Between The Buried And Me interview with Dan Briggs: "We'll never really be done growing"

11/10/2012 @ 12:42
Being more mature and ambitious than ever, Between The Buried And Me are back to conclude the story they started telling in their EP “The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues” with “The Parallax II: Future Sequence”. While they were packing up for their (currently ongoing) European tour featuring Periphery in many of their stops (once again, Greece won’t be one of them), we grabbed the chance to have a few words with the band’s bassist, Dan Briggs.

Obviously, with a new release, you would only care about what’s coming up now with touring etc. but, having listened to the album extensively, I couldn’t help but wonder what could happen next. Can we expect you to put more emphasis on your progressive rock and jazz influences in the future? Would you ever drop your death metal / hardcore elements?
I have no idea where we’ll go next with our music. You always need time to grow after a writing process. I like to constantly be creative, but it’s important to have breaks to allow yourself to really grow. We could really go in any direction at any time; it just depends on what we’re feeling at that point in time. We could always do a record that isn’t heavy or whatever, it just depends on what feels good at that time.

Between The Buried And MeIf I’m not mistaken, Tommy wrote all the lyrics once more. Could you tell us more about the concept of “Parallax II” and your thoughts on the fact that you did a full-length concept album for the first time?
I was so excited to finally be doing a full-on concept record. When growing up, so many of my favorite records were concept records: "Scenes From A Memory" by Dream Theater, "The Ugly Organ" by Cursive, obviously the older records like "Dark Side Of The Moon", "The Wall" and "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway". I’ve always been excited about albums that are presented as something larger than just a collection of songs. Our story is pretty complex, but at the root of it are two characters who have similar struggles in their lives and the ways they choose to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Between The Buried And MeWhat are the biggest challenges you face when playing your material live? I can imagine that, apart from memorizing the songs and doing rehearsals, it is hard to play such demanding & energetic music flawlessly in a live setting. How would you go about that?
I have the same practice routine that I’ve had pretty much since college. A lot of my time spent in school was me pushing myself to get better, not having someone else tell me, because my teacher only came in once a week. I just have a series of exercises that I still run and I don’t necessarily need to even think about while I’m doing them. For me the thing that takes the longest is getting my two hands to get completely synchronized with each other and getting loose enough to have the stamina to last for an hour and a half set or whatever. That, and I stretch a lot before the show. I’m a runner, so I like to feel as loose on stage as I do when I go running. It’s maybe a little bit excessive, but it helps in feeling good every night.

From what I know, you all contribute music when writing. How do you collaborate exactly during the writing process and how much of it is based on jams and improvisation?
Very little comes out of jams or improvisation. Most of the work is done separately at home. We share ideas and people can write off of each other that way. And then we show up to the practice space and do a lot of arranging together. Some songs were written beforehand. Tommy wrote "The Black Box" before getting together, Paul had most of "Melting City", and I wrote "Goodbye To Everything", "Astral Body" and "Bloom" before we had actually been in the same room.

Between The Buried And MeEven though your music is very rewarding to listen to, it would be hard to reach a greater audience, being as demanding as it is. Do you ever feel like you deserve to be heard from more people?
Not really, we just always feel fortunate that there are already this many people who like our band. We never know what to expect and are always presently surprised every time we go around. For playing music that’s as out there as it is, we’re extremely satisfied with how things have worked out.

All you guys are about 30 years old or so and you have already done so much with the band like albums, touring etc. With plenty of productive years ahead, how do you aspire to grow as musicians and songwriters?
That’s kind of the whole point, which is that we’ll never really be done growing. I never want to feel completely satisfied, because where do you go from there? You always strive to grow and do the best that you can at that given time, but I love having the time to grow as a musician and composer.

Between The Buried And MeA while ago, you put out a cover album called "The Anatomy Of", with your take on songs from a wide range of bands, from Pink Floyd to Pantera and Soundgarden. What influences correspond to each one of you?
Soundgarden was one of the ones that we all collectively picked as a group. Pantera was probably Dustie’s pick. Tommy and I were passionate about doing a Queen song. Paul picked out the Smashing Pumpkins tune. King Crimson was obviously my choice, haha.

All of you, except Blake I think, are straightedge, vegan or vegetarian. Do you think that this healthy lifestyle has actually influenced you guys as musicians? Do you think that things would be different if you hadn’t kept it that way?
Paul, Tommy, and I are the ones that are vegan and straightedge. I don’t think any of the three of us have ever drunk or smoked or done drugs, so who knows how that would have affected us. It’s hard to imagine being an alternate version of yourself, so I don’t know, haha.
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