Q and A: Greg Burgess (Allegaeon)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

COLORADO tech-death metallers Allegaeon are in Australia next week. Since their last tour here, they’ve released three albums and reunited with original vocalist Ezra Haynes, making this the first time he will have been in the country with the band. As founder and guitarist Greg Burgess explains, it will also be the first time they’ve have the opportunity to properly tour last year’s The Ossuary Lens.

Hot Metal: It’s going to be bit different from last time because Ezra’s back in the band now. What was it like having him come back into the fold? Because he was gone for quite a while.

Greg Burgess: “Yeah, I think he was gone for about seven years. It was… him leaving in the first place, when that whole thing went down, it wasn’t because we wanted it. It just couldn’t continue. He had a lot of personal stuff he needed to deal with and work on. The last thing we wanted to do was get rid of Ezra – it just had to happen. So there was no bad blood, or anything. We just wanted him to, you know, live! We have talked multiple times over the years. I loved working with Ezra. He and I got along super well. We had a really cool working relationship. I had a lot of extra music that really wasn’t in the vibe of what Allegaeon was doing – more like old school Allegaeon, not like the new stuff. So I hit him up and was like, ‘Hey man, do you wanna do some stuff?’ He was totally down. And then, a month later, Riley leaves. So I said, ‘Ok, I’ll call Ez’. It was five minutes. Five minutes we didn’t have a vocalist. It was that instantaneous. I was like, ‘Do you wanna go to Europe?’ and he said yes. The band’s a lot different now than when he was in it the first time. Attitude-wise, how we run stuff and also the people are different. Michael was the only other guy that he was in the band with. So Michael was the only guy who knew what he was capable of, the other guys didn’t. It only took a handful of shows and they knew he was the guy. This is where he belongs. As far as what it’s like to have him back – it’s like having your brother back. Family reuniting. He was supposed to be in this band. He needed time to get it together. It couldn’t be cooler than it is.”

HM: That’s great, because there’s so many ways it could have gone. But as you were talking, I got the feeling that you all know that he’s the right fit and that he needs to be in your band.

GB: “It’s a full circle moment. I had told him, ‘Stuff never happened. Now that you’re right, you’re coming back.’ He just didn’t think that was going to happen. When I called him, he was completely shocked. He had given up on that part of his life. It was way in the rear-view. It came out of nowhere for him. He’s where he belongs, and he has a very special gift as a frontman. It’s nice to be on stage with him again, and to work with him again.

HM: Allegaeon was also in a different place when he returned. You had progressed and you were perhaps a much better known band by then. Did that make a difference?

GB: “He came back and the shows were bigger. The first three he comes back – and we’re in a bus! We had never even been outside North America with him, until his first tour back and he’s going to Europe! He had never been to Europe, so it was a whirlwind experience for him. When we were in the band the first time, we were way younger and we would just be having fun with the music that we wanted. There was no sense that, ‘Hey, this is a business’. I never wanted to be a businessman, but after so many years so just struggling, you go, ‘Oh, if I want to keep doing this, I’ve got to smarten up and run the band like a business.’ It’s horrible. It’s nothing that a musician ever wants to do. I hate being a businessman! It’s not fun. It’s not why I signed up, but it’s just a necessary evil that goes along with it. So he’s come back into a band that’s very business-focused. We want to make sure that everyone’s taken care of. We’re under no delusions that we’ll be rich. But the rent needs to be paid, so we continue to do this.”

HM: That probably doesn’t change the music you make, but does it change some of the decisions that you may have made as a younger band, with the experience behind you and the knowledge that you have to look at some things from a business point of view?

GB: “Yeah! When you first start, no one hands you a handbook and says, ‘Hey, this is how you do this’. I think you get signed and you expect things to be a certain way. It’s not like that. We had a lot of learning and growing to do. We went from, well, that tour’s not good enough and being very picky about what we were doing, to becoming a Yes band when there was a realisation that we had to work. So we said yes to everything  and if we didn’t like something that was offered to us, we’d give the powers-that-be an alternative where they would still come out ahead,and we would do something that… I don’t want to say more beneficial to us, but made more sense. We did that for a long, long, long time! And now we can finally go, ‘It’s OK to say no to things that aren’t good for you’. So it’s all about making smarter choices now so we can go, ‘No that’s just not going to work. I’d really like to do that, but we would come back broke’. We can’t afford to do that. Some of us are pushing 50, you know? I can’t go out… when we first started, we were like, ‘I don’t care! Let’s just go on tour!’ But now, it’s like… I got responsibilities. I can’t do that. Your business changes the older you get. Some of us have kids, and we have to make sure our families are taken care of.”

HM: A question that’s occurred to me to ask recently since an artist brought it up in another interview relates to longevity. Playing the sort of music that you do in Allegaeon, how long do you feel you can continue? Obviously there’s markers such as a band like Cannibal Corpse who are a generation before you and still going, but Allegaeon’s coming up to 20 years now – do you see another 20 years of this band?

GB: “It’s hard! It’s really hard to see that. I wasn’t a spring chicken when I joined the band, and 20 years has gone by … I don’t want to say quick, because it was very painful, at times. But as you get older, time just moves way faster, so I guess I have certain goals that I want to see through before I start to think about how long I can really do this. We’re definitely planning for 2028. I’m gonna do a 20 year celebration and just see where we’re at. With the changing in listener analytics, I guess, deathcore’s huge right now. That wasn’t the case when we started. But now deathcore’s super huge and that’s not what we do. So it’s not the flavour of the day. So will we continue to survive in our little niche for a while? Everything’s cyclical, so it’ll come back. Be patient. I think there’s a huge parallel with the older thrash bands – Testament and Overkill. Those guys weathered the storm of the nineties. I guess Testament sort of faded away for a while,and Death Angel called it quits and now they’re back stronger than ever. But Overkill weathered the storm. So where do you find yourself? Even if you stop, you’re thinking, ‘It’ll be fine. It’ll come back’. Maybe you wait until people are liking your type of music again, or are you like, ‘Meh, it’s fine. We’ll make it work’. You just need to restructure your business, because it’s not like your love for the music diminishes.

HM: I’m sure you’ll always find something to do, whether it’s Allegaeon or something else, perhaps, in the future. I don’t want to talk about things like that: I’d like to talk about future music from you – maybe where the next album might be coming from. Have you begun to think about that yet?

GB: “Yeah! We’re already booking studio time for the first quarter next year. We’ve put aside time where we’re going to write and finish, get the album written. We’re a clockwork band. We’re in the studio every two years. The album might not come out every two years, but there’s an album ready to be delivered every two years. I think, I remember when we did Apoptosis and things didn’t line up, and we had a bump it a few months, and that put us to three and I was like ‘No! That’s ruined our thing!’ They had to bump it a few months and I was crushed because we’re not the two-year band! We still to that schedule and – I don’t think ‘revolving door’ is the right therm, because everybody stays for a long time – which is hard. The relationships within the band are so good and we’re getting along so well and having such a great time, I’m going to knock on wood and say the curse we have is broken and there’s not going to be a line-up change before the next record. We’re having a really good time being creative and performing and being around each other. There’s such a deep sense of trust. I trust these guys and I personally don’t have to worry about anybody. It’s just great: show up, have a good time and just hang out. It’s just the most ideal situation.”

HM: So will there be any surprises for us in Australia on your tour here next week?

GB: “We put out an album a little less than a year ago, and we did a little bit of touring right before the album came out. That’s the way things lined up. I think the album came out with two days left of that tour, so we couldn’t play a lot of it because people wouldn’t have known it. We did a bit of touring last Fall – we did a UK and Ireland tour where we started playing some of the new songs. Australia kicks off our touring cycle for the latest album, so we’re going to play songs we’ve never played before. It’s also the 10-year anniversary of Proponents For Sentience, so we’re dusting off songs from that. So it’s going to be heavy on those two, with other songs thrown in. I’m a big proponent for anyone who comes to our shows to never experience the same show twice. I collect all our setlists and I looked at the setlist from the last time we were in Australia, and it was like, ‘No repeats!’ It will be a completely new experience for the fans. If you came to see us last time, it will be completely new this time.”

TICKETS

ALLEGAEON AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2026

MARCH 4: Rosemount Hotel, Perth
MARCH 5: Ed Castle, Adelaide
MARCH 6: Soapbox Beer, Brisbane
MARCH 7: Metro Social, Sydney
MARCH 8: Melbourne Dethfest 2026, Corner Hotel, Melbourne