It’s a filthy day and when I enter Rough Trade’s expansive new(ish) East End operation it’s a blessed relief.
Pat Graham is preparing to hold forth whilst three straw haired kids run laps round a table laden with pink fairy cakes. The kids are rounded up and Pat proceeds to introduce his book; “Silent Pictures”, a narrative-free visual account of his travels with bands such as Fugazi, Modest Mouse and countless others.
Pat proceeds to regale us with stories of tour buses trying to make it across treacherous, snow blighted mountain ranges (when the outfit was previously only accustomed to the use of chains as punk rock fashion accessories, rather than putting them onto the wheels of trucks) resulting, but for a guard-rail, in an “Italian Job” over the crevasse scenario.
Encounters with cows frozen solid in the middle of the road (after the fashion of the final frames of “The Shining”) follow and with professional truckers, astonished that anyone would even attempt such a crossing feature in his tales, including an account of his covering a Jesus Lizard show where David Yow informed him, pre-show that he was “gonna piss his pants onstage”.
He did. Then post show made a point of enquiring if Pat got the shot...
So join me, dear friend as I chew the fat with Pat…
BCR: What motivated you to become a photographer?
Pat Graham: Well, In High School I always wanted to do something arty. I couldn’t draw or do anything like that so I thought I’d give photography a try. Fortunately my school had a great photography programme. You were given a camera and during class you were able to leave the campus and wander around taking pictures. That was great in itself, and I was really inspired by live photos on records, bands like Kiss, “Kiss alive”…At that time I was also going to punk shows, I was really into the energy which was great, and if I could capture this guy jumping in the air or whatever, you know?
BCR: Kiss were to me a very visual thing, as was a lot of the punk stuff later, but it was those fantastic posters of them (Kiss) that my friend’s older brothers had that caught my attention. Was that a similar experience to your own in terms of appeal?
PG: Yeah, a very visual thing. I just kinda realised recently that I was just going to these punk shows, really into the visuals of the audience, the crowd as well as the band...All the energy flowing there.
BCR: Who influenced your work, what photographers if any?
PG: Ahh... Robert Franke... Charles Pearson... My partner Melanie always has a strong influence on my work... Glen Freidman of course…Charles Pearsons earlier work, the pictures of Nirvana and Mudhoney... Things like that were inspirational.
I just realised recently the importance of the guys that did that Californian thing, Black Flag’s “Damaged” cover, stuff like that.
BCR: Which other bands appealed visually in terms of your career? Which bands struck you as “visual” acts?
PG: What, currently? Ahh, anything related to Ian Svenonius; Nation of Ulysses, The Make Up, Weird War. His groups.
BCR: To what extent would you say the ability to be objective in terms of covering bands you don’t personally like a measure of professionalism or in terms of artistic purity would you say this detracts?
PG: Yeah, I mean at first it was, but I found it a challenge because other people may like the music and so I try to photograph the feeling of what their music was giving... Like, y’know say if they were a really calm band, moody, maybe I would go for harder, more artificial visual shots, maybe focus on something like the instruments – not that if I didn’t like the band I would just photograph their instruments- but trying to make it interesting; challenge myself.
