Buried Shallow are a relatively young death core meets hard core metal band from Perth, with a sound that hits you like an onslaught of punishment from the very first riffs. Stephanie Jewell continued her Stormrider Series and sat down to chat with Mark, Googz and Brett who were busy rehearsing ahead of playing the Stormrider Heavy Metal Festival next weekend. Buried Shallow are Mark Honey (guitar), Brett Dunsire (bass), Charlie White (vocals) Matt Crossley (drums) and Googz (guitar).
Steph: Tell me about yourselves?
Brett: My name is Brett Dunsire, I play bass in Buried Shallow
Mark: My name is Mark, I play guitar in Buried Shallow
Googz: I’m Googz and I play the other guitar in the same band.
Steph: Awesome, thanks for being here! Tell me about Buried Shallow, how did it birth from the earth and come to be?
Mark: Well, I got a message from our vocalist who isn’t here today because he lives in the wheatbelt and all it said was ‘I really want to be in a band with you bro’. And I sent back like a 14 year old school kid getting into his first relationship, ‘I want to be in a band with you too!’. So that’s how it started, and then we got Googz on board and we brought Matt and Brett in to fill out the band and its been happiness ever since. That was two years ago, that I got that message from Charlie, probably.
Steph: What would you say have been the highlights of Buried Shallow as a band, in that two year period?
Mark: Playing shows in New South Wales was probably a big highlight for me.
Brett: For sure. Last years’ Stormrider was great fun too, incredible crowd and yeah, had a great time, so really happy to be back on the bill this year, for sure.
Mark: Hopefully this years’ Stormrider will be the same.
Brett: Hopefully it will be even better!
Steph: What is Buried Shallow currently working on?
Mark: We are currently working on about five new tracks, and so we are gearing up to start recording for them. Basically, just getting ready for Stormrider
Steph: What is the writing process for writing tracks, how does it work with your singer living hours away?
Googz: It’s a bit of everything. Sometimes Mark will bring complete songs, or sometimes we bring random riffs, and we will work on them together. We don’t really have a set formula for it but either Brett or Mark will just be like ‘how about this?’ and we will either work on that or that will be a complete song or yeah. There is no real format.
Brett: Yeah, I was just going to say generally we might come with demos, but they obviously aren’t going to be exactly like that when we finish with them, we might come with ideas but for sure we kind of flesh it out in the jam room. And Charlie gets those kinds of demos and has the vocal ideas and then we kind of put it together. The last rehearsal we had was the first time we’ve heard Charlie put lyrics to one of our newer songs. We give them funny names; this one is called ‘The Samoan’ just because he is a big boy. It is quite exciting actually, because we don’t get to hear the songs until he comes. And the first time we all rehearse it together, he is giving us the first actual hearing of the song, so yeah.
Googz: It is kind of distracting
Brett: Yeah, you are just trying to play the songs
Googz: Normally when we record our stuff, like when you record it on your own and trying to lay down the actual demo track… Or not even the demo track, but lay down your guitars or drums or whatever, you don’t have the vocal kind of trigger points. Especially the ones where you stop or what not, it’s kind of the opposite of that. We are used to not having that and used to playing it without him. Then all of a sudden, he rocks up and stands there! And I am like ‘what was that?!’
Mark: Sometimes he will send me a message like ‘send me a new song bro’ and then I will send him a new song or something I have been working on he will just turn it into something amazing
Brett: Its really cool, Charlie is quite unique, and he does put new melodies and different things. He doesn’t do the same kind of thing every time, so it is like I said, pretty exciting for us actually and kind of cool. And he is going to move closer to us soon I believe, moving to the big smoke of Northam. Its still an hour away but better than the wheatbelt, in Dowerin or Wyalkatchem. He has moved around a bit, and its two and a half hours or something for him to get to my place because I live out east, so I am a bit closer.
Mark: He is a shearer, so he has to work out there.
Steph: That is a bit of a trek! How did you all get started in music?
Mark: I guess when I was a kid in high school, I got really excited about the Sex Pistols and The Ramones and I guess old school punk rock pushed me into playing guitar. And then that little journey found its way to Metallica ‘Kill ‘Em All’ and Pantera and then I decided yeah, I am going to play metal forever.
Brett: Similar story here, but I guess to my family, my cousin kind of got me into Metallica but more ‘Black’ album when it first came out when I was a young kid, well not that young. Anyway, then getting into the earlier stuff and same, Metallica and Pantera kind of got me into the heavier stuff like Morbid Angel and Deicide. It kind of opened everything for me. As far as getting into it myself, when I was 14 or 15, I had a number of friends, a best mate who was a drummer and that kind of inspired me. I had other mates who played guitar already and I thought okay, I had better get into it. When I was 15 I started picking it up and I dedicated a lot of time when I was younger. I can’t dedicate that kind of time now as an adult. But I still have great memories of how dedicated I was, falling asleep with a guitar in my hands, because that was the kind of level of passion I had for it. I did lose that for a long time, but I am glad to be back into it. I only got back into music maybe five years ago, and I hadn’t played in bands for like 15 years. I have such a great time, and its great to be here with the boys today and rehearsing. We have such a good time playing our songs, and I really enjoy our music. You don’t always get blessed with that, so I am very, very thankful that I am in a band with the guys that I am with and the music that we write. I love it!
Googz: My story is kind of odd because nobody else in my family can play anything and they don’t play anything. I was looking through my Mum’s photo album and my Dad’s parents’ photo album and since I could walk, I had either a poxy little ukulele or a little acoustic something walking around with in my hands. Just kind of butchering it pretty severely. I think a few times in primary school I did music classes. I moved schools a lot because my dad was in mining. It got to a point where you had to play in front of people, I just got stage fright. I didn’t want to play in front of people. But then I went through something a few years ago just before I joined my other band, my first ever band. And I knew I needed something to get me out of this slump. I thought I am just going to try this and if its shit, its shit, if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work. And that’s when I met Brett and Jaime, and I joined a band we were in before. The first time we ever played a gig it was at Market City Tavern and there were people betting. It is probably one of my favourite gigs though because there was maybe three or four people there and just our little group of friends. We were on this poxy crate kind of stage, and there was this guy betting on Belmont Race 7 like ‘come on, you bastards’. We were trying to crank out our tunes. I had to go out and have a little freak out on my own about fifteen minutes before we went on, I just sat there and started shaking. Now though – its like when you book in to get a tattoo. Its that kind of nervous butterflies feeling you get just beforehand, I am probably addicted to that now.
Steph: For reference, Googz and Mark are covered in tattoos, Brett do you have tattoos too?
Brett: I don’t have any tattoos
Mark: Brett and Matt have none, but myself, Googz and Charlie are covered in them, Googzy has the most
Googz: I am covered in them now, I did a few of them myself actually. I did my hands myself, some on my legs. I brought a tattoo gun, don’t buy a tattoo gun! When you look it up on YouTube, it says ‘do not tattoo yourself, unless you have done 150 freehand tattoos on this fake skin shit’. Well, I did three! And I was like ‘Ha, how hard is this? How bad can it be?’.
Mark: He spelt his name wrong on his leg
Steph: So, can we expect some free tattoos at Stormrider then?
Googz: Oh sure! As long as you get Buried Shallow on your forehead! Cheeks, face, all about the face. I don’t have any face tattoos, that was the one stipulation when I started getting them, my Dad said ‘nothing below the elbows’ and that didn’t work. So, after a while he said ‘nothing on the face’ and I thought ‘yeah alright, I can live with that.’
Steph: Have you played in any interesting venues since Market City Tavern? What has been your favourite venue or location that Buried Shallow have played?
Googz: I think my favourite venue to date has got to be Badlands; it is such a shame that that place shut because everything about that place was good. It sounded good, everyone could see the stage easily, it was just good. Especially when it was packed. Because it is so out of the way, if you could pick Badlands up and drop it into the heart of Northbridge, it would be choc-a-block. But because you had to go so far out of the way to get to it, and there was a methadone clinic next door, but they just shut doors and it’s a massive shame. Because when you have got a favourite venue and you have got a gig coming up, you get so psyched up about it. I mean, every gig we get a little bit chuffed about but when you are going to Badlands, or Amps… I like playing at Amps. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Convenients. You get a bit scorned when you get psyched for a gig and then it sounds really shit and your guitar is cutting in and out, and the sound guy is trying to do his best, but he is mincing it.
Mark: You couldn’t hear yourself; it was rough.
Brett: I think now that we have invested in the in-ear rig, it makes it a lot easier for us that we can have our own audio, and we don’t have to worry about front of house monitoring and all of that kind of stuff. That is absolutely what influenced us with why we like some venues. Badlands and the monitoring there was incredible.
Googz: We went to Sydney and played at a place called ‘Elton Chongs’. As soon as we walked in there, the place was covered in graffiti and stickers.
Brett: And grimy.
Googz: When you walk in, its just a bar and an eating area. We thought where the hell are we supposed to set our shit up? The guy was just like ‘right here boys!’ and its just on the floor. ‘Right in the middle here’ and he goes ‘you have all got wireless, don’t you? Don’t feel like you have to stay here, you can walk in there, you can jump on the bar, you can go outside’, we were just like ‘okay! This is going to be awesome!’ We had the crowd out on the street.
Mark: The owner said to me, ‘we want you to trash the place’ and I said, ‘what?’ She goes ‘yeah, nah, just trash the place’.
Brett: They were very, very cool
Mark: We just said ‘okay!’
Brett: We were out on the street playing, we were up on the bar, whatever you want. That was cool.
Mark: Penrith is f*cking loose! Penrith is the loosest place I have ever played.
Steph: What were the crowds there like?
Brett: They were going off
Mark: It was a little venue, and no one knew who we were because we were from WA, but they just got into it. It was a small crowd; small venue and it was a floor show. The bands that we played with had played there before and they knew what to do. The singer from one of our favourite bands that we played with over there, Bury Me, smashed his head open with a microphone.
Brett: It was intense!
Mark: And they sounded good, and they killed it and they made a mess, everything was perfect!
Brett: It set the standard for the night, that’s for sure.
Mark: Yeah! And all I thought was f*ck, we have got to follow that?!
Googz: Its like when you go to a friends’ house, when you are 13 or 14, and you go to their house for dinner, and you kind of see how your friend acts, and that’s what you go off? Watching them go off, on before us, was like ‘woah, okay!’ We can go harder than that!
Brett: We couldn’t have had a better time in Sydney, the people we met and the shows that we played, it was fantastic. I absolutely love Sydney, it was amazing.
Mark: One of my favourite venues was The Factory Theatre.
Brett: Except for that one point during one of our songs, they completely muted front of house monitors!
Mark: The sound guy fell asleep on the desk
Brett: No one knew what happened for about 10 seconds, and that feels like an eternity when you are on stage. We were going off! But watching it back on video, its just dead silence. Except the drums!
Mark: Because we had in-ears in, so to us it sounded great! We thought we are killing this!
Brett: There is the fear that that happens, but oh well, what can you do? Everyone seemed to have a great time and great feedback.
Googz: Everyone just thought it was the lamest drum solo ever, like ‘they stopped for that?’
Brett: They’re going off for no reason here!
Mark: I think it was at that point that we realised, and thought wow, Matt is so much better than us! He is so clean all the time!
Brett: Drums are incredibly important!
Steph: What can we expect from Buried Shallow at Stormrider Festival?
Mark: Well hopefully not the sound cutting out!
Brett: Nah, we are just rehearsing today, and we are tight as. We are really excited to play, and we don’t get to actually rehearse with Charlie much because he is in the wheatbelt, so one more rehearsal next week, getting tighter.
Googz: We do aim to get Matt on the acoustic kit. So, a couple of weeks before we do live shows, we normally rehearse at Brett or Mark’s because they have got a studio in their house. Leading up to a gig, we like getting Matt on the acoustic kit so he gets a feel for it. It is kind of his call as well, he will say ‘oh boys, I wouldn’t mind getting to Vision Studios a few weeks before hand just to tighten it up a little bit’.
Brett: There is a big difference between an e-kit and a real kit. Matt has got all these cool flourishes and ghost notes and all that kind of stuff. You don’t the difference until you get him on a real drum kit with all the cymbal accents and stuff. He is a pretty cool drummer; Matt blows me away.
Steph: Do you notice the sound change between an electric drum kit versus a real drum kit?
Brett: Absolutely, its those little accents that he does, those little cymbal accents and ghost notes on the snares, and he just takes them to another level. You kind of get the basics on an e-kit and then when you get a live kit you realise how much it makes an impact.
Mark: I have been playing music with Matt since I was 15 years old, so we learnt our instruments together. I was like ‘I will learn guitar, you learn drums, we will find some other loser to learn bass’. And then me and Matt have been in several bands together. We grew up in Kalgoorlie together and in Kalgoorlie you are down the road from everyone. So it was like a 15 minute pushbike ride away. Been playing with Matt forever and just watching him get better and better and it doesn’t stop. You are just watching him grow as a drummer constantly, from week to week you are like ‘that was cool’. Then you hear him the next week and you are like ‘that was cooler’.
Brett: That tasty roll he added to the end of ‘The Samoan’ was so awesome
Mark: He killed it today!
Brett: He has got great hands!
Steph: How did you guys become involved with Stormrider?
Mark: Well, when we started Buried Shallow, we did a photo shoot and then the guy who took our photos – shout out Vin – he thought they were cool and wanted to release them. So, I had to start a Facebook page and get a logo. I actually messaged Stu and hadn’t really talked to him too much at that point, but I messaged him, and I said ‘bro, I need a logo’. And he goes ‘got you’ and he just sent me the logo guy who does his stuff. And then from then on me and Stu just kept messaging. We were actually supposed to be on the Stormrider Festival lineup the year before, but we had our first gig booked, so we couldn’t turn down a gig that someone has already put us on, we can’t pull out now. So, we ended up playing the next one and now we are playing this one. Stu has been, since I started Buried Shallow, Stu has been an incredible friend. He has also been an incredible help. He got us the logo guy, he sorted us out with new merch, shout out Merch Raven.
Brett: We are really, really happy with our shirts and our hoodies, they look incredible.
Googz: Before I joined my last band, I tried out for Baby Suspect. I met Luke and all the boys, and they are all great
Brett: Shout out Luke
Googz: He is a legend. And then when I met these guys we were talking about triggers and samples and all these things and I said, ‘oh yeah, ask Luke’ and they went ‘oh you know Luke?’ and I said ‘yeah’. So we went to Amps, Luke is there, and I said, ‘Luke this is Brett’ and we were talking for ages and then Brett was just like ‘why are you being so nice to us?’ Because everyone was pricks to us when we first started and nobody wanted to help anybody up, but I think there has been a big shift in the scene, where people are just nice. A lot of the time, you go there, and we know every band that we go and watch. And its good to see them play good and sound good, they are your friends up there and you want to see them do well. I think that maybe before when you are first in the scene, people were like ‘what’s this kind of metal, core metal, f*ck them guys’
Brett: I think it did become ‘sceney’ a long time ago, but there is nothing but love now, I find, with every band. And Luke, he supported us, both me and Googz, and really supported us for this band. He really helped us, and helped to get us to where we are. Getting us gigs and everything like that. I think without the support of other local bands, we would have never been involved with Stormrider. Stu is an incredibly nice guy, and we are very thankful to have met him and his support is amazing. Shout out to Stu.
Googz: It gives you some kind of validation as well when people hit you up and have obviously seen you play live before and say hey would you guys want this spot? When we get those texts or Facebook messages, it kind or makes you think… well we like our music, but if someone else is hitting us up and reached out to us, and asking us to play shows with them… We haven’t really reached out to anyone and said ‘we are looking for gigs’. People just hit you up then bang, its ‘do you guys want to do this one, or that one?’. Its like oh okay, the gigs are coming in! That’s good, it means what we are putting out is getting well received.
Mark: We haven’t put on a show yet, we have just played everyone else’s!
Brett: We need to do that!
Mark: Yeah, we need to do that, we should do that, do our own show and repay the favour soon!
Steph: What is next for Buried Shallow?
Brett: Yeah, I think we are looking at doing a single next, put out our EP, and I think for the moment we might look at singles and then a video. When we do that, we will definitely put on a show.
Mark: Its time
Brett: Nothing finalised yet
Steph: Who are you most looking forward to seeing on the Stormrider Festival lineup?
Brett: I think Silent Knight for me
Googz: I am keen to check out some of the over east bands, I have given a few of them a listen to, Orpheus Omega
Mark: Orpheus Omega sound sick
Googz: You hear what they sound like on Spotify, but you don’t really get a feel for someone unless you really see them actually play live. That’s what one of the guys said when we went to Sydney, before the Factory gig, ‘are you guys Buried Shallow from WA?’ He goes ‘oh man I have heard of your music and I have driven two hours, I just want to see how well you sound live’ And I thought wow, he has driven two hours to see us, shit, the pressure is on!
Mark: Who put this beer here?
Brett: Tip this export out
Steph: Speaking of, have you had any weird fan interactions besides someone driving two hours to see you play?
Googz: A few random ones where I have been at my local pub and people have been like ‘hey, I seen you guys play the other week, you’re Googz right, from Buried Shallow?’ And I am like ‘oh f*ck, yeah I am’. Its not like there is a huge underground Perth metal scene going on, but it is a spin out when someone does spot you or recognize you or tell you they like your stuff. Or even private message you and tell you they listened to your songs on Spotify and like it.
Brett: When we were in Sydney, a couple of people came up to me and were like ‘hey can we get a photo with you? We love your stuff’ and its like, how amazing is that. It’s incredible.
Mark: Every now and then I will be driving down the freeway and I have got a Buried Shallow sticker on the back of my car and –
Brett: Beep, beep, beep, beep!
Mark: I’ll be driving along with my window down and all I will hear is beep, beep, beep, beep and some random dude with a beard is screaming ‘Buried Shallow, f*ck yeah!’
Googz: Guilty! I told everybody I know, if you see a car with a Buried Shallow sticker, you have got to beep and yell out at them.
Mark: Oh really
Googz: Yeah, it’s awesome
Steph: Is it a little sticker?
Mark: Its huge, its massive, it’s the only one of those stickers in existence.
Steph: Speaking of massive, if you guys could have any five bands on a line up, who would you pick?
Mark: I got you. Chelsea Grin, Slaughter to Prevail, then I would go Parkway Drive, I Killed the Prom Queen reunion show, and who would I go for the last one? Maybe Thy Art Is Murder. That way we have got two or three Aussie bands in there. Imagine a Prom Queen reunion show?
Brett: I am not disagreeing with your bands, but maybe Suicide Silence would be cool. Whitechapel, I have got quite a lot of bands, I could think of a million.
Googz: I would chuck in the original lineup of Pantera, only because I had an offer for a free ticket when they came over for a tour. I had messed up because just before, my parents grounded me and were like ‘you are not going anywhere’. I couldn’t believe it, I tried everything and tried to beg my Mum like it’s a free ticket. I was in Harvey at the time, I had a ride there, a place to stay, I said can I go? And she was just staunch. I was 16.
Brett: I went to a tour, and it was incredible, right at the front of the pit and got to be only 12 feet from Dimebag, an incredible experience
Googz: What happened is devastating but for his brother to sit behind a drum kit and watch Dimebag get shot would be terrible. My mum picked me up from work the day it happened and said ‘Googz, I don’t know if you have heard this but some drummer from Panthera went crazy and shot the guitarist.’ I said, ‘that makes no sense at all Mum’. So, I went home and watched the news, and it was just crazy. But I met Vinnie Paul and said I was sorry about it and he went ‘that’s okay, brother’.
Steph: On that note, how would you describe Buried Shallow, do these bands you have mentioned heavily influence how you sound?
Mark: I have described us as drunken groove core before.
Brett: That sounds about right.
Mark: We are a bunch of bogans; we play groove metal with core influences. So, it’s almost a mix between death core with death core riffs in there, metal core riffs, there is a lot of groove. We don’t stop grooving.
Googz: If you chuck four genres into a blender, you might get Buried Shallow.
Mark: And then add a sprinkle of ADHD and we’re sweet!
Googz: We are keen to play Stormrider and can’t wait to see all of the bands live. Get down and support local metal music
Mark: Its always cool to play with the guys in VANTA, we play a lot of shows with them and we will continue to do that because they are such fun guys.
A very big thank you to Buried Shallow and Stu from Stormrider Touring. Be sure to get along to Stormrider Heavy Metal Festival, happening Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th August 2024 at Amplifier over both nights, celebrating Stormrider’s 10 year anniversary. You can catch Buried Shallow playing on the Stormrider stage on the Saturday night. Tickets available here.
You can follow Buried Shallow: @Buried_Shallow | Website | Spotify | TikTok | Facebook |
Photos: Supplied by band
