Purveyors of: Psychedelic manliness
File next to: Kyuss, DFA 1979, Fu Manchu, Motown, Sons of Otis
Playing next: Night three of WL14 Saturday, February 15th @ Polish Combatants Hall (206 Beverly St.)

Biblical are a four-piece hard rock/deep groove outfit from Toronto who are becoming a celebrated new voice in the heavy music scene in Canada. They are comprised of some of the most resilient, unsung and skilled players in the city’s unique musical tapestry, forming a unit that is made up of vital vertebrae in the spinal column of the Toronto music scene.

Wavelength’s Mikey Crichton sat down with bassist and de-facto frontman Nick Sewell and chatted about the origins of the band, the upcoming release of their first full length album Monsoon Season [on new Dine Alone's new heavy-music imprint New Damage] and what the future holds for four guys who’ve created what is at once a refreshing, ethereal and supersonic take on “stoner rock”…

[And check out the "big-screen boogie" of Monsoon Season track "Second Sight" over at Pitchfork.]

MC: Just for the record, I’m not a journalist.

NS: Hey, don’t sell yourself short, man.

Can you tell me the origin story of Biblical?

It’s actually Matt (McLaren, guitar) and Jay (Anderson, drums) who are largely responsible. In 2009, I was playing in Sebastien Grainger’s band (Mountains) with Andy (Scott, guitar), and we had finished a pretty crazy few years of touring, and after that Seb decided that he didn’t want to do it anymore, and so for the first time since I was like 18, I wasn’t leading a band.

I was performing in the “Loving in the Name Of” band, which Matt, Jay and Andy were a part of, and they were just like, “Hey do you wanna come and mess around in the garage with us?” And so, for like six months from September through until the next spring, we would go and just have some jams in a garage space off Roxton Road.

At one point I asked them is they wanted to work on a song [which eventually became the lead-off track “Nickel and Dime”, from the first Biblical EP], which led to us starting to work on more songs.

Eventually, we had some tunes and we had to come up with a name. For whatever reason Ghostbusters was on the TV a lot that spring, and there’s that scene where Bill Murray is trying to convince the Mayor of New York to let them out of jail, and he says “Mr. Mayor, this city is headed toward a disaster of biblical proportions,” and I was like “that’s an awesome name for a band!” I took that to the guys and they said, “How about we shorten it to just Biblical?”

The double bonus is like it’s a perfect fit for what we were doing at the time.

I see you guys as being like Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, since all four of you dudes are spread out amongst so many bands over the years, forming sort of an elite line-up of supporting players from many of the city’s best bands… [Amongst them: The Illuminati, Steamboat, Loving in the Name Of, The Big Sound, The Old Soul, Mantler, Andre Ethier, Sandro Perri, Maylee Todd, Germans, Femme Fatale, The Bicycles, The Meligrove Band, etc.]

Yeah, it’s crazy how far it extends in every direction, and that’s not me, that mostly those guys. Those guys sit in and play with everyone, and they’ve been exposed to so much amazing stuff, and in a way I’m super envious of that.

So where do you fit into that whole tapestry?

I mostly played in guitar bands, you know? In the ‘90s, I used to play in this garage metal band called Tchort, and we did like four or five records, and then in 2002, that became The Illuminati for about five years. After that I played with Seb, and for a while I played with a couple of the guys from [Toronto goth punks] The Sinisters in a band called Drunkula. Aside from that, I didn’t really have the same experience as the other dudes in the band.

At the same time, in all the bands that I was involved with, I was the dude who was more of one of the primary people trying to push things forward, and most of my spare time was spent trying to make posters and working the phones.

I heard that your work ethic is really intense.

Uh-oh! Really?

I heard during the recording of your first EP, you were pushing Matt to evoke to spirit of dead soul singers for his vocal for “Eyes of Lies.”

Yeah I was like, “I WANT SCREAMING JAY!”

So with that in mind, as far as the recording of the record and the direction of this band is concerned, would you say you’re the svengali of the whole thing? Does this massive sound come from your vision?

I see myself as the dude doing some of the legwork, organizing a lot of the shit, but everyone adds their thing to it. Certainly I do all of the design for the band, so there might be an image associated with that vibe.

As far as the album is concerned, initially it was somewhat “my music” that everyone else weighed in on, but I mean I can’t see it as anything other than a collective. It’s not like “my way or the highway” or whatever. I’ll offer what I think is best, but everyone is free to go, “no, what about this…?”

What’s awesome about playing with those guys, especially as we open up the arrangements, there’s a wordless communication. When we play songs, no one knows how long it goes, but everyone knows when to come in. It could be anything, 16 bars, 32 bars. Those guys just know and it’s really cool to have that.

Yeah, I saw you guys perform at the 159 Manning NXNE barbeque and was astounded at the cohesion of this incredible force of sound. You got down onto the lawn started tearing it up with the audience. That was rad!

*Smiles*

Speaking of legwork, how did you guys end up getting signed to [Joel Carrier of Dine Alone Records’ new imprint] New Damage?

I’ve known Joel from playing in St. Catharines over the years, and he had ended up at a few of our shows. So, we finished this new record and it made it’s way to him, and it was just one of those things. He started a new label for heavy music and it seemed like a good fit.

I see a lot of people in bands putting a lot of focus on trying to establish contacts in the industry, maybe to the detriment of hunkering down and making great music just for the fun of it. It seems like what you guys are doing is pretty organic, is that accurate?

We’re lucky to have a lot of control over what we’re doing, and we’re much better off trying to make the most honest record that we can for ourselves. It’s the only way that we can do it. As far as the industry goes, the numbers are against you already, so you might as well make something that you’re going to be happy with. If nothing happens with it, at least you made what you wanted to do.

Most people in indie bands have to take on flex jobs to be able to have the freedom to tour and do what they need to do to continue with the rock’n’roll life of touring and making records. All the dudes in this band are working dudes who have been at this for well over a decade now. Is this a different scenario than other bands you’ve all been in?

Now that stuff is happening and we’ve paid our dues, we’re good. We’ve put three and a half years into this, and we’re at a much better place than before. We know how to make a record, we know how to deliver in a live setting, and with a lot of bands you might only get one of those two elements.

I’m optimistic for the first time in a long time about our new record because we have this awesome team behind us all of a sudden, where we’ve partnered with a whole bunch of people who care about our work. But at the same time, if nothing ever comes of it, we’re so proud of our record, so it’s like “check this out, you’ll like it”.

What would you like to see in the future?

We’re signed with New Damage/Dine Alone in the US, the UK and Europe, so I think the plan is just to play in all of those places, and play and play and play, and then it will be time to write the next thing.

Sounds like an awesome plan.

*Laughs* I don’t know what else to do.

Biblical play night three of Wavelength FOURTEEN, Saturday February 15 @ Polish Combatants Hall (206 Beverley St.)