Biohazard guitarist/vocalist, Billy Graziadei, recently explained the band's unorthodox approach to crafting their albums. Forget your typical songwriting sessions – Biohazard operates a "meat grinder" where individual ideas are transformed into pure, unadulterated Biohazard.
"Like always, we have this thing called the Biohazard meat grinder. We all write, and we all have our ideas, and we put them through this — however they come in — they go through this meat grinder process. My solo stuff is material that's a little bit more punk and more melodic than Biohazard, but it's still got the roots of what Biohazard is for me, my side of it.
"But I think any individual song that we write doesn't become a Biohazard song until we all piss in the fucking bucket, you know what I mean? It's got to have our blood, sweat, tears, piss, and fucking DNA in it. And that goes through this meat grinder and we jam on it and it starts to grow and it starts to become this entity that's separate and different from how it was originally created and crafted," Graziadei revealed in a new interview with 518Scene.com.
Graziadei also reminisced about the band's early days, where songs like "Punishment" and "Black And White And Red All Over" evolved on the road. Touring with The Exploited became a testing ground, each night shaping the songs through audience reactions and experimentation.
"I remember when we did the first record [1990's self-titled effort], we did a lot of touring and then we wrote four songs that ended up being on Urban Discipline [1992]. It was 'Punishment', 'Black And White And Red All Over', 'Shades Of Grey' and the title track. We wrote them and played them on tour: We did this awesome U.S. tour with The Exploited and we'd play them every night, and they would change. The songs would evolve.
"Every night we'd be, like, 'Yeah that part was fucking cool.' 'The pit went crazy for that part.' 'Yeah, let's try breaking this part down.' 'Let's try doing this.' 'Let's try shuffling these two parts around.' And those songs grew because we played them every night. And when we came home from that tour, we went right back in the studio, finished writing for the record and recorded Urban Discipline, then went right back on tour. That whole process made those songs and kept the live energy pumping through our veins, which has always been the essence of Biohazard that we love, and I think a lot of other people also love."
But capturing lightning in a bottle isn't easy. While Reborn In Defiance came close, Graziadei acknowledges the challenges of translating live energy to studio recordings. The new album, however, promises to be different.
"We were never able really to capture the energy of us live on a record, in my opinion, to a full 100 percent. I think the only record that really came close was ironically the last record we did together, called Reborn In Defiance, but on that record, we went through some turmoil and it kind of shines on that one too. So, where we're at is keeping that energy alive and working our knowledge, our experience, our inspiration into that, bundled up with that energy, and putting that on vinyl or digital."
Graziadei, guitarist Bobby Hambel, drummer Danny Schuler, and bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld first reunited as Biohazard on May 26, 2023, at the Milwaukee Metal Fest in Wisconsin.
