Biohazard guitarist Bobby Hambel has spoken about the bands reasons for choosing Scott Roberts as a replacement for bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld, who left the band in June, last year.
Speaking with Metalshrine, the guitarist said, “What we decided to do was basically not to overcomplicate things and panic, because we had a lot of… as you can imagine, outside influence as far as people that mean well, like people close around us or in our immediate contact, that would reach out and offer help. Everybody had a new suggestion. It was like a cold remedy.
Everybody had their own little homemade recipe for how we should continue as a band and we needed to look at each other and just keep it really simple. “Who is the most natural person to step in?” and that was Scott Roberts, and I’ll tell you why. Scott was the most natural guy because, one, we’ve known the guy forever and we’ve toured with him forever and he actually joined Biohazard playing guitar when I wasn’t in the band and he was also in a band with Danny [Schuler, drums] called Bloodclot and Scott knows all the material and the way it worked out is that when we put the original band back together for the reunion and I returned, Scott stepped right up and offered to come out on the road and tech and help us and that was just such a great thing.
That’s what friends do, you know. There were no issues with me returning to the band and him stepping aside and offering to tech. It’s the real deal; he’s like family with us! And it was great because here we have a tech who knows the material back and forth and then some things came up where a couple of us couldn’t make the show or we couldn’t make it to a gig, Scott would jump right in and help us and save the show. Scott actually had to do that a couple of times and there’s no awkwardness jamming with him. He has our groove and he knows our feel, he’s part of Biohazard in a big way. He’s already part of the crew and the immediate family so it was the most natural thing and we’re lucky enough to have a guy like that in our corner, who has our backs.”
He went onto explain why none of the fans who auditioned for the spot made the cut. “We went through a couple of things. You see, that’s what I’m talking about. Let’s go back to what I was talking about with outside influences that mean well and try to help us, Biohazard was all of a sudden getting steered into different directions.
People were saying, ‘OK, now you should just change the entire thing and add a frontman to the band and another bass player!’ and sure, ‘Why the hell not? Let’s get fucking congas and a fucking keyboard player and get some back up chicks to sing?’ and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute! We just made this record and we didn’t have any of that shit on this record, so why bother putting that kinda live band together anyway?’ first of all. Second of all, if we were gonna do something like that we really needed to give it a lot more time and energy than we were able to do, so we definitely checked out some singers and we entertained the idea and I still think it could be a really cool thing to have five guys on stage instead of four. Who knows?
We might still do something like that in the future, but right now, for all reasons just to keep this thing rolling, the one that made the most sense and the one we could definitely feel the most at ease about and definitely bank on and feel confident, was asking Scott to step in. He’s one of us and he knows all the material and he can hold it down. For the next album, if we wanna write music that has extra this or extra that and different instruments, I’m all about it. We’re all about it and we’re not into holding ourselves back and we love to experiment and find new sounds and new music.
We’re not gonna limit ourselves, but this record was done as a four-piece and I think we’re gonna go out and tour for this record. But then you have people who go, ‘You need to go out and find somebody that looks and sounds exactly like Evan!’ and then others that go, ‘You need to find somebody that doesn’t sound and look like Evan!’ or, ‘You need to find two singers and a DJ!’ How about that! It was a little fuckin’ crazy, but everything seems to be working out for the best.”
Forever the innovators, Biohazard have also announced that they will be giving away their long awaited tenth studio album, ‘Reborn In Defiance,’ in its entirety, for free. “When we started, we followed our hearts and innovated a new direction for heavy music, and today we’re doing the same,” vocalist/guitarist Billy Graziadei explains. “Technology has allowed us to find a new way to not only reach out to fans but also to thank them for their support all these years. Grab our album for free and we’ll see you on tour!”
‘Reborn In Defiance,’ will be available for free download off Revolver magazine’s web site, from January 20.