interview with Boaz Burns

What is/are your names?
My current stage name is Boaz Burns, but that is not the name I was given at birth... 
"Boaz" is my real, actual first name - the one given to me at birth by my parents and/or god and/or destiny - and Burns is a fictitious name that I concocted out of thin air.... "Boaz" is a biblical name found in both the Old Testament (the husband of Ruth in the Book Of Ruth) and "Boaz" is also found in the genealogoy sections of the New Testament ("Boaz" who begat "Obed" who begat "Jesse" who begat King David - if you believe in that stuff at all...) and finally, "Boaz" is also one of the two inanimate pillars made of copper, bronze and brass that were erected and stood in front of King Solomon`s temple in olden times - again, if you believe in that biblical stuff at all..... or maybe it makes you vomit green bile.... hmmm.... yuck.
...by the way, the name "Boaz" has a meaning in Hebrew and it means: "to arrive with strength and speed", or, "in it is strength"..... yeah.... O.K......
Why did I change my name from Boaz Chai Perecowicz to Boaz Burns? The answer is probably fairly obvious: Boaz Chai Perecowicz is too hard to remember, spell correctly, pronounce, and it also carries with it generations of bad-luck/loser-karma/magic.... I nullified all that nonsense in one fell swoop when I re-invented myself with the name "Boaz Burns" - and yes, I burn people, myself, places, things and time itself; I burn with passion, I burn in hell (I`d burn heaven too if given half a chance), I burn joints (or at least I used to back in the day....) and I`ve been known to burn the odd cigarette here or there, and other un-mentionables too...
So as we can now all see, Boaz Burns Burns is a long-winded, self-indulgent bore/whore and he has finally, and comprehensively, answered your first question to his full ridiculous satisfaction.
How old are you?
I was born November 24 1973, which would make my present age 44 years old - 45 years old if you include the time I spent In Utero.
I should also note that I am a Sagittarius/Scorpio cusp and as a Sagittarius I am a centaur, or if you prefer: a horseman. Scorpios sting and they have dangerous venom too. My Chinese astrological sign is the Ox, or Water Ox if you want to get more year specific - if you care about those kinds of things like.... at all, or something....
Where are you from? I was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and have lived there the majority of my life. I have also lived in Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, Israel, and Mexico - O.K. I didn`t really live in Mexico, I just back-packed through it for 3 months with my then girlfriend (1999) and yes, it was quite romantic....
Who plays what?
That`s a good question Robex and thanks for thinking of me! So.... I, Boaz Burns, sing all vocals and play guitar - guitar is actually my first instrument and I have been scratching all kinds of notes and licks out of the thing for over 30 years now (since I was 12 years old) But on my new album/EP "Lullabies For Lucifer" I do feature a few guest musicians:
On the track "The Son Of God" the lovely and talented Weka Soliman plays all guitars and he shreds the hell out of that solo too, fine babies... I actually met up with Weka through a free online classified ad in Montreal and we co-wrote "The Son Of God" together; Weka showed me his arsenal of riffs, tricks and licks, and I picked out one of his original home-made chord progressions. I then composed a melody for the song. After that I went home and scratched out some lyrics for the thing ("J is 10 and E is 5, multiply his name by 9", etc...). Thus was "The Son Of God" born.
By the way, Weka used to be a first rate session guitarist back in Egypt, and he has recorded with many big names and done many tours and videos in the Middle East - like I said, the man plays some seriously good guitar.
Also on that same track I feature the lovely and talented "Lowdown" Lewis Orenstein on bass and the godly David Devine on drums. They did a bang-up job as well on "The Son Of God".
I also feature and use this same rhythm section (Lewis and Dave) on another track from "Lullabies For Lucifer"; a tune entitiled "Cocaine and Heroin".
And lastly, for my one and only real blues tune of the album - a track I called "Eatin`Out Of A Dumpster Blues" - I use another, different rhythm section comprised of Keith Mansfield on bass (my brutha from anotha mutha) and also Mr. Who Gives A Shit Anyways himself -- Mr. Rob Black on drums. And that`s a 7 minute long blues tune babies, with a rather long self-indulgent guitar solo played by me (myself), so check the burns on that one too... if you feel like it, of course.... or maybe not at all too....
Who does the composing and writing of the lyrics?
Well, I write all the lyrics on the album and I have been writing poetry, short stories, aphrodisiac ad campaigns, lyrics and maybe the odd suicide note here there and everywhere for around 25 years now....
As for the music; I composed all the music alone - with 2 exceptions: "The Son Of God" which I co-composed with Weka Soliman (as I mentionned earlier), and the other exception is my song called "Cursed" which Wendy Bouie contributed to.
The story of "Cursed" is that I composed and wrote the basic structure of the song alone, but then presented it to a singer who I was working with at that time; an awesome lady named Wendy Bouie. Wendy was the singer in a band that we were all in together (along with Dave Flowers on bass and Rob Black on drums); a band called "Channel 74", and I wanted to do my song "Cursed" with them but I wasn`t really confident enough to sing it myself (at that time). So Wendy learned the tune, and put her own unique interprative spin on it. Anyways, when I eventually got my singing up to spec and got around to recording the tune myself (with me singing on it), I incorporated 3 or 4 of the licks that Wendy used to sing on it - you know, short little ad-libbed musical phrases, or nuances if you will.... so Wendy didn`t really compose "Cursed" per se, but she did make the song a heck of a lot better and yes, in a sense she DID co-compose it. So I do intend on giving her a writer`s credit on the song for adding immeasurable value and goodness to the song.... fair is fair, people...
What inspires you? 
A lot of things inspire me to write, some of them obvious (like relationships gone wrong) and some of them not so obvious (like Satan opening my eyes and waking me up to reality at 31 years old).
You see, at 31 years of age I heard the voice of Satan speaking to me; an inaudible, sexless, reptillian whisper in my mind; tricking and talking to me in riddles; and using Hebrew almost exclusively to do so, by the way... (I usually think in English, so the Hebrew thing was quite bizzare to say the least...)
To make a very long story quite short; I was set on a new path by Satan at that time, and being tempted, possessed and manipulated by voices, demons and Satan openned up my mind to a totally new reality: before then I had believed strongly in God, Jesus, Satan, demons, etc... but NOW (at that time - November 2004 and of course, onwards) I absolutely KNEW that these things were real, and were in fact on active duty on Planet Earth - I now KNEW that God and the devil were real.
This religious/spiritual experience has inspired me tremendously (O.K. maybe I became a bit obssessed) and a lot of my more recent songs have dealt with theological/religious/spirital themes - but not all of them, actually...
You see.... Satan tried to get me to kill my father (un-successfully) but I resisted for more than a decade, and in fact, never made an actual attempt on my father`s life.... he`s alive and well today thank God (as am I).... only much later did I realized that the New testament, and Jesus more specifically, tells you to call no man on Earth your father, but that God, who is in Heaven.... HE is your father.... So if God was Jesus` father, then I surmised that the devil must be my father.... So Satan was actually asking me to kill him.... hmmmm.... that`s when things started getting pretty interesting for me, you see....
What made you decide to make this music?
You know... when I was around 12 years old, I was over at a friend`s house and I saw a music video on T.V.  And in this video (to this day I am not sure who it was exactly) some unknown guitarist was playing a guitar solo (I think it was un-accompanied, but I`m also unsure....) and in this solo, his guitar sounded like it was actually talking - like a person would talk.... Well... I thought that was just about the coolest thing in the world, and from that moment onwards I embarked upon my path in music...
....and if memory serves me correctly (which it usually does) it was a little while after seeing this music video that I found an old, beat-up junker electric guitar that someone had thrown out and into a garbage pile outside - I was coming back home from delivering the morning newspapers on my bike that particular morning (The Montreal Gazette, naturally) and I grabbed that guitar right quick and took it home... fast, like.... and it`s been a smooth, downhill sail ever since....
What are your songs about? My songs are about whatever you, I, and any other interested party thinks they are about.
What have been your biggest obstacles?
I have had a lot of obstacles in my life: I first left home at 15 years old due to a very dysfunctional family/home situation. After some foster homes and detention centers, I eventually moved into my first apartment at 16 years old. I also started working full-time jobs at 16 years old (McDonald`s on Decarie and Pare in Montreal) but I really started working at 12 when I would deliver the morning newspapers.
But those things were nothing really... you see... Satan has had his eyes on me my whole life, and he has literally put me through the ringer to get me to where I am today: a musician who is standing on the precipice of his "debut" album going world-wide..... I`ve been tested, tempted, possessed and manipulated. I`ve been in prison, psych wards, mental institutions, and garbage dumpsters. I`ve been homeless, broke, hungry, on drugs, off drugs and back again. I`ve had people try to kill me, people try fight me. I`ve been to hell and back, pretty babies, and dare I say it.... I`ve even tasted some paradise too... I have had a hard life... but I`m still here, and I`m on the right path...

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