An Interview with Great Falls

Last Friday, Great Falls released The Bite That Grows Up, their second album on Neurot Recordings. The new album is noisy, brutal, and vicious, dealing largely with the challenges of parenting and feelings of guilt and failure. I've been a big fan of Great Falls since their previous album, Objects Without Pain, so I jumped at the chance to have a brief conversation with them about their art. My conversation with bassist Shane Mehling and guitarist/vocalist Demian Johnston is below. 

First off, I want to start with a personal connection: I ran into Rainer Fronz of Minneapolis' excellent Caterwaul Festival right after the 2025 edition had wrapped up at a The Body show. I was wearing my Objects Without Pain shirt, and I pointed to it and suggested that Great Falls would be a perfect band to play at the next one. He gave me a look like it was a genuinely good idea that he hadn't considered. And, lo and behold, you played Caterwaul earlier this year, so I'm claiming credit! Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there, but how was that show for you and how do you enjoy playing small festivals like Caterwaul?

Shane: Hey! Thank you for much for that! We loved it. It was a little warm but a small price to pay for such a good crowd and getting to see some amazing bands. The after-show bands on the day we played – Muscle and Art Star – were particularly fantastic. 

Before joining Neurot, you released a few albums on Minneapolis' INIT Records. I'm hoping that connection means you'll come back to play here so I get to make up for missing that show!

Shane: We love Steven [Williams, INIT Records founder] and he may even blow some more money on us in the future so we owe it to him. 

For those who haven't spent time with your music, how would you describe your sound and your influences?

Shane: I think we tend to appeal to people who like sludge or noise rock or mathcore. We have some longer slower songs, a lot of bass-heavy, atonal stuff and a bunch of weird time signatures. We love Neurosis and Shellac, and Demian and I were in a band called Playing Enemy that was from the Escape Artist/Hydra Head days of noisecore so it’s just a stew of that mostly. 

I know you were just out doing some dates with Kowloon Walled City. How has tour been going for you?

Shane: It’s been fantastic. They are our good friends and Scott Evans from Kowloon has engineered out last three records, plus mixed them and a bunch of other stuff. So to be out with friends always makes for the best tours. 

This is your second alum on Neurot Recordings, and you've got some dates coming up with Neurosis, which is pretty exciting. Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with the label and the band?

Shane: Kowloon is also on Neurot and Scott Evans was our first intro to working with them and it’s been exactly what we hoped for. Obviously we love Neurosis as a band, and the label is a perfect reflection of their ethos: they love music and art and care about music and art regardless of anything else. It’s a very inspiring place to be. To hear Steve Von Till discuss his perspectives on life and how to embody them it’s impossible to not be inspired. 

I want to shift gears now. Not that your earlier albums are uplifting, but The Bite That Grows Up is an incredibly raw album. There's a lot of anger, grief, and regret on it. How does it feel to share these feelings and thoughts through your art? 

Demian: It makes me nervous. A lot of the lyrics were inspired by my relationship with my daughter. The lyrics aren’t all literal but at the same time I am writing about my world and how I see it. My kid is a teenager and she knows my band and knows I speak about my life through a semi-autobiographical lens but I did feel like I had to tell her about the lyrics before they came out. She wasn’t interested in reading them herself but we talked them. She’s not super concerned with what her dorky old dad is up to. 

There are a lot of lyrics on this album about your experiences as a parent. I don't see many people writing about how hard it is to be a parent, especially a father. 

Demian: Yeah, as I said, it’s a bit weird but I if I’m going to be hollering about something it has to be what has caused me the most reflection lately. 

Oh "Hailstone Numbers," you sing "Got to an age where death settles in." As someone who experienced a significant loss this year, this hit me really hard. What are your thoughts on how music helps us process our grief? Our anger? Our sadness?

Demian: I have been thinking about how short life is. I’m 51 now and I have been starting lose long-term friends. I lost one of my oldest friends to a sudden heart attack a couple years ago and another close friend to cancer. Those are the two most recent but It’s going to start happening more and more often. I think music can certainly help with processing grief as some songs sorta allow you to time travel into your memories. Sometimes I’ll put on a weird Monty Python comedy album if I want to think back to my youth with my late friend, Chris. Or play the Strain demo if I want to remember first meeting another friend, Kim, who recently passed. 

Your lyrical style is concise and direct, but also poetic. Who are your writing influences, whether they're musical or literary?

Demian: I really like Henry Miller and his rants. Bukowksi as well. Shane once explained the concept of “the specific is universal” and if I wrote from a more personal perspective it’s more likely to connect with people. That seems to have worked for me so far. I used to try to be more vague and abstract but it just didn’t feel right. 

Do you view your music as part of your mental wellness/self care routine?

Demian: Not really. I think sometimes screaming these lines sort of bring those memories of writing them back and I get a small injection of sadness or anxiety. I’m glad I do it but the performances can be a little emotionally confusing. I think the years I spent in therapy gave me some tools that I have found helpful over the years but I’m actually looking to get back into therapy again. 

Finally, since we also write about fitness on this site, who in the band is the most interested in fitness? Does he have a preferred routine or exercise?

Shane: Oh man, curveball!  Well, I used to do cycling and running but need to get back into it because I have lapsed severely. Nick is the most interested in fitness only because he does a lot of physical labor so he is just one of those super strong guys who also smokes. But if you have any regimens you think would work for us we’re all ears!