Between The Buried And Me, October 10th 2003 @ The Embassy, London, ON Martin and I met up with Tommy, vocalist for Between The Buried And Me, before the show - headed out to the dark, sketchy parking lot behind The Embassy and did the interview with some random dog barking in the background the whole time. The show was absolutely amazing, lotsa crazy stuff happening in the pit, intense breakdowns and some ridiculously insane techie geetaring! I was drooling when I wasn't getting elbowed in the ribs!! :) Tommy: I'm Tommy Rogers - I'm the vocalist and keyboardist for Between The Buried And Me Tina: So how's the tour been going so far? How long have you guys been on tour? We've been on tour for about nine days now, and we've got one more day after this. And it's going really well, we like to do it a lot. It's the fifth (?) time we've been up here, but it's the first time we've been here for a long period of time... When was the last time you were here? Umm about two years ago. But we only did four shows. But it's really fun, we like it here... cleaner than the States! [laughs] Everyone's really nice up here. This [London] is only the first area we've been to that's kinda.... Sketchy? Haha yeah! Martin: You just played in Kingston, didn't you? How'd that go? - it's near my hometown. It was pretty good, it was a smaller show but it was good. A lot of shows that are smaller are fun - we just haven't been up here that much, y'know? Have you guys only toured North America? Yeah... How about Europe as well? No, not yet. We'll hopefully do that next year, maybe. And how's the crowd reaction been so far, compared to your last tour and this one? Umm they've been really good, we have samplers now with some new songs on it , and people are really digging the new stuff which is good. And we have a new CD coming out very soon, so... I wish we could've waited a couple of weeks later so we'd have the CDs too. So you guys aren't selling the CDs on this tour? No, we don't any right now. Do you guys have any interesting road stories from this tour? Not at all!! [laughs] Was it just really tiring? No, the drives on this tour were nice - the last US tour we did were like on average 9 hours a day, 8 hours a day driving - we've just been hanging out Like we can get off the road and just walk around, not behind the wheel... What would be your ideal tour? If you could play with any band? We'd really like to play with Mastadon! They're amazing! Dillinger would be... honestly amazing to tour with! It would be fun to tour with bands outside of our genre but right now, I don't think it would be that good an idea, cos right now we're not really at the status that we could probably get away with it, y'know... Yeah like I heard that Bleeding Through is going on tour with AFI! Yeah it's crazy - I know that Hopesfall is going out with The Ataris! Hopesfall's good though! Yeah, they live where we live... Alright, so how's the change to Victory been? So far really good... just promotion with the new album is great! We didn't get the promotion we needed on the last album. We're seeing a lot of things already that we hadn't seen before - like interviews, and a lot of stuff on the web. We've been getting a lot of good reviews and they have some magazine spots coming up too. I'm really excited about it! Yeah, I know Mike from Victory's been doing some crazy radio promo! Yeah he really has! We're really excited about it - I hope the album does well, cos we're all very proud of it. So did you guys approach Victory about getting signed or did they? They approached us - we were talking to a couple of labels and y'know... just seeing what everyone has to offer us. And.. decided they were the most ideal situation for us - they have a very wide roster of different genres. We thought we'd stick out more on a label like that, rather than on a label that's all metal - y'know, where we'd mesh in with everyone else and not be recognised. So hopefully... it would be cool to stand out a little bit, y'know? So how much control do they have over like... recording, or touring, stuff like that? Umm none really... Or is it you guys calling all the shots? Yeah pretty much... like they help you get on tours and stuff. But as far as recording goes, it's not like they make us change our songs or anything. Just liike any independant label. Have you found that crowds have grown since you got signed to Victory? In the U.S., definitely. Just cos there's pretty good hype about the new album right now, and I think people are coming out to see what it's all about. And like I said, Canada, this is pretty much the first time we've been up here, so we really don't have anything to compare it to, y'know. But yeah crowds have been great, especially like for the last like two months ago, was the first time on the West Coast tour and it was amazing! So we were really pleased with that and surprised at the audience we got there. How was it working with your producer, Matthew Ellard? Matthew Ellard is amazing! How much creative input did he have? ...or did he have any? Yeah, he definitely had some creative input - he didn't change any parts of our songs or anything. He would just throw in some ideas for like some parts to add, and it was great. All his ideas were wonderful, we really got along with him very well, he was very fun to be around. Everybody feels he was just.. y'know, amazing! I mean, it was a great recording experience, we all had good times, there were no fights or anything. [laughs] That's good! So how has the song-writing process changed? Has it changed at all or is it just you writing stuff mostly? It hasn't really changed... musically we all kinda write, some more than others. Kinda get the song together, start with the bassist, start with maybe the beginning riff - kinda build from there and get themes within songs. And lyrically, I write all the lyrics and I just wait till the songs are done and I kinda put the songs to the lyrics. It's what I feel fits that song. And do you write lyrics from personal experience or just... making stuff up? Umm yeah, I try to write about topics that aren't so cliche... I dunno, try to have a different approach my lyrics. I think especially with hardcore and metal, every band's the same. I don't even read bands' lyrics anymore! It's uh.. I guess, I just write whatever pops in my head. You were talking about Dillinger, and you guys are pretty different from other hardcore bands - like more technical... and I was surprised to hear that one of your influences is Dream Theatre. I would not guess that at all! ...So what are some others that would surprise people? Yeah like progressive metal is a big one for us. Like Dream Theatre and... well really everything... Anything from Euro-rock to death metal, black metal, which are obvious influences. Umm I dunno, maybe like Smashing Pumpkins or Counting Crows. We listen to so much music, that it's obviously an influence somewhere. That's what I like about this band, we're not really afraid to ??? and I think we'll keep experimenting with our newer stuff and try to different things. Would you ever consider writing music that isn't hardcore? Like something completely different? No, I think this band is always going to be really heavy. I mean, like I said, we're definitely gonna keep experimenting with whatever we feel needs to be done for each album. On personal levels, I mean, some of us have branched out and written some other stuff... [points to Martin] This is his question... what's with people being multi-talented?? [laughs] ...Because I mean, you've got - you guys have been in so many other bands, Bury Your Dead, Undying - Yeah yeah, [laughs] Well.... Marty.... --> ???????????? the old album like the new album? Write guitar or anything? Yeah me and the guitarist, Paul, write the almost all of the guitar stuff. I like guitar, I miss playing it! At least I have..creative input... I was also surprised to hear some of the more mellow stuff on The Silent Circus - I wasn't expecting that at all actually,, like whoa! where did that come from?! So how did you guys decide to do that? Or was it trying to throw in some of those influences some more? Well, we had written some stuff that we didn't know if we would ever use... and we thought it would be cool, kinda the theme of the album, to like make it real, real, real intense - the first half - and then the middle, kinda mellow out the listener, and then later on just make it completely the brutalest album. That's kinda just how we did it - like, we wrote this album how it goes, we wrote it in the order of the songs, so it would flow. So in a sense, it's like a concept album, except like lyrically it's not a concept album. Like musically it's a concept album... So musically it flows.. Yeah, it does... So how did you guys feel about dropping off of Hellfest this year? Umm we didn't care! Really?!?! No, not at all... we were happy in the studio and stuff... Did you guys decide to drop off Hellfest yourselves or...?? Yeah, well... yeah, we just got a real, real bad time spot, which we..realistically we couldn't get there to play in time. I ithink our spot was 11 o'clock in the morning on the first day. That's brutal! That's pretty rough... 11 am on the first day?! Yeah we were like... we didn't even... we were just like "whatever man..." I dunno, I don't wanna get in on Hellfest... Okay... I was talking to Shadows Fall earlier this summer and - well, what are your thoughts on hardcore? Do you think it's a trend cos it's getting more recognition right now? Is it a trend that's gonna disappear in a while or is it here to stay? Well, just like on a mainstream level, any trend obviously is gonna disappear eventually. I think there's definitely more doors opening due to bands like, pop-punk action, y'know... because it's kinda like... punk rock looking kids and they have heavy influences which people kinda... they wanna listen to bands they listen to who are kinda heavy. ...And like bands like Shadows Fall, they're obviously getting pretty big, which is weird! [laughing] I mean, just.. you know what I'm saying, like heavy music in general, it's just getting to a level that five years ago, nobody would've thought it would've got up to. Yeah like MTV's finally realising it's making a comeback and they've brought back Headbanger's Ball... Yeah, that's great... I still haven't seen the new one yet Yeah me neither - They play like Converge and shit like that... Really? Yeah... Yeah, like I mean I think it's great, especially for bands... I mean, I have no problem having my video on TV, like we're still gonna write the same music. The only time I have a problem with it is with someone stepping in saying, y'know, "You guys have to too many parts, change your song." Like that's the only time I'd have a problem with it, change your song" That's the only time I'd have a problem with it, if someone tried to change it. So when you're off tour, what happens then? Do you guys have day jobs or is the band a full-time thing? Umm, right now we're doing it full time... trying to at least! [laughs] We're just touring so much, we're not home for weeks at a time... not doing anything, sleeping and... you know... sleeping! [laughs] Good life! If you weren't in a band, what would you be doing? Well, before I quit my job cos I was doing this, I was a courier in a law firm... Just drive around all day delivering and picking up packages. I loved it and I would probably still be doing that. [Martin and I start cracking up] We actually called UPS for him [pointing to Martin] and asked "How much do you pay truck drivers??" Oh really? I heard it's hard in UPS, you have to work your way up. Like from unloading trucks to actually driving them. [laughs] You gotta work on that, Marty! Alright yeah, so that's pretty much it. Couple of last questions... This one's also for his [Martin's] benefit... We've been trying to uh... kinda learn how to do death vocals, and train our housemates, who are not metal or hardcore at all. So we just have them walking over to the convenience store going "RAAAARRRGGGHH!!!!!" ....so do you have any tips for them? [laughs] No, I don't... I dunno, it's just natural, I don't know... A lot of people ask me like, my technique, but I don't really have any technique at all. It just happened... Does your throat hurt after, at all? No, it just got to the point where I knew how to do, cos I had to do it every night. Cos when you're touring for two months at a time, you kinda have to eventually...y'know, do it every night! So I just kinda built myself up. Cos I used to sing in a band a long time ago, called From Here On and so I had past experience doing it. And then I started with Between The Buried And Me. I like it! Okay last question! This just stems from a debate between some friends and me... Who'd win in a fight, the flying monkeys or the Oompaloompas? Flying monkeys or the...who? The Oompaloompas...from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What kinda flying monkeys are these anyway?? Flying monkeys! From the Wizard of Oz!! Flying monkeys! I dunno...well, they can fly! ...which is definitely an advantage See, my buddy Rob... his only good point about the Oompaloompas is that they have that hypnotizing dance... Well, they both have good techniques I guess... I'd go with the monkeys I guess! YEAAAH! Okay that's it! Thanks a lot! |
