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[IMAGE: Fear of Dolls]
Fear Dawning
In the aftermath of Grunge, dark twisted things are rising from the Underworld of Seattle. Among them is Greg Forschler, the main man behind Fear of Dolls who recently released their first darkly atmospheric demo. From the grave of grunge, Greg described Seattle and the US, post-Nirvana.

"At the moment, I really don't know what's going on here. After grunge, I don’t know if there really is any one thing. Any sort of scene comes in waves around here, there’s a few industrial and electronic bands and some other things that don’t quite fit anywhere. So, we all kind of stick together in order to get shows and just make an interesting scene of sorts."
[IMAGE: Fear of Dolls]

However, there are difficulties involved in trying to start up a new scene when it seems Seattle’s time in the spot-light has passed.

"I haven’t been out much, but from what I can tell, the whole live scene is kind of dead. I could be wrong, but it seems like people only go to the bigger shows and there isn’t much going on in the local live scene. There’s always the usual mix of a bit of everything in any city, but nothing in particular that’s making any waves, except maybe a bit more electronic stuff."

It was MTV exposure that brought grunge and alternative music to the wider stage, but in the end it was over-exposure that killed it. However, now that MTV has backed off a bit, maybe the alternative can rise from the ashes and reinvent itself.

"I hope that it’s going underground again and it does seem to be going that way and creating a stranger vibe again."

Fear of Dolls began when as a high school student who was obsessed with the Cure, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Bauhaus and Skinny Puppy, Greg decided to fulfil his dream of making music. He bought a guitar and bounced around between a few different bands before he started Fear. He says their main influences are the strange combination of Bauhaus and Sonic Youth.

"But, I have many influences, ranging from Sonic Youth to the Doors, anything really eclectic and eccentric and dramatic and challenging. We are going through some changes, by the way - looking for a new singer and drummer."

Fear of Dolls are one of the minority of new bands that are trying to create a new sound, instead of just plundering the past. Greg is not bothered by the unoriginality of the main trend and has a very simple explanation for it. "Everyone can make a CD now days, either a band or a label can be started and run out of your bedroom with your computer! So that got a lot of freaks and batcavers who just sit in their rooms and be weird and ‘artistic’. But now, they can record it all and spend some money to press CDs, which is cheaper that it used to be. I guess I try to accept things for what they are and not necessarily dislike it or accuse them of copying bands. But, on the other hand, I’m really into things that shock me and sound new and haven’t been done before."

Despite the fact that Fear of Dolls are not a Goth band, they are not keen on seeing it go the way of grunge and be overexposed on MTV.

"The world of MTV sucks. On the other hand, I’m not really attached to Goth. I like dark music, serious and mysterious, and honest/emotional music, but I really don’t care about Goth per se. At the same time I’d hate to see it as a trend, even though I think it already is to the younger generation. In fact, it’s been that way for a while, even the late ‘80s.

"I lucked out, MTV started when I was young, it wasn’t going when I was born, so I had a chance to see it and say no, instead of just assuming it’s a part of everyday life."

While the origins of ‘trendy’ Goth are in the late ‘80s, there is no denying it’s bigger than ever now. Greg is in no doubt as to why that’s happened.

"It was mostly Marilyn Manson, or Nine Inch Nails. Right after they got big, the scene just exploded, where the underground ideas all the sudden were noticed by kids who would normally be mainstream jocks and yuppies. Basically America is just behind. In Europe, it seems like almost everyone knows what goes on, even in the somewhat ‘underground’. In America, it’s much more divided as far as the underground versus the overground."
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