Sep. 24, 2008 - Issue #675: Run For Covers
Bison BC
Before Bison BC, there was Bison
The newly serious Bison BC, which includes Dan And on guitar and growling, James Gnarwell on guitar and yelling, Masa Anzai on bass and Brad Mackinnon on drums, has always had a punk rock attitude of doing things on its own. So when Mark Kesten came up to the band after a show and offered to be the group’s manager, there were some serious misgivings—at first.
“We’ve been playing in punk bands for our whole lives and you never even think about it, you never think, ‘Oh, we need a manager, oh, we need a booking agent,’” explains And of the band’s attitude. “Our first tour, James booked entirely on MySpace and it was probably the 87th tour he’s booked by himself, and so when Mark came up and started talking to us James was like, ‘You know, it would be nice if for once in my life I didn’t have a heart attack trying to plan a tour.’”
The feeling of guarded excitement over moving forward into the business side of being in a band continued into the group’s relationship with Metal Blade Records—the first label that any of the members have been on, according to And, that wasn’t owned by a friend of theirs. Bison BC wasn’t even looking for a label, and was a little worried about giving up the freedom that comes with being entirely independent but, as the band got to know about Metal Blade and talked to people involved with the label, it became apparent that it would turn out fine.
“We’ve never talked to labels before and we’re really leery of anyone trying to tell us what to do, but as soon as we heard them say, ‘As long as you actually give us a metal album, you can do whatever you want—that’s great if you want to do a folk album, but we don’t want to release it,’ we knew everything was great,” And explains. “[The folk album] will just have to go on the back burner.”
With an agreement in place to release the record, the band set to work on recording Quiet Earth, the followup to its first release, Earthbound. Happy with his work on the first record, Bison went back into the studio with friend and producer Jesse Gander, who And describes as a genius. Wanting to see what Gander could come up with on a bigger budget and with more time, And explains that all of the members were blown away by the results.
“When we did Earthbound right off the bat there was no question we were going to work with Jesse, and we did it in four days. So when we had a little more time and a little more money to spend we decided we’re not going to go anywhere else to do it, we’re going to go do it at the same place with Jesse again because it was such a great experience and we wanted to see what he could do given more time,” he says. “He came through with flying colours; it just exceeded all of our expectations.”
But what of the sneaky name change? The front cover of the new album has the name Bison in a huge font and the letters BC in very small type at the bottom. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing they’re making a big deal of, so why do it, then? Lawyers, that’s why.
“We found out about a bunch of other Bisons that exist in the world and we were just thinking that at some point in time that could come up and somebody might try to make some money, or not make some money but you always hear about bands that will find out they have the same name as someone else and then they have to stop using the name,” And says. “I mean, give me a break, we’re all in bands and I don’t know why bands are suing other bands, it’s bullshit. When people say [Bison BC] like that it sounds weird, but basically we just wanted to cover our asses just in case—I would hate to get down the line and have to totally change our name.” V
Mon, Sep 29 (7 pm)
Bison BC
With Genghis Tron, Baroness
Starlite Room, $17 (all ages)
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