INTERVIEW – Dan Briggs Of Between The Buried & Me

RichardThinks.Org had the opportunity to sit down with Dan Briggs of Between The Buried And Me to discuss their upcoming tour with Deafhaven, Intronaut and The Kindred. We also discussed Briggs’ appreciation for concept albums, his participation with the “Lake Effect In Effect: A Documentary On The Erie Hardcore Music Scene“, as well as plans for a new DVD from Between The Buried and Me! Thank you to Dan for taking the time to chat with us, without further ado, the chat can be seen below. Don’t miss Between The Buried and Me‘s upcoming headlining tour, dates and ticket information can be seen at the band’s official website.

RT: The tour is kicking off in a few weeks, when the band is rehearsing for a tour, what exactly goes down in terms of setlists and the like?

DB: We thought of the setlist before the holidays and it seems like we’re having to do that now, more so figuring it out pretty well in advance because of programming lights and video. For this tour coming up, the tour we did in the fall where we played the whole record (The Parallax II), even though we’re playing pretty different cities on this tour, it’s still a lot of cities that are kinda close to where we were. We’re only going to do the record in a handful cities that were completely nowhere near in the last tour. The rest of the dates are going to be a really cool mix of everything. I personally keep a log of every set we’ve played since I think 2009 or so. In America, Europe, UK, Asia, Australia, just everywhere we’ve been, so that we can make sure that throughout the touring cycle someone comes to every single show that we play whether it’s a support tour or headlining tour that they’re going to see a different set. The songs that we’re doing that aren’t off “The Future Sequence“, I’m really excited about because most of them are songs we haven’t played in quite awhile. Even songs off “The Great Misdirect” that we haven’t played since “The Great Misdirect Tour”. I’m pretty excited.

RT: I spoke with some fans beforehand, and many were happy they got to see The Parallax II in it’s entirety. If you could see any band perform your favorite record from them in it’s entirety, who would you choose and why?

DB: I would like to see, and there were even rumors years ago that it might happen and it didn’t , I would love to see Genesis do “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” which is one of my all time favorites. It’s a very important record to me, and for their fans they only did one tour on the album in 1974/1975 whenever it came out and then Peter Gabriel left the band after that. It would just been a really cool thing to see.

RT: I’ve seen several past interviews where you express your love for concept albums, do you remember which concept album was the one that got you into your appreciation for that style of album?

DB: I think it was “The Ugly Organ” by Cursive. The first one that I really took in, it came out sometime when I was in high school. Before that it was Dream Theater’s “Metropolis Pt 2 Scenes From A Memory”, that was really a big one. Cursive’s “The Ugly Organ” was in that same situation with “Scenes From A Memory” where I was latching on to the reoccurring themes throughout the record. Getting sucked into the story of the album whether you like it our not. It was the first time I was becoming aware of the structures of the record. I run a lot to the “Ugly Organ” album, it just flies by I can’t get over it!

RT: The band recently announced, a now sold out, collaboration with Cuipo Socks toward saving the Rainforest. How did that collaboration come about?

DB: It was something our manager was presented with. Pretty limited stock, it’s winter time you know people need half calf socks, it’s perfect!

RT: It was also recently announced that you’re participating in the “Lake Effect in Effect: A Documentary on the Erie Hardcore Music Scene“. Can you tell me about your contribution to it?

DB: I grew up in Erie, PA and that’s where I first met Tommy and Paul when I was probably 16 years old. They were playing in a band called Prayer For Cleansing. The Erie hardcore scene was so integral in developing me as a musician, developing all sorts of areas of really being a smart DIY all encompass person in a band. I was booking shows when I was 14/15/16 making contacts with people out of town. Just doing things I wasn’t even thinking. When I met Tommy and Paul it was like “oh I’m networking with these guys who play in a band from North Carolina!”. It was just like you know this is just a band that we like that comes through here and we’re exchanging emails and next time they need to come through I’ll bring them up to Erie. I moved when I was 20 to North Carolina to join the band (BTBAM) and it’s just one of those things you know for everyone who was kinda around back then for the Erie hardcore scene in the late ’90s and early 00’s. It was a thriving and normal stop for touring bands being in between Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Toronto. We were really lucky growing up having these great shows to go to. You can ask the bands that came through, 400/500 kids that at every show, it was just incredible back then. I got approached about being interviewed for the documentary, they asked if I would contribute to the compilation and I called up a couple of my best and oldest friends. It was a lot of fun, we did two tracks, one of them was a song they released online by the band Brother’s Keeper and that was a song that just turned completely inside out. The other one is a little bit more straight forward, it’s heavy hitting hardcore. That was fun, that style of music is something I don’t keep up with anymore, but going back on doing that it obviously played a huge role in where I am now.

RT: Looking ahead for the rest of the year, are there plans for new music as “The Parallax II” came out almost two years ago?

DB: We’re going to start writing at the end of the summer. So we might be in the studio this time next year. I’ve got a heap stuff on my plate even before then. I’ve got a record with one of my other bands, Orbs, that we recorded this past summer that’s being mixed in the upcoming weeks. I’m pretty excited about it, I’m hopeful it’ll be out by the summer. My other group, Trioscapes, just finished writing our next record. and we’re going to the studio in April to record. Then Between The Buried and Me is doing a DVD in late March, literally the day after we get home from this next tour. There is a lot going on!

RT: Can you tell me a bit about this new DVD?

DB: Yeah, I guess we haven’t said much about it. We’re doing a very intimate studio performance of “The Parallax” and we’re having an auxiliary of musicians. Percussionists, saxophone, flute, string quartet, all kinds of stuff with us to really bring the album to life. We did a live DVD for “Colors” and that was fun, chaotic, and stressful. I think we really wanted to take away the production, I think the way people are used to seeing us and that’s going to be a very cool and intimate performance. We’re doing it in a great studio, in Kernersville, NC which is between Greensboro where I live in Winston Salem where Dustie and Blake live. They’ve got a tremendous live room, great old console, all kinds of fun toys there too. There will probably footage of me playing sitar I’m sure at some point! We’ll be doing that literally the two days after our tour ends in Charlotte.

RT: Thank you so much again for your time, is there anything else you would like people to know?

DB: We’re looking forward to the tour, it’s going to be great. I appreciate you reaching out!