Conniption
An Interview with Bill House and Andy Martin
by Michelle Braun
April 2016
Conniption of Milwaukee, WI
Conniption is an American Heavy Metal band hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Band members Michael Brigham (lead vocals/guitar), Cody Dziuk (bass guitar), Bill House (lead guitar/vocals), and Andy Martin (drums) are known for high energy, heavy shredding and a fondness for clean, fast tunes. Maximum Ink met up with these kings of metal to discuss WAMIs, music videos, and their upcoming CD release show on April 29th.
Maximum Ink: What are your origins and how long have you been a band?
Andy: We’ve been a band for eight year, out of Milwaukee, WI.
MI: Do you consider yourselves metal or hard rock?
Bill: Kind of both, you know. We’ve done shows with bands from both genres and fit in just fine.
Andy: We like a lot of different kinds of music, so our writing is going to have different varieties to it.
MI: What are your influences?
Bill: I think it changes each year. For playing guitar, I’m influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Pantera, and Megadeath, and more old school, heavy metal. But when it comes to writing music, structurally, I’d say more Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, stuff like that.
MI: Conniption has won some awards?
Andy: Yes! The last couple years we’ve won “Hard Rock/Metal Band of the Year” for the WAMIs. Last year, Bill won “Guitarist of the Year.” This year we were nominated again, including Michael our singer for “Male Vocalist of the Year.”
MI: What are the WAMIs exactly?
Andy: I like to explain it as an association for professional musicians. So to be recognized and win an award from that association is really cool.
Bill: They also help you get your stuff out there. They help by getting you into more venues, and network with other bands, even at the award ceremony. Every little bit helps.
MI: How many albums do you have out?
Andy: We have two albums that are out, and are releasing our third.
MI: What can we expect from this new album compared to your previous work?
Bill: Our first album “Kamikaze” was kind of all over with diversity in style. It has everything from groove rock, thrash, some old school and even psychedelic. Then, “Time Has Come” is straight-up ass kicking rock metal for 90% of it. So this one is kind of like a mixture with some blues-based stuff.
Andy: On this album we’re going to potentially have our heaviest and our lightest song. We’re not scared to take a risk and we don’t write an album thinking of what we want it to sound like. We write like how we’re feeling and what’s striking a nerve.
MI: What are some of the challenges Conniption has faced with writing or performing music?
Bill: We usually set a date for completing an album to kick ourselves in the ass to get it going, but we never stop writing. We’re already writing stuff for our next album. You have to keep it going; otherwise you can get lazy with it. We’re getting better musically, so you have to pour it all in and not turn off that creative switch.
MI: Looking back, is there anything you would do differently or change about your other albums?
Bill: I’m honestly really happy with “Time Has Come.” I think the more you grow and the more you record, the better you get at it. Certain tones and sounds that you’re going for develop. We definitely have gotten a better ear for what we want out of our music. We used the same studio for this album as we did for the last one, and it sounds completely different.
MI: Does Conniption have a specific routine to go through before writing?
Bill: Sometimes, Michael will come in with an idea for a song that’s missing a riff, or I’ll have an intro that I wrote, or Andy will have an idea and put an image in my head and I’ll write based off that. Then Cody will bring a bass line and it kind of just evolves from that. But sometimes, it’s funny, some of our best songs come out of crunch time right before recording.
Andy: “State of Sin” on “Time Has Come” was one of the last songs we wrote during that crunch time. We ended up shooting a music video for it.
MI: Can you tell us what it’s like to shoot a music video and what the song is about?
Bill: The song embodies the mind of a serial killer. Almost tongue-in-cheek, “State of Sin” is about WisconSIN. The song has a twisted vibe to it, so we got to have fun with the video. It was a lot more work than you’d ever expect. It’s pretty hard to fake play guitar when you’re on camera verses performing live. We recorded it in Andy’s basement, doing drum close-ups at two in the morning. His basement looks like something from horror movie. But it was really cool, getting all the actors and everybody that helped together and had fun with it. You put all those hours filming, pouring over every shot for final edits, and it comes out to a 6-minute video.
MI: What other media recognition has Conniption received?
Andy: “Let the Wolf Out” got play on WWE Monday Night Raw. They did a promo for Seth Rollins right after he won the title. It was a 2-minute video that they made, showing highlights of his career up from nothing to WWE championship. The video climaxes with him winning the championship and that’s when our song kicks in.
Bill: Something like 4 million people saw that live, and our YouTube views doubled overnight. It’s a true honor. The proceeds go to Eric at Cherry Pit Studios where we’ve had everything recorded, and he handles a lot of our licensing.
MI: Does this give you high expectations for this next album?
Andy: We hope for bigger and better for anything you know? But we’re not nervous. I don’t think it’s intimidating, more like a challenge to constantly try to get better.
MI: So this CD release party is coming up soon. What can you tell us about it?
Andy: The title is “Relentless Tides.” At the Metal Grill in Cudahy, WI on April 29th, the show starts at 9PM, but the bar will be open before then. Good food, and great staff.
Bill: The Heroes Lie our producer’s band is opening the show. We’re going to be playing the entire record for the first time. Nobody’s really heard it, which is different. Usually we play a few live before recording, but this one has a lot of surprises.
MI: Where can we find more Conniption?
Andy: Our website is www.conniption.us. We’re on ReverbNation, iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify…we’re even on Pandora.
Bill: Yeah, we’re pretty much everywhere. Check us out on TouchTunes, start a Conniption station on Pandora, there’s actually a lot of really cool bands on there, big bands down to local bands.
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