punk and sleaze - find four mates with plenty of glitter and attitude, chuck it all together and there you have Patchwork Grace”. Their onstage antics seem pretty reckless and trashy but there’s a chemistry there that just fuses them together and makes a live show feel right - call it friendship or call it showmanship - it just works.

Pure Rawk has spoken to ‘Patchwork Grace’ on more than one occasion over the past year - well, maybe just their bassist Joey Strange, but it has to be said how much they have done within that time is impressive.

This time round, we’ve collared Tori Trash (vocals), Joey Strange (bass), Crip (guitar) and Danny Gunn (drums) for your reading pleasure. They chat about what’s happened since the last time we spoke, Trash-Stock and the tour that happened earlier in the year (including incidents involving dogs, sick and porno), their debut album “Milk Teeth”, touring with Trashlight Vision and how they’re planning to move on in and take over.

Nix: What’s happened since the last time we spoke?
Tori: Oooh an album, a video to be done this week and lots of bloody hard work! we can't wait!
Crip: We've drank more pear cider and witnessed Jaimz Riot have a 'non-gay-July'. In band related news, we've recorded an album for our new label and that's gonna be coming out in August!

Nix: How do you think Patchwork Grace have developed as a band?
Danny: We're tighter, wiser and better looking than before. If that's possible!
Tori: I think were constantly developing and I think it’s the way forward personally, to keep having new ideas and direction, keeps everything fresh and keeps us on our toes.
Crip: We've ditched a lot of the old songs and are writing better, tighter, and considerably shorter and catchier new material.
Joey: I think we've found the sound we're after now, or we're pretty much there anyway. The new songs we've been writing sound a lot more like us than some of the old stuff. Though, saying that, we revisited some stuff that we'd not played for over a year on the album and it came out great. I think we kind of put a new twist on it and brought it up to date.

Nix: What do you think is the key to your success?
Tori: Hard work! you don't get anything for free, sometimes you feel tired or ill or fed up of the sheer boredom that is travelling but its all worth it for that half hour of being everything you love and hate, you cannot give up in this game you have to keep playing at it and were playing pretty hard at the moment!
Danny: Gigging, Gigging and gigging some more. Plus be a total MySpace whore.
Joey: We haven't had any major success yet but I think the only reason we've managed to get this far is the amount of work we put in. We literally haven't stopped for over two and a half years, even when we were changing drummers! It's hard sometimes put it pays off in the end. Or we hope it will anyway!

Nix: You seem to have a very steady fan base building up now - and also a lot of regional sites on MySpace, how did they start?
Tori: I have no idea! They just kept popping up and before we knew it we had fan sites in the most unexpected places, like America and France and Australia?!
Crip: There were a few fan sites started, and then someone started a page for a gig in Manchester we were doing, and then that turned into a page just for people from Manchester .. then all of a sudden people were making them for all over .. not gonna complain are we!

Nix: The Trash-Stock tour is now over and done with ... give us a rundown of what carnage ensued?
Crip: See for yourself by ordering your Trash-Stock Tickets in advance. you'll get a free DVD! There was plenty of snuff, shagging, dog shagging and bible masturbating though!
Tori: Oh god! it was all a bit rude for me, Jaimz Riot the promoter on the tour was the entertainment, he is a brilliant man but he had a habit of getting his knob out whenever he felt like it.
Joey: Jaimz Riot fucked a dog, Ant from Disarm puked all over the outside of their van whilst doing 90 on the motorway, The Gunn signed Jaimz's cock, lots of alcohol was consumed, Brad from Disarm shaved his eyebrows, we played a couple of gigs, The Gunn had his face fucked by Jaimz, Noddy starred in his first porno and we all had a fucking good time! By the way, Jaimz's cock isn't as big as he makes out.
Danny: We were pretty well behaved to be fair. Disarm created more than enough
chaos for everyone.

Nix: Hows the album production been? What’s to expect from your debut album release?
Crip: It's sounding really good, and I'm really pleased, considering we hadn't worked in the studio or with the producer before.
Tori: I'm so proud of it, I'm naturally a glass half empty kind of person and I'm always very critical of myself or my work but I really think this album is something else and captures what we are, it’s a bit like marmite though I think, you will either love it or hate it but either way I hope people have strong feelings for this album because our sweat and blood and vomit went into it.
Danny: We did it at a place called the Crash Factory. It's opposite the Old Angel In Nottingham. Mark, the engineer was awesome and knew exactly what we wanted from the album.
Joey: Right from day one he was on the same page as us and knew exactly what we wanted which was a huge bonus! In fact it might have gone a bit too easily, we're still waiting for something to go horribly wrong! What to expect ... it's pretty much the Patchwork Grace you know with a few little twists and turns here and there.

Nix: How did the tour with Trashlight Vision come about? What’s to expect from that?
Joey: We played with them before a couple of years ago and when we saw they were touring again our label got in touch and Acey said he's love to have us as main support. It's gonna be the biggest tour we've done so far so we're all really looking forward to it.
Tori: Unfortunately, I was very ill at the time and the guys had to cover for me on one of the dates, but even through that the band really liked us and we got on this tour as main support! were all really excited about it and look forward to seeing them again.
Crip: Acey was actually wearing one of our shirts when we turned up to sound check! So when we found out they were coming back, we told a guy from the label that we wanted to play, he made the call and that's that.

Nix: You're doing Trash-Stock again to finish off the mini Pleasures tour, who are you most looking forward to seeing? What’s to expect from PWG's set?
Crip: Everyone! Every single band on that bill is amazing, and it's a pleasure to be part of it! We're gonna have a re-arranged set for the gig so it'll be a little different.
Tori: I'm looking forward to seeing our good friends Teenage Casket Co. as I haven't seen them in ages! they are all winners and I love them all very much so to share the stage with them again would be a right old treat!
Danny: I would say Teenage Casket Company, but I'm playing drums for them that
night!
Joey: I'm looking forward to seeing SIGN again. I only managed to catch their last two songs when they played Rock City with the Wildhearts and the last time I saw their full set was September last year I think so it'll be great to see them again. I wanna see The Gunn playing drums with TCC too! I'm sure you know what to expect from our set by now. We just give it everything we've got.

Nix: Favourite new track?
Joey: My favourite track at the minute is “Choc. Milk & Cocaine” but I'm also really happy with how “Nancy” came out on the recording.
Crip: "Estella"
Danny: "Estella", We've never played it live so no-ones really heard it. Its all bouncy and happy. Which is nice.
Tori: “Shminonio” is my baby, but I have to say that Nancy is my favourite... I was never really taken with the original version of the track, to me it sounded like a two-bit ballad come punk song and now it sounds like some fucked up Aphex Twin/ Portishead thing ... it still makes me hold my breath.

Nix: Favourite venue you've played at in the last year?
Danny: It's still definitely Rock City main stage ... was that in the last year? I'm crap with dates.
Joey: Rock City, baby!
Crip: Has to be main stage Rock City!
Tori: The assembly rooms in Derby was a nice surprise, there were dribs and drabs around all night and when we went on the room seemed to burst with people who all really loved the show, there's nothing better to feed off than a room full of people that love your music.

Nix: Any bands you'd like to give a shout out to?
Tori: Yeah! have a look and listen to our good friends DIP, NotSoPretty and Teenage Casket Company - all worthy of your ears.
Crip: Disarm and Zen Motel ... they toured with us earlier in the year, great bands and great fun!
Danny: I'd like to give a shout out to any bands who actually read this.
Joey: Gotta say thanks to Acey and Trashlight Vision for having us tour with them!

Nix: What’s to expect from the rest of this year?
Crip: We're releasing our single and album pretty soon so depending on how well
that does, who knows?
Joey: Well we've got a download single exclusively on iTunes which is out on July 30th and a video to go with that, our album 'Milk Teeth' will be out on August 27th then we're hoping to get a couple more tours sorted by the end of the year too.
Danny: And if all goes well we could have made a fortune, lost a fortune, and be in rehab by this time next year!

Check out the Official Patchwork Grace website and the MySpace for more gig information and also links to Patchwork Grace’s local sites. They’re on tour with Trashlight Vision from the 27th July and start a mini tour with The Pleasures at the next Pure Rawk gig on the 15th August! Buy your tickets now!

Words by Nix, promotional shots by Martin Shepherd and live shots by Wolfie (taken at Trash-Stock London, Camden).

© Pure Rawk 2007