Photo by MonMar PhotographyI think as listeners of music, we place a lot of assumptions upon artists based only on the music that they create.
The wide spectrum of music and life experiences that influence Tobias Grave, frontman for Soft Kill, will shatter any assumptions and expectations that listeners may have about the moody music created by the Portland-based band.
It is clear that the moody sounds of Soft Kill come from a heavy place and that they certainly carry significant weight. Grave’s songs talk about mortality and the deaths of so many of his friends as a result of drug overdoses. His transparency about a life of crime and addiction is sobering and eye-opening. He does not shy away from talking about his personal struggles, selling drugs, doing drugs, stealing and seeing friends die in front of him. In fact, it is something he leans into, not only to give people insight into the mind and life of an addict, but also to use his voice and platform to make sure his friends’ deaths by overdose were not in vain. Or so that those names will not be forgotten or swept under the rug, seen as just another lowlife, worthless junkie. It is this type of insight that will make you think twice about the person passed out on the sidewalk that you step over to get on with your day.
“You’re turning a blind eye to the suffering of this world,” says Grave, expressing his concerns about the drug epidemic that exists not only throughout the country but also the problems that exist within his home of Portland.
The current state of the world is polarizing and there doesn’t seem to be much room for humility and rehabilitation. But Grave’s voice is a reason to believe that compassion and understanding in this world still exists, and it is something we could sure use a hell of a lot more of.
“I want to give back to people and to things that don’t define my selfish interests,” he says, speaking of the ways he’d like to help as an individual as well as a band whose audience is growing.
TRACK LISTING
"Tin Foil Drip"—watch the video below: "Dedicated to those we lost to these streets due to the disease of addiction. A single rose for each."
"Cry Now, Cry Later"
