One of the hottest metal bands to hit the New York scene is Barbiturate! Barbiturate consists of: Brett Weatherston, Matt Scriva, Charles Greenberg and Nick Turnia (not pictured). They have just released Deep a raw no nonsense CD that is accumulating quite a following. Barbiturate took a brief moment from their hectic schedule to let RockRevolt Magazine pick their skulls and find out what’s inside.
Hey guys, I read that your band was formed in New York, Is everyone originally from New York? If not, where?
Yes indeed! We’re all from New York. Originally, Matt, Nick and Brett hail from Queens, NY, while Charles is from Long Island. These days, only Nick remains in Queens, while the rest of us live on Long Island. It’s really tough to be in a band while you’re living in the confines of the city. Neighbors generally don’t care for the loudness of a metal band rehearsing, nor do they care for the repetitious aspect of the recording process, especially late into the evening hours and thus the police tend to get involved; which is not particularly conducive to making any progress…
It seems that Barbiturate started as a project. How did that come about?
Well, that’s a bit of a complicated question! Brett is a music producer and a well accredited recording engineer. He’s got his own professional recording studio facility in Long Island. It’s very difficult to make a name for yourself as a local or regional band in the metal scene here in NY. Brett had become disillusioned with the concept of dealing with greedy promoters who are only out for a cash grab and couldn’t care less about your band or your music. Not only that, but the irresponsible, undedicated and untrustworthy nature of some of the musicians he had been dealing with left him wanting to be a bit more hands-on with regard to the operational aspect of the music he’s involved with. All of the members of the band had known each other previously. Brett had been in bands with both Matt, and Nick, while he and Charles had attended college together. The initial Barbiturate recordings were tracked in the studio in 2011 with the intention of being bonus tracks on an album for a different band, but the material was so different from the rest of that material that it stood out sorely, so it made sense to take it to the next level. So, once all that got added together, Barbiturate was born. Though, interestingly enough, the initial recordings that we made didn’t make it onto our first CD Deep, which contained content that had been recorded afterwards. Those original recordings are actually going to be released quite soon, as we’re in the final steps of preparation for a follow-up EP release, entitled “Surrender”. This CD contains all of those initial recordings, as well as a re-recorded version of “Surrender”, which is the last track on Deep. The new EP also has a few songs which were remixed into EDM songs, including “Surrender”.
What sparked your interest in becoming an Avante -Gard Death Metal band?
To be honest, we didn’t set out with the intention of recreating the heavy metal wheel here, if you will. The music is fairly straight forward in the area of extreme heavy metal – aggressive, heavy guitars, blast beats and heavy vocals… We feel that what makes Barbiturate unique is what we bring to the table that’s unique to us. Charles is a truly unique vocalist. His chaotic delivery ranges from sharp and highly abrasive to a softly spoken and deeply disturbing, almost chant like spoken word vocal. That’s not all. Barbiturate is deeply involved in the tattoo scene, providing us with unique insight into that world too. That’s what makes what we’re offering an avant-garde experience in our opinion.
What triggered your interest in music?
Speaking for all of us, I think that the interpretation of any music is up to the listener exclusively. In our experience, music has a tendency to always find its way directly to someone one way or another. Whether it is a passionate love for a song, or a genre or style, or conversely, an intense hatred for a song or style, the music itself will always find its own path to the listener. No two people react the same way to any given song. I know that all of us in Barbiturate have a deep seeded passion for music, as that is what keeps us pressing forward and creating more and more tunes – we do it for us. As awesome as it is if people enjoy what we do, and support our musical endeavors, at the end of the day, we’re making music because we want to, because it’s what we do. This is why we don’t really take it too personally if people don’t like our music; we don’t care. It’s just one of those things, if you don’t like it, then don’t listen to it. It’s pretty cut and dry.
Festering Putrid Stench
[embedplusvideo height=”300″ width=”600″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1npjkyE” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/heMZFbxQt9k?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=heMZFbxQt9k&width=600&height=300&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep5729″ /]
Growing up, what influences shaped you into the band that you are today?
For us, at least in regard to the lyrics, our accumulated life experiences have helped to inspire us. All of the things that make life challenging is fodder for our motivational cannons: personal hardships or loss, relationship issues, addiction, along with whatever else…
Barbiturate is a distinctive name. Was it difficult for everyone to agree on a name for the band?
Band names are tough to figure out, let along to get everyone to agree upon, especially when you’re trying to keep the name “neutral”, or at least non-provocative. Dude, metal bands out there have some of the vilest names, or stuff out of a medical dictionary, and we’d rather be known for our music than a controversial name. Also, a band name should be something that can be read on CD package without censorship, especially if young folks are obtaining it. After all that consideration, a name that’s cool to one guy may be terrible to the next. Luckily, this was really the only choice that we had been throwing around at the time, and we all seemed to agree on it.
It is really cool that the artwork for your band is derived from various talented tattoo artists. I especially like your band logo. Is there special meaning behind the design? Who designed it?
Charles is an avid tattoo collector, and so is Brett, though to a significantly lesser degree. All of the members have an affinity for tattoo work and the related subculture. The artwork on Deep was created by some of the world’s top tattoo artists, such as Jed Leiknes and Joshua Carlton. Charles really shines in this area, as he’s big into the scene, so he knows many of the key people in that industry just from his own experiences. We try to reflect our interested here in our imagery, and we’re psyched that it’s become an identifying factor for our band. The logo was designed by our long time personal friend, and world class tattoo artist in his own right, Marvin Silva. Both Brett and Chuck went to college with Marvin. In fact, Brett and Nick were in a band with Marvin several years back, called Utopia Banished; they were quite popular in the regional metal scene back then. We were very fortunate to have him contribute the logo for us and we think it’s awesome that the logo reflects our interests in the tattoo subculture, as well as having it done by a close personal friend who also happens to be highly regarded for his artwork.
Your debut CD, Deep is an incredible collusion of thunderous talent. Surrender really stands out for me. Are there certain members that do the songwriting and composing? Or is everyone involved with the creation of the songs?
Thank you very much, we’re really glad to hear that our music has reached you in some way. It’s pretty funny too, because “Surrender” was really an afterthought. That song was written and recorded last out of the bunch on Deep, and was put on the CD as a bonus track or sorts. It’s actually the demo version of that tune, which is why our follow up EP is called Surrender, as we re-recorded it and made it sound the way we intended. Also, you probably noticed the female vocal, yet Barbiturate doesn’t have a female singer. Those parts were written specifically to add a softer element to the jagged edge of our music. Those sections were outsourced to our friend Trouble O’Neil. She’s a member of two bands which are also on our independent record label, Lo Key Recordings. Those bands are Cliffs of Insanity, a melodic death metal band, as well as Wrath of Mot, an extreme metal band. Stuff you should check out if you’re into metal.
With regard to our first CD Deep and how it came about, the material was mostly written before there was a Barbiturate. Brett had been writing and compiling a prolific amount of songs at the time, as he was preparing a compilation CD of sorts, which was to feature various guest musicians and showcase their talents. Charles is a poet and writer of prose and once he began to collaborate on the demos, it was evident that there was a unique sound taking shape. Matt was then invited to come onboard and rework all of the guitar parts, as he’s been Brett’s musical counterpart and first-call guitarist for well over a decade. They’ve been in bands together for even longer. Once all of that had been completed, what you hear on the CD was nearing its final form. Nick came in, originally as a guest musician to perform drums on Deep. His drum work truly precedes him. On the fly, he recorded about half the album in just two short days of studio time. After the release of Deep, Nick was officially hired as a member of Barbiturate. Since these songs were created without the sole focus of an established band with a writing hierarchy, the musical styles on Deep wildly vary across the metal sub-cultural gamut: from death metal and black metal, to a more sludgy hardcore type of a feel, Deep is an excellent example of our band finding it’s true musical foothold: groove, brutality and breakdowns. There’s even more of this to be seen on our upcoming EP, as well as our follow up LP, Too Deep, expected around January 2015 or so.
Needless to say, we try to operate in a democratic manner internally, especially when it comes down to the writing. Everyone should not only be happy with the outcome of each song, but they should be proud of what we’re accomplishing. Being in a band is like being married to several dudes all at once. It’s hard to keep everyone happy, but a team effort is required at all times and that requires patience, compromise, hard work and dedication from each band member. We’re not slackers and we’re all in this for the music, so at the end of the day, that’s where our focus is at, and nothing else. I can’t even begin to estimate how many man-hours Brett has put into Barbiturate. It’s truly mind-numbing. Hopefully, the results illustrate our passions in a way that metal heads enjoy too.
Thanks so very much for taking the time out of your schedule for this interview. We really appreciate it.
Thanks for allowing us an opportunity to talk with you guys. We truly appreciate the support.
