Buried
Insideby Matt
Dixon, March '09 Photo
by Paul Hammond
Progress
is Dead & Death is Progress from Suspect Symmetry
1.You're
poised to released your third full length album, The Spoils of Failure.
I remember seeing you guys play a little house show in Prince Edward
Island back in 2001 around the time you put out Suspect Symmetry.
Could you explain the evolution of the band from where you began to
the point you have reached now?
Spoils Of Failure is actually our fourth record. I suppose you could
put In And Of The Self under the 'demo' category, but yeah... fourth
recording anyway.
That's a harder question to answer than it seems I think. We've
definitely evolved as musicians and people. I'd like to think our
records have become more focused and structurally stronger, and obviously
we've worked with different people to record both Chronoclast and
Spoils of Failure, so the records sound much better.
But the essence of the band has always been to write music
that challenges us creatively and that is honest and from our hearts.
I feel like we wear our emotions on our collectice sleeves musically,
and that's maybe what sets us apart at times. Our records tend to
be very emotionally driven and each one seems to have an overall mood
to it, whether intentional or not. For Spoils of Failure people keep
asking why it's such a sad record for example, whereas Chronoclast
was more triumphant.
2.I would like to expand on the subject of structure and
focus in your music. I know Chronoclast has been characterized as
a concept album; can you put into words the focus of the new album,
Spoils of Failure? What can we expect thematically from your latest
work?
When we wrote Chronoclast, we knew in advance what we wanted to accomplish.
We wanted to abandon the typical structures and rules of pop music
and sort of follow the more classical structures, along the lines
of a movie score. We wanted to make one long piece with re-occurring
themes and ideas, both muscially and lyrically.
For Spoils Of Failure, we didn't want to write the same record
again, so our intent was almost the opposite. We wanted to write a
collection of pieces that could really stand on their own... we wanted
each one to be as powerful and as moving as the one before it.
Lyrically there's always been an underlying theme in this band
that dates back to our first record, which is simply the use and abuse
of power, whether over a person or an entire people. While Chronoclast
dealt with a very specific topic under this broad theme, the new record
covers several different elements of it.
3.You've been going strong for over ten years now. I would
like to know your thoughts on the current state of the Ottawa hc/punk
community. What have your experiences been in Ottawa, both good and
bad, and what do you think is the biggest challenge facing the music
community?
When this band started out we were all really involved in the Punk
community. Nick and Matias were putting on shows, some of us were
running record distros, Steve and Matias were doing radio shows, I
was recording a lot of Ottawa bands' records back then... It was a
pretty tight nit group of music lovers back then. I'm not sure that
that's changed, but as we got older and especially once we started
touring pretty heavily, we weren't around as much and other people
began to take over those things. So in a sense we're not as involved
to the same extent, but I think it's as strong as ever in Ottawa.
There are a lot of really good bands coming out of Ottawa and bands
of all different genres.
The biggest challenge in the underground music community to me is
the popularity of some of the commercial "punk" bands. Some
of them are of the most transparent and void music I've heard in my
life. Business oriented people presenting themselves as bands, labels,
etc., expoiting a pretty sacred culture and making it into some sort
of marketing machine for Hot Topic or whatever. Next we're gonna see
some of these bands persuing legal action against kids that download
their music. Honestly, I think the Backstreet Boys are more genuine
than a lot of those bands.
4.You mentioned that you have toured quite extensively in
the past. With this in mind is it difficult to take time off and seemingly
put life on hold to go on tour? How are you able to handle it monetarily,
emotionally, and do you still bring that big gong with you?
It can definitely be hard to get everything in order to go out and
tour over the course of several months. On the last record, 3 of us
were living at home, I was forced to quit my job where I had been
for several years. It's not an easy lifestyle and I think many people
think it's a breeze. We'd be home for 3 weeks or so at a time between
long tours and I was doing some pretty shitty jobs here and there,
washing dishes and working at a paper factory. But at the same time,
it's such a great experience to be able to travel the world and play
your music for people who love it.
This time around we're older and have more committments that make
it a little tougher, so as a result we're very picky about which tours
we're willing to do.
And unfortunately, the gong has seen it's last days.
5.I
would like to get into your lyrical content more thoroughly but I
would first like to explore your relationship with books. The inclusion
of quotations from books, often philosophical in nature when describing
your song meanings in liner notes has been a motif you have developed
over time. Could you clarify your relationship with books and what
your thoughts are on the power of the written word?
Well, in terms of quotes, it’s the power of the written word
in a particular context: stripped of its surroundings and cut short.
There, every word counts. As for books, it’s kind of twofold.
We all know books are often looked at as this defining achievement.
When millennium fever was around a few years ago, Gutenberg was voted
the person of the millennium on all these lists for developing the
printing press with movable type. And in a lot of ways, especially
in academia, books are supposed to be researched, planned out, peer
evaluated, edited and re-edited, the words and ideas massaged and
honed over and over, and the final version approved by a body of people.
Maybe years of work. So ideally after that, this thing should be a
bullet to the brain. At the same time, I can’t believe how much
insane crap is published – not just written but published. So,
for example, we included the opening sentence of George Gilder’s
book Microcosm in the record to reference the kind of misguided hyperbolic
nonsense about the promise of information technologies that’s
out there.
6.Many
argue that a defining characteristic of Buried Inside is the ethical/political
lyrical content that sets you apart from many other heavier bands
out there today. What are some of the things you try to communicate
through your music in the new record Spoils of Failure? How do these
themes differ from past albums, if at all?
Most of Spoils is about what I just mentioned, the hype and often
bankrupt promises of communications technologies. On our end, it’s
about trying not to be conned. Trying to keep on our feet in the space
between words and things. In certain ways this follows the focus of
the last record called Chronoclast. A lot of the interest there was
in the transition to a temporal based economy – where material
and space is transferred and sold less and less, and in place things
are leased, rented, and accessed. Information technologies, of course,
are the ultimate access divide. Information itself is a non-rivalrous
commodity, but scarcity is part of the game.
7.What is your take on bands that try to install ethical and political
messages in their music, but scream all of the lyrics so that nobody
can understand them? How do you overcome this? Is it simply a matter
of printing the lyrics with explanations in the liner notes or giving
out lyric sheets at shows?
I don’t think there’s any need to overcome this. That
implies there is a problem. If we felt there was a problem, I’m
sure remediation would have followed. But there’s always that
appeal to noise and volume. And in this world that we love, some things
need to be ugly – to raise some glasses to our inner teen thrashers
that we wont let go of. Lyrics are printed in records but I think
the lyric-sheets-at-shows campaign died along with labels like Bloodlink
and File 13. We’re all too jaded and cool now, right?
8.Should
HC/heavier music be more political? In other words, do you think that
it is necessary for bands and musicians to write music with a particular
set of ethics in mind? Is this something that is seriously lacking
in HC/metal today?
The whole hardcore/metal universe is too broad and multifarious for
me to even grasp. Like whole tours of bands will come to town that
I have no connection to. Then there are bands that I follow a little
more and I feel I can relate. But I’m in no position to be making
any state of the union assertions. There’s a song on the new
Propagandhi record about having a killer night seeing a Sacrifice
show. It’s not terribly ‘political’ but it may be
the best song on there because it admits what’s important to
a lot of us: a great night at a show and the bands we grow up with.
And in the big picture of metal and punk, I’d rather any song
about something legitimate and relatable than some form of mandatory
feigning of political advocacy.
9.What
is it that you hope you personally, as well as Buried Inside as a
whole can accomplish through music/art?
We've just always tried to make music that excites us and that hopefully
moves people. That's really all we hope for.
10.The
end of civilization will be caused by:
The Toronto Maple Leafs and their fans.
11.Final
words?
Thanks a lot for this! We truly appreciate the interest in our band
and the support.
