We embodied a lot of that stuff and put it all together in Biohazard. Who has influenced you as a drummer over the years? It never gets boring for me to listen to some of the greats that I’ve been listening to my whole life. My favourite drummer of all time is John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. To me he’s the most amazing, incredible perfect drummer. When that guy sat down and played drums, you always knew it’s him. He has such an identifiable sound. Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell, Bill Ward from Black Sabbath have also influenced me. I used to play along with Black Sabbath records when I was a little kid, as well as Neil Peart from Rush, Alex Van Halen, and Stuart Copeland. On the punk side I always loved Earl Hudson from Bad Brains. He was a phenomenally intense drummer. You guys were among the first to combine hip hop and metal, perhaps most notably on the Judgement Night soundtrack, one of my favourite albums of all time. How did you and Onyx write that track together, and did you get the choice in who you recorded with? Our manager worked in the Def Jam offices. When we hired him, we used to hang out in the Def Jam offices all the time with Public Enemy, Run DMC…all the guys. It was amazing because we were so into their music, to be able to be there on the inside of it was so cool. Out manager Scott, and his partner Lyon Cohen who ended up owning Def Jam with Russell Simmons later on, they came to us and said, we’ve got this band Onyx and they’re kinda like you, regular street dudes from Queens, no bullshit, but they like rock and want to do a track with a heavy bent. So they asked us if we wanted to hook up with them and we recorded a remix of their track Slam. So that kicked off a relationship between us. Russell Simmons was then producing the film Judgement Night and was getting the soundtrack together and wanted another track from Onyx and Biohazard. So we got together in the
38 / July 2015/
outlineonline.co.uk
“Biohazard have a
attitude and a punk heart beating
hardcore
within our chests.”
studio and created it in one night. I love that Judgement Night record…it’s a really interesting thing to hear Helmet and House of Pain, or Boo Ya Tribe and Faith No More. Tat shit was just great, to bring those styles of music together. You’ve released 9 studio albums. How on earth do you go about picking what to play live at a gig? Funny that you say that, we’re dealing with that right now! We’re heading out on tour in a couple of days time and we’ve been rehearsing and talking about what to play. It’s not easy. Tere’re probably a good 8-10 songs that we HAVE to play at every show and there’s the others, which we can play around with and mix it up a little. We’re in the process of relearning songs now. We listen to what people want to hear and we try to put those tracks into the show. Tere are a lot of songs
though! It’s a good problem to have! A lot of people ask us to do Judgement Night but we can’t really do it without Onyx. How are you getting on with recording your new album? I think our next record’s easily going to be one of our best. We’ve started writing songs but we’re not done yet; we’ve been taking our time. We just don’t want to put something out there that’s going to be forgettable. I mean, nobody buys records now anyway but still, we don’t want to put something out that people might think we’ve burnt out or have been around too long. We never want people to say that about us. We still maintain our energy and our enthusiasm for what we do. What do you think of the hip hop and metal scenes in 2015? Who do you like? I always listen to my old favourites, the music that I grew up with is part of my brain and always will be. As far as new music and stuff…I think I have a bit of a hard time latching onto new bands, there’s a lot of new stuff that I like but it’s being recorded by bands that I already like. I don’t like the way a lot of
bands make records these days. You listen to the record and it sounds one way, and then you go and see them live and it’s just weak. I hear a lot of records and I think, damn, you can really play that way? And then I go see them live and it’s just complete fraud. Background recorded tracks, and the drummer’s barely touching the drums…I hate that. Tat for me is not exciting. I think heavy music, metal in particular, is not being done well by anybody at present and as much as people talk shit about Slayer or Metallica, at least they go out there and they really fucking play it. You’ve got five kids! What do they think of your music? Tey think it’s the coolest thing in the world! Tey get bummed out that I go away all summer but they come to shows from time to time and they rock out! Tey don’t just stand on the side of the stage watching with headphones on; they rock out, they feel it. I love that my kids can see that we created something together that people all over the world appreciate and identify with. Tat’s big. We never anticipated any kind of success ever, and didn’t expect to do anything in our lives, so we treat our job with respect. What advice would you give to any drummers out there just starting out? I’ve been playing drums for 40 years. Tere have been times when I’ve gone months without practicing, but then something comes up and I start playing again and I suck. It’s fucking terrible. So these days I always try to keep my hand in and be ready. I still love it just as much as when I was a little kid. If you’re a drummer in a heavy band, just think how much fun it is to do what we do; we’re the guy in the band who gets to beat the shit out of something for the whole show. We get to go fucking crazy the whole time! A band can be OK with a shitty bass player or a shitty guitarist but any band with a shitty drummer, I don’t care who they are, they can never be better than as good as the drummer is. So fucking practice and learn how to do that shit! Get off the computer, play the drums and work your balls off!
Lizz Page INFORMATION
Biohazard play Te Owl Sanctuary on 5th July
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