Staying Above Ground

"It's a wake-up call, and a pretty sad day for the Aussie scene as far as we're concerned, they were a pretty big part of that scene, and they did great things for it, so it's sad to see a band like that finish up.”

Buried In Verona's Brett Andersen still seems a bit taken aback by the news. A couple of days before he sits down with Time Off he heard that hardcore brothers House Vs Hurricane had decided to call it quits, and that their dates on the East Coast Rampage tour alongside Buried In Verona would be some of their last ever.

At the same time though, Andersen gets it. It's not easy being in a hardcore band, thrashing it out night after night on a stage. And money, you know, the stuff that purportedly makes the world go around, seems to be getting tighter and tighter. 

“In another regard, I can totally understand why they would, like it's getting pretty hard for bands at our level to stay a band. You do all this overseas stuff and you're just scraping by, but then debts start to run up and it becomes this really thin line between being a successful band on paper and a successful band financially. And then a couple of bad decisions have the potential to send your band down the drain.”

From a litany of experiences in Buried In Verona, Andersen's probably got enough reason to be cynical about the trappings of being part of a band. The financial stuff withstanding – though the vocalist does at one stage in the interview drolly admit, “there's a thin line between making money and not, so hopefully one of these days we can cross over that line” – these guys have been through their fair amount of headaches and heartaches. The most recent of which was having previous drummer Shane O'Brien step out of the band in a rather unideal circumstance.

“He left BIV a couple of weeks before we went to America and Europe, which didn't really help with the timing but y'know, shit happens, I guess. He had some things going on behind the scenes that he couldn't really deal with in Buried In Verona. At that time we weren't making any money, because we had to spend it on going overseas and what not. So he got an offer he couldn't refuse from Prom Queen so that's the direction he went. And he's pretty happy and we still talk. There's no beef, and it should be pretty fun to hang out on the East Coast Rampage.”

Even though there might not be outright acrimony, doesn't Andersen think it will be weird to go on tour with O'Brien, as he plays with East Coast Rampage headliners I Killed The Prom Queen? “I'm sure it will be uncomfortable for the first couple of days… I don't know, we've never toured with an ex-member before, but we're pretty cruisy guys, and even if there was a bit of beef we would have squashed it, because nobody wants to be on tour for two weeks with someone that you're going to see every single day and it's so awkward that it makes you not enjoy your time… So we'll sort it out, and it should be okay.” 

According to Andersen, it helps to be easygoing about this kind of stuff when they've found such an excellent replacement to man the BIV kit. “It's really been a blessing in disguise, because we've found Conor from Resist The Thought and he's our official drummer now. It's good, he actually recorded the I Am Hate track and he's one of the tightest drummers I've ever seen, and he's really creative in the writing department so it's perfect.”

Though fans of Buried In Verona are getting a taste of Conor's creativity and chops on I Am Hate, the band's latest single that's included in the re-release of last year's Notorious record (complete with new album artwork and a DVD), they aren't going to have to wait too long to hear more from the reinvigorated band.

“We're basically in the later stages of putting together the next album. So like basically putting all the demos together and getting them up to scratch before sending them along to the producer, so we should be recording September this year in the States, and hopefully aiming for a release very early next year, so we're all really looking forward to that.”

Asked whether full-length number four will be travelling in the same direction as I Am Hate, the frontman can't answer. “Possibly. I don't know. I guess we're kind of getting known now for changing our shit up every now and again. We just write whatever we're going through and feeling at the time. Gone are the days where we're aiming for the most heavy, technical metalcore shit ever. We're totally over that, so there might be some hints of Notorious and even Sever, but we're always looking at new and different things. And hopefully we'll be able to step further out of that box and wow some people.”

Although Andersen is unsure where the band is heading musically, he does seem to have a pretty good understanding of what catalysed the need to keep progressing their sound.

“After touring for three-and-a-half, four years solidly on two metalcore albums, I'm still proud of those albums, but when you're touring those albums you're playing with three or four other metalcore bands every night for four years, it just got old to us, it felt bland, so we're like, 'We don't want to play this stuff anymore, let's do what we've always tried to do and play what we want to play', so that sparked that change. Maybe growing up a bit musically helped a bit too.”

And it seems growing up is something that Buried In Verona have done a lot of since they released Notorious. That album opened up with screeds against ex-members, now the guys are comfortable sharing the stages with a drummer who left. For all the shit they have to put up with, and how mightily they have to struggle to remain financially solvent, Buried In Verona are cognisant of the fact that they've still, at the end of the day, got the best job in the world. 

“People save up for years to go on a month long trip across Europe and it becomes a highlight of their life, and we get to do it as a job. This whole thing is awesome, really just mind blowing. Basically at the end of it, you can't complain. We have the best job you could possibly have. That's what keeps everybody going.”