Michale Graves & Damien Echols is an acoustic collaboration between a punk rocker, and a man on death row. Graves has toured extensively across America to raise awareness and money for the legal defence funds of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley - collectively known as the West Memphis Three. In 1994 Echols was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
Graves has toured extensively across America to raise awareness and money for the legal defence funds of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley - collectively known as the West Memphis Three.
In 1994 Echols was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. The case was surrounded by controversy since all the prosecuting evidence was circumstantial; there was no physical evidence, murder weapon or motive connecting any of the three boys (then in their late teens) to the crime or the victims. It was the prosecution citing black hair and clothes, heavy metal t-shirts, Stephen King novels and alleged satanic sacrifices which convinced the jury to return guilty verdicts.
Still on death row, Echols spends much of his time writing poetry and lyrics. Graves wrote to Echols with the idea of a collaborative project in which he would compose music to accompany lyrics written by Echols. Funded by donations and money raised from the tour, Illusions was recorded in 2006 and 2007 in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the crimes too place. While predominantly consisting of new songs in the Graves/Echols format, the album also features songs from Graves' past bands, and includes new versions of songs he wrote for the Misfits.
Leaving the Misfits in 2001, Graves went on to have several short-lived projects before he started focussing on the acoustic work and writing songs that raise awareness to issues such as homelessness, such as in the song 'Shelter', or disaffected/neglected youths, such as 'Nobody Thinks About Me' (which is about those responsible for the Columbine shootings).
More information on the West Memphis Three can be found at www.wm3.org. Information relating to Michale Graves' tour can be found at www.myspace.com/gravesmichale and at www.michalegraves.net/tour.php