BILLY GRAZIADEI Wants To Capture BIOHAZARD's Live Energy On Upcoming Album

In a new interview with 518Scene.com, BIOHAZARD guitarist/vocalist Billy Graziadei spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's next studio album. He said: "Like always, we have this thing called the BIOHAZARD meat grinder. We all write, and we all have our ideas, and we put it through this — however they come in — they go through this meat grinder process. My solo stuff is material that's a little bit more punk and more melodic than BIOHAZARD, but it's still got the roots of what BIOHAZARD is for me, my side of it. But I think any individual song that we write doesn't become a BIOHAZARD song until we all piss in the fucking bucket, you know what I mean? It's got to have our blood, sweat, tears, piss and fucking DNA in it. And that goes through this meat grinder and we jam on it and it starts to grow and it starts to become this entity that's separate and different from how it was originally created and crafted.

"I remember when we did the first record [1990's self-titled effort], we did a lot of touring and then we wrote four songs that ended up being on 'Urban Discipline' [1992]. It was 'Punishment', 'Black And White And Red All Over', 'Shades Of Grey' and the title track. We wrote them and played them on tour: We did this awesome U.S. tour with THE EXPLOITED and we'd play them every night, and they would change. The songs would evolve. Every night we'd be, like, 'Yeah that part was fucking cool.' 'The pit went crazy for that part.' 'Yeah, let's try breaking this part down.' 'Let's try doing this.' 'Let's try shuffling these two parts around.' And those songs grew, because we played them every night. And when we came home from that tour, we went right back in the studio, finished writing for the record and recorded 'Urban Discipline', then went right back on tour. That whole process made those songs and kept the live energy pumping through our veins, which has always been the essence of BIOHAZARD that we love, and I think a lot of other people also love.

"We were never able really to capture the energy of us live on a record, in my opinion, to a full 100 percent. I think the only record that really came close was ironically the last record we did together, called 'Reborn In Defiance' [2012], but on that record we went through some turmoil and it kind of shines on that one too. So, where we're at is keeping that energy alive and working our knowledge, our experience, our inspiration into that, bundled up with that energy, and putting that on vinyl or digital."

The first reunion gig from Graziadei, guitarist Bobby Hambel, drummer Danny Schuler and bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld took place on May 26, 2023 at the Milwaukee Metal Fest at The Rave/Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Regarding how the BIOHAZARD reunion came together, Graziadei told Ace Annese of Reality Check TV at the seventh annual Metal Hall Of Fame gala, which took place on January 24 at the Marriott Delta hotel in Garden Grove, California:  "When we first came up with the idea, our manager Scott Koenig and lifelong friend, who passed away, the last conversation I had with Scott, he said to me, 'Put that bullshit aside. Put the band back together,'" he recalled. "I have a band with Sen Dog from CYPRESS HILL and Christian [Olde Wolbers] from FEAR FACTORY; it's called POWERFLO; I do solo [music]. And I was, like, 'You know what? Nah, man.' And Scott passed the next day. I saw Evan at the Rainbow [in West Hollywood] for Scott's memorial, and I went up to him and said 'hi'. I gave him a hug. And I said, 'I wish it was under better circumstances.' And that was the beginning. So I think a lot of this is Scott — Scott was the catalyst to make this happen. I know he's looking over this being proud as fuck."

Billy continued: "So, at first, we were, like, 'Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be a great thing to play the old songs again.' And then it worked. The first show was Milwaukee Metal Fest, which is a great thing done by Jamey Jasta from HATEBREED. That show rocked. Then we played New York two nights, and those shows were on fire. And we were, like, 'Wow, this is fucking amazing.' So we kept doing it. We went on tour, and we were, like, 'Okay, something will probably happen. Some argument about something in the past will come up and it'll be over after six months.' It never happened. Then we started talking about new music, sharing ideas and now we're working on a new record. And we're back."

Asked if BIOHAZARD already has any new music recorded, Billy said: "Of course. I have a [recording studio]… [But it's] not ready [to be released]. It's not done yet."

Pressed about whether BIOHAZARD fans can expect to hear some new material from the band this year, Billy said: "A hundred percent. I haven't talked about this yet, so you're the first to hear this."

Earlier in the month, Schuler told That Fuzzing Rock Show about the possibility of new music from BIOHAZARD: "I don't know what the band sounds like now. I know what we sound like live, and I think we sound really good live. We've definitely gone back to not giving a fuck about anything except having fun, which is really healthy for us. We're not sweating the small stuff, I guess you would say. And we just we just wanna have fun. So, when we're having fun is when we do our best shit. So, we just go and do our thing and it sounds like us. And for me, that's a great thing, 'cause I love the way the band sounds.

"As far as what our new music is gonna sound like, I have no idea," he continued. "I don't know, once the band comes together and we start jamming on all the stuff that we have, how it's gonna evolve, but I know where my head is at and I know what I wanna do, but I can't speak for the other three guys. I'm hoping we do a real old-school, real-deal BIOHAZARD record.

"There's so many great new bands out there who have taken elements of things that us and a lot of other bands from back then kind of did, there's a lot of bands now who have taken a lot of those elements and do it really, really well — way better than we could ever do it," he explained. "So I don't wanna try to compete, try to outdo all these new bands, because they do a different kind of heavy. I think a lot of it's created in the studio with technology. Some of them sound great live, but I don't wanna compete with those kind of bands, because they're so fucking heavy and over the top.

"I know what we can do and I know what we can pull off live at a show for real. And I think we're gonna make a fucking awesome record that's gonna be great," Danny added. "But until that actually happens, I don't fucking know. Anything could happen. Definitely the vibe in the band is definitely like it was in the beginning. That's for sure."

Last August, BIOHAZARD confirmed that it was working on new music.

"The inspiration's coming from these shows," Bobby told Le Coin Metal in an interview. "Being back together, celebrating and doing all these shows, it's great. We're having a good time, but now we're getting the vibe from the crowd and we're feeling it, and it's getting in our bones. We're getting that hunger and the ideas are starting to come out off of these shows."

Added Billy: "For me, it's kind of cool because the other reason I did [my solo project] BILLYBIO is because there was no BIOHAZARD, and the songs that I would've been showing these guys just [ended up] BILLYBIO songs. So being back with these guys is, like… It's cool to have another outlet for my music."

In 2022, 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 eight 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 Christian Olde Wolbers (FEAR FACTORY),Sen Dog (CYPRESS HILL) and Rogelio Lozano (DOWNSET).

Billy's solo project, BILLYBIO, released a new album, "Leaders And Liars", in March 2022 via AFM Records.