Music > Interviews

Biohazard

23/06/15

Biohazard make loud music. Very good loud music. Starting out on the streets of Brooklyn way back in 1987, they’re still going strong today, commanding loyal fans and audiences across the world. They were innovators in the early 90’s as one of the first groups to combine hip hop and metal, most notably their contribution to the now legendary Judgement Night soundtrack. You probably know someone with a Biohazard tattoo, cos that’s how they roll. I spoke to drummer Danny Schuler who’s been with the band almost since the very beginning, about being hardcore, their new album and what his five kids think of Biohazard.

You’re playing at The Owl Sanctuary here in Norwich which has a capacity of just 150. Biohazard last came to Norwich in 1994 and played the Oval Rockhouse. How does it feel to play such a small venue compared with arenas and fields full of people?

I’m really excited. I love playing the UK and small clubs in particular. We love coming back to cities that we haven’t played for a long time.

Biohazard was born in Brooklyn back in 1987 and you joined a year later in ‘88. What was the scene like there and then for you guys starting out?

At that time, especially in Brooklyn, there was a club called L’Amour which was our hometown club where bands could play and we had the opportunity to play. New York had had a big hardcore scene for years before that and it fed into Brooklyn. When we came up it was at the tail end of that. The scene in Brooklyn was great; everybody I knew played music and was in a band, Carnivore (who became Type O Negative), Life of Agony, Sheer Terror, a million other bands that we played with all the time from the neighbourhood. So when Biohazard came up at that time the scene comprised of a lot of our friends. Looking back now, knowing that a lot of those bands have lasted all these years since then, we had something cool happening.

You weren’t labelled as a hardcore band but you did share the stage with some, like Agnostic Front.

Bands like Agnostic Front, they were there at the very beginning, and they set the blueprint for a lot of what a band like ours does. Out of respect fro bands like them, Bad Brains, Cro-Mags and others who came before us we didn’t call ourselves a straight up New York City hardcore band when we first started because we weren’t trying to take the spot away from these guys that we felt we owed in terms of influences. If it wasn’t for those bands we wouldn’t even exist today. It was more of a respect thing; we didn’t feel that we could call ourselves hardcore. In reality you’re either a hardcore band or you’re not. Biohazard have a hardcore attitude and a punk heart beating within our chests. We were always very open to whatever was around us at the time; there was a bit of a different vibe in Brooklyn back then. There was a lot of music on the streets, hip hop, hardcore, metal, everything was there. We embodied a lot of that stuff and put it all together in Biohazard.

Who has influenced you as a drummer over the years?

It never gets boring for me to listen to some of the greats that I’ve been listening to my whole life. My favourite drummer of all time is John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. To me he’s the most amazing, incredible perfect drummer. When that guy sat down and played drums, you always knew it’s him. He has such an identifiable sound. I’ve also been influenced by Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell, Bill Ward from Black Sabbath, he was a big influence, for sure. I used to play along with Black Sabbath records when I was a little kid, as well as Neil Peart from Rush, Alex Van Halen, Stuart Copeland. On the punk side I always loved Earl Hudson from Bad Brains. He was a phenomenally intense drummer. Louis Vito from Carnivore, a lot of New York guys who I knew growing up.

You guys were among the first to combine hip hop and metal, perhaps most notably on the Judgement Night soundtrack, one of my favourite albums of all time. How did you and Onyx write that track together, and did you get the choice in who you recorded with?

I don’t think Biohazard can take 100% credit for that collaboration back in the day. Our manager worked in the Def Jam offices. When we hired him, we used to hang out in the Def Jam offices all the time with Public Enemy, Run DMC…all the guys. It was amazing because we were so into their music, to be able to be there on the inside of it was so cool. Out manager Scott, and his partner Lyor Cohen who ended up owning Def Jam with Russell Simmons later on, they came to us and said, we’ve got this band Onyx and they’re kinda like you, regular street dudes from Queens, no bullshit, but they like rock and want to do a track with a heavy bent. So they asked us if we wanted to hook up with them and we recorded a remix of their track Slam. So that kicked off a relationship between us. Russell Simmons was then producing the film Judgement Night and was getting the soundtrack together and wanted another track from Onyx and Biohazard. So we got together in the studio and created it in one night. I love that Judgement Night record…it’s a really interesting thing to hear Helmet and House of Pain, or Boo Ya Tribe and Faith No More. That shit was just great, to bring those styles of music together.

You’ve released 9 studio albums. How on earth do you go about picking what to play live at a gig?

Funny that you say that, we’re dealing with that right now! We’re heading out on tour in a couple of days time and we’ve been rehearsing and talking about what to play. It’s not easy. There’s probably a good 8-10 songs that we HAVE to play at every show and there’s the others which we can play around with and mix it up a little. We’re in the process of relearning things now. We listen to what people want to hear and we try to put those tracks into the show. There are a lot of songs though! It’s a good problem to have! But a lot of people ask us to do Judgement Night but we can’t really do it without Onyx.

How do you feel the Biohazard sound has changed through the years?

I think there was a time in the late 90’s when we became more straightforward and maybe on auto-pilot a little bit. We were so busy and although the records were good at that time, we were pretty burnt out from being on the road for the entire 1990’s. We were all falling apart by the end of the decade. Over the years we’ve maintained a lot of elements of our sound. Right now, the way the band sounds and what we’re recording now reminds me a lot of how the band was at the very beginning. I like getting back to that, it feels good to me to have that kind of vibe in the band. I really loved those first two or three records…then we got lost for a minute, and now we know what we want to do.

How are you getting on with recording your new album?

I think our next record’s easily going to be one of our best. We’ve started writing songs but we’re not done yet; we’ve been taking our time. We just don’t want to put something out there that’s going to be forgettable. I mean, nobody buys records now anyway but still, we don’t want to put something out that people might think we’ve burnt out or have been around too long. We never want people to say that about us. We still maintain our energy and our enthusiasm for what we do.

The Biohazard logo is incredibly strong and I’ve seen like a million tattooed versions of it, including on the embryo on the cover of Reborn in Defiance! What did the name Biohazard mean to you when you first came up with it, and has that changed at all?

The name Biohazard was actually given to us by Pete Steele from Type O Negative. The whole thing with the name and the symbol and everything came from him. I wasn’t in the band from the start so I wasn’t there when they were named but to me it’s always felt really appropriate. A biohazard is something that’s harmful for life and those are the things we sing about, you know, situations that are harmful in life, can ruin your potential and get in your way. I think the name is appropriate.

What do you think of the hip hop and metal scenes in 2015? Who do you like?

I always listen to my old favourites, the music that I grew up with is part of my brain and always will be. It’s like programming a computer with information that can never be replaced. As far as new music and stuff…I think I have a bit of a hard time latching onto new bands, there’s a lot of new stuff that I like but it’s being recorded by bands that I already like. I don’t like the way a lot of bands make records these days. You listen to the record and it sounds one way, and then you go and see them live and it’s just weak. They can’t perform it. That always bothers me. I don’t want to mention names! I hear a lot of records and I think, damn, you can really play that way? And then I go see them live and it’s just complete fraud. Background recorded tracks, and the drummer’s barely touching the drums…I hate that. That for me is not exciting. I think heavy music, metal in particular, is not being done well by anybody at present and as much as people talk shit about Slayer or Metallica, at least they go out there and they really fucking play it.You’ve got five kids! What do they think of your music?

They think it’s the coolest thing in the world! They love what I do. They get bummed out that I go away all summer but they come to shows from time to time and they rock out! They don’t just stand on the side of the stage watching with headphones on; they rock out, they feel it. We may not be the biggest band in the world, we’re not Metallica, or Linkin Park, but we’re still known everywhere in the world, we get to do all this great stuff and I’m really grateful that we have the band and the music we created. I love that my kids can see that we created something together that people all over the world appreciate and identify with. That’s big. We never anticipated any kind of success ever, and didn’t expect to do anything in our lives, so we treat our job with respect.

What advice would you give to any drummers out there just starting out?

Learn to play the drums. Practice, practice, practice. I’ve been playing drums for 40 years; I started when I was five years old. There have been times when I’ve gone months without practicing, but then something comes up and I start playing again and I suck. It’s fucking terrible. So theses days I always try to keep my hand in and be ready. I challenge myself all the time to stop it from becoming boring, and I still love it just as much as when I was a little kid. If you’re a drummer in a heavy band, just think how much fun it is to do what we do; we’re the guy in the band who gets to beat the shit out of something for the whole show. We get to go fucking crazy the whole time! We’re like animals! A band can be OK with a shitty bass player or a shitty guitarist but any band with a shitty drummer, I don’t care who they are, they can never be better than as good as the drummer is. You’ve got a thousand people in the audience and you’ve got to get them feeling the same way that you do, and it’s the drummer’ job to do that. So fucking practice and learn how to do that shit! Get off the computer, play the drums and work your balls off!

Biohazard play The Owl Sanctuary on 5th July

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