The legendary NY hardcore group Biohazard has a new album coming out in January titled “Reborn in Defiance”. Media Mikes had a chance recently to speak with Biohazard members Billy Graziadei and Danny Schuler about the upcoming release and their plans for 2012.
Adam Lawton: Can you tell us about the new album “Reborn in Defiance”?
Billy Graziadei: We worked really hard on this album. It actually was a culmination of us coming together on the reunion tour. We had a lot of fun playing together again and everything just worked. We didn’t sit down and say we were going to make a record. It was just something that happened. I can’t wait to get the album out and play the songs live.
AL: Did you guys try any new approaches to the recording process?
BG: To be honest we had all kind of forgotten how to do everything. It had been so long since we all worked together we just didn’t know how to approach things. It was interesting to figure out how to all work together again.
AL: Have you guys settled on a favorite track off the album yet?
BG: I think they are all our favorites. I don’t think they would be on the record if we didn’t like them. Time will tell as to which songs will stand out the most.
Danny Schuler: Some songs just have a different vide when you play them live while other work better just listening to them on a CD. There is a certain energy level with the band that we like to keep around 10 or 11. We will just have to see.
BG: I remember after doing our first album in 1990 we had been touring and writing new songs for what would be our next album. We played some of them live and you could just tell they were different from our previous songs but they still fit. The songs on “Reborn in Defiance” I think have that same feeling. We are pretty excited.
AL: What are the release date/plans for the album?
BG: January 28th the album will be available worldwide.
DS: The record will actually hit Europe first. We have been talking about doing some cool release things here in states. We love vinyl and it would be cool to see the album released that way however we will have to wait and see. Everything will start unfolding in the coming weeks.
AL: Can you tell us what Evan Seinfeld’s involvement is with the band these days?
BG: The album was recorded with the original band lineup. We actually recorded the album at the end of the reunion tour. We finished this album around spring time of 2011. Evan called us out of the blue in June and quit the band for personal reasons. We love what we do and decided to keep on going. I look at it now as this being a different era. The time frame is a little confusing but we just wanted to leave the record as it is.
AL: What will the tour line up look like?
DS: We are going to have someone else there with us.
BG: We have been touring with a friend of ours lately. We took him to China with us recently and we also did some shows in the UK. I think the back and forth Biohazard vocals are something that we all love and can’t do without.
AL: Going back into your guys history can you tell us how you got hooked up with the rap group Onyx?
DS: It was kind of a natural thing. We were managed by Def Jam back in the late 80’s early 90’s. We were pretty much the only heavy white band that was a part of their company for awhile. People didn’t like us too much because we were a real street band. We weren’t silly or anything. Billy had been approached about doing a remix of the song “Slam”. I don’t know how that quite happened but I did play drums on the track and some of us were in the video. That led to us doing some shows with Onyx as well as working on the soundtrack for the film “Judgment Night”. We got along well those guys and we were all from NY. There were a lot of parallels with what we were saying and with what hip hop was saying through our music.
BG: We got to work with Jam Master Jay through the “Judgment Night” film and that was really cool for us. We had grown up with bands like Iron Maiden, Agnostic Front and The Sugar Hill Gang. Everything seemed really natural for us. Where we were coming from was very similar. We never sat down and said “hey lets mix what you do with what we do”. We were friends and put some tracks together. After we did some other tracks with Cypress Hill and House of Pain we stepped aside and let Limp Bizkit collect all the money off that style. (Laughs)
AL: What are the rest of the plans for the band into 2012?
DS: We are doing the first group of shows here in the states with Madball. That kicks off towards the end of February. From there we go to Australia to do the Sound Waves festival. It’s going to be a lot of fun as we have five or 6 big festival shows across Australia. We have a short break and then we are going to start planning U.S. and European festival dates for the summer. We will probably make it back to South America as well this year.
Click here for our CD Review: Biohazard “Reborn In Defiance”
