Interview: Dan Briggs of Between the Buried and Me

Photo courtesy Carly Campbell
Photo courtesy Carly Campbell

[avatar user=”James” size=”50″ /]Before their show in Glasgow last weekend, I had the opportunity to chat to the bassist from Between the Buried and me. We chatted about the most recent album, his side project Trioscapes and his advice to bands just starting out.

Thanks to Andy at Metal Blade for organising and Dan for his time.

Dan: That’s an interesting accent you’ve got there.

MT: Comes from living in the States, England and Scotland for a few years.

Dan: Ah Nice! Which part of the states did you live in?

MT: About 50km southwest of Chicago.

Dan: Oh Cool, so you’re a Cubs fan I take it?

MT: Yep! Can’t beat a good game of baseball, particularly if the Cubs are playing. Anyway, You’re currently on tour with Haken. How’s the tour been going so far?

Dan: It’s been pretty good. Haken are an incredible band, I’ve liked them for a number of years after their album The Mountain came out. It’s cool to finally be able to play with them.

MT: After this tour you’re also touring in the states with Enslaved after this tour. Are you excited for that?

Dan: I am! We’ve toured with Intronaut before and they’re a great band with some really cool guys in there. We’ve not toured with Enslaved before, hopefully their cool guys.

MT: They are, I met Ivar last month and he was really friendly.

Dan: Oh good! I really dig their new record. The tour package we put together is a really wide spectrum of the progressive music world and they provide a sort of more extreme side. They have a melodic side of them which is really cool. I think that the tour should be quite fun.

MT: The most recent release, Coma Ecliptic, came out a few months ago. What’s the response been like when you play the new songs?

Dan: It’s been really good. I mean all our songs get a good response but these ones seem to be going down really well.

MT: If my sources are correct, the album did really well in the charts.

Dan: Yeah, I seem to recall it was number 12 of the billboard 200 in America. It’s kind of weird to think that as it’s a 70 mintue record which isn’t musically straight forward. It’s really cool for us as it’s been a long steady climb for us. I think it was the first time it was on the charts in Germany so we’ll see if that affects any of our shows when we play there.

MT: Was the production of the new album any different to the previous release?

Dan: The only thing that was really different was that we worked with an outside mix engineer. We worked with Jens Borgen in Sweden and he nailed the production without us giving him any direction. We kind of wanted a more natural sounding record and he made it sound exactly how we wanted it.

MT: Is there much happening in your other band, Trioscpaes?

Dan: We put out a record around this time last year and we did a little bit of touring before I went into the studio to do Coma Ecliptic. I’ve been busy with this band and Walter our sax player is active in quite a few bands as well. Our drummer Matt and I started a band with Rich the guitarist from Haken called Nova Collective. We haven’t announced much about it but we’re going to be doing a record in January next year.

MT: What’s your live setup like?

Dan: Anytime we go overseas, I use a radial Tone-bone. It’s sort of like a supped up bass specific DI box with a built in EQ unit. We also run in-ears so I just crank that. In the states, I obviously have my rig that I use but because It’s an older amp you can’t find anything like that to rent.

MT: What advice would you give to a band that’s just starting out in the industry?

Dan: Adopt a DIY ethic from the get-go. We grew up in the Hardcore era so we’re used to making our own flyers and getting out there and spreading the word. Obviously it’s different now with the internet. Tour your ass off as well.

MT: And finally, what sort of setlist can we expect tonight?

Dan: It’s a mix really. Obviously there’s a few songs from the new album but the set is mainly made up of songs from the last 4 albums. We try to rotate stuff on our set-lists so that people don’t hear the same songs everytime. I save a log of all our sets going back to 2009 so we know what songs we’ve played a lot.

MT: Thanks for your time!

Dan: No problem man, was a pleasure to chat to you!

All photos by Carly Campbell.

Between the Buried and Me: official | facebook | twitter

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