Never Beaten

17 April 2014 | 1:05 pm | Brendan Crabb

"It rolled on from basically just a thought between five dudes who wanted to do something.”

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Query Buried In Verona vocalist Brett Anderson about taking exception to diehard fans being harassed by the band's burgeoning army of naysayers, and he swiftly goes into bat for those who embrace the Sydney metalcore mob. “It's cool to hate Buried In Verona right now, for whatever fucking reason. The fans we do have from the start have just always been there. They've always supported us; they're buying the records, coming to the shows. For them to put up with their shit; I'm sure lots of our fans have some of their mates going, 'Why the fuck do you like these guys?' or whatever. And they stand up for us. They're still coming and being seen at shows, and we appreciate that from the bottom of our hearts.

“It sounds clichéd, but we couldn't do anything without their support. But it just so happens it means so much more, because they do have to… There's an issue just liking Buried In Verona. We aren't going to change the way we are, and we hope our fans never change the way they are to appease people who like to talk shit. This record is as much a 'Fuck you' to our detractors as it is a message to people to keep being themselves no matter what.”

Since releasing 2012's Notorious, Buried In Verona have become one of Australia's most polarising heavy acts. The album debuted at #20 on the national charts, and drew the band their first ARIA Award nomination. They supported The Amity Affliction during their arena tour, and followed that by acquiring US management, a worldwide release and multiple UK, European and North American jaunts. They also performed on the Australian leg of 2013's Warped Tour.

Whether jealous or bandwagon-jumping, punters have attacked the band's aesthetic, lyrics, music, fans and online presence. If it weren't already apparent, the title of their fourth album, Faceless, directly references anonymous foes.

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“It's just basically our little way of highlighting the fact that there's so many negative people out there, just basically trying to bring any people who are rising up, down. Not just in music – 'We're a band and we get hated' – not just that shit, [but] in a bigger picture. There's plenty of bullying, plenty of people doing well for a lot of different reasons and there's always just those negative people who try and hurt the image, or hurt you personally. We're a bit fed up with the way things work at the moment, and that was kind of our message – the faceless, all the people who would never, ever come up to your face and say anything bad about you. But online, or via any other media outlet, they go hell for leather on what they think about you in a negative way.

“Saying that, we definitely welcome constructive criticism off anyone and everyone, but there's a difference between constructive and purely negative… 'You put so much shit on us and other people,' but the only way to get through it is to just keep doing it. We're still having fun; we're touring the world playing shows, still selling records… Like you know, fuck off,” the singer laughs.

“We started this band a fair while ago, and we started this band on the basis that it was mates, we loved playing metal, we wanted to do an album and that was our dream. We wanted to accomplish recording an album, which we did. Then we showed some people, people liked it, then we started doing shows. It rolled on from basically just a thought between five dudes who wanted to do something.”

Having traded the so polished it was blinding production of Swedish metal maestro Fredrik Nordström for much-lauded American Joey Sturgis, Faceless continues the band's manoeuvring from Gothenburg-inspired sounds into a more melodic hardcore/punk-infused direction. “I think Buried In Verona will never write the same record twice, because it's just boring to us. We try and reinvent what we're doing all the time, and have a bit of a fresh sound. People can say we're trying to copy other people or whatever, but this is fresh to us. It's fresh to Buried In Verona; it's new to Buried In Verona.

“We just thought this time we wanted to get ourselves out of a comfortable position. We go to Sweden, we record and we're comfortable; we know what's going to happen, we know the process. We wanted to basically put ourselves back on our toes. Sometimes that creates spontaneity, different vibes and different music, and that's what we had in mind. We didn't want to risk going back to the same place and possibly doing an album that was very similar to the last… It's always been on the cards for Buried In Verona to change it up.”