Ahead of the release of the debut full length album, Planet Loud caught up with Bury Tomorrow in Derby to find out the gossip.
Planet Loud – So you’re almost halfway through the Scuzz tour, what has it been like so far, and what have the crowds been like in general?
Bury Tomorrow – The crowds are really digging our new stuff. I think that’s evident. They’re liking our progression, so I think the album is going to pop. The crowds have been awesome! We love getting the crowd involved. We love having a good amount of crowd participation. Right from the off, right from the second we start they’ve been getting involved so I’ve really enjoyed every single show. It’s been really fun so far.
Planet Loud – Has it been a good turnout?
Bury Tomorrow – Yeah, it’s been a really good turnout. We’ve been having a lot of fun with different sized crowds, some smaller, some bigger. It’s been really nice.
Planet Loud – That’s good as it seems to be harder now than before to keep people coming to the smaller shows.
Bury Tomorrow – I think the key with the smaller shows is that you treat them in a different way. I think you should always treat shows on a different basis, so if you have a smaller show in a smaller room, you play to them as if they’re your friends, even if you don’t know them. That way everyone will leave like “Fucking hell, that was a bit of a special show” even though it’s the same show you do every night.
Planet Loud – What do you think Bury Tomorrow bring to the live show that isn’t on CD?
Bury Tomorrow – Humour. We bring fun! If you listen to our CD and didn’t know about us, you’d think we were just a metal band but we like to have fun with people. We like everyone to get involved. We like to do stuff that you’ve never done before in a pit. Have you ever done star-jumps or sit-ups in the middle of a pit? Probably not! Have you ever made a human pyramid with five other people you’ve never met before? Probably not! This is what we like to bring to a show. We bring fun. We bring entertainment. We’ve always said that if you’re paying money to see us then we don’t want a single person to go away from the show and say “Fuck, I paid that money and it wasn’t worth it”. I want everyone to go away like “Jesus Christ, I’d have paid double for that!”
Planet Loud – How long have Bury Tomorrow been playing live shows?
Bury Tomorrow – This is a bit of a harder one, we had a severely old lineup…..the only people that are the same as that old lineup is the drummer. Not even me! So, basically, this lineup up now with the songs we’re playing and the songs that we’ve written has been together for two years playing live shows. We had an intense 2008, we played a LOT of shows. A lot of shows that were terrible and rubbish. We just worked as hard as we could to get to as many places as possible. We did about 260 shows, something stupid like that. It was over 200 shows. So, yeah, two years is how long we’ve roughly been going.
Planet Loud – At what point did you break out of the local scene?
Bury Tomorrow – We worked really hard to sell tickets. I think selling tickets is the best way to get people to see you because you sell tickets to your friends and they bring their friends. The new people then say “They were amazing!” to their friends and it just builds until the people in the audience are no longer your friends that you sold the tickets to. They are friends of friends of friends who actually are just your fans and love you and want to watch you. It’s important to start in your local scene, but once you’ve broken it, try and get onto a tour, book your own tour, book some outside dates just to get out of the city. Then the people in the city will appreciate it more.
Planet Loud – The worst thing to do would be to sit back on it?
Bury Tomorrow – I don’t think that’s the worst thing you could do. Some people do bands because they want it to be their job. Other people do bands because they enjoy playing with their friends. There have been times in every bands life where they say “I wish we could go back to just playing that one, sold-out show, once a month and just be like “Wicked, that’s what we do!”” You have to work everything on a balance. If being out on tour and hanging out with your mates and being in different countries and cities is more important than the effort, then you’re always going to want to go out side of the city and grow. Some people are just happy with being in their local scene though. You need those bands though because those are the bands that help the other bands break.
Planet Loud – “Her Bones In The Sand” is the single from the album, do you feel this represents the album well? What can fans expect from the album?
Bury Tomorrow – Her Bones In The Sand is the first single we released that is going to be on the album. We’ve just released a new one called “You & I”. They are representative of the album but the album is very, very varied. We range from very heavy to very melodic and everything in between. The new track that’s on our MySpace, “Evolution In Self”, is probably a fairer representation of the general feel of the album in total. In terms of the single, they are representative, they represent what we’re doing. I think they have that uplifting element to them, this is a positive record.
Planet Loud – What about you? When did you first pick up a bass guitar?
Bury Tomorrow – I think I first picked up a bass guitar a week before my audition with Bury Tomorrow. I always played guitar, I wasn’t amazing. I couldn’t shred, I couldn’t solo. I used to play in a punk band. I heard about these guys, Bury Tomorrow, they’d just released an E.P. They were amazing, I said “Dude! They sound like Still Remains! They sound awesome, I’ve got to get involved”. I heard they lost their bassist and I said “Dude, I’ll play bass for you!”. They said “Can you play bass?”, I said “Yeah, yeah”. Then they said “OK, you’ve got an audition next Wednesday”. I borrowed my brothers bass who is now the lead singer of the band, but back then wasn’t anything to do with them. I thought “I’ve got to learn these songs”. I listened to the songs, and me and my brother sat there and we tabbed them out. Then I went to the audition and I’ve played bass ever since. I don’t want to anything else now, I love playing bass.
Planet Loud – What bands do you think influence Bury Tomorrow?
Bury Tomorrow – I would say Parkway Drive, The Ghost Inside, Unearth, Killswitch Engage, August Burns Red. These sorts of bands, the new metal-core bands with the old metal-core bands and then we all have our own influences. We all just love metal-core. We love it when people write catchy metal. We don’t think there is anything better than hearing a guitar riff you start singing it and you’re like “Yes! That is a riff!” We just love writing catchy metal. Some people are like “Singing is selling out”. Bollocks to that! Or “It’s not metal, what’s with the singing? It’d be a lot better if you lost the singer”. Well, guess what? We actually love having the singing, it brings us that extra dynamic. We think the singing makes the heavier parts heavier. If you’re hearing this beautiful singing then out of nowhere, the most chronic beat-down, you’re like “Fuck me, where did that come from?” I think that’s why you should have contrasts together. If it was all really heavy, there would be no part where you say, “Fuck! That’s heavy!” You’ve got to have that relief and we bring that relief with melody and catchiness. We all love metal-core, I don’t think you can be in a metal-core band if you don’t love metal-core. It’s one of those words that almost becomes dirty. Erurggh! Metal-core! We love it, As I Lay Dying are one of the greatest bands on the planet in terms of their intensity live on CD. Oceans Between Us is, in my opinion, is probably one of the best metal-core albums that has come out in recent years. It’s so metal, yet so melodic at the same time. This is what we strive to be like.
Planet Loud – Is there any guilty pleasure in the band?
Bury Tomorrow – We have so many guilty pleasures, it’s not even funny. We will listen to anyone from Paramore to JLS. We have a very eclectic music taste. We love pop-punk, we love pop music. A couple of others really like dub-step, we like electro, metal, hardcore. If you look at any of our iPods, you will see 1001 genres. We don’t necessarily see them as guilty pleasures though, we just love catchy music. It doesn’t matter if it’s electronic catchy music or guitar catchy music or some hardcore band spitting out the sickest lyrics. We just love it, we love music. That’s what I’d say we’re inspired most by, rather than a genre.
Planet Loud – What does the future hold for Bury Tomorrow?
Bury Tomorrow – Future for us is looking bright, lots of touring for the album. We’ve just been taken on by the Artery Foundation and their aim for us is to spend a lot of time releasing and working the album in America. The US is in our not-too-distant future. Our aim is to become bigger, yet still keep the same show that you’re going to see tonight (Derby Victoria Inn). We want everyone to have a good time with us, we want to increase our fan base but not decrease our level of involvement with our fan base.
Interview by Tom Dickins
