Mr. Bison introduced their brand of heavy blues influenced by groups like Captain Beyond, Jimi Hendrix and the more recent Motorpsycho and Clutch.

Formed in Leghorn/Pisa (Italy), after their debut in 2012 with ‘We’ll Be Brief’ and ‘Asteroid’ in 2016, the band firmly established itself in 2018 with ‘Holy Oak’, which suddenly brought them touring all over Europe and the USA. This was followed by a US run that saw them perform at the great Planet Desert Festival in Las Vegas. ‘Seaward’ is the culmination of a full year’s hard labor. What’s next for them?

“The sea is the greatest source of inspiration”

Mr. Bison has been active for a few years now, releasing quite a few great albums. Would you like to talk a bit about your background? When and how did you all originally meet?

Matteo Barsacchi: In 2008 I wrote some songs and decided to play with a couple of friends from the city. We started as a side project and immediately understood that we have a good feeling and the songs were born very easily. We started playing rock and roll contaminated by stoner rock. Although in Italy at that time stoner music was almost completely unknown, during our live show, the audience was very excited! This surprised us a lot and we therefore decided to abandon our musical projects to dedicate ourselves to Mr. Bison. After an EP and the first album ‘We’ll be brief’, there was a line up change due to different views. From the second album, ‘Asteroid’ on, Matteo Sciocchetto on guitar and vocals and Matteo D’Ignazi on drums and sound effects joined the band. Unlike the musicians of the first line up, who were more influenced by stoner music and 90’s, the two Matteo’s, excellent musicians, have a more 70’s background. I too have a passion for 70s music. The band started to evolve, adding many 70s influences. The album ‘Holy Oak’ was the first step between stoner and new influences. Curious to explore the world of progressive, and the vocal harmonic solutions of the Golden Era like The Beatles, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, we decided to forg ‘Seaward’. That was truly the culmination of a full year’s hard labor. It was released in October 2020 via Subsound and Ripple Music. ‘Seaward’ is arguably the most blazing, powerful and eclectic album yet by us.

How did you decide to name your band Mr. Bison?

The name was born by chance one evening when me and Francesco – the bassist (the first months we also had the bass) played in the 80’s Street Fighters, thought about the name for the band. We liked the name of Mr. Bison, the last character to fight in the game and his role as a boss of a criminal organization named Shadaloo with an amazing insignia of a winged skull with a lightning bolt on the hat.

“‘Seaward’ is a concept album”

‘Seaward’ is your latest album. What’s the story behind it?

We live in front of the Tuscan archipelago. We love the sea, … walk and listen to the sound of the waves, especially in Winter. The sea is the greatest source of inspiration for us and the perfect place to write music. We’ve done a lot of research to identify this theme. When we found this legend we immediately realized that it would be perfect to represent the music and our ideas. ‘Seaward’ is a concept album and it draws inspiration from the sea and from the legend of the 7 pearls of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The legend tells that Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, leaving the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea proceeding towards the mainland to meet Eros, trying to adjust the necklace donated by Paris, broke the necklace, letting 7 pearls slide into the water, where they magically, remained on the surface and began to be populated by flora and fauna, giving life to the 7 wonderful islands of the Tuscan archipelago. Another research about the number 7 also inspired us. There are many meanings and archetypes related to number 7 like Aphrodite’s pearls and the number of days in each moon phase, which affects the tides and the mood of each individual who, during magical moments of solitude and reflection, finds refuge in the horizon and in the wonderful echo of the vibrations of this majestic expanse of water, looking “towards the sea”.

Would it be possible to make a comparison to ‘Holy Oak’ or even to ‘Asteroid’?

As I explained, after the change of line up the influences of the 70s are deeply rooted in our song writing. ‘Asteroid’ is a stoner heavy rock album. I wrote this album in my recording studio, during the passage from the second line up. It is a monolithic album, … during that period I was influenced by bands like Clutch, Fu Manchu et cetera. ‘Holy Oak’ is the gateway between our stoner roots and the actual heavy psych prog influence. I love ‘Holy Oak’ so much! Songs like ‘Sacred Deal’, the title track, and ‘Heavy Rain’ are an interesting mix through heavy rock and psych music. Talking about ‘Seaward’, we used the progressive structure, using a lot of dynamics and tempo changes … We decided to develop the album as a concept, linking each song. It was a hard job.

How would you describe your sound?

We consider ourselves a heavy psych prog band, because we have no frame or scheme in music. We are a band with a lot of musical culture and we are not radical musicians. We love quality music of all genres, so we try to combine all our influences in our way using a heavy psych prog writing key. We have a particularity, we don’t have a bass player. In this music scene the presence of the bass line is very important for composing songs. We are a strange trio, though Mr. Bison‘s two guitars together build a massive wall of sound through which listeners will likely never notice the absence of the bass guitar. It’s hard to explain quickly, but in a nutshell each guitar has 2 channels. The second channel of our pedal boards is connected to an octaver and the bass amp, and one of us always plays like a bass player … this solution is very interesting because the band seems to play like a band of 4/5 members… for example sometimes during a song, you can listen 2 fuzzy harmonized guitars, one clean bass and at the same time Hammond, all played live. Often the audience is surprised, because they see a trio but they listen to 4-5 instruments and at the end of the gigs often a lot of fans ask us about our tech solutions.

Can you share some further details on how your latest album was recorded?

We start with the writing of the preproductions in my recording studio. These are the basis for the official drum tracks, which will arise from free improvisation of Matteo, the drummer. From the new drum tracks we record the guitars, jamming a lot, and finally the voices. This process is a sort of decomposed jam that can lead to the upheaval of the initial song. Usually we avoid to edit a lot of the tracks leaving small mistakes and imperfections, and that’s the reason why we decided to mix and master the album at the Audio Design Recordings in San Diego, where Jordan Andreen (producer of Earthless, Sacri Monti) adopted a very old school approach.

<a href="https://mrbison.bandcamp.com/album/seaward">SEAWARD by MR BISON</a>

How do you usually approach music making?

I started writing the song by doing a lot of sound experimentation, recording drone guitar riffs and playing the keyboard or synth. For example on ‘Seaward’, I tried to create drones by imagining the sea, the sirens and some sea details like the title track’s intro. It is very helpful to have a clear idea of the image that you want to instill with your music.

Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?

Yes, each member of the band has or had a side project. I think it’s very important to develop all our music ideas together.

How are you coping with the current world situation? What are some future plans?

It is a terrible time for the entire world population and for all professionals. I am of the opinion that difficult times always help to create good music for an artist. We musicians at this time having much more time can devote ourselves to listening and writing in a more concentrated way. Being an artist in Italy is difficult even in normal times, but during the pandemic our work was considered more “expendable” than others and for this reason the government blocked everything. Cinemas, theaters and concert halls are closed and we try to reinvent ourselves as much as we can with music lessons, streaming concerts and other initiatives… The future plans for Mr. Bison will be to play live a lot, and write a new album as soon as possible.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

I absolutely recommend ‘The All Is One’ by Motorpsycho. The new album by the Italians The Pilgrim, ‘…From The Earth To The Sky And Back’, The French group Slift and their album ‘Ummon’… then also Elder’s ‘The Gold & Silver Sessions’, Sacri Monti latest release et cetera.

Thank you. Last word is yours.

Thank you so much for this interview and thanks to all our fans who support us every day! We hope to see you soon during some live shows when this fucking virus dies.

Klemen Breznikar

Mr. Bison Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube
Subsound Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube
Ripple Music Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube