Bison b.c. hail from Canada; where everyone is funny. They also happen to play some of the dirtiest, sludgiest, and crushing metal you’ll find out there right now. Their new album, Quiet Earth is out on Metal Blade Records and it belongs in your collection. SMN News sat down with Dan And (great name!) to talk about all sorts of shit including Flying-V’s, King Diamond, smelly touring vans, and obviously, Nickleback.

Bison b.c.’s members have their roots in the more thrash/punk side of things. How did it evolve to the riffed-out beast it is now?

Our roots are all over the fucking place. We all grew up on punk and metal as much we grew up on pretty much all forms of classic rock. Be it 70’s blues rock or even psych pop, we love it. When James and I first started jamming and writing riffs we never decided to make it sound like anything in particular besides something that we ourselves would want to hear and bang our heads to. We all come from such similar and yet diverse musical backgrounds that all those influences just kind of poked through and meshed together somehow. I hear a lot of heavy bands that forget about one key element to keep music interesting to hear which are dynamics. You can make a riff or a part of a song sound ten times as heavy if you have a part that’s a little mellower before or after it.

Was it tough convincing the people who loved S.T.R.E.E.T.S. and the other bands you were in about the newer stuff you were doing with Bison b.c.?

No, we didn’t even consider what anyone would think. We were starting something totally different than what S.T.R.E.E.T.S. and all our previous bands were doing. None of us had ever played together and were buds first and foremost who admired each others individual musical pasts. We didn’t know what to expect from playing together anymore than anyone else did. All we knew was that it we wanted it to be heavy and most importantly that we were playing songs that we were stoked on. Besides, Vancouver has a killer family of bands that run the entire musical gauntlet who all hang out and are friends so we weren’t worried.

Your first full-length, Earthbound, caught some buzz in the metal underground. Did you find yourselves suddenly playing with more bands in that scene?

I moved to Vancouver to start this band with James so other than whatever bands would come over to Victoria (on Vancouver Island, where I was living) it was all pretty new to me. The metal scene is so varied here that I’m still finding new bands that I’m stoked on. There’s crust, doom, death, thrash, noise-rock…you name it, and somebody’s doing it. We’ve always seemed to play with a lot of different types of bands because I guess we aren’t too easily categorized right off the bat. We’re too loud to play with a lot of punk bands but not evil enough to play with a lot of ‘METAL’ (insert scowl and claw) bands. Crossover?

Were you weary of singing with such a big label like Metal Blade?

Growing up as punks we’ve always been weary dealing with any kind of label. It’s a tricky situation and we’ve certainly known some people who’ve kind of ended up getting shafted. Looking at Metal Blade’s roster I was most worried that we wouldn’t be evil enough for them but they were stoked on what we were doing and gave us the freedom to keep being the same goofs we’ve always been. They have a pretty stellar track record for keeping bands and are a metal label through and through. Fucking Cannibal Corpse and King Diamond are still on Metal Blade, how can you argue with that?

Tell us about working with Jesse Gander. Some of our readers might know him from his work with 3 Inches of Blood.

Jesse is an old bro of ours and a total wizard in the studio. Jesse Gandolf. He’s recorded hundreds of bands around town and we knew he would come through for us. He not only came through for us on Earthbound but totally blew us away with how he was able to capture us in only two days of doing all the tracking. For Quiet Earth we really wanted to see what Jesse could do if we gave him more time to cast his spells of whatever the hell he does with all those knobs. Needless to say he blew us away again. He’s got a lot of input too on trying different things and we trust him 100%. If he told us to throw some accordion on there, we probably would have.

What kind of guitar and bass rigs did you guys use when you recorded Quiet Earth? The guitars are thick but they maintain a clear quality somehow.

For Quiet Earth I recorded using a flying v with stock pick ups through a 100watt Soldano Avenger and two 4×12 cabs. James rocked an SG through an old Mesa mark IV and two 4×12s. Masa has a Boogie 400+ and an Ampeg fridge and the cheapest, most beat up Epiphone bass you’ve ever seen. it’s only got three strings and looks like shit but sounds great. Brad’s got a total Franken-kit that’s constantly changing but no matter what he’s got he just beats the fuck out of it.

We’re bare bones kinda guys, no pedal boards or triple rectifiers or anything. Basically the less to fiddle with and worry about malfunctioning the better. The less knobs the better too. James and I both have boosts for leads (me a tube screamer TS9 and james a custom line boost pedal by our bud Chris Welch from the band No Horses) and James recently added a wah pedal to his set up but other than tuners that’s it. Dumber is gooder.

Even though the riffs are heavy as fuck on the album, the vocal melodies keep things, dare I say it, catchy. How are the songs constructed? Do you write the basic guitar riff first and then build up from there?

Yeah, sometimes the songs are pretty much done when we bring em to the table but other times it’s just a pile of riffs we like and we arrange them all together. Lyrics are generally last but sometimes I’ll kinda build a song around a lyrical idea, which is probably why I take years longer than James to finish a song. Things get added and taken away a lot too; it all depends on how we feel after playing them for a while.

Lyrically speaking, what kinds of themes are you getting into on the new record?

Ancient-future. A lot of James’ lyrics make me think of post apocalyptic wastelands. Mad Max type stuff or He-Man style civilization scenarios. Societies crumbling and retaining certain aspects of technology while also being reduced to a smoldering wreck of their former selves. While not quite concept albums, if you were to take both of them and study the cover art and lyrics of certain songs on each there is a vague sort of narrative being told throughout. My lyrics are thinly veiled stories of mystical creatures used to cover songs of more personal and internal struggles. He’s the expression of disdain and foreshadowing of eminent societal collapse and I’m the expression of internalizing feelings of doubt and loss of control within the self. Wait didn’t I just say dumber is gooder? Fuck.

Who is this “Stokasaurus” you sing about?

The Stokasaurus is a long forgotten dinosaur that was the raddest of them all. It hunted no other creatures and had no known predators after it and spent its days getting rad and being heavy mellow. It was the dinosaur you could call if you were bummed for whatever reason just to chill with and shoot the shit. It’s long been extinct but we’re trying to bring it back “Jurassic Park” style cuz we could all benefit from getting heavy mellow now and again.

Your touring van is famous on Canadian television. Name five bands that you WON’T hear on a long drive when you are on tour with Bison b.c.

Bootsauce, Bootsauce, Moxy Fruvous, Bootsauce and Nickleback. Everything else is pretty much fair game. And yes, we love our van so much its creepy…even though it smells like a bum’s asshole.

What is the biggest misconception Americans have of Canadians? For example, I think ALL Canadians are funny.

That’s fair, we are all funny. And it’s because we realize that the rest of the world sees us as their weird little brother that isn’t as angry or insecure as our ‘older’ brother the US. We’re content being the peaceniks that we are trying to joke our way out of conflicts. We’re the freaks and geeks to the rest of the worlds’ jocks and university grads. We also don’t live in igloos but I am sitting on my chesterfield with a toque on.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 11:33 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Anonymous wrote:

Quiet Earth has some of the most satisfyingly delicious riffs I’ve heard in a while.

October 14th, 2008 at 6:46 pm

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