Talk:Eric Greif/Workspace2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taken from http://www.emptywords.org/BANDPerryGrayson.htm. These are all the thing involving Greif that I could find from the document. It is in chronological order, but I regret that I did not copy the years (the paragraphs were done by year) and instead mashed it all together. But the years can easily be found. I'm not the best at references so it'd be great if someone else can add some of this stuff into the Eric Greif article as he obviously played an integral part in the death metal band Death and in Chuck Schuldiner's career. If no one else does it, I'll eventually get to it. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 19:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Eric Greif met Chuck at the Milwaukee Metalfest in Summer 1987, but Eric told me his tenure began a bit later. "In '88 Chuck and I began speaking directly about management as we got along immediately like brothers. He was looking for a manager who would go beyond the standard business role and instead fight alongside him in the trenches. Chuck fed off what we called 'channeled brutality', and he liked the way I raged on his behalf." Things would unfortunately have to get worse before they got better, but through it all Chuck stood his ground. Chuck's former manager Eric Greif recalls how, after the failed tour, Rick Rozz was asked to leave Death. "Chuck finally made up his mind to terminate Rick from the band and I agreed...Though I always felt that Bill and Terry only went along with it because Chuck was so adamant...Chuck's main reasoning was clear. He felt that Rick's playing was sloppy, that he relied too much on the whammy bar, and (yes, its true) that Rick was too interested in his hair and in 'image'. I also recall that he had missed some practices." Eric Greif unraveled the second guitarist change that took place on Spiritual, "Chuck was set on a number of guys but the name James Murphy kept coming up on the scene....before he was asked to join, I had a long talk with James about our arrangement. This was around the time that we began the sessions for Spiritual Healing. We stayed in a motel in Tampa near Busch Gardens for the entire two months or so that the album took to complete, and it was then that the four of us began to notice that James somehow didn't fit in as a person. There were quirks and idiosyncrasies that made Chuck and I look at each other and scratch our heads, though I must say that James did just about everything to try and fit in to the strange humor and in-jokes that Chuck, Bill, Terry and I had as a team. Playing-wise, James was very technical and accomplished, considering that he was quite young." Manager Eric Greif notes that he was "arbitrarily fired by Chuck following an argument we had as I returned from a trip I'd made to Mexico with Borivoj Krgin and Sepultura...But he actually still wanted me to manage him after the out of court settlement! Chuck always overcame animosity for logic's sake. I came aboard again until our final falling out during the Human tour."The European leg of the Spiritual tour was fast approaching. Considering the aborted Leprosy tour of Europe, Eric Greif commented: "Chuck's contention was that he did not feel the Spiritual Healing tour of Europe was adequately organized. Considering Death's previous negative European experience with the Belgian agency Metalysee (that tour being one of the worst experiences Chuck had encountered as a musician thus far), he did not want a repeat of that. He kept exclaiming that he wanted his 'next European tour to rage for the fans'. Chuck also had mounting personal issues at the time, and no manager to fall back on.' The gall of the other Death members was likewise revealed by Eric: "Bill and Terry countered by claiming that Chuck waited until the very last minute to pull out, and they felt his apprehension was not warranted. They argued that Chuck had missed several opportunities to bring Death back to Europe and that they were sick of waiting...so they went anyway... That bold move was the end of Bill and Terry." The rag-tag lineup, referred to by some as the A.B.C.T. Project, was by no means Death. It consisted of Andrews and Butler, soundman/guitar tech Walt Trachsler (ex-Rotting Corpse) on guitar and drum tech Louie Carrisalez (ex-Devastation) as vocalist, and they hit Europe for a month with German thrashers Kreator. This incident led directly to Chuck terminating Bill and Terry from Death, and Chuck re-hiring me as manager."Eric Greif was again raging for Chuck as manager. "I remember that by that period, in 1991, Chuck decided that he would hire players instead of making them permanent bandmates, so that our band and corporate decisions were made equally between Chuck and I. On the other hand, we had a kickass line-up for Human, and it was rather a shame that something more lasting couldn't have been figured out. Of course, Paul and Sean were also focused on their band Cynic on the one hand, and Chuck was wary of the legal aspects to the revolving door of band members that he had just endured..." A quote from Chuck's old manager, Eric Greif points out how Chuck stared misery in the face, and slayed it with optimism. "One particular moment will live on in my brain forever: we were travelling in our tour bus, somewhere in snowy Sweden, and I think we were the only guys still awake. We sat on the front stairs, near the driver's cab, having a deep conversation about our lives, our futures, and the band. I was quite down at the way things were going, and he put his arm on my shoulder and pointed at the stars that were shining quite clearly. He said that I had nothing to fear-that fate would lead the way forward and that things would turn out as they were meant to. Chuck was like that-there were moments of sheer depth, honesty and conviction-and those were the features that will linger forever in my mind."