It’s been four years since groove metal band Byzantine released Oblivion Beckons, their last album before disbanding. However, it was announced today that not only is their classic lineup (including guitarist Tony Rohrbough who didn’t take part in the 2010 reunion) reuniting, but is also working on a new self-financed album.
Byzantine singer/ guitarist Chris Ojeda revealed the following in a statement posted on the band’s Facebook page:
“We’ve all kept in contact through the past few years and have worked on each other’s projects as well. With our guitarist Tony moving back to WV from NC, we decided it would be a perfect opportunity to hang out again and jam. Before we knew it, we were tossing around riffs and song ideas and realized we had what seemed to be the foundation for a pretty kick ass Byzantine album.
We are not focusing on playing live just yet. We all still live pretty far away from each other and have family and career obligations to meet. Our focus right now is to put together a real nice collection of songs that we and our fans can be proud of. Doing it on a smaller budget will be a little harder but it will be fun to take our time and be able to be creative on our own terms.”
The band’s statement also revealed that they would be using Kickstarter to help find financial resources for the album, stating the following:
“Since Byzantine is no longer tied to any record company, the band has decided to finance the recording of their 4th CD independently. The band will record most of the music themselves alongside engineer/producer and Gizmachi guitarist Jason Hannon of 7 over 8 Studios. Vocal tracking will be handled by Byzantine’s longtime engineer Aaron Fisher at 101 Studios. Ojeda states that no time frame has been set for the release and no show dates have been set.
In the meantime, Byzantine has decided to enlist the help of Kickstarter.com for the financing of the album. Kickstarter is the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. It will allow the fans of Byzantine to help back the release of their new album through donations. Donations will be set up on a tier program and each tier will have incentives packages such as signed CD’s, back stage passes, official sheet music and early digital downloads, etc.”
At this moment, Byzantine have reached $ 1,171 of their $5,000 goal. It’s pretty cool to see a band, especially one as well admired as Byzantine, use online media to finance the recording of an album. You can find out more information about how to help Byzantine finance the new album via their Kickstarter page.
[Thanks Alan for bringing this to our attention]
