INTERVIEW: Between the Buried and Me
26 SEP 2011 @ The O2 Academy, Bristol
with Paul Waggoner and Tommy Giles Rogers
CLIQUE AQUI PARA VER A ENTREVISTA COMPLETA EM PORTUGUÊS
Eduardo Piloni for Mondo Metal
www.mondometal.com.br
Tommy Rogers
EP: BTBAM had come to Europe in the last few years as a support band. A couple of headlining shows, but now you are actually able to present a full headlining tour. How does it feel?
Paul Waggoner: Man that’s ultimately what we wanna do, you know? We wanna be a headlining band and be able to have a long set – choose the songs we wanna play and not have to really make compromises – as far as you can only play this or that song, worrying if it will fit as a set. We wanna be able to create our own show. That’s our goal. We kind of hit that point in the US, but we’re a little behind in Europe. Hopefully this tour will help a little bit.
EP: I remember when you played with Lamb of God and Job For a Cowboy in London, your set consisted of only 3 songs!
Paul: Yeah that’s it! There were a couple of shows where we actually only had 20 minutes to play. We ended up just playing one song, that’s hard for us when we have a short set because our songs are so long.
EP: I know. On our radio show, BTBAM appears mostly with songs from the first album, due to their length.
Paul: Yeah those are really the shorter songs, it kinda sucks but… we don’t wanna sacrifice or compromise our songs just so it can get on the radio.
EP: You said you were a bit behind when it comes to playing in Europe. What is the big difference then between headlining in the US and here?
Paul: Well in the US, people like us… (laughs). And well in Europe… they just stare at us.
EP: Was it like that everywhere you’ve played here?
Paul: Nah nah, I’m kidding. Some shows we’ve played have been really good, really interactive. Kids seem to really like it and other shows they just kinda stare at us. But they don’t leave, so I guess that’s a good thing! It’s just a little bit different, the cultures are different, people react differently to the music. In the US kids are more aggressive maybe, typical American person.
EP: Well, It is also part of the British culture when it comes to gigs, to grab a pint and watch the band as a whole performance kind of a thing. Maybe you should not take it always the bad way.
Paul: Yeah, yeah! well last night in particular, what was last night? Birmingham! They were just like … (making a still staring face). I actually thought they didn’t like us! But when we finished they were going crazy, encore and stuff and I thought “Wow! I guess they did like us!”. In general, Europeans – and British – are more subdued, more… well-behaved haha.
EP: You were definitely more accessible to the fans earlier on on your careers in America, maybe it just took a bit longer to kick in abroad.
Paul: Yeah it’s almost like we’re starting over in a way in Europe. We’re trying to convince people to like us, whereas in the US we have a fan base and its pretty solid. Here we have to create one.
EP: You guys come from North Carolina, it’s not a very big scene for what you guys do, is it?
Paul: Relatively small scene but there is a pretty tight-knit group of musicians in North Carolina, to be honest. Some very talented people are in that space. I mean, that’s how we all met, we’re all from different cities but you know we just found each other because we were all pretty good at what we did.
EP: Metal sub-genres by default come as a wave, with a niche of origin in a certain region. If you get your neighbouring states – Virginia, Georgia they have their own trademark scenes. Having said that, I can’t think what were the bands that you played with in the beginning…
Paul: in the early days… well in NC there was Hopes Called who was like a Christian band we were friends with. There was also a band called Code Seven who started at the same time, we all kind of grouped together. I guess we’re fortunate that we’ve stayed together and kept going as a band, whereas some of the other bands broke up. But we also had to network with other bands in other parts of the country – we became friends with the Red Chord very early on, as well as The Black Dahlia Murder and we did tours with them.
EP: So you had to go a little bit further.
Paul: Yeah, you know, you can’t stay local – you’ll never get anywhere if you just play in your own state all the time. You’ll end up playing for only 100 kids. We certainly had to venture out and make a career for ourselves.
EP: Do you feel the weight of your journey as a band? I mean, you already have 6 studio albums on your shoulders plus the cover album.
Paul: Its been kind of a blur, the band has changed so much. When we listen to the first album, or whenever we them it feels like a different band. We’ve evolved so much not only musically but evolved as a band. When you put it like that, I can’t believe we’ve been a band for that long, that we have that many albums. It’s jus constant evolution, every album is a new experience for us and we try to do something new. That’s always been our objective: to do something different.
EP: Do you look at yourselves back then and say like wow this is good? We’re going somewhere with this?
PAUL: Back then? No we never thought we would get to the level of where we’re at or certainly not to a very high level. Then, especially, this kind of music was not popular at all. We played to maybe 100 kids and that was already good! At some point it got more popular – progressive metal and metal in general – we just kept riding the wave. Back then, man, we were young and we were just doing it for fun. We wanted to be in a band, you know?
EP: Although bands always want to evolve, fans always love to listen to the old stuff live, which you rarely play.
Paul: Yeah definitely, older songs are part of the band’s history, there’s a different value to it. If you want to stick around for a long time I think you have to continue to evolve you can’t write the same record every time, fans will get tired of it also as a musician you will get tired of it also. The thing is: not many people know our first songs.
EP: Then came Anatomy Of… its a quite daring album. It somehow achieved a rare success within the media, being an album of covers in its entirety. How did it come about the idea of recording that album?
Paul: Well, the record label mentioned it and we just thought it’d be fun. We really just did it for fun! It was a way for us to cover some songs maybe our fans would be surprised that we were influenced by. The average BTBM fan has never heard Queen or King Crimson, some of the young kids especially. We thought it would be fun to put our spin on it and play some of those songs and see how people reacted to it.
EP: I believe the main reason for its success is that in every single cover you can feel the essence of BTBAM… Would you say those are particular songs that you guys loved or mostly bands that actually inspired you?
Paul: Both, I mean we’re definitely influenced by it, by a ton of so many different kinds of music – that album is reflective of that. Our goal was to show people “Hey we love all this stuff!” not only do we love it, it inspires us!
EP: But they are not really technical. It brings the question of when did it you guys decided to become technical?
Paul: You know sometimes I don’t really think our music is as technical as people think! I would say complex, and the only reason that it is complex is because of all the influences we have, and the fact that the songs are 15 minutes long – and we cram a lot of ideas into those 15 minutes. You can see all the bands we covered on that record in our music. If you take one of our original songs and break it up you can see how we draw inspiration from those bands. The word technical gets thrown around quite a bit but to me it’s just complex and experimental. When I think of technical I think of bands like Dillinger (Escape Plan).
EP: And then came Alaska with a different line up. That was the album responsible for putting you on the spotlight, not only in America, but that was when the media embraced and exposed BTBAM in Europe. The production, composition and concept – every element in Alaska went up a notch. Was it the turnover album for you as a band?
Paul: Yeah in a lot of ways because it was, like you said, a new line up and we felt like we had a group of solid players that were going to be in the band for a long time. Once Alaska came out things started to catch on a little bit, people stared to know who we were. We had more exposure; it was definitely the first record that, even today, most of our fans know BTBAM from – Alaska forward.
EP: Did things also improve professionally then for the band?
Paul: Yeah definitely! That’s when tours started getting better for us and album sales were getting better. We started to get more press coverage. It was an important record for us.
EP: Any particular reason for three members leaving the band pretty much at the same time prior to Alaska?
Paul: I think it was pretty typical of a lot of young bands. When they get to their 20’s they realize “Man, it’s hard to make money doing this…”, they wanna get a real job or you get married, or whatever, you know? People just grow up and become different and realize they don’t have time to be in a band anymore or just couldn’t handle touring. A lot of bands break up because of that! We decided to keep going and find new people – I’m glad we did.
EP: Alaska set the tone, but then Colors came and, in my opinion, that’s the definition album for BTBAM. It was a whole pack so to say: A concept album of one song broken into colours and themes, illustrations, live DVD with Colors on its entirety, a website fully dedicated to the album with loads of different insights from the band and fans alike… Did it happen occasionally or that was what you always wanted to do?
Paul: Yeah I must agree that was a monumental record that kind of defined our careers. Alaska was the first record with the new line-up and we were trying to find our chemistry. Colors was different; we knew what we wanted to do, what kind of band we wanted to be, we just went for it. We wanted to produce the full thing – the one song kind of vibe, the album production and visual stuff. We wanted to separate ourselves in our own way from other metal bands that are in our category, group or genre. Ever since that is the direction we’ve been going, therefore that was a really important record for us.
EP: And how did you come up with the idea of Colors as a thematic album?
Paul: That came by right after we played the Ozzfest in the US, and that festival is very, very metal. We did the whole summer on that fest and we didn’t like it! It wasn’t us! That’s not how we’d like to portrait ourselves as a band. So we came back and we wanted to do something completely different.
EP: Parallax: The Hypersleep Dialogues was released not long ago, via Metal Blade – what was the reason for the label change?
Paul: Well, we were done with our contract with Victory Record and were supposed to sign a new contract with them, but we decided to go a different direction. We didn’t think our band was suitable for that label, the bands they were signing were not the type of band we wanted to be associated with. We talked to one of the guys in Metal Blade, and they were in the same page as us, we all wanted pretty much the same thing, and it just worked out. That was the best decision for us so far. It has been pretty good!
EP: Why EP as the chosen format?
Paul: We wanted to get something out with Metal Blade quite quickly, to kind of kick-start the next chapter in our career. At the same time we didn’t want to sacrifice quality for the sake of that. We thought “hey we never released an EP, lets do it!”.
EP: And like Colors and The Great Misdirect, you still managed to maintain the very same concept of a one-song-album vibe.
Paul: Yeah, it’s definitely designed to be listened to as a complete record, a complete piece – from beginning to the end.
EP: Do you feel the heavy scene picking up again as a genre?
Paul: It’s hard to say because CD’s don’t sell anymore… really! I guess in any genre except for rap and country. But the scene is cool now, it’s cool to be a good guitar player, a wicked drummer; people are into being or recognizing good musicianship – it’s ever so popular. So you get more people coming down to shows, more people searching the internet for certain players. There is definitely some popularity growth in this kind of music, which I never expected. It adds some value.
EP: There are certainly more festivals, but I hardly imagine BTBAM playing festivals.
Paul: Yeah, it’s hard for us in a festival environment; it’s hard to make an impact. You get 30min to play and you try and play epic songs in the middle of the day, outside where it particularly doesn’t sound very good. We prefer to play in a club, the we can play our own shows. But hey, sometimes we’ve got to do those festivals, it’s part of the thing as you said – they are highly attended.
EP: It compensated by the exposure a band can get I guess…
Paul: Exactly. We can’t really turn down a festival offer; we have to take it, although we don’t particularly like to play it. And honestly I don’t think many bands enjoy playing festivals, it’s just good for your career.
EP: BTBAM Played in Latin America already, Puerto Rico and Mexico… have you had any offers from other countries?
Paul: Not really. I think we will go to South America eventually; it’s got to be something small though. I’d like to play there, but it’s so expensive to travel it’s going to be hard. We’ll do it when we can make it work financially.
EP: You did play South America with Lamb of God thought!
Paul: Ah, they are my brothers from Virginia. But Lamb of God are huge! It was their first time there and they played venues for a couple of thousand of people, sold-out concerts – it was amazing! If BTBAM went we’d expect to play for 100, 200 people maybe.
EP: Any of those places or concert in particularly you enjoyed most?
Paul: I loved Argentina! But I liked everywhere. Colombia and even Venezuela was ok. But the highlight was definitely Brazil and Argentina. We spent the night out in Sao Paulo – very big city, it was lots of fun.
EP: Changing subject, one thing that strikes curiosity about BTBAM is the flag you carry about being vegetarian. Is Dustie the only one not in the vegetarian club?
Paul: Well, now we’re 3 vegans and 2 meat eaters. Blake goes back and forth (laughing).
EP: How come you haven’t managed to convince them to change, being the majority?
Paul: They just are not compassionate people… Soulless zombies! I’m kidding… no I’m not! They are horrible really. (gets all the band laughing and ganging up on them)
EP: You’re also straightedge, aren’t you?
Paul: Then again, all the vegans are straightedge.
EP: All the three? So where does all this burst of creativity comes from?
Paul: Creativity? Is it creative not to be straightedge haha. I don’t know man, we’re just old hardcore dudes and that was popular at the time when we got into heavy music, there was a lot of literature about veganism and straightedge, we just adopted into the lifestyle and stuck with it.
EP: BTBAM by the complexity of the compositions are hard to describe. It feels like a band that will caress your head just before bashing it against the wall. How would you describe your sound?
Paul: Oh, it’s hard to describe. I just say it is experimental heavy music. I don’t want to say we’re heavy metal, because when I think of heavy metal I immediately think of Pantera or Lamb of God. The word progressive is thrown around too much, we’re a heavy band but we’re not afraid to adventure into other territories – experiment into different sound.
Tommy Rogers: We’re chemists!
Paul: Metal chemists. (laughing)
EP: Tommy, you are the main lyricist of the band. Your lyrics are quite abstract though carrying a lot of different meanings: parallel lives, rebirth, the position of human kind in the world, the world as a living organism… do you have any religion or belief?
Tommy: Not really. The big thing with me and lyrics is only writing when the inspiration is there. Just like writing music, anytime it’s been forced, it will sound forced, you’re going to look back and not be proud of what you did. About the meaning of it, I guess it’s just my views as I grow up. With metal it seems that lyrics specially are much of the same, over and over, and I just try to put my spin on things and make it as unique as possible. With our music being the way it is, it is important the lyrics to fit as much as possible. When I listen to it I get a lot of imagery from the music itself, it’s almost like watching a movie. So I try and make my lyrics fit the sound.
EP: To finish off, I’d like to go back and make a quick journey through all your releases. In a short sentence, what comes to mind when you think of… (handing them a hard copy of):
- Between the Buried and Me, self titled album:
Tommy: Rushed!
We did the record in 5 days! It was crazy.
- Silent Circus:
Paul: Mark naked (former drummer).
Tommy: Yeah, he was naked the whole time. It was also the fist time we were in a proper studio recording.
- Alaska:
Tommy: Disaster!
Paul: Proper disaster. A little known fact – this album was almost completely ruined. We recorded everything and when we were about to mix the drums, they were all shit! We had to re-record everything!
Tommy: Not only the drums! My takes were gone as well. Borderline disaster!
Paul: Yeah, I didn’t remember that. Stressful!
- Colors:
Paul: Chilled!
We had a lot of work to do for this album, but we were very well prepared and it went really smoothly. Let’s say, “Well prepared for”! (Tommy cracks up laughing).
- The Great Misdirect:
Paul: “Very well prepared for”!
I mean, we were there and all I remember is that we had an album, like a well-oiled machine. It was easy! I’d then describe it as “Well-oiled machine like”.
The Parallax:
Paul: Cold!
We recorded this album in Toronto, Canada, in the middle of winter and it was freezing.
Tommy: A bit rushed as well. We had 7 days to track the album.
Paul: Yeah, but being a short release it wasn’t that bad. I’d say “Piece of vegan cake”!