BURIED IN VERONA

By Lachlan Marks

BLUNT PRESENTS AN EXCLUSIVE STREAM OF THE NEW BURIED IN VERONA SINGLE “FORGET WHAT YOU KNOW’.

In case you haven’t heard, local metalcore rising stars Buried in Verona are getting ready to drop their new album on us and to celebrate we have an exclusive stream of their second single “Forget What You Know” ready for your ears. Press play, crank up the volume and head on over to the UNFD webstore to grab yourself one a copy of the album. While you’re at it, check out this exclusive interview we did with the guys on set of their latest filmclip “Four Years”.

You guys did an accidental second from headline show with Adept in Sweden at some point? How did that come about?
Brett Anderson: We were all drinking with Henrik cos Henrik’s really good friends with them [Adept], so we were all at the pub together drinking heaps and those guys can drink, so we were keeping up with them. Someone came back to where we were at the bar drinking, and they’d joked before, imagine if the band pulled out, you guys would be playing and we were like, “Yeah, yeah, sweet as.” Well that actually happened and we had to be on in five minutes. I couldn’t even walk, so we ran back to the venue and got on stage and used all their gear. They were in C#, Richie didn’t have a mic or a guitar, so he just grabbed something else and screamed with me. It was just the most retarded fun show ever. There were about 400 kids there.
Chris Mellross: As soon as we walked out, they all started going psycho, and I was like, “Hang on a second, do they know it’s us? Do they think it’s Adept?” and someone announced Buried in Verona and everyone started cheering. It was fucking weird.

How do you adjust vocals when you’re used to screaming against a certain pitch?
Mellross: Luckily we were all spastically pissed.
Anderson: Sometimes you have to go up a little bit and hope for the best. I remember one time I jumped off the fold back and I was on the left-hand side of the stage and I fell from the left-hand side all the way to the right-hand side of the stage, stumbling, into some metal stairs and all these people sitting on the stairs were watching us and pulled me back up and then I went and vomited under the fold back. It was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done and all the Adept boys thought it was sick.

The new songs seem like they’d be a lot more fun to play live. Would you agree?
Mellross: With the new style, we sort of want to have a sound that defines Buried in Verona more so than just a metalcore album where 10 other bands sound similar. Also playing that sort of style where you feel it can help define you and the style of music it is because you connect to the music so much more, it’s a lot more fun to play. It doesn’t feel so robotic anymore, you don’t have to stand still cos the riffs are so hard, you can actually put energy out into the crowd and people can feel and react to that energy and whether that gives them goosebumps, makes them wanna jump and throw their arms around or whether it just makes them want to stand still and think. As long as what we play can evoke some form of emotion, we don’t wanna just always provoke anger anymore, it doesn’t always have to be a mosh pit where everyone just bashes the shit out of each other anymore, if we can do something where everyone has goosebumps and wants to jump and have a good time, like, not all of our parts are one-dimensional. We want people to have a connection to the music, not only feel it, but see it. If they see us having a connection when we play, the band’s gonna gel so much more and the music’s gonna sound a lot more full.
Anderson: It’s good not to have to prove anything anymore. With a metalcore album, you know there’s kids out there who are looking at how technical the riffs are, how fast the kicks are, how low you can go, how high you can go…

Do you feel like you’ve taken yourselves out of that metalcore arms race to some degree?
Anderson: I hope so in a way. I’m still appreciative of what we accomplished and who we affected when we were doing that, but it’s just heaps refreshing.
Melross: Obviously the band gets older every year, and our musical taste varies, what we’ve experience varies. Not only are we gonna grow and mature, but these kids that liked us four years should have by now grown and matured. I would hope that the kids who loved us for Saturday Night Sever in the two years have had life experiences where they can connect to a new song. I feel the heavy market is so saturated and flooded with the same style of music, for them to hear something refreshing and new and potentially exciting for them, might pull them out and bring them across, and rather than lose fans because there’s no riffs anymore or there’s not as many breakdowns, gain fans because they connect to this music a lot better.

From the screaming girl fanbase that’s going to see the front of that record, they’re gonna wanna know who it is. Can you divulge who it is?
Anderson: Scotty Howl. Legend.
Melross: Scott’s just a guy from Sydney that we’re all friends with. For the new album cover, we didn’t want a cartoon or an image; we wanted a photograph and something almost offensive. Like, because the new record is such a 180 on everything, why not just do 180 on everything and actually shake it up?  I think it’s gonna stick out like dog’s balls in a CD shop. A lot of people are gonna like it, and a lot of people are gonna hate it.

For the rest of the interview, grab yourself a copy of BLUNT #110 from your local newsie on sale May 23.