Interview — Bawerhur

Skratch Magazine

Progressive metal band, Bawerhur began as band when the lads were all in high school. For the past four years Josh (guitar/vocals), Henry (guitar/vocals), Anthony (bass), Jacob (drums), Bryson (vocals) have been playing around their town of Glendale, AZ and pod racing their lives away. Here’s what they had to say to Skratch Magazine.
Skratch: Describe your sound:

Bawerhur: Heavy, yet melodic. We all suck at answering this question… We just play whatever we happen to write and collectively like so we don’t stick to a certain genre, but we do tend to always be heavy and melodic with some progressive edge to our sound

Skratch: How did you become interested in music?

Josh: I just wanted to bang on drums but my parents bought me a guitar and I fell in love with it. That and I thought John Frusciante was beyond cool so I tried to play like him all the time.
Henry: My dad showed me how to play guitar when I was in 7th grade and I was just hooked ever since then.
Anthony: I didn’t start listening to my own music until I was about 12, but I just grew up around music.
Jacob: When I was very young I learned how to play the piano and I saw someone playing the drums and just thought they looked more fun then the piano so I’ve playing drums since I was 8 and have been hooked ever since.
Bryson: I grew up around a lot of classic country and classic rock music, I’ve always had delusions of granger to be a famous guitarists but I eventually started singing and got into that.

Skratch: What is your song writing process like?

Anthony: Henry and Josh will typically come up with most of the music and then we will all work on it together to get it finalized, a main idea from whoever just gets built upon by everyone at practice.

Skratch: What artists or musicians inspire you?

Josh: I take different things from different styles or artists. For music I love bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Mastodon, bands like that. I listen to everything Josh Homme is a part of.
Henry: Beck, Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher of Mastodon, Fugazi and Josh Homme. Dave Grohl, Chuck Hulihan (my guitar instructor)
Anthony: John Paul Jones, Dan Briggs (bassist from Between the Buried and Me)
Bryson: Liam Neeson as Qui-gon Jinn, Josh Homme of course, Johnny Paycheck, Hank Williams Sr, and Hank Williams Jr., Aaron Turner, Nathan Misterak, Tusken Raiders (Sand People) and Dolly Parton
Jacob: Yngwie Malmsteem and only Yngwie Malmsteem! The older generation of drummers like Brian Blade, Max Roach, Steve Gadd, Brann Dailor,

Skratch: Where do you take musical inspiration from? Your environment? People? Explain.

Bawerhur: We just take inspiration from personal ideas and build upon them.

Skratch: What is your musical background?

Anthony: I started playing bass in eighth grade and played with a band called Candid Revolution. We broke up once high school started and then I started playing with Henry in Fallen Phoenix.
Jacob: I’ve been playing drums in various churches since I was 12. I was in high school jazz band all four years as well as drum line where I played snare. Now I study jazz performance at ASU
Bryson: None… My music background started in this band.
Henry: Started playing piano when I was 4 and stopped when I was 7. When I was about 13 my friend and I Austin Sheehan started our first band, which lasted for about a month. Then I started a band with Anthony, Fallen Phoenix, which ended a year later and then Bawerhur slowly formed. Now I study music at Glendale Community College.
Josh: I started playing guitar in 8th grade and started learning a bunch of Red Hot Chili Peppers songs that I played with friends but I didn’t start writing music until I started jamming with Henry in high school.

Skratch: Tell us about how you got started as a band.

Anthony: Henry and Jacob met in a class in high school and started talking about playing together. Henry and I went to Josh’s to have our first meet up and it went from there.

Skratch: What is the most rewarding part of playing in a band?

Jacob: Just to be playing music
Bryson: Knowing someone that will let me sleep on their couch, and also being amongst good friends and making badass music.
Henry: Being able to play music with good friends and inspiring people.
Josh: playing music and doing what you love
Anthony: Playing music that other people enjoy

Skratch: What challenges have you faced as musicians?

Anthony: The biggest challenge has been getting ourselves noticed.
Jacob: Normal band problems like fighting and stupid arguments.
Henry: Finding bands to play with for shows, we don’t fit with a lot of local bands out here so we have to play to audiences that are out of our style a lot.

Skratch: What would you say is your best song to date? Why?

Bawerhur: Its hard to pick what we feel is our best just because we always progress and do new things but we can collectively say that one of our new songs that is still in the making is turning out to be a good candidate for this because it shows a lot of progression as a band.

Skratch: Do you remember the first album you ever bought? What was it?

Jacob: It was a Monkees album
Josh: I think it was Is This It by The Strokes. Before that I just listened to whatever my dad did so I didn’t own any records.
Anthony: Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park.
Bryson: Led Zeppelin III
Henry: Hanson, but I don’t own it anymore.

Skratch: Where do you see your band in five years?

Bawerhur: We’ll definitely still be playing shows and making music whether or not we are big or not. Probably camping a lot and playing music.

Skratch: Would you say your goals as a band are long term, or short term? What do you ultimately hope to achieve? Explain.

Bawerhur: Definitely long term, music is what we all want to do and love to do and we will never stop doing it. We hope to be able to play music for a living, but we just want to be able to play music forever regardless.

Skratch: How has your band evolved since when you first formed?

Anthony: We have all gotten better as musicians. Our music has become more interesting, with a lot more melody and different time signatures.

Skratch: How often do you practice? What is your rehearsal time like?

Anthony: We try to practice at least once a week, but really as a band we just meet up whenever we can and try to rehearse as long as we can.

Skratch: What would you say is your band’s motto? Explain.

Bawerhur: I.G.P.R.M.L.A. (I’m going to pod race my life away) We all like Star Wars.

Skratch: What shows/album releases/plans do you currently have set up? Tell us about them.

Bawerhur: We are just currently recording our new stuff and trying to put an album together so when we go to California over the summer to tour the coast we can hopefully get some exposure.

Skratch: Where have you performed? Tell us about the experience.

Bawerhur: Just a bunch of local venues here in Phoenix area, for the most part we always have a good time playing and performing for people, however, we have a hard time appealing to crowds out here because everyone is either pop/punk or super death metal and we are neither.

Skratch: What sets your stage show a part from all the other bands making the rounds at venues?

Bawerhur: Well we are pretty unpredictable and do whatever we feel is necessary to have fun and let the crowd know that we want them to just let loose.

For more on Bawerhur go to http://www.myspace.com/bawerhur.

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