Biolich Interview

One of the strongest acts to emerge from the NYC underground in recent years, Biolich can dish out enough grinding death metal to whet the appetite of most copse-eating zombies that follow that sort of music, but the tendency of the band to experiment with elements that are a bit out of bounds may spark your interest as well. Paragon Records has recently issued the group's latest extravaganza de extreme, 'The Space Between Home And Today' with the reaction to the EP ranging from favorable opinion to rabid raving. Will, the band's vocalist took the time to fill The Gauntlet in on all of the hullabaloo and propaganda surrounding the band in the following interview. For a band rather fond of the two Martians from Sesame Street that blather on about a ringing telephone, these four New York death-dealers sure can dish out the pulverization.

The Gauntlet: How do you feel about your new album, "The Space Between Home and Today?"

Will: Very proud, it reflects a distinct period of growth and change for the band and it is the first professional release in our 9-year history so it is very special for us.

The Gauntlet: Biolich plays a very diverse style of music. How would you describe your music to someone you were trying to sell a CD to?

Will: I hate trying to describe our sound, but I guess we are guttural technical death metal with a lot of melodic and experimental variations in our songwriting. I wouldn't try to sell our CD to somebody, I'd probably tell them to go get the Ghostface / MF Doom mixtape.

The Gauntlet: Is it hard for your band to come together as a tight unit when your music has so many musical personalities?

Will: I think part of the reason we all work so well together is because we all have a common goal of creating unique, multi layered songs that reflect the diversity of our tastes. We are all really open new ideas and trying to keep our sound fresh and different.

The Gauntlet: How do you decide when to change direction in a song? Do the lyrics dictate the direction of the music, or does the music dictate the direction or mood of your lyrics?

Will: It really depends on the song - some songs there will be a certain concept or theme in mind and I'll write the lyrics around the music, other songs we will just kind of throw pre-existing lyrics at it and see what happens. I have pages and pages of unused lyrics and scraps of verses and the other guys are always brainstorming so its a little of both really. Tom comes up with song title some times, and he wrote the lyrics for "unfortunately....." on the EP.

The Gauntlet: Your band must have varying musical tastes. Considering this statement, what bands were influential to sculpting the sound that is Biolich?

Will: This is another hard one, I would never but Biolich on the same level as these bands, but some artists that have probably helped shape our sound would be Demilich [of course], Gorguts, Boards of Canada, Drive Like Jehu, Disharmonic Orchestra, Lymphatic Phlegm, Botch, Coalesce, Cryptopsy, ummmmm.... A ton of other stuff. We all listen to so much different music that its really hard to make a list but I would say any artist that has a keen sense of detail, melody and technicality or just a very organic, authentic sound we respect and admire.

The Gauntlet: New York City has long been a breeding ground for extreme musical talent. Whether it is the punk and hardcore of the 80s, the death metal of the 90s or the grind of today, N.Y.C. has always been a significant force in the extreme music scene. How did this scene and environment help shape you as a band?

Will: Well, for me personally, a big thing was the local hardcore scene here on long island in the early nineties - I was very young and impressionable around the time a lot of experimental DIY style bands were playing shows at The old first church in Huntington and the local YMCA. Bands like Fugue, Scapegrace, Motive, Conniption , Milhouse, the 1.6 band, Edgar, etc. were very iconic to me because there was a strong sense of community and grassroots organization to these shows. That was before the whole tough guy crew / victory records thing got real crazy, and as I got older I got more into death metal and grind but always wanted to bring to my music the aesthetic of small shows and DIY attitude that I witnessed at those early shows. As for New York City, I would say it's a privilege to live so close to such a great melting pot for music and entertainment - I remember seeing underground death metal bands almost every weekend at castle heights in queens when I was in high school, and it has been an honor to play at such legendary clubs as ABC NO Rio and the Knitting Factory.

The Gauntlet: Your Myspace page features a picture of a power plant for the section that says, "Sounds Like." Why did you insert this picture there? Does it have anything to do with the introductory noise on "Morals like frozen peas?"

Will: Ha-ha actually it's "Morals like frozen piss", but I suppose frozen peas wouldn't have high moral standards either..... Seriously though, that's a good correlation, I would like to pull it off like we're that slick, but the truth is it's just a picture we thought would be cool so we put it there instead of listing a bunch of bands.

The Gauntlet: What does "Morals like frozen peas" mean?

Will: HAHA I don't know man! But "Morals like Frozen Piss", in addition to being a subtle reference to an early nineties metal blade band we like, is just a loose way of describing someone whose moral fiber has been broken down and turned cold by events they've experienced. People are welcome to interpret the lyrics any way they choose though.

The Gauntlet: Where are you going with the long-winded title," Unfortunately they don't allow us to Store Bodies at work?" Also, please explain the track's sub-title.

Will: Tom, our drummer, came up with that concept. It's really just a way of venting about the frustration and futility of having to get up and work everyday with people that piss you off doing the same repetitive routine all to pay the bills and keep yourself going. I like to dedicate that song to anyone that works a blue-collar job on long island. As for the "sub title", I guess we'll just let people come up with their own conclusion... ha-ha

The Gauntlet: The last track also has an interesting song title "untitled," and is not listed on the back of the album with the rest of the song titles. Why did you decide to keep this track unnamed?

Will: Are you talking about the EP? I'm not sure what you mean... On the 2004 demo there was a bonus live track of a song called "with wings went limbs", but I don't think there's any bonus track on the new EP....

The Gauntlet: Do you play many shows? What concerts or tours have you done?

Will: We try to play live as often as we can. No real tours yet, though we did do 3 dates all in different states the same weekend with Kill The Client and Drogheda so I guess that might have technically been a tour - I don't know but it was a lot of fun! Some of my best memories of shows would be playing with Dimentianon in our drummers basement for his birthday party, The 2004 Maryland death fest [I guess they didn't like us enough to invite us back this year], Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition in New Jersey, Necrophagist in Queens, playing with Kayo Dot in Washington DC, both times we played ABC No Rio were great, The Knitting Factory with Genghis Tron, Any time we've played with Copremesis, and Anytime we've played with Internal Suffering. To me any show is a good show as long we play music for people and have fun, we are very fortunate to have played so many shows in the past 3 years.

The Gauntlet: Are you satisfied with you record label, Paragon Records? How did you decide this label was the right one for your band?

Will: We are very happy to be working with Paragon - they are a hundred percent dedicated to the scene and to their bands. We have known those guys for years and years as friends before we ever had a deal with them so it just seemed like a great situation when they made us the offer.

The Gauntlet: Can we expect a U.S. tour soon?

Will: There are things being planned for next fall, but nothing is concrete yet so I don't want to give away any details - keep checking our website for details!