Botch

It is very rare for a band to have such an impact on rock music that they end up inventing a new sub-genre. Creativity and ingenuity are hard qualities to come by in an art that has been so historically defined by plagiarism. Tacoma, Washington's Botch single-handedly created and perfected the "mathcore" genre. The band seemed perfectly in synch with each other on their 2 LPs and countless EPs, but their 2002 breakup revealed that each member had the capability to develop their own unique sound, without drawing any direct comparison to Botch.

Botch formed in 1993, when guitarist Dave Knudson and drummer Tim Latona were still in high school. Early on, they spent most of their time attempting to play Helmet covers in their newly-discovered drop-D tuning. These two chose the name by simply opening a dictionary. Bassist Brian Cook and vocalist Dave Verellen soon joined the band, and they played their first show in Verellen's garage on Halloween of 1993. They released a demo tape in 1994 (of which all of the members are embarrassed), and eventually did a mini-tour of Canada, with Verellen's father as tour manager/chaperone.

The band finally got a break when they went on tour with Ink and Dagger and nineironspitfire in 1997. That same year, they played a show in Buffalo, NY with Snapcase for over 1,000 people, which was by far the biggest live exposure that they had recieved. Around this time, they were approached by Hydra Head CEO and ISIS vocalist, Aaron Turner, to contribute a cover of Black Sabbath's "The Wizard" for a 7" series. The band ended up sending him an entire album's worth of songs, and Turner decided to sign them to Hydra Head. They re-recorded these songs with Matt Bayles (ISIS, Mastodon) in Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's studio in 1998. The resulting product was American Nervoso. While very rough around the edges, this album re-invented hardcore, neglecting the typical "chugga-chugga" riffs for mercurial guitar shredding, and completely abandoning the tough-guy mentality.

After the release of their first full-length, Botch toured relentlessly and released several split EPs with nineironspitfire, the Murder City Devils, Cave In, and Knut. However, it was not until 2000 that they truly perfected the "mathcore" sound, with the release of We Are The Romans. This album still stands as the pinnacle of the genre, and has been emulated by literally hundreds of bands today. Latona's odd time signatures are matched perfectly by Knudson's unprecedented guitar riffs, while Verellen's vicious bark continually increases the ferocity of their songs. This album was beloved in the underground hardcore/metal scene, but went mostly unnoticed in the big picture.

By 2002, all of the band members had been playing with side projects that were becoming more and more serious. They released their final EP, An Anthology of Dead Ends, and decided to disband shortly thereafter. They chronicled their final performance at the Showbox in Seattle on a DVD titled 061502, which perfectly captures the utter chaos of their live show. Since then, Verellen has gone on to play drums in Roy, and is currently singing in the metalcore band, Narrows. Brian Cook is currently the singer in Roy, and plays bass in both These Arms Are Snakes and Russian Circles. Knudson has made the most drastic shift of the group, as he is now the showstopping, finger-tapping lead guitarist in Minus the Bear. The band recently released a statement on their MySpace page, saying: "There is no reunion in the works. As proud as we are of the band and as much as we're still friends, there is no plan to do a reunion. Zero, zilch, nada. However, we do appreciate everyone's continuing interest in the band. Thanks."

Check out the video for "St. Matthew Returns to the Womb" from We Are The Romans here: