Getting to Know… The Grasping Straws | Interview 🎤

On our 216th interview, The Grasping Straws informs us about their genesis, musical craft, influences, and current + future endeavors. 

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n stage, you can expect unexpected leaps, dynamic shifts, teleportation, time travel, interplanetary connection.” Say what 🎙 The Grasping Straws? Essentially the band is referring to an adventurous, ever-changing, and unpredictable spirit, which is rad, rad, RAD! “Each song is a moment in time as we connect ephemerally through sound and emotion.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself! As is always the case with the Getting to Know… series on The Musical Hype, the band – specifically front woman 🎙 Mallory Feuer – serves up an intriguing interview encompassing their genesis, musical craft, influences, and current + future endeavors.  Rather than spoil anymore, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… The Grasping Straws: Interview No. 216!

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Starting things off, for those who may not be familiar with you, what makes The Grasping Straws distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 On stage, you can expect unexpected leaps, dynamic shifts, teleportation, time travel, interplanetary connection. Our sound is always changing, transforming, evolving, and escaping into the universe. It’s different every time, grungy, jazzy, expressive, psychedelic, experimental, introspective, dreamy. Like an angry, angsty softness. A scream and a whisper, raw and controlled, dissonant and harmonious, abstract, and specific. Each song is a moment in time as we connect ephemerally through sound and emotion. 

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Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did The Grasping Straws form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

🎤 I [Mallory Feuer] formed The Grasping Straws in 2012 when I felt compelled to start writing songs and performing them to anyone who would listen. It started with me, 🎙 Rob and 🎙 Oliver performing under the arch at Washington Square Park in NYC with guitars and a cajon. It soon grew to include 🎙 Sam (bassist) and 🎙 Jim (drummer), and then I started touring and playing a lot more shows, developing, screeching, sleeping on floors, and meeting soulmates. I started to accrue even more collaborators: 🎙 Jake (bass), 🎙 Henry (drums/percussion), 🎙 Edwin (cello), 🎙 Clair (viola/violin), 🎙 Marcus (guitars) + more. Each configuration has a variety of sounds we embody and songs we play. We adapt to the space we’re in. We’ve become like a collective, beyond the idea of a band with specific members and it’s the same every time. Collaboration is a study of humanness. Our newest collaborator, 🎙 Erica Schreiner (experimental video and performance artist) created our recent music video and projected live video art behind our set at Mercury Lounge earlier this month.

Some early goals included playing in the antifolk festival at the Sidewalk Cafe, playing CMJ Festival, touring, playing at the Mercury Lounge, recording, and making a music video!

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Let’s talk more about goals. Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 Since the start, I’ve always been most focused on booking shows and playing live as much as possible. I fell in love with touring. Every tour brings about visions of the next tour! Being able to play shows every night and adapt to the road is rewarding and energizing. With the recent state of music and travel, this is the longest period of time I’ve gone without touring since 2014. I can’t wait to book our tour dates again, and to rejoin the larger DIY touring communities around the US, Canada, and Europe.

At the same time, having to take a break from touring has inspired us to shift more of our attention to recording, producing, and releasing new music. A lot of our current goals and aspirations revolve around finishing up and releasing more recordings and sharing the stage with cool emerging bands (like our upcoming shows with AC Sapphire and Onesie). I’ve also spent more time developing our website and thinking about how we can reach new people online. 

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Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 “Grace” by Jeff Buckley changed my life. I became obsessed with Jeff Buckley’s songwriting, and the raw expressiveness of his voice and guitar playing. This was around the same time I bought myself a guitar and started writing music in 2012.

I’m immensely inspired by Laura Stevenson. She is also from Long Island, a few towns over from where I grew up. The layering of her vocal harmonies on her first record is mesmerizing to me. I was also deeply influenced by the vocal harmonies of Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley in Alice in Chains, and the harmonies in vocal jazz groups like the New York Voices.

Beyond that, I feel very inspired by many of the artists I’ve met in the local NYC music scene. Going to open mics motivates me to write and try out new songs. 

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Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative.

🎤 First crazy tour story that comes to mind: a few years ago, I was touring Europe with antifolk artist Cannonball Statman and we played 18 shows in 19 days. We traveled a ton and relied solely on public transport: planes, trains, and lots of walking. On our most intense travel day, we were out late playing Kulturcafe Lichtung in Köln, woke up super early the next morning and walked 2.5km to the train station, got on a train to Brussels where we tried eating raw snails and someone bought us some Chimay blues, then got on the Eurostar to the UK, and took another train to Northampton in time to play our set that night at Garibaldi Hotel. That tour was a miracle.

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Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 One of the first songs I wrote that still makes its way into most of our setlists, 🎵 “Home” is very special to me. The house I grew up in was the same house that my dad grew up in- 679 Harrison Avenue in East Meadow, NY. Around the time I formed the band and wrote this song, that house was sold and knocked down, and two houses were built up in its place. The song is about moving, nostalgia, growing, changing, and forming a new home. Memories will always be part of us, but material things get lost. We can only move forward.

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Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 A lot of us are visual artists and play in other bands! 🎙 Ed Wino, our cellist who lives in New Orleans, is a painter. Marcus also paints and writes songs – we formed another band called 🎙 Mischief Night where he writes, and I play drums. I draw all of our promotional artwork for the band, and I paint. Jim and Sam are in another band with Sam’s brother called 🎙 Careerboy. Jake and Henry have played with Gene Baker.

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Closing things out, what is Grasping Straws currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.

🎤 We just released a new single! 🎵 “Poetry” was recorded partially at Ground Control Studio with Murray Trider, and partially at home. The recording features Sam, Jim, Marcus and I. Mat from Animal Farm Records did the mixing, producing, and mastering. We played a show at Mercury Lounge to celebrate the release on Sept 12th, 2021. Currently working on writing and recording as we slowly get back into the NYC music scene and live music again.

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Getting to Know… The Grasping Straws: Interview No. 216 🎤 [📷: The Grasping Straws, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype, Pixabay]

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