Bison BC
By:
A streamroller. That’s Bison BC for ya. Toss in the lovely imagery associated with their name and the fucked-up scenarios the band has in store for the bison, and what you have is a fresh, yet oddly comforting concoction of Southern/post-Melvins metal. Even more funny…these guys are from Vancouver. However, there’s nothing funny about their post-apocalyptic sound – it’s big, imposing, and has just enough hooks and melodies to keep things from falling off the edge.
Formed a mere two years ago, Bison BC (who recently had to tack on the “BC” due to legalities) have caught the eye of both the real and hipster metal crowd, you know – the people who think The Sword are God’s creation to originality. Nevertheless, there is nothing faux about what Bison BC is doing on their newest Quiet Earth effort, as evidenced by monstrous, mammoth numbers like “Dark Towers,” “Slow Hand of Death” and “These Are My Dress Clothes.”
Now criss-crossing the planet, Bison BC (who consist of vocalist/guitarist James Gnarwell, guitarist/vocalist Dan And, bassist Masa Anzai, and drummer Brad McKinnon), took some time from having bro-downs to be subjected to Blistering’s quieries. The concisely-named And was the respondent and here’s what went down…
Blistering.com: Still adjusting to having the “BC” added to your name or is it not a big deal at this point?
Dan And:I actually forget that it's there most of the time. We will always be Bison in my mind and the only reason it got added was for legal reasons. As long as it's on the spine of our CDs, then I think we're in the clear. The last thing in the world we wanted to do was change our name but we had to cover our asses. There are a lot of greedy fucks out there who could decide to try to fuck over another band at any point.
Blistering.com: You’ve been road-dogging it for quite time, so it is a safe assumption to say you’ll be on the road for a good while in support of the new album?
And: Yeah, we all pretty much just live in the van now. We're gonna try to tour as much as we can behind Quiet Earth but we don't wanna lose any momentum in the songwriting department so I’m sure we'll be writing whenever we can on our time off. All combined we've been touring in bands for about 50 years so it's nothing new. “Tramps like us” and all that...
Blistering.com: The road does a lot of things to bands and for a fledgling band like you, how has this helped shape the band?
And: Well, we absolutely fucking hate each other now. Ha-ha, no, touring is the only way to find out if yer gonna make it or break it...and I don't mean as in 'make it big' but rather 'make it work' or 'break each others fucking necks.’ You've gotta learn how to live together in close quarters and watch each others backs. We're best friends and brothers off and on the road so it's great. We all have different personalities, but it's just a matter of respecting each others fucked-up quirks and not letting things get to you. Playing live every night for two months straight really tightens you up too. It's like training for a marathon and once you feel like your on top of your game you also realize that you've already ran the marathon...and then you just collapse from exhaustion.
As for meeting rad new people, making new friends and getting people to check us out it's been fucking great. Having the internet around these days makes it easy for people to hear your band but nothing will ever take the place of straight-up bro-ing down. I can't think of a single show we've ever played where we haven't left without at least one new bro/broette for life. Crucial.
Blistering.com: Also, you’ve built a reputation mostly done through your work as an independent band, so how does it feel to be on Metal Blade?
And: It feels good to know that our friends don't have to go into debt to help us out. Our bud Nick Hart who put out our first album Earthbound on Forest went way out on a limb for us and we love him for it. Metal Blade has some of the raddest people in the world working for them and they've been great to us. They're a metal label through and through so it's still an indie label as far as I’m concerned...they just happen to be an indie label that's been going strong for 25 years and put out the first two Slayer albums.
Blistering.com: If worse came to worse, would you have just stayed independent?
And: Absolutely. It's rad to meet someone with enough interest in your music to want to release it for you, but getting signed was pretty much our last priority as a band. We grew up as fucking punks so we're leery of any label that works on anything other than a lick and a promise but after talking to the Blade we realized that for some reason, they were just stoked.
Blistering.com: The cover for Quiet Earth leaves a lot for interpretation and frankly, I’m a bit stumped. Care to elaborate?
And: Ha-ha, yeah our tight bud Mike Payette did that and the cover of Earthbound for us. Basically we came up of this idea of a race of bison warriors from another galaxy who travel the universe conquering planets as they go. The first cover was a depiction of their home world with the earth visible in the background and it was about their plan to take us over. We seem like an easy target to them due to the state of our world so they decide to get rid of us...hence: Earthbound. The idea for the Quiet Earth cover was one of their elders essentially approaching the Earth to declare war on us. The “quiet” being the eerie silence before catastrophe strikes. They aren't concept albums in the slightest but some of the songs on both are telling this story if you dig deep enough. How the battle's gonna pan out is yet to be determined, so we'll have to see.
Blistering.com: Are there any plans to play off the bison animal? You could probably get a lot of marketing miles out of that one...
And: Yeah, and all the work's already done for us too...just go to our second home Buffalo, NY.
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