BOTM_Bierylo_Interview
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL BIERYLO
OF "BIRDSONGS OF THE MESOZOIC"
By M. Majanen
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, the worlds hardest rocking chamber music quartet, �is a Boston-based band with a history of over 20 years of making unique music. � Michael Bierylo, the guitarist/sound designer/song writer of the band shared some of his views on the music industry, music technology, and the Birdsongs' music with us. �
It seems like you have a very diverse taste for music. You�ve mentioned Bulgarian folk music in a couple of interviews I�ve seen. How did you discover that kind of music?
I�ve always had interest in different types of music around the world, that�s one of the ways of taking things that I know and looking at them in a different way. In the late 80�s I did some work with a musician called Matt Darriau who's a woodwind player and he played on a record that I produced. He�d bring down these Bulgarian tunes and we would play them in this fusion kind of setting.
I remember very early on, I was drawn to Mahavishnu Orchestra and the odd meters and grouping of familiar rock licks and different patterns that were invigorated by these odd-meter groupings. That�s what I heard in the Bulgarian music, very melodic things and patterns that were grounded in unexpected rhythmic terms. One person that I really latched on to was a guy named Ivo Papsov, who had come to Boston on several occasions to play in clubs, and I was just absolute mesmerized. Not only by his playing and the music, but the scene that�s around the music. I learned that the meters they used were really a part of dance steps. That whole thing opened up another way of thinking about music for me. It�s not that I have this huge record collection of Bulgarian music but when I listen to those recordings, it�s very inspiring to me. Some of the Birdsong stuff that I�ve done has been consciously or unconsciously from that. I mean, Petrophonics (the song) is in eleven and [it also] shifts to other meters.
How and when did you start getting more into electronic music?
I was always interested in technology. When I was playing in these high school bands, some people had synthesizers and I�d always take them home. I knew more about the synthesizers than the keyboardists that I played with. One of them had a Moog Sonic 6 and I just took the thing home with the manual and I tried to do everything I could with it. It took me a while to actually own synthesizers and use them but I always had an interest. When porta-studios became popular, I could take some of the things that I had learned at Berklee and just start playing around with these ideas. You know, what are the different signal paths, the ways you could do effects routings and so on. I got a four track machine and just pushed the thing to the absolute limit.
Let�s talk about the Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. How would you describe the music of the band ?
The group really started in the 80�s and was an outgrowth of two main influences: punk rock and minimalist music and composition. We�ve kind of moved a little bit from that. The rock influence is still there, you know, a lot of this is just rock music on some basic level but, it�s also composed. In some sense to us, it�s a workshop. It�s always a place where we can throw out ideas. It�s a place where I can throw out ideas that would never find their way into commercial productions. It�s kind of an ongoing process and we�ve been very fortunate that people have liked what we�ve done and been able to record and keep the project sustaining.
It�s been a couple of years since your last CD, Petrophonics came out,
Are you guys currently recording a new album?
Yeah, we�re in production on it and we have two pieces that have been mixed and there will probably be about 12 pieces on the final release. Some of it still has to be written. I still have a lot of writing that needs to be done so, it�s in all sorts of stages of production. It�ll be turned in to the record company at the end of April, so we have about six months to finish it and we seem to be on some sort of a schedule for doing that. The last couple of records have been different than what the band�s traditionally done. The band�s usually followed the model of: "write music, rehearse music, tour, and record." The first record that I was involved with in 95, we had been touring for a year or two before it was recorded. The last CD and certainly this new one, we never really performed any of the material before it was recorded and some of it actually came together in the studio.
What is your role in that band?
I assume you play the guitar, but you also do some sampling and work with synths.
I do electronic production, so I do sound design. I don�t play synthesizer on stage yet, although it�s one of those things that has been in the back of my mind. I get a lot of interesting novel sounds out of the guitar and part of the issue is just based on how much gear I can bring. I bring a rack, I bring a computer, a guitar, and a guitar effects rig. That�s about all I wanna bring right now, but I�m thinking about just basically having a little keyboard that I can plug into the computer and just play some of our synth stuff live.
When I joined the group we were using a hardware sequencer in the early nineties and my pieces were on drum machines and at one point I said �to heck with this, we�ll just use a computer.� So, from about 92 or 93 on, we�ve always used a computer and the computer�s role has changed as the technology has changed. We can take any of the audio out and perform it on the computer. We take stuff from the recordings and make loops and some songs turn out to be slightly different and sometimes it�s almost exactly like the recording.
I know you�re a fan of Apex Twin and Square Pusher, do you think that this can be heard in Birdsongs� music?
Not really. In some ways we all try consciously keep [the influences] separate from our stuff. The thing that we all wanna do is not to be a part of a genre but to be a genre. So when I say, I love apex twin and I love square pusher, I�ll play around with ideas on my own. I'll do little exercises, little peaces with them, but what I get from that experimentation I like to somehow make it my own before I bring it [to the band.] I�m doing a lot of spoken word and vocal things and turning them into percussion sounds and turning them into loops. When I do them in this setting, I want to make them my own in some way. So is the band an electronica band? No. As much as I�d like to go in that direction, I have three other collaborators that have their own ideas. It�s a collaboration and it�s really four strong minded individuals coming together for something that�s hopefully something bigger than any of us individually.
Finally, what is the most disappointing thing and the most positive thing you�ve encountered in the world of music?
In my personal experience, there have been successes, there have been failures. There�s been things that have been tremendously rewarding and there have been things that were tremendously disappointing. There�s a couple things that took me a long time to learn. Those lessons were things that I didn�t anticipate. They were surprises and one of those things were the realization that just because you�re a good musician, it doesn�t guarantee you success. When I was in school, I thought that if I practiced a lot and was a really good musician, everything would work out. To a certain extent that�s a very big component but it�s a lot more complex than that, as I found out. When I got out of school, the punk rock thing was happening. It took me by surprise that people who didn�t work that well versed in playing music were being tremendously successful. It took me a long time to put that together and come to terms with it in my own way and to actually celebrate it. To say �oh this is a great thing and I understand what this is about and the significance and how it fits into the whole scene. So that was one real big awakening. There�s been a few things like that, but for me this has been a very exiting thing to be involved in over all. I guess the other thing that was very surprising to me was that I had been playing in rock bands and the bands were getting more successful. I found out, when we were entering the bigger league, that a lot of the music end of it dropped away. A lot of it had to do with lawyers and a lot of it had to do with just the pure and simple nuts and bolts business end of it. For me, it was an awakening that being aware of the business was an important part of the whole thing.
A good thing that I found was that I always thought that you had to be tremendously successful on a huge scale to be involved in music. But more and more I see there�s always a niche for something. If you're persistent, if you can take your strengths and put them in the areas that you can charge for and get paid for, you can make a living doing this stuff. But, you have to really challenge your own ways of thinking about what you do. If you say: �I have to get a big record deal and I have to sell a million record to get where I want,� that�s a pretty lofty goal. That is attainable but there are other ways to do music and get paid for it. There�s people out there getting paid and doing it [on a small scale] and there�s people that have platinum records who are broke. They owe their record companies money. It�s like �great, I have a platinum record but I have no dough. It�s all been blown.� It�s all gone to tour busses, paying back advances, and eating caviar at the recording studio while tracking guitars for six months. All of this comes around and a lot of it is just being smart about what you�re doing, being focused, and just keeping it going, keeping it rolling.
I wanna thank Michael Bierylo for doing this interview. Thank You.
VISIT THE B.O.T.M. WEBPAGE AT:
http://www.birdsongsofthemesozoic.org/birdsongs