There aren’t too many bands as engagingly uncategorizable as North Carolina’s Between the Buried and Me. One minute, they’re writing dizzying prog rock songs full of unconventional rhythm and tempo changes, and the next they’re unleashing a series of dissonant, chugging chords and crashing beats as jarring as a wrecking ball through your living room window. The band’s eclecticism appeals equally to fans of death metal, prog-rock, metalcore, hardcore and even deathcore.
Because of this, Between the Buried and Me have played some wildly divergent bills since releasing their fifth album, Colors, last September. This spring they were on Dream Theater’s Progressive Nation tour package along with Opeth and 3, and they’re currently wrapping up a European tour with Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan. Once they get back from Europe at the end of the month they’ll be done touring for a while, but in September they’ll head out again for a U.S. tour with Children of Bodom.
While they’re off the road, Between the Buried and Me will begin working on the follow-up to Colors, which they hope to release in early 2009. For fans who can’t wait that long, the band will release a live DVD in October featuring two sets — one of Colors material and one of older songs.
While Between the Buried and Me were in Europe, we talked to guitarist Paul Waggoner about the band’s efforts to remain original, the difference between experimentation and self-indulgence, the upcoming DVD and the next studio record, which just might be the group’s first full-fledged concept album. Waggoner also filled us in on the final show shenanigans on the Progressive Nation tour and his favorite prog and metal bands.
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