Buffalo’s very own Buried Alive has been taking the hardcore scene by storm around the country, utilizing their energetic superpowers to rile up laxadazical crowds. I recently discussed the hardcore scene, the Buffalo scene, the new album, and some other wacky stuff with bass player Joe Orlando. He may seem mean, but I assure you he said it all in a nice tone of voice.
Buried Alive has officially become a four piece band, as guitarist Scott Sprigg recently decided to leave the group. November 22 will be his last performance before he’s buried alive in paperwork, slavin’ for the man in a real job someplace. Or maybe he’ll start another band.
Generation: How was your trip to Milwaukee?
Joe: It was OK. You have to take the good with the bad sometimes. There was crappy weather this weekend, we had troubles with the van. We were all piled in there, like crazed lunatics driving around with bald tires—sweaty, unshowered. It kind of gets disheartening sometimes when shows are kind of bad. We’ve played out there so many times, unless it’s a festival or something it’s not that exciting. It was just shows with us playing with some local bands.
G: What made you go all the way out there?
J: Honestly, we have tons of bills that we have to pay every month, so we try to find some time as often as we can to play some shows. Not to mention, our singer’s girlfriend lives in Chicago, so he looks for any reason to go out west and drags us all with him. I like playing anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. Plus, we have a bunch of new stuff that we’ve been playing out.
G: Who will you be recording your new alum with?
J: We’re recording with Matt Henderson, who plays guitar for Madball and he also used to play in Agnostic Front. He produced the last two Madball records. He’s just starting to get into it, and he’s trying to make this his full time job. He teams up with this guy Dean, and they just did some stuff for Scarhead. We’re going to record in New York in January. The stuff in the works is definitely a lot different. The first album was almost the same thing for every song; it was just our first 12 songs we ever wrote—how we introduced ourselves.
G: How is it that they were the same?
J: Well, they all kind of had the same format: fast part, with the end mosh part—they were kind of predictable. Not to discredit the album. I think it was pretty good for a first effort, but I’m a lot more excited about this, and taking it a bit more seriously. It’ s taken over and consumed most of our lives.
G: How is your experience in Buried Alive so far different than your experience in Hourglass a couple of years ago?
J: The entire experience is one hundred percent completely different. I was in high school then. I’m definitely the youngest person in the band—I’m 22. That was one of my first experiences in actually playing in a band. We did do pretty good, but it doesn’t really take much to do good in the hardcore scene, apparently. Anybody will support anything. You can totally suck and it doesn’t seem to matter. It matters to me, now that I’m a little bit older and losing patience for some of the bands I think are terrible. There’s always going to be your friends there to support you, you know, people bring you out to play shows...
G: Are you referring to Buffalo or the entire country? What happened that made you say that these bands aren’t deserving of the praise that they’re getting?
J: I’m talking about the entire country, or world for that matter. We just got back from Europe a few months ago, and it was just the same thing over there. It seems to me that when I first started going to shows when I was thirteen or fourteen years old, it was really exciting, and like four bands would play at most. There would be three touring bands that were really good that everyone was excited to see and one local band. If the local band was good, they got more shows and went on to play more stuff. If they sucked, then they sucked, and they would eventually realize to just hang it up.
Now, it seems that bands go on tour and say, “Anybody who wants to play, raise your hand, and of course you can play because this is hardcore and we’re supposed to be accepting of everyone and everything.” They’ve lost the meaning of the music, because it seems that people start a band just to get some sort of scene points or something, because they jump around and like to scream, or think it’s cool to be in a band.
People started to say the music isn’t as important; it’s the message. Music is important, man—I play in a band. The reason I was attracted to hardcore was because I like heavy music. As time goes by, it seems that anybody who has a guitar and a set of drums can start a hardcore band. To me, being OK isn’t acceptable anymore. If anything, it’s killing the hardcore scene because people don’t want to go to shows and endure all these bands they think are horrible. When I get home from a tour, I only have enough money to eat food let alone go to a show. I don’t want to pay eight bucks just to see the last band and have to sit through a bunch of bands that I think shouldn’t be playing.
G: I’ve been going to shows since I was very young, too, and I’ve noticed an insurgence of that show-arrangement trend, somewhat. The scene has definitely changed, but now just as then, there are local shows, and bands have to improve. Not all bands have members who have trained before in other bands. How do you feel that a band should go about improving?
J: I’m not saying that bands shouldn’t be able to play shows. Hardcore is about energy, and it’s not something that can really be faked to me. It has to be credible and real. I know what you’re trying to say as far as we have to give bands a chance, because how are they going to develop into being something worthwhile? Who’s to say you can’t play a show because you suck? It’s to a point now, though, that 80-90 percent of the bands aren’t giving it their all because it’s too easy. I think Buffalo has their shit together a lot. The shows in Buffalo have actually been pretty good lately. Chris Ring, one of the main promoters in Buffalo, does a really good job of putting together shows that are worthwhile, but we play shows in a lot of other cities that are just terrible—us and like 5 local bands. I think I’m just ranting and raving about this because it’s something that’s been on my mind recently.
G: The other end of the spectrum is that there are a lot of people going around the hardcore scene, including the Buffalo scene, very concerned with who is “more hardcore” than another person, and who has more right. It’s almost a hierarchy. What are your comments on the issue?
J: Obviously, Buried Alive is a hardcore band, but we don’t wave the flag of what’s right and wrong in the hardcore scene. I don’t feel right telling anybody what to do. I think that the way hardcore kids act is ridiculous sometimes—it’s like a club or something. It’s music, and the main reason music was ever created was for the simple fact that people should enjoy it. If new people want to come to shows, that’s great. Who knows—they might be the person who’ll start the next amazing band in Buffalo. Welcome anybody into the scene.
G: How do you think the course and development of the band has been altered by your being signed to Victory, the largest hardcore label, so shortly after the band’s inception?
J: When the band was first formed, I had no expectations of where it was going to go or what was going to happen. It was put together by Matt and myself, and we just wanted to play music, play some shows, and have fun. That’s what this band has always been based upon. As far as the business aspect goes—record sales and stuff like that—we’re one of the worst bands as far as dealing with that. We really don’t have a really good relationship with Victory in that we don’t talk to them on a regular basis or anything; they just put out our record. It’s kind of weird because they are the biggest hardcore label and we took that as a really exciting thing. It didn’t put any pressure on us or make us feel that we had to live up to a certain expectation. We just continued to do our thing, let them have it, and they put it out—got us to where we are now. It could always get bigger, could always get better; but we’re just continuing to have the same attitude about it—have fun. That’s the only reason that I’m going to continue doing this, because I’m definitely not making any money off of being on that label—I’ll tell you that. I’m really, really broke. If anybody wants to donate money to Buried Alive, we will take it.
G: How does the lack of pressure, as far as advancing labels, affect your song writing?
J: We’re happy with where we are, and the type of music that we’re playing isn’t something that’s ever going to be mainstream or have any mass appeal, because basically, we’re screaming. That’s what sets it apart from Korn or Limp Bizkit or anything like that. We’re just more or less doing what comes natural. This next record that we’re going to record has a different vibe going on. It’s still a hardcore record and we’re still definitely a hardcore band, but we looked at all the music that we listened to before we got into hardcore and what elements of songs we like. There’s a process to writing songs that you can even apply to hardcore: it’s got to be catchy; there has to be some hook to it, something that will grab a hold of you. That’s what we’ve been trying to put into every song. I think that our new songs are way better, and people are going to listen to them and remember them more than the songs on the first record.
G: Can you compare Buffalo’s scene to other scenes you’ve experienced around the country and around the world?
J: I think Buffalo has a very unified scene, as compared to other places where there’s a lot of separation between who goes to emo shows and who goes to noisecore shows and just typical hardcore shows. I don’t know if that’s just because there’s less kids in Buffalo or if the kids here are just willing to accept all types of hardcore as being the same thing. In a place like Chicago or New York, it’s so separated. I think that’s the great thing about Buffalo is that kids come out to shows no matter what, because they want to support the bands. It’s a community—everybody seems to get along. There’s definitely a good vibe coming from hardcore shows in Buffalo.
G: How do you feel about the other, smaller Buffalo bands?
J: As far as local bands go, and people that are just trying to get stuff started, Buffalo probably has the best out of any city in the entire country. I think there’s a lot of talent in the hardcore bands in Buffalo—especially Every Time I Die. They’ve been making a name for themselves now, and I wouldn’t call them one of the smaller local bands in a couple months, because there’s some stuff really going on for them. There’s about fifteen other bands—no need to mention all of them, but they’re all worth checking out.
G: Here’s a nice, trite question for you: how does the crowd’s energy affect your performance?
J: I have this theory that 20 percent of the people that go to Buried Alive shows like to dance, and the other 80 percent don’t. I’ve gotten to the point now where I’ve had too many shots to the face and too many elbows to the nose, where I don’t dance anymore. But I love when people dance for our band. It definitely reflects in my mind on whether I thought the show was good or bad, but sometimes I have to tell myself that there must be more of the 80 percent crowd at that show where people didn’t dance and still liked us. Hardcore is about energy, and when people are jumping around and getting into it, that just makes me want to jump around and get into it more.
G: Anything else interesting going on for the band?
J: We’ve been doing some demo stuff for this album and getting ready for it. We’re about to go on a three week tour with Death Threat, a band from Connecticut. This is our first headlining tour ever, and it’ll be the fourth time we’ve gone out to California and out to Texas. It’ll be nice to see if people picked up on the vibes we left the last time we were out there.
G: Closing comments?
J: Don’t be afraid of Buried Alive because you think that we’re the atypical hardcore band. If you have some jaded opinion towards hardcore, you can still appreciate our band on a different level. I know there will be a bunch of people besides hardcore kids reading this, so you should come check it out.
