Photo by Nathan Katsiaficas
Interview with bassist Dan Briggs | By Ridge Briel
What can be said about Between the Buried and Me that hasn’t already been said? That they are one of the few bands out there that get increasingly better with every album, culminating with their near perfect The Parallax II: Future Sequence? Or that their live show is an amazing experience that earns metal fans bragging rights? Bassist Dan Briggs addresses a few questions pertaining not only BTBAM, but also his prog metal band Orbs and jazz-fusion project Trioscapes.
First off, how is the new Orbs album coming along? When will it be released?
We wrote a record last year, it’s called Past Life Regression. It’s very slowly being mixed, as we speak, by Will Yip, who worked on the most recent Circa Survive album, Violent Waves. He’s got a lot going on, so he’s just working on it whenever he’s got time to spare outside of his other projects. There’s no big deadline, but it’s done and recorded. I have no idea when that will be out.
Being the busy guy you are, what’s the scoop on Trioscapes?
We did some Trioscapes shows along the way to BTBAM’s first show on the Meshuggah 25th anniversary tour. We played a crazy house show in North Hollywood last night. There were about 100 people packed inside of this house. It was insane. [Trioscapes] just completed a record, turned it in to Metal Blade Records, and it will be out in September. It will be called Digital Dream Sequence.
On to BTBAM: what will be featured on the DVD you will be releasing later this year?
It will be called Future Sequence: Live at the Fidelitorium, which is the name of the studio where we recorded it. We wanted to do an intimate portrait of the band, strip down all of the video and all of the lights, and just have us in the studio playing the entire album front to back. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks great. That will be out late fall of 2014. We have a string quartet, brass, tuba, woodwinds, flute, sax, xylophone, glockenspiel, the whole works.
Will there be a Parallax III?
No. There will be no third part. However, we’ve started sharing material, and we plan on writing for the next album in the fall. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be different for sure. Probably more of a melodic focus, compared to the stuff we wrote so far. Quirky and anthemic, but still over the top. Finding influences in different places is where we are looking. It’s all part of growing as a band.
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