"We're not the most exciting band in the world," Paul Waggoner, guitarist of the North Carolina progressive metal outfit Between the Buried and Me, said.
When I sat down to talk to the band before their Oct. 17 show at the Recher Theatre, they were at ease, leaning back in plush dressing room couches while crew members shuttled in and out of the room. Is this the usual routine before a show?
"Yeah, just a lot of sitting around, and at the last minute, we chug a red bull," Waggoner said.
An hour after talking to BTBAM, I spoke with drummer Daniel Davison, who had to evict a couple of pre-show video gamers from the back of the tour bus so we could speak in peace. He, too, sat back and spoke with unforeseen calm about the tour, the band's and genre's popularity, religion and many other topics. Do these guys really play in metal bands?
Then I saw them on stage.
Between the Buried and Me, the second to last band to play, flew out of the gate with blistering speed, opening with one of their most unrelentingly heavy tracks. The guitarists blazed through dissonant and oddly-metered riffs punctuated by complex and melodic arpeggios, all set against Rogers' throaty, brutal scream. The band has found a mix of stunning technique and unabashed toughness that makes for an awesome live spectacle. They even sparked a giant, crowd-wide sing-along when they covered Queen's "Bicycle Race," a song appearing on The Anatomy Of..., the band's virtuoso cover album. The Red Bull must have done the trick. Taking the stage after the crew assembled an intricate set of cab walls and video projection, they started fierce and never let up, playing many selections from their new critically-acclaimed album, Redeemer.
"That's what a lot of metal and hardcore bands are lacking," Davison said before the show. "They don't have that record that's alive and full of passion."
That passion shines through in the recording, and it shone through even more live.
Shows like these -- headliner tours where both bands play every night to hundreds of adoring fans -- are the bread and butter for bands that have grown in popularity thanks to an ethos of relentless touring.
"It's exciting to headline and pull out all the stops, do what we want to do," Davison said. "We have a huge production we do every night." But how does Norma Jean reconcile a huge production with the do-it-yourself attitude that pervades the scene?
"We do all of it. We build it out in our driveway until 5 a.m. the night before we have to leave," Davison said. The set, an intentionally-disheveled array of cab walls set against rapid-fire video clips and between-song movie quotes, exudes an air of controlled chaos, a feeling conveyed by only the best the genre has to offer.
All underground music genres have thrived by fostering a personal relationship with their rabid, devoted fan bases. But do bands like eschewing larger concert venues where they could play in front of thousands for the smaller, more intimate clubs?
"Yeah, definitely," Waring said. "You don't run into as many `rock star' type people on club tours." And he should know: This tour, called the Radio Rebellion Tour, comes in stark contrast to and in the wake of the hardcore/metal goliath Ozzfest, which both BTBAM and Norma Jean played. So who are the Ozzfest prima donnas?
"I won't say any names, but they're there," Waring said. "I personally didn't enjoy the atmosphere. Those weren't our kind of fans."
But Davison pointed out the pros of playing an event like that: exposure.
This tour, however, comes in stark contrast to Ozzfest. Radio Rebellion, though, props up bands that are succeeding without the help of traditional avenues like radio. With that philosophy in mind, Davison thinks it's strange Norma Jean is headlining the tour.
"It's funny that this is the `Radio Rebellion Tour' but we're on MTV2," he said. "We didn't name the tour, so it's not really our whole thing. We'd be fine with being on the radio."
"I can never see a band like us getting to super-stardom," Rogers said. It's true that historically the more "extreme" music genres only appealed to a core group of fans, but bands like Tool (who have toured with metal visionaries Isis and Mastodon) and System of a Down are making people realize that metal is more of a thinking man's music than they previously understood.
Even without super-stardom, the bands keep pushing for the love of the craft. Not that they wouldn't enjoy being on top of the music world. Where do they think they'll be in five years?
"Hopefully we'll be the biggest band in the world and everything we said before will be completely untrue," Rogers said.
"Probably dead," Waring said.
How metal, on both counts.
