Close Scrape

A musical academic, The Scrapes' violinist Adam Cadell has been studying music for many years. He also earns a crust showing some of the youngest members of our education system the ropes on the violin. He explains that as a violin teacher for kids in primary school, he gets some inspiration for his unique style from some of his young students.

“It screeches!” he says of the main noise he hears from his students while teaching. While his scraping style of playing may have some roots here, he has inspirations that are obviously much older. “My playing style is still very classical. Through the years I've added pedals and amplifications and just generally I try not to think too hard about it! I guess I'm like a classical player trying to play more freely and loose – without the concerns of getting a perfect tone and stuff like that. Being a bit rock'n'roll about it. Getting my inner punk on.”

He also experiments with some different tunings on the instrument, something basically unheard of in classical violin playing. Well, at least lately. Cadell doesn't try to pretend he invented the idea. “Actually, it's something that used to be done a long time ago,” he starts. “I'm talking like the 16th century! People used to change the tuning of the strings to fit the resonance of the instrument more.

“It's not even my idea to bring it back,” he confesses, “There's actually an American violinist called Tony Conrad who's been doing it for a while. He was actually in The Primitives with John Cale and has connections with The Velvet Underground and stuff.”

While playing with The Scrapes is certainly a release from performing classical music all the time, Cadell says that the balance is starting to shift on where his musical priorities lie. “The more we do with The Scrapes the less and less classical stuff I find myself doing,” he says, sounding pleased. “I spent most of my life playing Mozart and Beethoven and all that, while secretly wanting to play rock'n'roll. I got into it as a teenager, punk and Nirvana and all that, started being rebellious and getting up to no good. I got into guitar and still get into it a bit. I've dabbled in it but nothing I've played on guitar has made it onto our albums. I wrote most of the first album on the guitar and then when I met Ryan [Potter, guitarist] I gave it to him so he could work with it. Most of the stuff we did on our new album just came out of jams.”

This looser approach to the recordings with the songs being born out of a more spontaneous process is obvious on the group's second record, Kali Yuga Sunrise, when compared to their debut Electric Mourning Blues. The idea behind the title of the album is quite complicated, but can be basically boiled down to Kali Yuga being the term for the concept of a slow but fatal armageddon.

“It was just this thing I've heard about in various places for years,” he explains. “I've always been into a lot of metal, and the metal bands are always going on about Kali Yuga and the apocalypse and the death and the violence. Ryan and I are kind of obsessed about this post-apocalyptic kind of sound, and to us our music seems to sound like the kind of landscape that would remain after an event like that.”