Chris ''OJ'' Ojeda:  Vocals & Guitars
Tony Rohrbough:  Guitars
Matt Wolfe:  Drums
Michael "Skip" Cromer:  Bass

Formed: 2000
Charleston, West Virginia  USA 
Label: Prosthetic Records
Genre: Post-Thrash/Groove Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Lynora: What was the best/favorite/wildest memory of Byzantine?

Wolfe:  What was the hurricane called after Katrina?  …Well we were down in Florida on tour and this hurricane decides to come straight through the town that we’re in.  And our RV happened to blow an engine on that very night that the hurricane came through.  So we had to saddle up and limp it over beside a hotel in between two walls and try to keep from being blown over.  And then for the next 3 weeks of the tour we had to ride around in the back of a rider truck, with our gear, while somebody drove.  And the tour went north after that and it was still fall and very cold.

Skip: “The back of that thing was like a crack house with mattresses and cardboard.”

OJ: “And you’d open it up and there be just 3 or 4 bums waking up like unggh!”

Wolfe: “No windows.”

OJ: “You don’t know what town it is.”

Wolfe: “You’d open up the door and were like- Where are we?!”

OJ: “You’re in Providence get out!  Was that the second engine that we blew?”

Skip: “Yea.”

Wolfe: “So yea it was great fun that’s my best memory.”

Lynora: “So far.”

Skip: “I think I’m gonna have to uh focus on a very particular memory of something that OJ pulled off one night, rather intoxicated in Florida.”

OJ: “Oh in Florida! Go ahead that’s a good one.”

Skip: “This is the best. We were down at a friend of ours house, Logan, and he and his wife were there and that evening we decided to get absolutely shitfaced, and I happen to buy a gallon of Southern Comfort.  Um, and towards the end of the night, I’m a horrible drunk and I’m the first guy to want to go to bed.  So I go into the RV to go to sleep where it was quiet cause these guys are partying still inside and OJ comes out and he’s like hey man, man where’s that bottle at.  So he takes the bottle and he disappears.  And the next morning we wake up and nobody can find him, like he’s gone.  So this poor bastard comes back later on covered in welts.” [motions over his entire torso] “Like red welt marks.  Apparently he went down to the beach I dunno if you were feeling romantic or whatever, with my bottle of Southern, got drunk and passed out on a fire ant nest, on the beach.  And got totally ripped up by these fire ants.”

Wolfe: “You forgot the best part.”

Skip: “Oh no, that happened after this.  So I guess you got up and he found an RV and he went to sleep in it.  ‘Cept it’s not our RV.”

OJ: “It was a carnival.”

Skip: “It was a traveling group of circus carnies.”

OJ: “I pitch open the door and laying in there and realize that there’s like six Puerto Rican’s laying on the floor and I got up scared to death.”

Skip:  “And uh they took your wallet and bottle.”

OJ: “Well when I woke up from there I stumbled and fell in front of one of the slides and a half an hour later, two of them kicked me and took my bottle and I saw them have my wallet.  And they kind of threw me the wallet and there was no money left.  And I was just going “Eeehhh”” [with his hands up]  “And I remember walked back to their house crying, cause Florida is on a grid and people were already cutting their grass it’s like seven in the morning and I’m like” [holding head] “walking along like uhh uhhh.”

Skip: “You left out the part about the golf carts.”

OJ: “Oh where I tried to steal the golf carts, yea.  When I got out of the RV I saw a string of gold carts together like they were charging them cause I guess they run em.  And I jumped on one of them and could NOT figure out how to start it.  Well it was pitch black too.”

Lynora: “That was probably for the best.”

OJ: “That was horrible, I came back in and you guys were eating breakfast.”

Wolfe: “He walked in and he was like,” he throws two horns in the air with his head down looking drunk.

Skip: “The funny part is what a selfish prick I am.  Everyone’s like where were you and I’m like, Dude where’s my bottle!”

Wolfe: “And not only did he take your bottle he took one of the two bottles that Nola and Chris had.”

Skip: “Yea you snaked a bottle from Chris.  This guy just comes back and the welts and him just telling us this story.  It arguably, I thought about that moment for six months straight and it still was funny.  Cause shit like that never happens to me, but I’m a very boring guy.  Whenever I drink it’s just never as epic.”

Lynora: “There was some picture you guys had up of you,” points at Skip, “With your ass up in the air up against on of those things that you park against, that yellow thing.  You guys took it down, I was really pissed off.”

OJ: “The birthday party.”

Lynora: “Yea! The birthday party picture.”

Skip: “Oh dude the cat that kept attacking me!!”

OJ:  “We were on a block in DC or Baltimore and it was nothing but black people just partying and Skip jumped out was shitfaced and grabbed a hold of this fence that was next to a KFC and it fucking buckled and fell down.  Remember that it was one of those latched fences.  Fell and we literally had to leave him there and Wolfe was like ‘pull his pants down and take a picture.’”

Wolfe: “It was his birthday.”

Skip:  “It was my 23^rd birthday.”

Wolfe:  “And we posted it on Myspace where his Mom could see.”

Lynora: “That was a classy picture.”

Skip: “I don’t remember the part in the parking lot or the fence.  I do remember I was like I was on a floor or something and I felt this sharp horrible pain in my back.  This fucker’s cat was digging his claws into my back.”

OJ: “It was the uh” [cat stretching and picking up claws to fluff motion]

Lynora:  [Laughing] “He was fluffing you?”

OJ: “We were dying laughing cause Skip was laying on the floor going Unnngh!  Unnnnnngh!  Like Young Frankenstein.”

Wolfe: “We’d be like what the fuck was that?  And he’d be Eeeeennngh!”

Skip: “You know those dreams, where you’re running but you can’t move.  That’s what it felt like.  I was like Stoooop it hurrrts but I couldn’t -the dangers of alcohol.  I could not move to get this cat off of me.  That little fucker just sat there and clawed the shit outta me all night.”

Lynora: [turns to OJ] “So do you have an epic story?”

OJ: “Yea I believe I do.  It was the time that my band mates convinced me that I sucked a man’s dick.”

Skip: “This must have been pre me.”

Wolfe: “This was IN Morgantown!”

OJ:  “No, it was not pre you. We were on tour here with Halo of Locusts and I think Threat Signal or something? …We went out to a club that night and our tour manager Anthony had set us up to go to a club and we were gonna have a good time.  We went out there and there was this guy who was a male porn star that was there.”

Skip: “Actually I saw him there tonight he is here.”

OJ: … “Well I got rather intoxicated and we were having a really good time and this male porn star came up and I was hanging out with him and we were hitting it off.  We were brothers of the dome” [strokes shaved head] “You know and uh, I went to the bathroom to black out.  So I went in there and I thought no one will bother me if I take my pants down and act like I’m pooping.  So I sat on the toilet and blacked out.  Randy from Lamb of God kicks open the door and screams at me, “Get the fuck outta there!”  So I get out and I come back in there and they all realize that I’m completely wasted.  Well I end up back in the RV or whatever we were driving at the time.”

Skip: “It was a van.”

OJ: “The van.  And I passed out.  Well that guy was wear a sort of weird nice cowboy hat and he had photos that he was passing around as his glossies, headshots, with that cowboy hat.  Well I woke up the next morning in the van, the cowboy hat is laying on me.” [gestures to stomach]  “I have a picture there that is signed from the guy, you know “That’s for the wonderful-- time.”  You know.  And I’m like what the fuck.  And they were like “Dude, we could not stop you, you and that guy hit it off and you went back to the RV and I’m sorry man but I think you blew him for that hat.”  And I was like WHAT?!  No!  I’ve gotten drunk so many times in my life but I’ve never went all the way with a guy!  And literally I was like alright!  I’m gay.  It’s over.  I guess, I’m sorry guys, but I’m gay.  Did not know that one of the guys from Threat Signal had that exact cowboy hat and they laid it on me and wrote that thing.  So luckily I didn’t perform fellatio on a guy.  But there’s still a chance!”

Skip: “Yea we kept us up for days.”

OJ: “Yea I was on the tour for three days questioning my heterosexuality.  Like,” OJ shakes his head. “I don’t see how these guys let me front their band.  I am so gay.”

Skip: “Oh dude we wouldn’t have cared if you were gay.”

OJ: “I guess he’s here tonight so we’ll see what happens… maybe I’ll give him the hat.”


Special thanks to Byzantine for being so much fun, amazing performers and amazing individuals- and for making my 1350 miles, blowing out my tire on the mountain, and sticking my hand in toilet tanks totally worth it. 

Byzantine

Interview and Photos: Lynora

DISCOGRAPHY:

Byzantine (2002)
Pieces of The Empire (Demo - 2002)
Byzantine (Demo - 2003)
Broadmoor EP (2003)
Sampler: Nearfest Edition
                                         (Demo - 2003)
The Fundamental Component (2004)
...And They Shall Take Up
                                      Serpents (2005)
Jeremiad DVD (2006)
Salvation DVD (2007)
Oblivion Beckons (2008)

Part III:
Drunk Stories from Oblivion

March 8, 2010 / April 24, 2010

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Lynora with Byzantine
(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

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