Bury Tomorrow Interview: SXSW 2010

English metalcore quintet Bury Tomorrow are about to invade the US. Having already established themselves as one of the UK's premier metalcore bands, they just began their first ever US tour "The Artery Foundation Across the Nation" with bands Attack Attack!, Breathe Carolina, Asking Alexandria and I See Stars. Their debut album "Portraits" is releasing in the US on March 16th, just in time for SXSW. Spinner was able to speak with Adam Jackson, drummer and founding member of the band to talk about their tour, their new album, and upcoming performances.

Describe the sound of the band in your own words.

We're basically a metal-core band by genre, but we try and mix up heavy music with really melodic music, combining screaming and singing but really push the melodic side. We take it almost to like a pop style vocal. We're all into loads of different styles of music so we just try and combine it.

How did the band form?

About 4 or 5 years ago, I started the band with friends back home. We started writing songs and playing loads back in Southhampton, our home. It basically started off as something to do back home. A few of the guys then didn't want to travel of town or start touring properly, so we had to replace the guys who didn't want to do it anymore as we tried to see it as a career and just got in guys who wanted to do music professionally.


What are your musical influences?

Well, individually, we listen to so many different styles of music. We go from from really heavy music, really melodic stuff, acoustic, we even like mainstream pop, R&B, so we literally listen to everything. But as a band, we draw influences from bands like Parkway Drive, As I Lay Dying, The Devil Wears Prada, and August Burns Red. If you listen to our music in general, it's going to sound like some of these bands, but with a bit more singing.

How did you come up with the band name?

We needed a name, and someone just came up with the slogan "Live for today, bury tomorrow", and we really liked it because it was just about living for the moment and not thinking too much about what tomorrow is going to hold: just live for each day, do the best you can. So we rolled with it, and it's stuck every since.

Tell me about your debut album "Portraits".

It's a culmination of a few years of work. There's some older songs that we had recorded as demos that we re-recorded and a bunch of new songs as well. It's a pretty good representation of our band up until now. One thing we did for the US release -- we released it in the UK back in October -- is that we recorded 3 bonus tracks, which we wrote and recorded last November. That gave us a chance to really just bring everyone a bit more up to date with what we're doing. Some of the tracks on the album are older. While they're cool, they're a little bit old to us, so it gave us a chance to write some new stuff and show people what we're headed towards for the 2nd album, just a bit of a progression. Obviously from the time that we wrote some of the first tracks, we've grown a lot as musicians and we've toured a lot. It's a good mix of new and old on there. The album is coming out March 16th in the US.

Do you have a personal favorite songs on the album?

We all really like the 3 new tracks that we've wrote, just because they're more up to date. A personal favorite is a track called Waxed Wings which we put up on Myspace recently. It incorporates what we are as a band, really well into one song, every element: there's breakdowns, it's heavy, it's really melodic, a strong chorus, the lyrics are awesome. We were really stoked on that when we wrote it, it came out great in the studio, definitely a favorite.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

We listen to all sorts of stuff that we really shouldn't be listening to, without a doubt. I personally love NSync, I think NSync are awesome, I always have them on my ipod. There's also a band called JLS back home, they're a 4 piece boy band...it's just really cheesy pop, but it's awesome. We are definitely not your stereotypical metal band, when it comes to personal music tastes!

Can you tell me who your first celebrity crush?

First celebrity crush? [Laughs] Aww, that's a good one. Hmmm...I reckon probably Britney Spears, when she came out with her first single Baby One more time. I enjoyed that alot.

What is your biggest vice?

Danni and Davyd, They are really really messy. They leave stuff everywhere. We've been on this tour for about a week, and already their clothes are all over our van, it's a bit of a nightmare. I don't even know how, but their clothes just end up everywhere. That's probably their worst habit. Apart from that, we're pretty good, I think! [laughs]

You're on tour in the US right now. How's the tour going so far?

This tour so far is absolutely amazing! To be honest, we could come over here and be playing to just one person every night and it would still be amazing because we're on tour in America, and we never ever thought that would happen. To be on a tour like this with so many amazing bands, that's drawing like 1000 kids every night is absolutely unbelievable. We've settled in so well with all of the bands and can chill with everyone. It's a ridiculous experience for us, for our first US tour, we couldn't have asked for anything more, we're so lucky.

If you weren't playing music, what would you do instead?

Well, before we started touring full time, I was working in a bank back home, so I'd say I'd probably still be doing that. Music is like the only thing I've ever really wanted to do. I don't really have the drive to do anything else...so I'd still be working in a bank.

Do you have anything in your festival survival kit?

Just to try and stay as clean as possible. I always carry around a clean tshirt with me, and toiletries to get a wash when I can . Also vitamins are really important because it's pretty much impossible to eat well.

How did you get your start with music?

We just started playing locally back home, and once we got everyone in place, we just booked our own shows, got in a van and just played as many as possible. We didn''t have an agent, manager, or label for a long time. We did absolutely everything ourselves. In 2008, we probably played about 250 shows, without having an agent. That's while I was still working too, so it was pretty tough. We worked really really hard, built up a fan base, and managed to find a label back home to agree to release Portraits. We paid for a lot of the recording ourselves. The biggest break we got as as band is that we managed to hook up with The Artery Foundation. From them, we basically got the chance to come out here and tour the US. Up until the 2nd half of last year, we were still doing pretty much everything ourselves. We feel like we've worked for the opportunity we've got and our pretty happy our work is finally paying off. It's been really really difficult. Right now, I'm standing in Arkansas and it feels really good, so I'm happy. That may not be that impressive, but to me, it's awesome!

What do you have planned for this year?

Nonstop touring to spread the word of our band to everyone that will listen!



Samantha Shrader is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.