BILLY GRAZIADEI is looking forward to working on new BIOHAZARD music
03-07-2023
In a new interview with Oran O’Beirne of Bloodstock TV, BIOHAZARD‘s Billy Graziadei was asked about the possibility of new music from the newly reunited band. He responded: “I’m a type of person who I talk about things that I did, not the things I am going to do. So I don’t talk about things that are on my plate. I’d rather show you my meal and say, ‘Cool. Let’s have a meal together. This is what I cooked up.’ But, yeah, not all of us keep the lips tight on that stuff together.
“As far as new music, I never stopped writing. Most of the early BILLYBIO stuff were BIOHAZARD songs that we weren’t doing anything, so instead of using ’em for BIOHAZARD, they became BILLYBIO,” he added, referencing his solo project. “Obviously, it’s just me singing with BILLYBIO. So I’m not stumped on material for new BIOHAZARD. That I’m looking forward to also.”
The reunited original lineup of BIOHAZARD — guitarist/vocalist Billy Graziadei, guitarist Bobby Hambel, drummer Danny Schuler and bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld — played its first show in 12 years on May 26 at the Milwaukee Metal Fest at The Rave/Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
A couple of weeks later, Seinfeld revealed some of BIOHAZARD‘s future plans in a social media post, writing that “we are going to write a new album, release a documentary film” with Drew Stone of Stone Films NYC, “create a new branded line of merchandise and of course tour of the world.”
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 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.”
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.
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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