By Kelley Simms
SCI-FI CHANNELING
Allegaeon, Greg Burgess (Center)
C
olorado sci-fi metal merchants,
Allegaeon, have a heavy fascination with science-based themes.
The band's research and knowledge is
reflected in its lyrics and overall sound on
its third full-length album, Elements Of The
Infinite. It's difficult for even the most
accomplished death metal band to make a
prominent mark within this genre, but
Allegaeon have seemingly grasped this
concept. There's been a cult - buzz recognizing the band since its 2010 debut
release, Fragments Of Form And Function,
and the band's secret weapon is its use of
orchestration and acoustic segments
throughout the new album. Classicallytrained guitarist Greg Burgess offers
some insight as to why he thinks the new
album will go over well in Europe where
38 illinoisentertainer.com august 2014
there is a less "core" environment than in
the US.
Mosh: Allegaeon have achieved quite a bit
(of fame) in a relatively short period of
time and there's a pretty big buzz on the
band at the moment. What do you attribute this to?
Greg Burgess: I really don't know why it
all of a sudden happened. This is our third
full-length album. We just kept going and
it's finally taking off and we're pretty
happy about it. Right now, our main
objective with this record is to become
more global. It's really hard to succeed in
multiple markets simultaneously. Usually
it's done piecemeal. We're really hoping to
get out of the US with this record. That's
still our goal but we're a little more realis-
tic this week than we were two weeks ago.
If things keep going well here in the US
then we'll keep touring here.
Mosh: Do you feel that with this album
you have finally "arrived?"
Greg Burgess: I think we've found the
right combination of people. Some people
ask why it's been taking so long, and
maybe it's just meant to be until we get the
right personalities where everybody in
the band gets along really well. The working environment is very productive and
positive.
Mosh: I think the various orchestration
and acoustic arrangements on some of the
tracks are the band's secret weapon.
Greg Burgess: It really wasn't a conscious
decision of what we needed to do, it was
more like what we really wanted to do. It
wasn't a discussion we had, I just did it.
[Our music] always had orchestration in
there, it's just been buried in the mix just
to flush out all the frequencies. It wasn't
completely new to anybody, it was just the
first time that we knew with our new
drummer (Brandon Park) we could pull it
off live. So it was a conscious decision to
make the orchestration more independent
and a little louder in the mix. Growing up
as a classical guitar player, this was just
the logical next step.
Mosh: The trade-off neoclassical solos
between yourself and Michael are jawdroppingly excellent. As a classicallytrained guitarist, what do you try to bring
to the table solo-wise?
Greg Burgess: I always say there's two
types of soloists. First, there's Dave
Gilmour of Pink Floyd, where he can say
a million things with one note and make a
lot with that one note. And on the other
end of the scale you got your Rusty
Cooleys. I could never play like Rusty
Cooley, so I found myself floating in the
middle. There are several degrees within
the two extremes of that. The Marty
Friedmans and the guys who started to
mix the two; to have a strong melodic content while putting the shredding pedigree
around the melody. I really focused on
that in my soloing. Mike (Stancel) and I
are very similar in our soloing process.
The melody is really king when it comes
to solos, to me, and hopefully I have
enough time to put melody in and then
put "quote, unquote” shred around it.
Mosh: What's your fascination with the
science fiction concept that makes up the
band's lyrics and music?
Greg Burgess: It's just something that really interested us. When we did Fragments
Of Form And Function, that whole saying
in mathematics, there were just so many
themes of science on that first record that
it seemed like the perfect fit for the record.
The