Dead Rhetoric: I know there is a place to submit auditions for your next bassist – have you started weeding through it yet?
Burgess: We have a couple people in mind. The Patreon killed a lot of the momentum with that so we were waiting until that died – which it now has – before we launched back into it. We need to do it, because we are coming up on Corey’s last day…Andrew [Grevey] from Wretched is going to be filling in until then. I’m in no hurry because I want to find the right guy. It’s really funny because we asked people to fill out an application process and do the audition and people are doing one or the other. I don’t think anyone has done both! The application is kind of a personality test but there’s the technical aspect too. We aren’t just losing a bass player, we are losing an incredible business guy. I think we are both upset about losing Corey’s personality and the way he thinks more than the bass player.
McShane: There’s a million bass players but there’s only one Corey, and that’s the saddest part. He thinks in such a different way than we do.
Burgess: The things that are so cut and dry to him – we would never think of in a million years. For example, we were in Dunkin Donuts and he was making fun of the coffee cups. We said, “There’s yellow, pink, and blue…they can’t say Splenda? What kind of people are working here?” And he’ll say, “It’s probably a contractual thing because they are trademark logos.” How do you get that from a coffee cup?
McShane: I would have just said, “Oh it’s funny because they can’t remember Splenda. Trademark logo? What? Jesus, we are going to miss you [Corey].” The business aspect never turns off. For some people it’s the type of thing when you learn how to go into those business talks and you adapt. But for him, it’s natural – the switch doesn’t turn off. It’s how he thinks.
Burgess: He is literally one of the greatest tour managers we’ve ever seen. And not just for us. There’s a reason that the Act of Defiance guys, who were in Megadeth, hired him. He’s really good. He’s so organized – he’s got the business brain. He knows advancing and payouts – it’s just second nature to him. That’s the worst part about losing Corey is losing his mind. Oh, and he has a very large penis! It fell out of his pants in Kansas City…
McShane: It was like, you didn’t want to look at it but it was so impressive you were just like…god damn! Well done!
Burgess: So he has that going for him. But that’s not a pre-requisite for being our bass player or anything.
McShane: Yeah it is…he’s lying. There’s hidden text – if you highlight the whole application, in hidden text at the bottom, it says, “P.S. send a dick pic”
Dead Rhetoric: You realize you are going to get some of those with the applications now if people read this…
McShane: Please, don’t send us dick pics…please God.
Burgess: Well, Corey is the one choosing, so send dick pics! It will be our final prank! [Laughter]
Dead Rhetoric: Did I hear correctly that you had recorded a second Rush cover as well? Is it going to be released at some point as well?
Burgess: Absolutely – it’s actually getting released to the Patreon people before anyone else. Metal Blade was totally on it – doing a special 7” for the Patreon people. Everyone will get it, but the Patreon folks will get it long before everyone else. Metal Blade is stoked about doing it, and they really believe in what we are doing. They said in 5 years, there will be a lot more bands doing it [Patreon], and all the shit that we got, we’ll be looked at as pioneers. Which is really nice when you are getting kicked in the teeth.
Dead Rhetoric: Do you feel that with the fourth album, you have hit a certain benchmark? You said that you felt that you had a large enough fanbase to be able to pull off the Patreon – are you at the level that you had hoped to accomplish?
Burgess: No, I’m never happy [laughs]. I always think we can do better – not so much in terms of the size of our fanbase…who wouldn’t like to be bigger? I don’t feel that we are entitled to that by any means. For us, as a creative entity, I am super excited to see what we are going to do when Riley is the writing process from the beginning. We’ve already sent him some material. One thing that I’m a believer in, is that whenever you have a line-up change, it’s an opportunity to bring in something better than what you had.
So if I have to bring in someone new, it’s going to be an improvement in what we have. And that’s not saying anything negative about Corey at all, because he’s an amazing bass player…but the person who is going to take his place is going to be a step above that. Corey busts his ass to be in Allegaeon, and if someone has a different skill-set and they don’t have to bust their ass, and it comes naturally – when someone else comes in, they have different influences and in what they bring to it, you get better as a whole. This one guy, who is a frontrunner right now, writes a bunch of solo stuff and it’s very Cynic-like with his voicings and stuff like that. That is just amazing, and to do something like that with Allegaeon would be awesome.
McShane: As far as the fanbase growth goes though, I’ve definitely heard from a lot of people recently…now that the album has had a few months to settle in, that it’s the first thing that they have heard from Allegaeon. They are like, “It inspired me to go back through the back catalog.” So I definitely think the new album is reaching a new audience and it definitely has different elements to it, in the writing, for listeners to enjoy from a different perspective. It’s like Greg said, who wouldn’t like to be a bigger band? There’s always room to grow, but this album has definitely helped to expand the threshold of people that show interest in Allegaeon.
Dead Rhetoric: When I talked to you guys at [Saint] Vitus last year, you had mentioned that this album [Proponent for Sentience] was going to be more melodic and the next one [Album 5] was going to be heavier. Are you still going in that direction?
Burgess: There’s definitely elements of that. We never want to do the standard melodic death metal thing where every chorus is sung. I think I said that last time too…if we do it, I really like how Opeth did it before they went all cleans. There’s going to be darker stuff – we have so many songs left over from Proponent that we already have over 10 songs done. Ultimately what I’d like to do is a double record. I have a concept for a double record that is pretty intense. The story would span over two records…I’m not going to even tell you, because I don’t want someone to steal my idea [laughs]! It’s an awesome concept and very science-related.
McShane: The details of the concept entertain the idea of having a lot of really heavy stuff and a lot of really melodic stuff.
Burgess: Both sides of it play into the story and what’s going on, with string theory. I will say that!
McShane: On the same kind of note, as the new vocalist, I am always going to write appropriately to the part. If Greg sends me something that is a super heavy chorus, then I’m not going to sing over it just because it’s a chorus. Likewise, if he sends me something akin to “Cognitive Computations,” and nothing else would fit but cleans…I’m not going to leave it blank or force screams over it just because. I am always going to write appropriate to the part, and I think that has been talked about between us, so there’s not an oversaturation of any one sound. It will be dynamically sound from my perspective.
Burgess: The one thing that I really loved about Proponent was how easy it was to work together. If it wasn’t working, we sat in a room and made suggestions. It just makes for a better product. It’s not formulaic at all – it’s constantly exploring.
Dead Rhetoric: So what’s next for Allegaeon once you are done with this tour?
Burgess: We have another tour lined-up for next year that we can’t talk about yet. We are running PR for the bass player thing, and keeping up some momentum on Patreon. Obviously, writing a new album. We are playing on doing a co-headlining tour through Canada next year. We don’t know who will go with us yet but we are planning on doing that. We have secured Avocado [Booking] as an agent for Europe, so that is on the docket to finally go. That’s all that we have right now, but that would be a tour coming up in February and March, Europe, and the Canada thing – that’s a good chunk of touring before we’d have to start writing.
McShane: Staying busy, keeping the ball rolling – that’s our plan.