BISON B.C. - Dan

\r\nWhen BISON B.C. took its first step amps were scorched and drums were smashed. Born of the ashes of seminal Vancouver skate-thrash band S.T.R.E.E.T.S., BISON B.C. are every headbanger’s dream. Their riffs are colossal and flow like a mighty river into a sea of fuzzed out shredding. Their message is punk rock angst and revolution, with the occasional nod to white wizards, the king of swine and a mythical beast called the "Stokasaurus". Their debut album “Earthbound” captured their massive live sound on tape, garnering international recognition and a deal with Metal Blade Records. BISON B.C. is currently recording their Metal Blade debut “Quiet Earth” with Jesse Gander (3 Inches of Blood, Subhumans, Mass Grave, S.T.R.E.E.T.S.) at The Hive Studios in Burnaby, BC and are currently slated for a fall 2008 release.
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\r\nIn a perfect world BISON B.C. will be playing with High on Fire at your favorite dive bar, all of your friends will be there and a beer will cost a quarter. By the end of their set their amps will be in a ruined heap on top of the drum kit and somebody will be bleeding. It better be you.
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\r\nMetalzone: First of all, I’d like to welcome you in Metalzone.gr.
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\r\nDan: Hey, this is Dan And here. Thanks for sending the questions and for being interested. I can’t wait to come over and rock out with you guys. Hope this all makes sense for ya. Peace.
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\r\nMetalzone: In order to get started can you give a briefing on the story so far? When were you formed, when did you record your first album, and how you ended up in MetalBlade Records?
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\r\nDan: James and I started jamming together at the end of the summer in 2006. I was living in Victoria on Vancouver Island but we had been friends for a some times through seeing his old band skate-thrash band S.T.R.E.E.T.S (Skating Totally Rules Everything Else Sucks) a bunch of times and hanging out. After they broke up he started calling me and trying to convince me to move to Vancouver so we could start a new band together. Eventually i made the move and we started jamming together. By about October of 2006 we had a few songs down and we got our mutual friends Masa (bass) and Brad (drums) to come and play with us. We started playing shows in February 2007 and recorded our first album/EP (’Earthbound’, on local indie Forest that March at the Hive Creative Labs in Vancouver with our old friend Jesse Gander over four days. For the rest of that year we pretty much played as many shows as we possibly could around town and did our first tour down the west coast of the US.
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\r\nAt some point over that year, our now good bud Sarah Lutz from the Metal Blade office in Toronto came out to one of our shows in Vancouver. Apparently she was stoked enough to go back to the label and somehow convince them to put out our records. We had already booked some studio time in May 2008 with Jesse at the Hive again to record the eight new songs we had when we signed to Metal Blade. We spent just under two weeks recording ’Quiet Earth’ and it came out at the end of last September. We’ve pretty just much been touring as much we can since then, having fun and meeting lots of rad people.
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\r\nMetalzone: What inspired you the name of your band?
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\r\nDan: We just wanted something that sounded fucking heavy and epic. Bison are literally the heaviest land mammals in North America and have been around forever so that seemed to fit, even if there have never been any actual free-roaming bison out here on the west coast. We went through a lot of different names before we picked that one and the one thing that seemed to be common of them all was that they were short, one word names that had to do with nature. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the amount of ocean, forests and mountains that surround where we live or the fact that i am part native but it just kept coming up. The ’B.C.’ tag got added later because we found out there were some other bands called Bison around the world and didn’t want to have to deal with any legal bullshit later on. We basically picked it because it’s really vague. We might be from British Columbia but it could also be ’Before Christ’ which, again, sounds epic. I like to think of it as meaning ’Brutally Crucial’ but it can really be whatever you want.
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\r\nMetalzone: You have your own brand of beer?
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\r\nDan: Haha, kind of...not quite but we wish! The story behind that is that we agreed to play a local industry showcase event because we would get to play with our really tight bros in Ladyhawk . They’re one of our favourites but we have only played together once because they’re more of a mellow-but-rockin, freedom rock kinda band. Think of a dirtier Neil Young or Tom Petty when they’re really rockin. We ended up getting moved to a different night of this festival thing and were bummed that we couldn’t play with them. The organizers of it felt bad so they talked to one of the sponsors (who are a nearby brewery) and got them to put some custom Bison labels on their Phoenix Gold Lager beers. We each got a case and they were selling at the show but it’s not available anywhere else or anything. A local, weekly paper ran a blurb about it and somehow a bunch of metal news sites heard about it and started writing and it got kind blown out of proportion. We’re a heavy drinking band so we would love nothing more than to actually have our own beer...it would definitely be a pilsner.
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\r\nMetalzone: Tell me a few things about your latest release Quiet Earth.
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\r\nDan: Like i said, it took about two weeks to record with Jesse Gander at the Hive. He’s an amazing producer and really surprised us with how he was able to capture the sound we were looking for. I think the songs are a little heavier than those from our first album. We tried some different things this time around and i think it’s just from being more comfortable playing together now. When we wrote the first album we had only been together for a few months and we know what we’re able capable of now so it’s allowed to push each other to try things that might be a little more complex or unexpected.
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\r\nMetalzone: In what genre would you place your music?
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\r\nDan: It’s hard to try to define it from an insider perspective but I guess it’s kind of stoner/thrash or cross-over metal...except the cross-over happens throughout the songs as apposed to over the course of a few albums.  I once thought that a good way to describe it would be to listen to every Corrosion Of Conformity album at the same time but you could also try every Sabbath and Black Flag record together as well. Maybe mix any Melvins with the first four Metallica records, a dash of ’Reign In Blood’, a sprinkle of the Accused and a pinch of the Obsessed.
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\r\nMetalzone: What feedback have you been getting from your latest release? Both fans and media.
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\r\nDan: The feedback for ’Quiet Earth’ has been great from both fans and reviewers alike. We only ever write for ourselves. We write songs we would want to hear so we never think about whether other people are gonna like it or not but it’s rad to hear that they do. The whole point of the band from the first day was only ever to play tunes that stoked us and made us want to bang our heads and hopefully our friends too. That hasn’t changed and it never will. I’m surprised that people are digging but if it means we get to travel around, playing and meeting all kinds of rad folks then it’s all good.
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\r\nMetalzone: What about touring? What are your upcoming appearances?
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\r\nDan: We’re gonna be playing all over Europe from February 26 to March 21st with The Ocean, Burst and Medeia...literally ALL over Europe. We’re back home for a bit then hopefully we will be back on the road across Canada and the US in April and May. Nothing is set in stone yet but we’re trying to hook something up with our bros Tombs from Brooklyn. I have never been to Europe before and i can’t wait to get over there. I already want to go back over and i haven’t even been yet!
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\r\nMetalzone: What are your future plans, is a another album already in the works?
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\r\nDan: Yeah, we’re already working on some new tunes. Only a couple in the works so far though. We never really stop writing, especially James...he’s a friggin riff machine! We just wanna keep touring as much as we can and keep writing new shit whenever we aren’t doing that.
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\r\nMetalzone: What influences have you had in your style?
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\r\nDan: We all come from diverse musical backgrounds but still grew up on a lot of the same shit. Most of the influence for the band comes from 80’s metal, old-school punk and 70’s blues rock but we listen to just about every kind of music there is out there. Doesn’t matter if it’s grind, thrash, rap, country, jazz or pop...at some point or another it’s playing in the van.
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\r\nMetalzone: What are your expectations for the future?
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\r\nDan: I actually try to keep my expectations kinda low, that way everything that happens with the band is a pleasant surprise. All i’ve ever really wanted to do was play guitar and bang my head so as long as i can keep doing that then i’m stoked. When we first started the band we never expected to be playing to anyone other than our friends so the fact that we’re even coming over to Europe to play is way beyond any expectations i ever had. I think keeping the expectations low is a good way to appreciate being able to travel all over banging yer head and getting drunk with rad new friends.
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\r\nMetalzone: Thank you for your time and we wish you all the best for the future.
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\r\nDan: Thanks again. It’s really rad to know that people so far away give a shit about our band and are interested in anything we have to say.
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\r\nStay Rad,
\r\n-Dan And\r\n

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