INTERVIEW: Greg Burgess – Allegaeon

There was a time where we thought that ALLEGAEON would never grace our shores. Despite boasting a ten year career with an arsenal of killer albums under their belt, the Colorado melodic death metallers frequently struggled to cross the Atlantic. However, this year has changed all that. Arriving to the UK and Europe in support to Australian progressive metal maestros NE OBLIVISCARIS, fans’ prayers had finally been answered. Before their storming show in Manchester back in March, we sat down with guitarist and sole founding member Greg Burgess to talk about the band’s first tour in Europe and how it is living up to his expectations as well casting a light to ALLEGAEON‘s upcoming fifth album!

So I guess the best place to start is that ALLEGAEON are finally in Europe, so what was the background? When did you realise this was actually going to happen?

Greg: Well with all of the other tours our agent or management they couldn’t get us a support slot so they were throwing us to the wolves to do a headlining slot. We were just like “whatever we need to get over here” and we just figured that we’d eat shit and it would be horrible but we’d just do it but then it never materialised. Then, it was over Christmas when the NE OBLIVISCARIS offer came in and that was legit but we never counted on it until our name was on the flyer as we’ve been so disappointed before! [laughs]

ALLEGAEON have toured with NE OBLIVISCARIS in the States and you’re now doing this European run with them, so did it feel like a natural fit?

Greg: Absolutely! When we toured with them in the States we needed them to like us so it would be a possibility! It was like our main goal, of course we were going to go out and play and do our best there, but we really wanted to become friends so they would help us out and they did! And we didn’t even play caddy about it, we actually came up front and were like “yeah you guys should take us to Europe!” [laughs] and by the end of the tour they were like “yeah we should totally do that!” Then you have the fans that really like the two of us together, the packaging worked really well in the US and I know a lot of European fans wanted that as well.

Tonight’s show in Manchester is the fourth show, how has it gone so far?

Greg: It’s been really great! It’s kind of a subjective thing because we are so thankful to be here, I think even if people fucking hated us we’d still be having the time of our lives to be honest. Last night in Nottingham was a little weird, I think I assume it was because it was a Wednesday, but we played great and we had a blast. Right now, we realise that since we’ve never been over here even though we’ve been around for so long it’s more about introducing people to us. So we don’t expect craziness to happen, we’re expecting people to sit back and absorb what the hell is going on, so it’s actually been really cool! Now, we don’t really worry about the crowds, we just have fun, put on a show and fuck off as if you see us having fun, chances are you’ll have fun too.

As ALLEGAEON have been around for so long and it is the the first time you’re in Europe, have you noticed a lot of die-hard fans turning up to the shows?

Greg: Yes absolutely! It’s been really awesome because there has been such a dichotomy in the crowd. There’s the people that don’t know who the hell you are and then there’s those guys who have been waiting for you for years. They know every word and they are throwing down really hard, it’s so fun because you see it and you know you’re going to have fun with that guy. The upside of that is when you talk to them after, there’s not a lot of people, so you get more of a chance to hang out so there’s a lot of bonding and I like that!

Yeah, it’s really making that connection between band and fan…

Greg: Yeah, and especially when they get in really early on. Generally, they stick with you for a long time so you become friends and then you see them every time you come back, which we are hoping this is the first of many, so we can just build those relationships.

So have you been treating this as once as a lifetime opportunity?

Greg: Definitely. If we never come back we are not going to regret a single thing. In the US everything is just so new and like, you guys have fucking castles just lying around! I know when you just exist in these atmospheres you don’t really think anything of it. Like in Colorado, there’s the mountains and we hike them all the time but you don’t really think anything of it. But for someone where it’s completely foreign, it’s so interesting! I hauled myself out of bed today, I’m still on US time, so I’m going to bed at like 5am but dragging myself out at like nine to just go out walking and exploring. I’m having such a great time, just being blown away by the architecture and everything like that, I’m like “this is older than anything that exists in my country!” In Nottingham we went and had a pint at Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem and it’s dated to like 1189AD and we’re like “this is fucking incredible! What the fuck!” and there’s just these locals in there thinking “what the hell is the big deal? This is normal.” But yeah, this has been the most fun I’ve ever had on tour, nothing is ruining it for me! I guess that’s because I’ve been waiting longer than the rest of guys, it’s been 11 years in the making for me, so I will not let a single thing ruin this for me.

This tour has come two years after ALLEGAEON’s latest record, Proponent For Sentience. How have you found the reception? Do you think it has allowed the band to take the step up to the next level?

Greg: Yeah. I like to think that everything happens when it is supposed to. When we got Riley [McShane, vocals], we noticed a huge surge in popularity, it was strange, we’re always surprised when there are people at the shows. We’ve been doing this for so long I’m just used to it going really badly [laughs] and I just love it so much. This is the life I’ve chosen, but yeah, when we got Riley it just seemed that our diehards multiplied, vastly! We’re now selling out shows, that’s never happened before, our last tour in the US with NE OBLIVISCARIS, we had a bunch of sold out shows, I think it was about nine or something? That’s crazy!

Now that Proponent For Sentience has been out for a few years now, where are you up to with writing the next ALLEGAEON record?

Greg: So we’ll finish this tour on like May 4th or so and then we’ll all fly home and probably take a week off. And then, it’s just finishing solos and lyrics. It’s all done, the album is done, we’re playing a new song on this tour which has been going off really cool! Right now, we are in a very interesting place because of the vastness of Riley‘s talents. He has a great clean voice and people didn’t revolt when we did it so we want more clean vocals this time. But yeah, firstly we need a few days off to rest, we left at the end of January as we did that full US tour, we didn’t even finish that, to come over here so from January to May, it’s a long time. So we’ll probably take a few days and get reacquainted with home life but I have too many solos right now! It’s a little overwhelming [laughs] but I think tour life helps with that too. You have the positive reinforcement of people liking your music whereas if I’m home and I have to write, I’m just not excited about it, it’s just more pressure. So there’s that but what I was saying with Riley, right now with the clean vocal aspect we’re like “where do we put the clean vocals in?” It’s weird for us because as a band, if we boil down to it it’s a Gothenburg model, but we exist in the United States where we are completely weird and no one knows what to do with us. I think that is part of the reason why it has taken us so long to gain success because the packaging is weird. Melodic death metal doesn’t exist in the United States, what the US did was take melodic death metal and like corrupted it into metalcore which I fucking hate. So, us being true to that, melodic death metal with bits of tech, it’s a very interesting thing so now, where do we go with clean vocals? If we do the Gothenburg model and put all the choruses in clean, it’s like the metalcore thing as well, and I can see fans rioting because it is formulaic and not really what we want to do. So, we have to be really intelligent about how we do it and we don’t just want to do it just to do it so we’ve got multiple versions of every song we’ve written. So, the song we’re playing on this tour, Riley sings it different here in the UK and Europe than he did back home. At home, it’s all screams with no singing whatsoever, and here he sings. And we haven’t even done the whole singing version yet because until Riley is comfortable, we’re just figuring it out. With that in mind, it changes how we approach the song-writing too because now, I can write with more space. It doesn’t have to be a million notes per minute.

I guess that gives you and ALLEGAEON itself more creative freedom?

Greg: It does! It completely gives you more shit that is possible and that is one of the biggest things I love about it. I mean, we’re grown men that yell at you [laughs] I don’t want to take us too seriously because we’re the luckiest motherfuckers on the planet! We sit here and yell at you and we’re travelling t-shirt salesmen! We’re yelling at you to buy our t-shirts! That’s our jobs boiled down [laughs]

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