Divine Intervention: Chris Ojeda leads Byzantine into new era with “To Release Is To Resolve”

Photo: Courtney Bell

Charleston-based progressive groove metal band Byzantine (clockwise from bottom: Chris Ojeda, Sean Sydnor, Matt Wolfe, Brian Henderson) will release its fifth album, “To Release Is To Resolve” Saturday night at The V Club in Huntington.


Reposted (and expanded) from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch

For Byzantine fans who haven’t heard it yet, the question over the last few months has been: What will “To Release Is To Resolve,” its new record, with two new members, sound like?

“How should I put this?” singer and rhythm guitarist Chris “OJ” Ojeda responded when asked that question over the phone with his band, “All I can say is, everybody better be ready for a decibel shower, because it is comin’.”

Byzantine will release “To Release Is To Resolve,” and perform Saturday night at The V Club with opening acts Horseburner and Among The Dead.

“I’m pretty pumped about it,” Ojeda said of the new album, the band’s fifth release and second on its own Snakepit label, and funded again this time by fans. Like past releases, it has already received critical praise, from press outlets large and small, most recently Revolver Magazine.

“It’s the second time around that we get to do this kind of on our own label and on our own terms,” Ojeda noted. “We’ve got the new guys, so there’s a lot of provin’ to do. I think we’re gonna shut up some people who, uh, wanna see us fail, and we’re gonna make a lot of people happy.

“When you’ve got a group that’s put together four albums, and then you have a sudden shift in members, you feel like you’re up against the wall. With me and Matt being here for so long, it’s like, we’ve got a lot to prove on this.”

Fifteen years after starting the metal band, playing shows with a drum machine, and after the agony of keeping the band together with members spread out over the east coast, Byzantine is now based entirely out of Charleston, and moving forward with its new lineup.

“From my point of view, it was fairly seamless,” drummer Matt Wolfe said of bringing lead guitarist Brian Henderson and bassist Sean Sydnor on, replacing longtime members Tony Rohrbough and Skip Cromer. “Brian and Sean and I have been friends for a very long time, longer than I’ve been in Byzantine. So, we’re very familiar with each other on a musical level.”

Henderson said this, his second stint in Byzantine, feels more special.

“It’s a little different this time. A lot different, actually,” Henderson admitted. “The last time I felt like I was just filling in somebody’s shoes temporarily. Now that I’m a full-fledged member I feel like my fingerprint’s gonna be on what you hear. Playing this kind of music, it forces you to kind of push yourself, and play things you wouldn’t normally think yourself capable of playing.

“Especially when OJ is standing in the room with you, making you play things you can’t play, or previously couldn’t play,” Henderson said to hard group laughter.

“I think all Byzantine fans are gonna love it,” “Hendo” added of the new record. “If they don’t, they don’t, whatever. But I don’t see it as a problem or think it’s too far of a departure from their stuff in the past.”

“I’ve said it from day one, I felt like this was divine intervention,” Sydnor said. “The four people in this band are all on the same page musically. That’s the key to this music, that, whatever changes happen, it’s always gonna be Byzantine because OJ is OJ, and that means Byzantine.

“I’m beyond pumped,” Sydnor added. “This has been a dream come true. The last tour we just did, I’ve been waiting twenty-some years to do that. It’s been a dream come true and I don’t see anything but total awesomeness coming from us from here on out. I just feel totally blessed and privileged to be a part of it.”

“It was neat to get this lineup together on this record because the last record, I think me, Matt, Skip and Tony, we elevated ourselves,” Ojeda said of the band’s self-titled 2013 release. “I think it was our best record to date, and it came after a four or five year layoff.

“To come back after that, have two new members come in, write a new record and keep an identifiable sound, it’s a fuckin’ hard task, ya know? There are some bands that just can’t keep it together over four or five albums. Me and Matt have been able to put a stamp on a certain sound, a West Virginia-based groove metal, and no matter what lineup it is I think you can turn it on, and you can hear it and know it’s Byzantine.

“This new album is going to do exactly that, and then some,” OJ said. “The first song that we put out, “A Curious Lot,” I’ve done a couple interviews already and they keep asking ‘Is this what the album sounds like?’ And I have to tell them no. This song is the most up-the-pike, straight forward song, and we like to put out songs that sounds exactly different from the rest of the album, kinda to fuck with people,” Ojeda said with a laugh.

“It’s what we did on the last album. Our single was “Signal Path,” which was the weirdest song we’ve ever written. It’s fun to do that, so we did it again on this one. The rest of the songs are gonna be a complete one-eighty from “A Curious Lot,” so everyone just needs to hold on to their seats until they get all eight songs.”

“There’s just such a solid sound, that you can’t fuck with it,” Sydnor added. “We all know what to do with this music. This music, the ideas that OJ comes up with, it really stays Byzantine no matter what it sounds like tempo-wise or dynamically. We were just meant to be. That’s why I say it was divine intervention. It’s not egotistical at all. I just think it was meant to be.”

After praising engineer Jay Hannon, the “fifth member of the band,” OJ said crowdfunding albums is really the way to go for Byzantine these days.

“It’s instrumental in how we’re doing things right now,” Ojeda said. “We’ve circumnavigated the record industry, and worked our way back into it without having to sign a record deal. Anybody can get on Kickstarter, or PledgeMusic, or GoFundMe, and try to fund a project, but to actually be able to work it, and to get it out in a timely fashion, you’ve got to have some business sense. I think we’ve gathered some business sense, fifteen years into this.

“When you’re trying to do something that costs some money, you either spend your own money, or you spend other people’s money, and one of the best ways to do it is to sign investors, and that’s with any business. Who better to invest in a project than the people who love it? The fans get exactly what they want out of it, there’s no middlemen, everybody’s shareholders, and if someone has a problem with it, they can go straight to the CO’s, and we resolve everything as quickly as possible. It’s a very streamlined process to get records out, and we’ve been able to do it successfully two times in a row.”

Wolfe said what’s made Byzantine stand out among their metal peers all these years is really just them being themselves.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve gotten accomplished to this point. I think the reason we may stand out, sonically, with some fans, and people that may have never even heard us before, or are hearing us for the first time, is because we’ve always kind of stayed true to our formula, and what we like, and what we wanna write, and what we wanna play, or hear, instead of following any trends.

“I mean, we’ve been at this for going on fifteen years now, and music being the cyclical thing that it is, there’s been a lot of styles and fashions of metal that have come down the road and have since dissipated, but we’ve just kind of stayed true to what we do.”

Ojeda, with his twangy southern West Virginia accent (and ever present sense of humor) said with humility that being called a metal god by media types isn’t really accurate, maybe. The real rock stars are the other guys in the band.

“I have successfully figured out how to fool everybody in the heavy metal industry,” he said laughing. “There are a lot of people who think I may be one of the best front men, and yet, I’ve never been the best guitar player in my band. Now, I’m not even the best singer in my band because we’ve got Hendo,” he said to group laughter.

“So, it kinda keeps me grounded, when people put me on these plateaus, you know, this that or the other, and I look at the other guys in my band and they all smoke me. It’s pretty cool.”

Ojeda said that, with help from his old friends, he’s going to keep Byzantine going for the foreseeable future.

“What I’ve realized, through this whole time of breaking up, and getting back together, is that you really shouldn’t quit anything you love to do just because it’s hard. This is the hardest thing I think I’ve ever had to do, was try to be in a band, uh, and have somebody care about it. But I love it so much it doesn’t matter, you know? It’s not really that hard.

“There’s a lot of people who -- I just turned 40 -- there’s a lot of people who put age limits on it and will say ‘Well, I’m 30 I’m gonna quit,’ or ‘I’m 35, I’m gonna quit.’ I’m kinda fuckin’ done with that stuff. There’s no reason to quit something you were born to do.”


IF YOU GO:
Byzantine, Horseburner, Among The Dead
WHEN: 10 p.m., Saturday, April 4
WHERE: The V Club, 741 6th Ave. (304) 781-0680
COST: $8 ADV, $10 DOS
INFO: www.vclublive.com
ONLINE: www.byzantinemetal.com

The Devil vs. Chris Ojeda: Byzantine frontman talks about "Soul Eraser"

With lyrics about black tar lords, black teeth, and blacker souls, Byzantine’s new song “Soul Eraser,” and the official video for it, received thumbs up from fans online, and thumbs down from stations the band sent it to due its visceral, bleak, totally NSFW depiction of drug-ravaged West Virginia.

Byzantine singer-guitarist Chris “OJ” Ojeda here, in an excerpt from a phone interview with the Gazette, discusses the song, the video, and the response to both…


“That song is very close to our problem. As far as our band is concerned, we’ve had a lot of people very close to us get hooked on drugs. The whole song is kind of like a ‘Shame on you, West Virginia, for letting this pill problem, this prescription drug abuse problem, infiltrate this state and turn our whole generation into people dependent on something that’s killing them.’

“We wanted the video to portray how crappy it is, and it did.

“But with [“Soul Eraser,”] the subject matter being so dark, and so close to West Virginia, I’m hoping it’ll take off and be kind of an anthem, like “Jeremiad” was for us. We’ve had a lot of people tell us that “Jeremiad” got them through some dark times, because the song deals with suicide, and feeling alone, and just, like nobody cares about you

“So now, with drug abuse being so prevalent, maybe people can see the video and hear the lyrics and be like, ‘Maybe I need to get off my a--,’ and deal with it, you know?

“We submitted [the video] to all the stations, and every one of them said the same exact thing, ‘The song was fantastic, the video was fantastic, but it’s too graphic.’ And it’s like, ‘In this day and age?’ (laughs)

“But we were also able to do a casting call, and get our fans to come in and do the little mosh thing, which was cool. If I was a kid, and a local band that had some type of credibility was asking me to be in their video, I think that’d be the coolest thing. So as a way to say thanks, we did that for them.

“We had a blast doing it, and the kids had a blast doing it. It looked like they were trying to kill each other, but the reality was they were jumping around smiling. We had to stop that part like fifteen times because they were smiling too much.” (laughs)


Related: Byzantine is back with new album, new attitude (Charleston Gazette)

VIDEO: Byzantine “Soul Eraser”

Byzantine, if you have been living in a cave on the moon for the past five years, is back with a new self-titled album due out Feb. 26.

The critically acclaimed West Virginia metal band has been playing shows, taking pre-orders, and just last night premiered their video for “Soul Eraser,” off the new record on nocleansinging.com.

Shot and directed by Matt Maloney in his hometown of Wellsburg, the video gave Byzantine’s fans a chance to get crazy, and gave the band an opportunity to paint an unfortunately all-too-familiar picture of life in 2013 opium war-ravaged West Virginia (NSFW drug abuse) as those we know fall prey to the “black tar lord” singer-guitarist Chris Ojeda describes.

Just an awesome video from an awesome band. We’ll definitely look forward to hearing the new record.

Music scene veteran launches W.Va. Independent Music Festival

Photo: Wendy Bolsom

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Daniel Johnson, longtime drummer for area hardcore band Let The Guilty Hang (and now drummer for Tim Browning and the Widowmakers) decided late last year to put together a music festival in his hometown that featured some of West Virginia’s more notable acts. The result is the West Virginia Independent Music Festival in Logan on Saturday.

The Gazz caught up with Johnson over the phone to talk about everything that goes into organizing and pulling off such a huge endeavor.


Reposted from The Charleston Gazette

GAZZ: A lot of people would love to book their own festival. What’s it like to actually do that?

Daniel Johnson: “The thing for me is I have an unwavering dedication to this scene and have for many years, so I’m lucky enough to be able to call a lot of these guys in these bands my true friends.

“The tough thing is to convince a band like Sasha Colette and the Magnolias to get on the same bill as a band like Bobaflex or vice versa. It’s very rare in today's music scene, be it in West Virginia or anywhere, to find a multi-genre festival.

“These bands are all from completely different genres. There are a couple bands who are close, but a lot of these bands would never share a bill on a typical club gig. Going into it, there were no genre boundaries. I just wanted to book the bands that I was into.”

-----
GAZZ: When did you get the idea to do this?

Johnson: “I helped out with a festival here in Logan called Rocktoberfest for a few years. That was the jumping off point for me to see that I could do this. I said late last year, ‘OK, well, I’ll do my own. I’ll make my own festival.’”

-----
GAZZ: Has being in bands give helped you organize the festival?

Johnson: “It’s essentially the exact same thing as booking a show for one of my bands, except it just grows exponentially. This has taken on a life of its own. There’s stuff you wouldn’t have to deal with in normal day-to-day: food, parking and just the things that come that with having hundreds of people in one place.

“For me, without the experience of being a musician and seeing how the machine works -- dealing with promoters, going to lots of shows -- I don’t think I would’ve been able to do all this. And I’m still learning and figuring it out as I go along. You can’t download a PDF file on how to put on a festival.”

-----
GAZZ: Paste Magazine recently wrote a blog post, “10 West Virginia Bands You Should Listen to Now.” With this festival, are you hoping to accomplish something like that, to expose these acts to a wider audience?

Johnson: “I think it’s cute that Paste put up the little blog that said ‘Top 10 bands in West Virginia you should check out.’ I think there are a hundred bands you should check out. It is the cancer of being a musician in this state -- there is no exposure on a national level.

“It’s sad that location matters, and you’re immediately not even a blip on the radar screen. There are lots of great bands from this state. For my money, American Minor, the Huntington band Bud Carroll from AC30 was in, put out a few of the greatest records I’ve ever heard.




“At the end of the day, it’s just a general blind eye turned on our state. It’s happened for years. Byzantine has made a few of the greatest heavy metal records I’ve ever heard, and they've completely gone under the radar.




“On a national level, they don’t give you breaks, man. I don’t know what to chalk it up to. It’s these mountains, I guess.”

-----
GAZZ: What are your feelings going into the festival?

Johnson: “Since I’m one of the only people involved, I’ve set things so there’s only one person to point fingers at if this fails, so it’s a great amount of stress, but I’ve signed up for it. I am extremely stressed. I am extremely excited. I’m nervous as hell. I’m looking forward to it being over, but dreading it ending. It’s a whole big mess of emotions.

“If I had to bring it down to one statement, I would just say I want people to hear songs that matter as much to them as much as they do to me. And I want them to hear something new that maybe they wouldn’t if they were just a Byzantine fan. Maybe they’ll hear The Demon Beat and say, ‘Holy s--- these guys are great.’




“The goal is for people to walk away with a piece of merch from a local band they’ve never heard of. That’s my goal: that it goes well and people leave having a new band to like.”

Back in business: Byzantine reunites with new album, local shows

Byzantine (L-R: Chris Ojeda, Skip Cromer, Tony Rohrbough, Matt Wolfe) is back together with local shows and a new album due out in November.


Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch

To hear the guys in Byzantine talk, you’d think they were just another local metal band with something to prove. Hearing them talk about their new record, having lead guitarist Tony Rohrbough back in the band after a three year absence, with a string of local shows lined up, Byzantine and their fans are rightly excited.

No local metal band has three major label releases and European tours under their belt. Since being birthed out of Chapmanville in 2000, four years removed from “Oblivion Beckons,” their last release, which, promptly upon release, fittingly enough saw the band go on indefinite hiatus, Byzantine has built and maintained a passionate fan base and achieved critical acclaim for their progressive, melodic version of metal.

Together for a rehearsal at Rohrbough’s house in Weston, you get the sense that thing are back to basics and Byzantine is making music on their terms. After a heart attack prompted Rohrbough’s move back to West Virginia from Charlotte, where he’d lived for three years, Byzantine was indeed back in business.

Rohrbough described the organic process of the band coming back from oblivion.

“We were all just chatting, sending emails and demos back and forth. Originally the thought was ‘Look, why don’t we get together casually whenever we want, throw some ideas out and see how it works?’”

Byzantine plays The Sound Factory in Charleston Friday night, and The V Club Saturday night, with a new, fan-funded, self-titled release in the can and slated for a November release.

“I don’t think it would’ve happened without him,” lead singer and rhythm guitarist Chris “OJ” Ojeda said of getting Rohrbough back in the band. “Once we got Tony back in, it all flowed real easily. Of course, he and I started the band, and he’s a huge, integral part of the sound. I knew without him it wouldn’t be the same.

“It didn’t feel like we jumped back on the bicycle, because it was all new stuff we hadn’t played before, so it was hard,” Ojeda said. “But you can’t tell listening to the album; it’s fantastic. Once we started playing the old stuff, like “Hatfield” and “Jeremiad,” then it felt like we hadn’t missed a beat.”

Drummer Matt Wolfe seconded that.

“It went a lot smoother than I thought it would after so long. But it’s a chemistry thing. If you put the four of us in a room, something’s going to happen musically. It’s been really cool to get back together and get some frustrations out playing some metal.”

“It’s still great, hearing what OJ and Tony write,” bassist Skip Cromer added. “I have the unique opportunity to hear it first, almost as an outsider. The fact that I get to play on it is even better. I’m still as pumped today to be jamming with these guys as I was in 2005. They keep me on my toes, to say the least.”

So one thing led to another. Demos led to rehearsals and that led to recording. One problem: recording budget, or lack thereof. Enter Byzantine’s fans, who pitched in with financial support via the band’s Kickstarter fundraising campaign.

“We were like ‘This is cool, let’s see if we can do an album,’” Rohrbough said. “So we started the Kickstarter page, to try to raise money, and it just blew up. So then it became something that wasn’t as casual. It was like ‘This is real, we need to get to work,’” he said, laughing hard.

Rohrbough, describing the nine songs on the new record, said he expects Byzantine’s fans to love them.

“It’s actually, in places, a lot more mellow and melodic, and in parts there are more blast beats, so you get more of the extremes. We really spent more time on the spit-and-polish on these songs, because we were sharing demos, we didn’t have a lot of time to get together.

“So the songs came out polished, and very, prog, you know? I’m gonna say prog,” he said with a laugh. “But there’s some extreme stuff and some very, very mellow stuff. We hit a larger gamut than we usually hit. The focus has kind of expanded.”

With a renewed energy and an expanded focus, Ojeda said one thing is back to normal in Byzantine: having fun playing metal.

“The last album we did, everything kind of felt wrong. We were all going different ways. We just wanted to get our music out and have fun,” Ojeda said, with added emphasis on the last two words, almost as if it was an alien concept. “And it got not fun. Once we realized it was going to be over the label, it started getting bad, and it fed into our personal relationships, and that all culminated in us having a big, big layoff.”

Byzantine has teamed up with Gravedancer Records to help get the new record out. Any frustrations the band may have had with record labels are in the past, OJ said.

“There was a lot of bitterness towards the end, toward the label,” Ojeda said. “We were trying to open doors and we found out they were kind of shutting them on us. We knew we weren’t going to be able to tour a lot, we were an older band, and they wanted to focus on 18-year old kids who didn’t mind sleeping in a van their entire lives.”

“You have to remember, we’re an older band,” Rohrbough added. “When we first got signed and put out our first album, I was in my mid-30’s. Usually it’s a much younger game. It’s a much younger game for kids who don’t have a lot of responsibility. Honestly, I can’t imagine us jumping on a bus and going out on tour now, they really don’t make such a thing as a road nanny,” he said, laughing hard.

Cromer summed up his thoughts on having Byzantine back together, making music again, and having kept their fans all these years.

“The difference between a band like Byzantine and your industry standard, cookie-cutter band, is we don’t follow any of the metal fads. We like what we like, and if it’s good, we roll with it. I think Byzantine stands out amongst the fad bands because we don’t adhere to anyone’s standard. Never have and never will.

“As a band, we come up with stuff we like, and if we like it, we hope other people do too,” Cromer added. “The fact that it’s still in demand by these people who were coming to see us years ago, it’s a gift, as far as I’m concerned.”


--- Byzantine plays The Sound Factory tonight with John Lancaster and Fall Before Your Creator, and plays The V Club tomorrow night...

IF YOU GO
Byzantine w/Horseburner, Saprogen
WHERE: The V Club, 741 6th Ave.
WHEN: 10 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 18
COST: $12 adv., $15 DOS
INFO: www.vclublive.com
ONLINE: www.facebook.com/Byzantinewv

Related: Byzantine: Back From Oblivion (Sept. 2010 H-D article)

Byzantine: Back From Oblivion

Chris Ojeda, pictured during a performance at the Blue Parrot in Charleston, and his band Byzantine will perform today, Sept. 18, on the Loud and Local Stage at X-Fest, at Harris Riverfront Park.


Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch

Chris Ojeda is at a different stage in his life now. Talking over the phone, the singer and guitarist for Byzantine explained where he is now, compared to a few years ago.

Byzantine, the Charleston-based metal band, achieved wide critical acclaim for its progressive, melodic version of thrash, signed to a record label, toured all over the United States and Europe with big name metal bands, then, promptly dissolved after releasing its third record, “Oblivion Beckons” in January 2008.

In the years since, Ojeda became a proud parent of a little girl and started his own home improvement business.

Now, Byzantine itself is in a different stage, with a new lineup and a refocused energy as an unsigned, local band. The group finds itself headlining the “Loud and Local” second stage at X-Fest today, Sept. 18, at Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington.

After Byzantine’s reunion tour of West Virginia in March, the band members promptly found themselves at a crossroads.

“It was either break up or keep going,” Ojeda said.

They kept going.

With lead guitarist Tony Rohrbough living in Charlotte, N.C., bassist Skip Cromer in Pennsylvania, and the band having learned the hard way the economics of touring and the red tape that comes with being on a record label, Byzantine and Rohrbough decided to go their separate ways.

“It was very businesslike, and kind of cold,” Ojeda said of the e-mail exchange between Rohrbough and the band. “We rarely talked because he lives in Charlotte. We had his blessing, though, so we’re going to continue with it. We’ve already caught hell about it on MySpace; some kids were tearing us apart about it. But what they don’t realize is, we’re not signed, we’re just a local band now. If we want to keep changing parts out to have a band, we’re going to.”

Enter Split Nixon guitarist Brian Henderson.

Ojeda explained how Byzantine drummer Matt Wolfe helped bring the lead guitarist for the Ashland, Ky.-based band into the fold.

“Matt told me a couple of months ago when we knew we were looking for a new lead guitar player, he said, ‘Man, every time I get around Henderson, he’s playing [Byzantine songs] ‘Justicia,’ ‘Jeremiad,’ he’s playing ‘Hatfield,’ He knows all these songs by ear. And that was a really big step because we knew it was going to be tough for someone to learn Tony Rohrbough’s parts. But with Brian knowing a lot of the rhythms and being such a wonderful guy, he was a great choice.

“Right off the bat he knew three songs from start to finish, without even practicing. It was like ‘One, two, three, four,’ right straight into it.”

Ojeda said that despite the differences in sounds and styles between Split Nixon and Byzantine, Henderson really is a perfect fit.

“We’ve always known he was a phenomenal guitar player,” he said. “A lot of people listen to Brian in Split Nixon and think ‘OK, he kills it, but can he play the fast heavy metal stuff in Byzantine?’ The answer is yes. He’s actually a tried and true metal head.”

But Ojeda had his own weight still to pull in Byzantine, enduring a “24-month heavy metal writer’s block.”

“After “Oblivion Beckons,” we kind of hung it up, and I focused on the family and the business. It just felt like I was writing crap. And I thought, ‘God, what’s wrong with me? Do I need to be signed to write heavy metal?’ Now we're writing again, but I don’t know what happened.”

While Ojeda admitted the possibility of a fourth Byzantine album exists, signing to another record label? Maybe, maybe not, he said.

“We’ve not even talked about the label thing together, but economically, it’s the best way to get your record out to people. We definitely want to do a new album on our terms. We want it to sound as good as the last couple of albums but we won’t have the same budget.

“So I don’t know if we'll sign a one-off deal with a label or just sell it out of our cars,” he said laughing.

Regardless of how or when Byzantine puts out new music, or what the critics say, Ojeda said he loves his band and its fans.

“Sometimes I take for granted that I’ve been in this band. I think, you know, everybody’s in a metal band that tours and has great fans, and then I think ‘No, they’re not,’” he said laughing.

“But I’m super thankful and blessed,” he added. “I can go to my day job and have nobody ever recognize me, then I can go to X-Fest and play in front of a couple thousand people.”

Unveiling the new Byzantine at X-Fest is something all the guys are looking forward to, Ojeda said.

“I’m super, super stoked,” he said. “I’m nervous. Actually all of us are nervous. A lot of time people expect the band headlining the second stage to blow everyone else away and sound just as good as bands on the main stage. I don’t know if we can pull that off, but we’re going to try.”


--- photo: Ian McNemar

BRDME Byzantine X-Fest 2010 Backyard Gun Range Update

In keeping with our "phone it in" ethos here, thought we'd repost this medium-caliber, super safety 100% X-Fest 2010 scoop from Byzantine bassist Skip Cromer.

Related -- Event Horizon: Byzantine reunites

Event Horizon: Byzantine reunites

After achieving wide critical acclaim and releasing Oblivion Beckons in January 2008, Charleston metal band Byzantine abruptly disbanded. After being on hiatus for over two years, the band is reuniting for a string of in-state shows March 5-7. We caught up with singer-guitarist Chris Ojeda, bassist Skip Cromer and drummer Matt Wolfe about what happened with the band, where they are now, and what the future may hold...

WVRS: How has life been treating Byzantine since we last heard from you guys?
Chris “OJ” Ojeda: All is great, I suppose. We are alive! We have all kind of done our own thing over the last two and a half years. Three of us entered the world of fatherhood. Skip moved back to Pennsylvania and Tony moved down to North Carolina. I started my own home renovation company. All of the guys beside me have also continued playing in various other bands as well. I haven’t stepped on stage since the last Byzantine concert.

WVRS: So you guys recently got back together for practice, what was it like to be back as a unit after so long?
Michael “Skip” Cromer: After the initial shock of all of us being in the same room together after two and a half years, it felt more like we just hadn’t practiced for a month or two. After a few jams it was like being back in the saddle.
Matt Wolfe: Honestly, it felt like we never really stopped playing together. I was very nervous until about 20 seconds into the first song.

WVRS: OJ, have you and Matt been getting together in the mean time?
Ojeda: Yes, Wolfe and I started knocking rust off about three months ago by ourselves; trying to relearn the songs and get some sort of grasp of what we used to do. Sad to say, we have only had one full band practice in preparation for these shows! We are fucking retarded!!! We have all been working on the songs separately. The winter storms we keep having have restricted Tony and Skip from getting into town. It happens almost every weekend. We are hoping to God that we can get at least two more full band practices in before the shows get here.

WVRS: Getting back together, is there any new material you’re working on?
Cromer: We are working up songs that are from Oblivion Beckons that we never played live, but as far as new material that isn’t happening.

WVRS: Byzantine disbanded shortly after Oblivion Beckons was released. Now you’re back together for these shows; was this all part of a plan or did you guys really not know if the band would ever play again?
Ojeda: This was definitely NOT part of a grand scheme or plan. There never really was a lot of arguing in Byzantine but we did have a very bitter divorce at the end. But, mutual respect has always been an integral part of Byzantine and if you can respect each other, anything is possible. Every once in a while one member would bring up a reunion idea and another would immediately say “fuck that.” It took three of us getting together for drinks in Scottdale, Pennsylvania a couple months ago to really kick start this process. I had been one of the main roadblocks for this reunion. Once I knew that Tony was actually down for it, I was 100% in.

WVRS: And just to confirm, you guys disbanded due to what you felt was lack of label support; not infighting, drama in the band, or Skip being a diva?
Ojeda: No, it was Skip being a diva! But, we were willing to put up with his divaness simply because he made the band legendary! HAHA! The bottom line is that we did not disband because of lack of label support. We fell apart because of lack of label support. They are very different things. Being hungry, cold, sick, tired and broke is tolerable if you are 18. At 28, not so much!

WVRS: What about a label; is that something you can talk about or have thought about, getting on another label, or maybe starting your own?
Wolfe: Judging from our past experiences with record labels, I think that would be very much out of the question. Doing it on our own would be the only option.
Cromer: No talk of labels, we hate labels.

WVRS: OJ you mentioned to me over the phone around the time Oblivion came out that you could foresee Byzantine being a band without a label, touring regionally. Is that how things seem to be working out, a more DIY approach to booking/touring, and maybe even recording?
Ojeda: Right now, our focus is three shows in March. Getting these put together was hard enough. We are in no way at a comfortable enough position to think about anything further than that. All four band members know that the record industry and the mandatory touring regimen was the downfall of this band. Hypothetically speaking, if Byzantine exists after March 7th, it will be a complete DIY project. The fan base is already there. It is much too small a fan base for us to ever see any profits as a label band, but a large enough fan base for a DIY band to be extremely fruitful and happy.

"Cradle Song" by Byzantine (Salvation DVD by Donnie Searls/Every Second Pictures)


WVRS: Do/did you guys feel any bitterness about the level of support you may or may not have received; that if things had been different you could have been more successful, commercially speaking? Or are you just happy to have got out the releases you did out and gained the fans?
Cromer: Can’t speak for the other guys on this but I will say that Byzantine could’ve been the biggest metal act out there had we gotten the right push. For some reason the label didn’t really want to get behind this band and it was a disservice to us, and in the long run, the label as well.

Am I bitter? No. I got to be in the band I always wanted to be in, and saw more of the world than I ever thought I would with them. But make no mistake about it: we did not get the support we needed or should have gotten to be a successful group from our label.

WVRS: After your experience being on a label, what are your thoughts on the need to be on a label these days?
Ojeda: It was a necessary evil. We had no fan base before Prosthetic Records signed us. Being signed gave us an opportunity to open for some great metal bands across two continents and showcase our music. But, a smart musician nowadays can build that fan base without label support. It just takes time, if you are willing to spend it. A label is a glorified bank. They give you money to record on and tour on. Instead of “interest” your money is “recoupable” through album sales. Basically meaning, you won’t see a dime until they are paid back in full. Can you tell I’m not that fond of labels? HAHA!

WVRS: Speaking of other metal bands that for better or worse may have achieved some level of commercial success with label backing, without the critical acclaim you guys received -- what do you think of how metal has progressed?
Cromer: Metal comes and goes in a cycle. Right now the cycle is going towards the worse. There’s a lot of cookie cutter bands coming out right now, saturating the market because labels are making money on that sound. Sooner than later, the listener will get sick of it and turn to something else. That’s what happened in the 90’s with grunge, and will happen again with the metal scene.
Wolfe: I don’t follow any of the newer groups out there, so I really can’t say for sure what any if them are doing as far as their success.

WVRS: So you guys have this contest where a fan can be Skip’s roadie for a day; what advice or warnings would you give to whoever ends up winning? WHY would anyone want to be his roadie???
Cromer: Apparently no one knows about this contest because not one person has entered. Or maybe no one wants to be my roadie. I don’t know. Listen, being my roadie and setting up my stuff for free should be worn like a badge of honor. You have the chance to hold thunder in your hands when you handle my gear. I am like Thor on bass, okay? Plus you get into the show for free and we will give you free stuff. It is a contest after all.


WVRS: Your song about the Battle of Blair Mountain “Red Neck War” is a great example of an important part of West Virginia history. Do you have any thoughts about the state taking it off the national register of historic sites?
Ojeda: I had no idea that was an issue right now. That site should be hallowed ground in this state. Before I comment further on this subject I will have to do some reading to give an insightful opinion on the matter. I am saddened to hear this news, though.

WVRS: You guys looking forward to these shows coming up in March?
Cromer: I am ready for these shows. There are so many people I can’t wait to see again I hope they come out. I miss my friends in WV and I am really treating this like a celebration. Of what I don’t know but it will be fun regardless.

WVRS: How important are the fans you’ve gained, after the whole label thing, and being disbanded and now coming back? How important is it to you guys to keep Byzantine going?
Cromer: When I play on a stage in West Virginia, it’s a high that I lack the descriptive language to tell you what its like. The fans and friends that come out and see us, I am grateful for in a way that they probably don’t know. It’s like being in a room filled with people that you respect and love, yet they are mostly strangers to me. It’s a bit odd, but it’s good, and I am mostly looking forward to that feeling again.

As far as the Byz is concerned, I don’t really know what will happen to it. I’d like to think that we could continue to work together and do new things but that may not be what we collectively want. I feel sad about it in a way because when we were fighting to be “that band” we were like a well tuned machine.

I can honestly say with no ego that there was not a band that could touch us out on the road. That was the best of times in Byzantine. It’s not like that anymore. We achieved what we wanted to, maybe not to the extent that I wanted but we did achieve our collective goals.

Our responsibility as a band at this point is to play the best show we can for the fans and friends that want to see us again. Once we do that, there really isn’t anything left to do. Being in Byzantine was hands down the most rewarding musical endeavor of my life. I can’t really ever see anything being better.

That being said, that doesn’t mean that we want to work together again. Let me be clear, I don’t want to speak for my band mates but putting together these three shows was a difficult process in itself. To have this band keep on doing things it would involve a level of commitment that I don’t think the four of us have right now. So it is a strong possibility that these three shows will be the last we do with this lineup.

But the old saying, “Never say never” is a popular phrase to this day for a reason: It’s true. Hopefully there will be more shows and a new album. It would be great. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t think of a more glorious thing than for the four of us to write the best Byzantine record totally on our terms. No labels. No B.S. Just great music by a great band. I would love it.

--- Byzantine plays The Sound Factory in Charleston 3.5, The V Club in Huntington 3.6 (w/BRDME) and 123 Pleasant Street in Morgantown 3.7

Photo: Donnie Searls

Be Skip Cromer's Roadie For a Day

To celebrate their reunion shows in March, Byzantine has announced a special contest for the "hardcorest" Byz fans. You, yes you can enter to win backstage, all-access passes to one of their Charleston, Huntington or Magic Town shows, plus, some autographed Byz schwag, for being the biggest Skip Cromer fan.

What do you have to do? All it takes is to send your hilarious and/or outrageous 2-minute or so video clip stating why you should get:

a. to haul Skip's stuff around,

b. likely be berated publicly,

c. and maybe, if you ask the wrong question, slapped in the mouth

d. all of the above

All submissions should go to byzantinebooking@yahoo.com by 2.21, and the winner will be announced 2.22 on Byzantine's MySpace page.

Enter now; who knows, you could be Skip's roadie, maybe even get to see Burt Reynolds Death Metal at the V Club!

Byzantine's Broadmoor demo available

No wonder West Virginia ranked last in happiness in a recent Gallop poll; our best metal bands, defunct though they may be, get their music pirated and sold over the internet with no money! Classy.

Such is the situation Byzantine finds itself in. After releasing "Oblivion Beckons" about a year ago and subsequently dissolving not long after that, the band finds itself having had their "Broadmoor Demo" basically stolen and sold over the internet, according to what frontman Chris "OJ" Ojeda said in a blog entry on the band's MySpace profile.

You can read the whole story there, and help the band out by downloading the 12-song demo here.

CD REVIEW: "Oblivion Beckons"

CD: "Oblivion Beckons"
ARTIST: Byzantine

With their new (and final?) 13-song release, "Oblivion Beckons," Charleston's own Byzantine find themselves ironically at the peak of their craft, while simultaneously at the end of the road as a band, it seems. Their third release on Los Angeles-based Prosthetic Records finds OJ, Tony, Skip and Matt coming through with, for me, a more approachable effort than 2005's "...And They Shall Take Up Serpents" and at the same time, just as punishing as the CD that (along with their touring with the likes of Lamb of God) won so many metal fans over in recent years.

The CD opens with "Absolute Horizon," taking you into flight with jet sounds and morse code giving way to killer space thrash. In his common Biblically-referenced lyrics, Ojeda sings melodically: "A bleak situation just got bleaker/Our ties with the maker get weaker and weaker/the absolution of what will befall you/The light at the end of the tunnel will smite you."

Lyrically, the songs represent something of an apocalypse for the band.

The band's first single, "Nadir," released last fall, may have been a bit of a clue as to the band's future. It's also one of the most headbanging-est thrash cuts on the CD, as OJ asserts there are "No kings without pawns."

The title track has OJ singing that "We want to live in another world," where maybe they're not "Unattended and left to fade away," one coincidental (or, backhanded) reference to the band's label. On the scizophrenic-sounding "Receiving end of murder" we hear Ojeda sing "I use this prosthesis one fucking last time/Then rip it away and take back what's rightfully mine," And not just mine -- "ours" -- wow.

I'll be honest -- I'm not a metalhead, but I really like this CD. These songs feature enough elements of classic metal riffage and more heavy elements to appeal to a lot of metal fans. It already has.

The sad -- and messed up -- thing is that Byzantine could've been bigger, or at least able to sustain themselves financially through their music with more help from Prosthetic, I think. As it stands now -- the band is no more. As OJ sings on the final song, "A residual haunting" "As empires rise, they do so just to fall" after asserting that "these are the final words that will be penned from me."

Ojeda once told me that he could see the future of the band as a kind of DIY regional-type band. Right now, after releasing a critically acclaimed CD, and promptly folding, you have to hope that these guys aren't done forever.