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Push to Fire Interview: Bison b.c. ‘It’s been fucking amazing just incredible’, enthuses Dan, a friendly long-haired long-bearded guy in denim covered in badges and patches waxing lyrical about Bison B.C.’s first jaunt into Europe. ‘For James (Farwell, vocals/guitar) and me this is our first time being in Europe and it’s just been incredible seeing all the towns and meeting different people…last night was a really fun time in Camden. We actually had some of our friends from Vancouver with us, and the atmosphere was amazing’.
Apart from the mugging? We’d heard earlier that someone from one of the fellow touring bands, the Ocean had what Dan refers to, surprisingly jocularly, as ‘a little altercation’ the night before in London. We’re going to interview the Ocean later but we’re curious as to the good nature and humour it’s been all taken to what a big cuddly softy like myself would find highly upsetting. When we push Dan on it he says if he’s not sure if he should ‘give away the surprise’ but after some cajoling he divulges the beans, ‘how it happened was one of the most hilarious things ever. It was a... a prostitute, who grabbed his money from him, when he was buying things from the store. She grabbed his change’. So he wasn’t “purchasing” from her?
‘No, no’, says Dan, keen to make sure the true mirth-making details are heard correctly. ‘He just went to a bank machine and she followed him and he was just buying like a sandwich or something and while he was just getting his change back she just grabbed the money, and after a few minutes of struggle she decided to stuff the money…’ he searches for the tactful route and it’s unavailable, ‘...up inside of herself’.
Never a dull moment eh? After the laughter subsides it’s clear this is a guy having a brilliant time travelling on tour. Sharing and living on the ‘super cosy’ tour bus with 3 other bands and the touring staff, totalling 26 people. Playing in front of new, foreign audiences. Apparently some vaginal theft is just one more experience to take home back to Vancouver.
Having convinced myself that no other questions I ask are going to have a good an answer as the one just been we get serious and begin to chew the cud about the latest Bison B.C. output, Quiet Earth. The new album has some new features that looking at the rough and tumble stoner sound and image of Bison might catch some people unawares. ‘Wendigo pt.1’ is the track where most of this goes on, being over 8 minutes in length and featuring, wait for it, classical instruments. That and the fact there’s a part one and two. What’s this all aboot? ‘Yeah, we didn’t sit down and have a meeting and say “Ok on this next song…”, explains Dan. ‘I think we have just become a bit more comfortable playing with each other since the first album [Earthbound]. I mean, we’d only recorded as a as full band for about 4 or 5 months before, so basically the first 6 songs we had we just went to the studio and recorded it. This time we took longer writing it and tried to use the fact we’d got more comfortable playing with each other were aware of each others abilities and how to push each other’s abilities more…when you’re in the studio you have alot more time, and, you know you get these little ideas in your head, like “what would this sound like?”. Then alot of it just comes out of just being drunk and having a joke’, he laughs. ‘…and the next day you say “oh maybe we should try that.”’. Quite often some releases end up feeling a bit rushed. One of the things in unusual music is the detail and, as a result, artists often end up looking back and thinking on “what if…”
‘There’s obviously some things… I can’t think of anything specifically, but there’s things that come up when we’re recording we haven’t tried before. I’m so happy with the way the album turned out so I wouldn’t change anything about that’, he states, clearly happy with the current release.
‘We were thinking of maybe perhaps getting a boys choir a lá Black Sabbath/Savatage, and sometimes we think about joking around with stuff like that’
I press him a little further on the point that a lot of bands in the more extreme end of metal feel more like projects and less like bands with the good time attitude that Bison seem to possess in spades. Does he have any thoughts on groups that are more like - ‘an ego-fart?’, he asks laughing. ‘I mean, yeah we’re probably going to try some weird shit....but first and foremost is always going to be; hang out, have fun. Cause it’s the whole reason we started the band and the whole reason we continue to go on tour together’.
Why not try both? ‘Yeah, and, I mean, I love some more experimental stuff too but in terms of what I want to play that’s not what I want to play’. On the subject of experimental music and “weird shit” in general I quiz about guilty secrets in his collection and he seems to be slightly embarrassed about liking Muse. After I raise the bar as this is clearly nothing to be guilty about by professing my own liking of Katy Perry he seems to get on board more. ‘Well OK then Rhianna’, he finally owns up. Umbrella? ‘Oh, any of them!’, he laughs. There we go, we’re both out.
The discussion drifts past the usual question of the band’s name, which Dan says he gets asked about ‘all the time’. It’s open for interpretation although he favours ‘Brutally Crucial…or Bacon Cheeseburger’ whilst I offer up “Bat Claws”. C’mon. A Bison with Bat Claws attached! Who could beat that?
With the internet making it’s presence felt in people downloading and the impending financial doom driving hard in the news it must be a little difficult being in a band and being on tour at the moment. ’There’s kind alot of ducks to get in a row if you want to go anywhere, and it costs alot of money sometimes. I’m just going to say don’t ever start a heavy metal band to make money; it’s the worst idea in the world. But if you want to have a ton of fun then it rules really bad’. As to music sales he is equally disarming, ‘you know, if you’re downloading music and stuff, I mean I download music and I even encourage, I’ve told people if they’re at our show and they’re like, “I downloaded your first CD and I really want to buy your second album” that's awesome, you know…if I download a band's album or a friend gives me a CD and I put it on my iPod I'll go to the show, if I enjoy the show I'll pick up a shirt’. I downloaded your album. His eyes widen, ‘What!?’ he says in mock shock before laughing. ‘It's cool if you're selling records in the store because the numbers get back to the label and they see what it is, but in terms of the band getting loads of money off of that it doesn't happen, it's merch sales and that’s where a band makes or breaks it when they’re out on the road’. Times aren’t easy in other words, but it was ever thus it seems as he goes on, ‘you’ll do a tour and absolutely eat shit and lose a ton of money, and then hopefully you’ll go back to the same places and it’ll be better, more people’ll be there. Cause the thing about coming to Europe for the first time we kind of went into it knowing; yeah, we’re probably going to lose money… but I want[ed] to go anyway’.
So with a tour progressing enjoyably if not necessarily financially prudently, with some great bands, of which Dan is quite taken with Finnish death metal support band Mediea featuring Keijo Niinimaa of legendary grind outfit Rotten Sound. ‘This their first tour outside of Finland at all. And I can’t believe it…night after night we just watch them in awe’, he gushes, ‘I’d only heard them on the internet before, but now I’ve seen them and have the album and can actually sit down and listen to it, and get to see them every night and get to know them as people, it’s just blowing me away’.
I ask him about the future and he has the same easy going attitude, ‘just touring as much as possible’, he says, clearly happy with the grand scheme of things at the moment. ‘We get home in a couple of weeks and we’re going to be touring across Canada again, and that’s when we were supposed to be touring the states at the end of April. So it’s kind of up in the air at the moment’.
Dan quite clearly loves being on tour in a band and being on the road, you can positively feel the vibes emanating off him like radio waves. Despite all the financial imperatives and all the sensibilities he seems easy going about the future just so long as he continues to be in “the thick of it”. ‘We really want to come back to Europe and I’d love to go to Asia so we’ll see what happens. I love touring the States, it’s a lot different from touring here but we have a lot of friends all over there’.
As to everything else, you can bet Bison will be getting some more miles under their belts as a band seemingly born to tour and have good times playing gigs. They’re an almost refreshingly unpretentious offering that doesn’t shy away from musical diversity whilst loving just turning up at a different city each night and hanging out and having fun that there quite simply isn’t enough of at the moment. ‘Yeah that’s not going to change’, smiles Dan, ‘it’s always number one priority’.
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