For only two guys, Lee Buford and Chuck King certainly make some noise. Bleak nihilistic noise. For eleven years the hirsute duo, known as the Body, have been travelling around the United States playing their musical version of a slow Chinese burn.Forming in Providence, Rhode Island in 1999 and tapping into the city’s thriving noise and experimental scene, the two have steadily built a respected body of work that includes collaborations and releases with the Haxan Cloak, fellow Providence metal heads and like-minded Louisiana doom metal band Thou.They are heading to Australia for a one off performance at Hobart’s Dark Mofo festival alongside Pallbearer and Oake. It is sure to be an night of epic doom and gloom.We had a chat to drummer Lee Buford about the band's history and collaborations with the Haxan Cloak.Noisey: You are originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. Were you around when Chino Horde were playing?
Lee Buford: Yeah we were definitely around then. Chino Horde was a huge inspiration to me as a young musician. Chip was in a really great band with Steve from Chino Horde called Generation of Vipers.I love the name Chino Horde. I don’t imagine much of your audience wear chinos though.
It’s more lot of black shirts. But we've been making a lot of white shirts and they actually sell really well. Maybe people buy them for their work shirts.Do you still work at a camping store and pizza shop? I can imagine heavy music customers saying, “Holy shit the dude from The Body just served me a large pepperoni!”
Chip hasn't worked for about a year. I still work at the pizza shop but I have to quit every time we go on a big tour and then see if they need be when we get back. I doubt we garner anybody caring about us in that way but I made for pizzas for Jess from Gilmore Girls and when I handed them to him and realized who it was I almost peed my pants.Did you get a chance to check Noisey’s NOLA heavy music special?
I haven't seen it yet, I've grown out of my interest in that scene I guess. When I was growing up and that stuff was still new I was a big fan. But it just feels like a lot of those bands are just perpetually rehashing the same stuff with no end in sight. But people still pack Eyehategod shows and I make pizzas for $11 an hour so who am I to listen to?You are about to play Dark Mofo. Tasmania has a dark history. Are you familiar with it being a penal colony for British prisoners?
Yeah a little bit, we're really good friends with Whitehorse who are from Melbourne and it is a constant joke with them.I was really interested in your work with the Haxan Cloak. How did that come about? Are you interested in doing more collaborations such as that?
Our friend Matt, who used to run file 13 records who put out the Chino Horde records, wrote to us about doing something on his label RVNG and possibly doing a collab.We've known Matt for over 20 years so of course we were excited about it. He then put together a kind of potential list of collaborators which I thought was insane but the Haxan Cloak was the main one. I did think we had a chance in him being interested but to our surprise he was down. Bobby is an extremely nice guy and musician so it was a big honor to work with him. We've already begun collaborating with another really great electronic artist now so hopefully that comes into fruition soon. We also got a collab with our friend, Krieg coming out really soon.Catch The Body June 18 at Dark Mofo with Pallbearer and Oake.
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Lee Buford: Yeah we were definitely around then. Chino Horde was a huge inspiration to me as a young musician. Chip was in a really great band with Steve from Chino Horde called Generation of Vipers.I love the name Chino Horde. I don’t imagine much of your audience wear chinos though.
It’s more lot of black shirts. But we've been making a lot of white shirts and they actually sell really well. Maybe people buy them for their work shirts.Do you still work at a camping store and pizza shop? I can imagine heavy music customers saying, “Holy shit the dude from The Body just served me a large pepperoni!”
Chip hasn't worked for about a year. I still work at the pizza shop but I have to quit every time we go on a big tour and then see if they need be when we get back. I doubt we garner anybody caring about us in that way but I made for pizzas for Jess from Gilmore Girls and when I handed them to him and realized who it was I almost peed my pants.Did you get a chance to check Noisey’s NOLA heavy music special?
I haven't seen it yet, I've grown out of my interest in that scene I guess. When I was growing up and that stuff was still new I was a big fan. But it just feels like a lot of those bands are just perpetually rehashing the same stuff with no end in sight. But people still pack Eyehategod shows and I make pizzas for $11 an hour so who am I to listen to?
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Yeah a little bit, we're really good friends with Whitehorse who are from Melbourne and it is a constant joke with them.I was really interested in your work with the Haxan Cloak. How did that come about? Are you interested in doing more collaborations such as that?
Our friend Matt, who used to run file 13 records who put out the Chino Horde records, wrote to us about doing something on his label RVNG and possibly doing a collab.We've known Matt for over 20 years so of course we were excited about it. He then put together a kind of potential list of collaborators which I thought was insane but the Haxan Cloak was the main one. I did think we had a chance in him being interested but to our surprise he was down. Bobby is an extremely nice guy and musician so it was a big honor to work with him. We've already begun collaborating with another really great electronic artist now so hopefully that comes into fruition soon. We also got a collab with our friend, Krieg coming out really soon.Catch The Body June 18 at Dark Mofo with Pallbearer and Oake.