BIOHAZARD's DANNY SCHULER talks new music, upcoming documentary
09-02-2024
In a new interview with That Fuzzing Rock Show, BIOHAZARD drummer Danny Schuler spoke about the possibility of new music from the reunited classic lineup of the band — guitarist/vocalist Billy Gradziadei, guitarist Bobby Hambel, Schuler and bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld. He said: “I don’t know what the band sounds like now. I know what we sound like live, and I think we sound really good live. We’ve definitely gone back to not giving a fuck about anything except having fun, which is really healthy for us. We’re not sweating the small stuff, I guess you would say. And we just we just wanna have fun. So, when we’re having fun is when we do our best shit. So, we just go and do our thing and it sounds like us. And for me, that’s a great thing, ’cause I love the way the band sounds.
“As far as what our new music is gonna sound like, I have no idea,” he continued. “I don’t know, once the band comes together and we start jamming on all the stuff that we have, how it’s gonna evolve, but I know where my head is at and I know what I wanna do, but I can’t speak for the other three guys. I’m hoping we do a real old-school, real-deal BIOHAZARD record.
“There’s so many great new bands out there who have taken elements of things that us and a lot of other bands from back then kind of did, there’s a lot of bands now who have taken a lot of those elements and do it really, really well — way better than we could ever do it,” he explained. “So I don’t wanna try to compete, try to outdo all these new bands, because they do a different kind of heavy. I think a lot of it’s created in the studio with technology. Some of them sound great live, but I don’t wanna compete with those kind of bands, because they’re so fucking heavy and over the top.
“I know what we can do and I know what we can pull off live at a show for real. And I think we’re gonna make a fucking awesome record that’s gonna be great,” Danny added. “But until that actually happens, I don’t fucking know. Anything could happen. Definitely the vibe in the band is definitely like it was in the beginning. That’s for sure.”
Danny also talked about the upcoming BIOHAZARD documentary, saying: “Well, it’s not finished. The documentary is not finished. Our old friend Drew Stone, who’s really been there since almost the beginning with us and has always been filming shit, is producing and directing and editing a documentary film about BIOHAZARD — about our history and about coming back together And I don’t think anybody’s really being tight-lipped about it, but it’s not finished, so there’s nothing to really talk about until it gets there. But, yeah, up in Albany, at the Extreme Music Awards, he played a little trailer that he came up with, and when I saw him last week when we played down in Baltimore, he actually played me a 75- or 100-minute cut of the film. So I just saw it for the first time myself and it’s in a very raw kind of form. But there’s a lot of great old shit in there — a lot of great old stuff. A lot of great new stuff — a lot of funny, cool, insightful, interesting interviews and good stuff. It’s gonna be a cool thing.
“I don’t know how to really feel about a movie being made about us,” he continued. “To me, I kind of feel like who’s gonna give a shit about that? But seeing it, sitting down and watching it, I was, like, ‘Fuck man.’ There’s like 35 years of history here. There’s a lot. How do you even make a movie about all those years?
“I watched the AGNOSTIC FRONT movie, ‘The Godfathers Of Hardcore’, which was so well done and so awesome. But even with them, you’re talking about 40 years, 40-something years of guys playing. How do you make a little hour-and-a-half movie? They did an amazing job on that.
“But the BIOHAZARD thing, it’s gonna be a look back at the history of the band and kind of telling the story of how things went wrong and some of the fucked up shit, and then kind of how it came back together and how we are now. I mean, for a fan, I think it’s gonna be cool.”
The first reunion gig from Gradziadei, Hambel, Schuler and Seinfeld took place on May 26 at the Milwaukee Metal Fest at The Rave/Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
BIOHAZARD will make a number of other appearances throughout 2023, including at multiple international festivals in the summer, and will play select gigs in America.
This past January, Schuler told Dan Shinder of Drum Talk TV, Schuler about how BIOHAZARD came back together: “We haven’t toured in about seven years, almost eight years. In about 2015, [that] was the last year of touring. We wrapped it up after that. We went in the studio to go do a record and things just kind of imploded; everybody’s a bunch of crazy personalities. In the ensuing years, we didn’t do anything as BIOHAZARD. And then about a year and a half ago, my brother, who lives in Torrance, California, was flying back home to New York to come see everybody. And he gets to the airport here, and he says to me, ‘You won’t believe who I saw at the airport.’ And I said, ‘Who was that?’ And he goes, ‘I saw Evan,’ the bass player from BIOHAZARD, Evan Seinfeld, who I hadn’t spoken to in 10 years. And they had a good conversation, and it was cordial. And he basically sent a message through my brother, ‘Tell Danny I said hi.’ So a week later, I’m going on vacation. I’m feeling good. I’m going down to the beach house here in [New] Jersey with my wife and my kids, and I said to my wife, ‘Maybe I should call him’ — you know, just bury the hatchet. Who cares anymore? Like everybody, COVID and all these people dying and all this stuff, it’s, like, who the hell cares about all that old stuff that made you mad. So my wife was, like, ‘Yeah, why don’t you give him a call? Don’t be an asshole. Call him.’
“Anyway, long story short, I did call him and we spoke,” he continued. “And we just kind of buried the hatchet. And the other guys in the band, Bobby and Billy, had been speaking, and we’ve been speaking, and everybody just kind of started talking a little bit. And unfortunately, our former manager, Scott Koenig, who was out in Los Angeles, he passed away. And that was a real moment where it was, like, ‘Wow.’ Scott was with us from the beginning, and he was like a fifth member of the band. … That was in October of ’21. … I got that call. And the same week, Ir friend of ours from a band called DOG EAT DOG, our friend Sean Kilkenny passed away the same day as Scott. So it was two phone calls, two brothers, two great, close friends, like family, both passed at the same time. And for me, that was kind of one of those things where it’s just, like, who cares about all the negative bullshit in the past? Who cares? We’re still here. We did great stuff together. We created something cool. We should all be friends. And that was my thinking. And everyone kind of felt the same way. And that kind of was the beginning of how it started, getting the band together.”
Last year, Graziadei said in an interview that there had been “talk” about putting BIOHAZARD back together.
The group, which is acknowledged as one of the earliest outfits to fuse hardcore punk and heavy metal with elements of hip-hop, had been out of the public eye since Scott Roberts left the band seven years ago.
Roberts, who played guitar on BIOHAZARD‘s 2005 album “Means To An End”, rejoined the group in June 2011 as the replacement for Seinfeld. Scott fronted BIOHAZARD for nearly five years before exiting the band in February 2016.
In an August 2020 interview with the “Aftershocks” podcast, Roberts said that he left BIOHAZARD because he “wasn’t happy” anymore. “There was one guy that I wasn’t getting along with very well, and it made touring not fun anymore for me,” he said. “My reason to stick around was to make a new record that was great and I’d be proud of and all that stuff, and then it became kind of clear that wasn’t gonna happen, so I was, like, ‘What am I doing it for?’ So I quit.”
Seinfeld made his last recorded appearance with BIOHAZARD on 2012’s “Reborn In Defiance” album, which marked the first LP featuring the band’s original lineup in 18 years.
Graziadei is currently a member of POWERFLO, which also features former FEAR FACTORY bassist/guitarist Christian Olde Wolbers, Sen Dog from CYPRESS HILL, and Rogelio Lozano from DOWNSET.
Billy‘s solo project, BILLYBIO, released a new album, “Leaders And Liars”, in March 2022 via AFM Records.
This past January, Schuler told Dan Shinder of Drum Talk TV, Schuler about how BIOHAZARD came back together: “We haven’t toured in about seven years, almost eight years. In about 2015, (that) was the last year of touring. We wrapped it up after that. We went in the studio to go do a record and things just kind of imploded; everybody’s a bunch of crazy personalities. In the ensuing years, we didn’t do anything as BIOHAZARD. And then about a year and a half ago, my brother, who lives in Torrance, California, was flying back home to New York to come see everybody. And he gets to the airport here, and he says to me, ‘You won’t believe who I saw at the airport.’ And I said, ‘Who was that?’ And he goes, ‘I saw Evan,’ the bass player from BIOHAZARD, Evan Seinfeld, who I hadn’t spoken to in 10 years. And they had a good conversation, and it was cordial. And he basically sent a message through my brother, ‘Tell Danny I said hi.’ So a week later, I’m going on vacation. I’m feeling good. I’m going down to the beach house here in (New) Jersey with my wife and my kids, and I said to my wife, ‘Maybe I should call him’ — you know, just bury the hatchet. Who cares anymore? Like everybody, COVID and all these people dying and all this stuff, it’s, like, who the hell cares about all that old stuff that made you mad. So my wife was, like, ‘Yeah, why don’t you give him a call? Don’t be an asshole. Call him.’
“Anyway, long story short, I did call him and we spoke,” he continued. “And we just kind of buried the hatchet. And the other guys in the band, Bobby and Billy, had been speaking, and we’ve been speaking, and everybody just kind of started talking a little bit. And unfortunately, our former manager, Scott Koenig, who was out in Los Angeles, he passed away. And that was a real moment where it was, like, ‘Wow.’ Scott was with us from the beginning, and he was like a fifth member of the band. … That was in October of ’21. … I got that call. And the same week, another friend of ours from a band called DOG EAT DOG, our friend Sean Kilkenny passed away the same day as Scott. So it was two phone calls, two brothers, two great, close friends, like family, both passed at the same time. And for me, that was kind of one of those things where it’s just, like, who cares about all the negative bullshit in the past? Who cares? We’re still here. We did great stuff together. We created something cool. We should all be friends. And that was my thinking. And everyone kind of felt the same way. And that kind of was the beginning of how it started, getting the band together.”
As for the possibility of a new BIOHAZARD album, Schuler said: “Making new music wasn’t really something I was really thinking about too much, but it’s come up so much in the last few months since we’ve been talking about all this stuff. So we’ll see how it goes. There’s definitely interest there for us to do it. I just hope we can do it. I wanna be able to do it at the level we always did it at.
“I write a lot of music on my own, of course, but I’m very much into collaboration,” he explained. “I’ve always needed a partner, or partners, to really bring the best out of me, to challenge myself. And I always loved getting in a room with these guys. We’ve always come up with great stuff when we’re in the right mindset to do it. So I’m excited to get in a room with them and just let shit fly. I have the energy for it, I’m ready and I’m excited to do it, and I think they are too. So I’m hopeful that we’re gonna make something really cool and different and innovative.”
In addition to touring, BIOHAZARD has a 35th-anniversary documentary in the works containing previously unreleased footage spanning four decades.
“BIOHAZARD is an iconic band that ripped it up on the streets of New York when I lived there in the late ’80s and early ’90s, so I’m excited to be working with them to bring their pioneering hardcore sound to a new generation,” said Andy Gould (ROB ZOMBIE, PANTERA, TYPE O NEGATIVE). The band is managed by Gould and Paul Gargano and booked by Jim Morewood at the K2 Agency internationally, and Steve Sokol at Pinnacle in North America.
Stated Graziadei: “Over the years, we made some great music together and had so many incredible shows on some pretty amazing tours. After spending so much time and focus on POWERFLO and my solo project BILLYBIO, things just fell in place at the right time and I decided it was the time to recapture that energy and go kick ass again with the original lineup of BIOHAZARD with DannyBobby, and Evan!”
Added Hambel: “I’m honored to perform with the band again. I can’t wait to get onstage with the guys and do what we do! I’m looking forward to traveling and playing live. See you out there!”
Stated Seinfeld: “It’s been ten years since we all played together, and I’m in a huge place of gratitude for the opportunity to get back to the roots of BIOHAZARD and not only reconnect with the other guys, but also the fans. We’ve been through decades of madness, and it feels like the fantastic four are back together.”
Last year, Graziadei said in an interview that there had been “talk” about putting BIOHAZARD back together.
The group, which is acknowledged as one of the earliest outfits to fuse hardcore punk and heavy metal with elements of hip-hop, had been out of the public eye since Scott Roberts left the band seven years ago.
Roberts, who played guitar on BIOHAZARD‘s 2005 album “Means To An End”, rejoined the group in June 2011 as the replacement for Seinfeld. Scott fronted BIOHAZARD for nearly five years before exiting the band in February 2016.
In an August 2020 interview with the “Aftershocks” podcast, Roberts said that he left BIOHAZARD because he “wasn’t happy” anymore. “There was one guy that I wasn’t getting along with very well, and it made touring not fun anymore for me,” he said. “My reason to stick around was to make a new record that was great and I’d be proud of and all that stuff, and then it became kind of clear that wasn’t gonna happen, so I was, like, ‘What am I doing it for?’ So I quit.”
Seinfeld made his last recorded appearance with BIOHAZARD on 2012’s “Reborn In Defiance” album, which marked the first LP featuring the band’s original lineup in 18 years.
Graziadei is currently a member of POWERFLO, which also features former FEAR FACTORY bassist/guitarist Christian Olde Wolbers, Sen Dog from CYPRESS HILL, and Rogelio Lozano from DOWNSET.
Billy‘s solo project, BILLYBIO, released a new album, “Leaders And Liars”, in March 2022 via AFM Records.
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