Another day, another band. Bury the Traitor have some killer influences and they want to tell us all about them.
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re from Derbyshire, United Kingdom.
How did you meet?
We met through mutual friends and also through band forums.
How long have you been playing as a band?
We’ve been playing under the name Bury the Traitor for just over three years now, we previously played under a different moniker but had so many line up changes we felt we needed a fresh start.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
When we decided we would change our name we sat down together and spitballed ideas over the course of a few weeks. We narrowed the choice down to about five and Bury the Traitor was the one that we kept coming back to. We also wanted the name to suit the genre and be a key indicator to listeners of what we play before they actually hear it.
What are your influences?
We’ve all brought different influences to the band as we all listen to a wide spectrum of rock music, from pop punk to metalcore to more progressive stuff. With regard to writing we are influenced by a variety of things. Our new EP Ascend to Clarity was written about overcoming personal struggles and gaining a new perspective on hardship, it’s about coming out of the other side of an adverse situation as a better person. We are also influenced by the state of things on a wider scale, our new single “A.S.I.F.” is about war and the affect it can have on a person’s mind and the justifications behind going to war.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We are generally considered to be a metalcore band but I think we also have a hard rock influence which a lot of bands are not really encompassing at the minute. We are very much a riff based band and like to draw on a more old school metal scene, such as earlier Machine Head.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
We’ve gigged extensively since the inception of Bury the Traitor, having just come back from our third tour with the guys in In Fear They Follow, which was an awesome run of shows. Our live shows reflect our music, we always put on an energetic performance from start to finish, delivering soaring choruses and sing along moments as well as punishing breakdowns and ferocious riffs. When you’ve come to a Bury the Traitor show you know about it!
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
While we were on tour our vocalist Oli was using a wireless mic and decided the bar we were playing in wasn’t big enough. He decided he wanted all the people of Norwich to listen to us so he walked out the venue and started screaming in the street while we carried on inside. We’re not sure what most of Norwich thought but when he came back in a local homeless woman followed him and started throwing down with us, that was pretty awesome but I don’t think the venue owner was too happy…
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Currently we use a Peavey 6505 head and a Kemper profiler for guitars, Scott plays an ESP LTD EC 1000 and Shez plays an Ibanez FR. Dizz uses an Ernie Ball Music man and James has a Mapex Mars kit with Zildjian cymbals and a Tama Speed Cobra double bass pedal.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
At the moment we are promoting our new EP Ascend to Clarity, which came out on February 14th independently. We’ve released one single so far – “A.S.I.F.”, which has had a really good reception, we’re releasing another music video later in the year but that’s still hush hush at the moment. One thing is for sure, it’s an exciting time to be in Bury the Traitor at the moment!
What are your plans for 2019?
We’ve just come back from our EP release tour but are already looking for other shows to play this year. We’re also in talks to get another tour booked and hit the road again at the back end of the year. As I mentioned earlier, we’re also shooting another music video and releasing that later in the year. Aside from touring, our next big goal is to begin the process of writing an album, I think that will be the main focus point, especially in the back half of 2019.
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
If we were second on a three band bill we’d love to be supporting Killswitch Engage or Trivium. We’re all huge fans of those bands and they’ve both been a massive influence to us since we started. We’d definitely also bring our boys in In Fear They Follow with us as they killed it every single night when we were on tour with them. They were also just genuinely nice guys and were a massive laugh, we will definitely be touring with them again in the future.
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