How did the band come together?

Bo: We used to be a band called The Bloodshed Ensemble. About five years ago we decided to part ways with our singer, Jason Cruz. (aka Hot Stuff). Once that happened, we tried a few other singers, but couldn’t find any that we meshed well with, so we all decided to take on the singing duties. This of course altered our sound a bit and we decided that the band had become a new entity. Hence, Bodies We’ve Buried was formed. We are happy to announce that we have reunited with Hot Stuff and are excited to move forward with our favorite frontman once again.

Why did he leave in the first place?

Bo: Because his life was changing and his focus was on other things. He and his girlfriend were planning a wedding and it happened to fall through. We have a belief that if your heart and mind are not into you passion, then it’s not worth it to go after. Now he is at a point in his life where he is able to focus and put forth the effort and feeling.

Yeah, but what if he meets another female mortal? You know it’s going to happen. He’s just going to fall in love again, want to settle down and leave you guys high and dry. It sounds all too typical heterosexual, if you ask me.

Hot Stuff: I am so callus now, that the possibility of that happening again seems slight. Plus now I see that Jaymes and Aaron can do it (be married and be in a band) so if the time came, so could I. I know there can be a balance.

Why did you break up with your wife to be, in the first place?

Hot Stuff: She broke up with me. She had feelings for another man. She did this two months before our wedding.

Well call me naive, but in your callus state, now would be as good as time as any to go gay. Let me help you with the transition. Have you ever had anal with a female mortal?

Hot Stuff: Yes (laughs)

Then why not go ahead and have anal with me? After all, an anus is an anus is an anus.

Hot Stuff: I think your zombie style moans might not do the same for me as as the female mortal moans and screams do.

There MUST have been some female mortal in your anal-loving history, that sounded a little like a male zombie…even just a little.

Hot Stuff: There was one that was very much unappreciative of it. So in a sense, she sounded more like a demon than a zombie.

Well…ok! That’s a beginning! What about fellatio? The world is full of straight, male mortals that have received fellatio from gay men. There are websites dedicated to it! You wouldn’t even have to worry about listening to appropriate groans. You’d just have to lay back and let it happen.

Hot Stuff: I’m sorry, Mare Bear. It just can’t happen

Mare- Bear? Where did you get that?

Hot Stuff: I believe under your murderous, zombie flesh, you probably very cuddly.

This is an outrage! I’ll have you know I am the killer of hundreds!…maybe even THOUSANDS! You’ve ruined our romantic moment! I shall now talk about the band again! Where were we? So…how will the band’s sound be effected, by having the return of the romantic-moment-ruining-Hot Stuff?

Bo: Well, without a frontman, Jaymes, Aaron and I, all had to split up the vocal parts. This in turn means we each have to split our concentration among playing our instruments and singing. With Jason’s return, he will be taking over almost all the screaming parts, allowing us all to focus HEAVILY on our instrumentation and live performance.

Guido: It will be more precise. It will be tight as a butthole

Bo: It will sound sexier.

Most bands start out trying to sound like a band(s) that influenced them. Who did you start out sounding like?

Bo: I don’t think any of us set out to sound like anyone. We all have such diverse tastes, that our sound from day one was always kind of hard to put into a certain category. However, I think it’s great that we can bring so many styles into our music. People have told us we sound like everything from Killswitch Engage to Hatebreed to Protest The Hero to Bullet for My Valentine

I’ve had humorous encounters with all of those bands.

Jason: And Parkway Drive. I have heard people reference us to them.

A bunch of pussy asses. They banned me from coming near their dressing room.

Guido: And Yanni

Oh. Haven’t encountered him…yet.

Jaymes: I would agree. I think we sounded, or tried to sound like Unearth quite a bit. I see a lot of that kind of influence making its way back, with Jason in the band again..

What about mortals that think you suck? Who do they think you sound like?

Hot Stuff: They’re a bunch of faggots so fuck them!! And I will fight them

Oooh. That’s hot.

Guido: We look at people’s criticisms very carefully. I think people that think we suck have helped us get better at what we do. It’s all about keeping it professional and using people’s honest opinion as guidelines for improvement. But people who think we suck have said that we sound like…. I don’t know.

Hot Stuff: I still say fuck those ass clowns for hating on us

Guido: And that!

Jaymes: Probably Nickleback. Or Seether. Yeah, Seether.

I want to talk more about you fighting, Hot Stuff. It’s hot. When was the last time you were in a fight?

Hot Stuff: The middle of August. It was right after my fiance left me and I went on a bit of a drinking binge, like every night! I was leaving this shittly, dive bar, out in Parker, when these two, ignorant hillbillies walked by and pushed me – calling me a faggot. I called them ignorant fucks and told them to go fuck themselves. The uglier of the two hicks spit some of his chewing tobacco on me and I lost my shit. I remember as soon as I lit up his face with punch after punch, the other guy took off. The security guard came out and pulled me off of him. The guy was out cold! And I busted up his lip and broke his nose. Later that week, my friend told me he was the bar owner’s son! So needless to say, I’m not welcome back at that bar.

HOT!

HOT STUFF: You don’t fuck with me, my family, or my friends! I’m the defender in my group of friends. If shit goes down, everyone knows I will be to the front, looking for the biggest guy in the group. I love a challenge and I’m very competitive.

I’m getting an erection!

Hot Stuff: Yay! Happy penis time!

Bo: When it all comes down to it, not everyone is going to like everything we do. We hope people will like it, but in the end, things we think are awesome may not be that way to others. In that case, we have to sit down and maybe rethink.. A lot of people were angry that we became Bodies We’ve Buried after The Bloodshed Ensemble broke up. It just like any other band, we progress and grow musically. it’s not realistic to think we are going to be playing the same style or structure of songs years from now.

Tell me about your discography

Bo: This is a funky subject, as we all have been together playing music, under two names, for a good seven years now. As Bodies We’ve Buried, we have released two EP’s since early 2010. The first one is called ‘Retreat, Rebuild, Relive, Rebound’ and contains four songs that flow seamlessly together. Our most current EP, Amalgamate, is comprised of five tracks that we feel is our best work to date. Now with the return of Jason, we are planning to bring back some older songs that we haven’t played together in YEARS. Kind of a thank you to the fans who have been following us since day one and also to catch the ears of a few newer fans who aren’t so familiar with past works of ours.

Tell me about Amalgamate. First of all, what is a Amalgamate?

Bo: Amalgamate is a term used in the blending of metals, although it can be used for any number of items being blended together to make one final product.

Jaymes: Amalgamate was designed as the four of us coming together to create one unique sound, in spite of our many personal taste differences.

Bo: We recorded it at 8 Houses Down in November of 2011 and released it on December sixth. Even though it’s only five songs, it spans a wide array of musical stylings. Each song on the album has it’s own personality, but the CD still sounds like a whole, in the Bodies We’ve Buried world. We are super proud of how these songs came out.

Let’s go through the songs, shall we? The first cut is my favorite. “Shotgun Damnation.”

Jaymes: Shotgun Damnation was written as kind of a slap in the face to all religions, criticizing them for being critical of the world who does not conform to their beliefs. Hence, if we’re all damned, its a shotgun damnation.

Guido: It’s structured around a C major scale. We take advantage of vocal harmonies as well as space in between harmonic intervals to constantly build up to the next sections of the song. Toward the middle, we change to a G scale for the bridge, then slowly bring it back to C, finishing up with a vocal driven breakdown, while keeping the tempo at its peak. We have been told that the very end of re song sounds like Metallica’s “one”.. But that was mere coincidence.

Jaymes: The meaning was aggressive and I think the musical backing was synonymous with it. Kind of melancholy at some points, because its sad that we as a society have to be pressured into beliefs that we don’t agree with. And the aggression comes from the thought that if we are the damned, then so be it.

“Emptiness Design” is a cool, riffy song that has a Metallica-esque, melodic, breakdown

Bo: “Emptiness Design” is a song about betrayal and how one reacts to it. If someone betrays you, you have two options. You can be miserable, upset and angry, or you can move on without the drama. The past is the past and what’s the point of dwelling on it? Basically, the underlying message is to do without the crappy parts of life and relationships and look for positive things to surround yourself with. Musically, this may be the poppiest song we have. It still maintains a heavy aspect, but it is very catchy. It has a lot of cleaner vocals and melody as well as breakdowns and a very mellow solo section buildup.

Jaymes: It’s a lighter song for all the ladies

What about the gay undead?!

Jaymes: Correction. It’s a lighter song for all the ladies and the gay undead

That’s better! “Far From Home.”

Jaymes: Hah. Well, I had quite a bit of trial and error even though I did have a base idea worked out already. Even to this day, you’ll never hear the same solo played twice. I feel that lengthy guitar solos like that one, require a fresh look each time. That way, each time someone hears it, they’ll hopefully feel like it was written just for their ears, because it will never be played quite like that ever again

Guido: I like what James did in the studio. I think we were a little unsure as to how it was going to turn out when he recorded the first layer of the solo. But once he grabbed the harmonies to go along with it, it really complemented everything and it stuck out in the mix in a good way. It’s a very catchy solo. As far as the leads at the very end of the song go, at the time we felt like this song was very powerful and epic; It was something that you would listen to while slaying dragons and riding a horse. The lyrics and the lead start together almost at the same time. This created a sort of introduction to the solo, so when the lyrics end the solo comes, (they’re) out on top and keep going until the song fades away. The main idea behind the the last solo was very basic, almost not-harmonizations, but have lots of bended and prolonged notes, followed by short bursts of “as fast as you can” licks.

Jaymes: I don’t really know what else to say about “Far From Home.” It was just a point in my life where I thought I was lost because of someone else.

Burn It All Down

Bo: Burn It All Down is a song about how everyone is in such a routine. We’re all clockwork like gears in a machine. We have work, bills, chores, etc… It gets overwhelming and mundane sometimes. We need to take a break and experience new things from time to time, to really start getting more out of life.

What do you think Bodies We’ve Buried bring to Metal music, that you hear lacking from other Denver groups?

Jaymes: I would say that we offer an ever improving and evolving sound, that strives to achieve the perfect balance of complexity and simplicity. (We strive) to make a compounded sound that can attract musicians and listeners alike.

Aaron: We have a style that is influenced by multiple sounds. We also add extra flour, sugar, salt, and loads of fun!I think we have a very unique sound. It spans over multiple genres so it takes a few listens to get it, but once you do, you appreciate it. We enjoy what we do and the people who come out to shows. Life’s too short to not have fun! We want our live shows to be an experience. Not just another local show.