Hard To Be Hardcore

"We basically don't have anything anymore,” Buried In Verona frontman Brett Anderson chuckles when queried about the sacrifices he's made to help afford the Sydney metal/hardcore outfit the best possible chance of succeeding. “I used to have a nice car, apartment and stuff like this, and that's all gone now. It is some super hard choices, but when you get to tour the world, stand on stage in different countries and even have people singing back at you, no matter where you are, it's a pretty good feeling that replaces any sadness of losing anything. But I've seen bands that have done US and overseas touring, couldn't handle it and gone back to their day jobs. You've just got to sort of decide what is definitely going to make you happy, and then back yourself 100 per cent. Otherwise you're going to regret what you've done.”

The members of Buried In Verona are evidently built for such a lifestyle. What's more, said efforts have noticeably begun to pay dividends. Last year's Notorious record charted in Australia, and in spring 2012 they supported The Amity Affliction during their extensive run of arena shows. They've since trekked through America with Chelsea Grin and undertaken a 30-show jaunt with Emmure in Europe. In addition to this, there are further overseas visits slated for later in 2013, following the Australian East Coast Rampage Tour alongside I Killed The Prom Queen, House Vs Hurricane and Saviour.

To coincide with the tour, they've also unleashed a deluxe version of their latest effort. Notorious: Reloaded includes the original album, B-sides, a DVD, revamped artwork and a never-before-released single. New track I Am Hate was recorded while on tour, a reaction to the love/hate relationship Buried In Verona have developed with the hardcore and metal scenes. Although their fanbase has grown exponentially, the band has attracted its share of haters, something they address in the best way they know how – via a musical middle finger.

“I think [it's] just a build-up of… We copped a lot of shit, and we're probably not used to copping that much shit, just because we've never grown that much of a band,” the vocalist considers. “That's just a song trying to get out the emotions of like, no matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter how much shit you talk on us, we're still gonna do what we want to do, basically. We're not going to be pressured into writing an album that we don't want to sound like.”

Do they encounter much of said hostility at gigs or when out in public? “It's never, ever, ever face-to-face, or at shows; it's always on the internet,” Anderson laughs. “Which is convenient for those people, I guess. I'd be super surprised and probably super respectful if actually someone came up to me and said, 'I hate your vocals', or 'I hate your band', or something like that. I'd be like, 'Well, fair enough, at least you're being honest – now don't do it on the internet',” he says, laughing again. “I guess [the online world's] good and bad. It's always good for people to have opinions and stuff, 'cause you can definitely take criticism from what people say. But it's the ones that sort of purely try to incite hate, or purely try and get at you personally. They're the ones that bring the whole system down.”

Soldiering on in spite of the venom, the band plans to head to the US in September to record album number four. “We should be able to announce [more details] fairly soon, but not yet,” the frontman laughs. “[It's] not all locked in yet. We'll be saying who we're recording with and stuff pretty soon. So we're just trying to get as much material now together, finish off the demos and stuff, [then] head over there for a month and hopefully release early next year.

“If you bring out something with ten absolutely amazing songs on it, I don't think it's going to get heard unless the production meets the same standard as your songs. Which is a bit sad, because it used to be the fact where you could write an amazing song and have it sound okay, and it would still do great things for you. But I think kids and the public expect a little bit more these days, so definitely having a good sonic product to go along with the songs you've written helps out a lot, especially in America... It's an expensive process, but I guess you've got to take the risk.”

It's asked whether I Am Hate is a fair indicator of what the next release will sound like, and whether they'll similarly draw inspiration from the haters on the next batch of material. “I think it's definitely an indication of what it is. We still definitely want to have a lot of variety throughout the album. As far as songwriting, heaviness and stuff like that, it's definitely the way we are heading, and a pretty decent representation of it. From the last album and even the one before that, we've never really written about the hate, or channelled it, because we'd rather write songs that are more connected with us personally. I definitely think from experience and copping all the shit, the next album will be maybe fairly angry towards that kind of thing,” the singer laughs.

They clearly won't be making concessions to the naysayers. Despite their first two LPs garnering their share of praise and earning them high-profile international supports, Buried In Verona were seemingly still searching for a distinct identity. Perhaps too metal for the hardcore kids, and maybe too 'scene' or dime-a-dozen in the eyes of metal fans, they embraced their hardcore and punk influences on Notorious. The record placed greater emphasis on shiny, gleaming hooks while infusing hints of the Meshuggah-inspired djent sound, subsequently signalling a shift away from their more overtly metallic, Gothenburg-inspired early fare.

“In our minds, it was kind of time for a fresh change in the band, sound-wise and everything-wise,” Anderson says. “But it worked out really good, and the album went really well. We just basically write an album that we would enjoy playing first, for one-and-a-half, two years, every night. It's just more about keeping us happy. I think that will reflect in our music, and then hopefully the crowds and the listeners will enjoy it as well. I think if we were playing something we didn't want to do, or labelled ourselves hardcore, metal and we stuck to it I don't think we'd enjoy it as much. As far as calling it something, I don't know; I guess maybe more of a hardcore vibe, just because of the tempo and that sort of stuff. But we're definitely not hardcore people.”