Between the Buried and Me
Interview with Paul Waggoner
Words: Christopher Henderson

Between the Buried and Me have made quite a name for themselves with their groundbreaking brand of progressive music that is damn near impossible to put a label on.  I sat down to talk to guitarist Paul Waggoner about their new album Colors to find out his thoughts about the band’s latest creation.

REAX: You put out "Alaska" in 2005, "The Anatomy Of" in 2006, and now "Colors" in 2007.  With that and touring you make it look easy, is it really that easy? 
Paul Waggoner: No it’s definitely not.  In fact I think we pretty much wanted to blow our heads off after this album.  I guess the reward at the end is worth it.

REAX: Well yeah, the proof is in the album.
PW: Yeah, we worked particularly hard on this album.  Not that we don’t put a lot of effort into everything we do but with this album we just went for it.  It was a pretty exhausting process.

REAX: The arrangements are extremely complex.
PW: Definitely, with Alaska we were sort of rediscovering ourselves with the new lineup.  With this one everybody knew their role and everybody wasn’t as timid to bring what they had to the table.  I think that’s why it’s such an involved album musically.  Everybody was just more involved in the process of writing songs and that’s why it came out the way it did.

REAX: You think that’s because you’re just more comfortable playing together and bouncing ideas of each other?
PW: It’s exactly that, the chemistry is stronger.  With Alaska we didn’t even really know Dan, our bass player, so I’m sure he was a little bit apprehensive to bring his influences to the table and maybe we were apprehensive about listening to his ideas.  We were just much more comfortable and willing to try new things and feed off of each other.

REAX: This album seems more atmospheric and moodier than your past albums.  Did you notice that?
PW: I noticed it.  I don’t really know if it was a conscience decision.  We all have different kinds of influences between the five of us and with this album we just let all of those influences deep into the mix.  The sort of moody and really dynamic aspects of the CD are reflective of that.  We didn’t go in there feeling we were a metal band or we were a hardcore band.  We literally just wrote whatever came to mind and went for it.  So, yeah, it lends itself towards that moodiness, almost schizophrenic nature.

REAX: Especially with the jazz and bluegrass interludes.  Where do those ideas come from?
PW: I love bluegrass; I listen to it more than anything else and being from the South I almost feel obligated.   I was like, man, I listen to this shit, why in the hell don’t I play it.   Nowadays I think a lot of bands think it’s not cool to play a certain kind of music, you know, if you’re a metal band you got to play metal and can’t mess around with anything else.  I think people forget there are so many different kinds of music out there and it’s all awesome, why not play it, why pigeonhole yourself into a particular category?  With the jazzy aspects and the bluegrass thing we just had the attitude of “why not?”

Pick up Colors September 18 on Victory Records.  There are no scheduled tour dates in Florida yet but Paul confirmed there are four or five dates in the works.  For info check out: www.betweentheburiedandme.com & www.myspace.com/betweentheburiedandme .