Boize (band)
Boize (Bottled Ordeal Insane Zany Experience) were a heavy metal band from Montreal, Canada founded by Floyd Harem (Robert Kourie) on guitar and Zany Shultz (Stephane Fania) on bass. They had been making music together since 1984, including the band Unmarked/Alter-Ego from late 1986 to mid-1988 and Leading Edge/Strike Anywhere from late 1988 to March 1989. Some of the material written with Suzanne Madden in Leading Edge/Strike Anywhere would become the earliest Boize materiel when Fyia Powers (Perry Blainey, an Ozzy Osbourne type) joined in April 1989 as the vocalist. They recorded their first "rehearsal demo" in June 1989 and later in the year, re-recorded the same five songs at Studio Works for their original demo. "The Bug" was released in October 1989, and as they had no drummer, Steph also did the keyboards and drum machine. After shopping around the demo, they landed their first TV interview in November 1989 on a Late Night Talk show.
In January 1990, Boize posted an add in The Gazette to find a drummer. After some auditions, Siegfried (Scott MacDonald) was chosen and Zorba, a high school friend of Steph. became the keyboardist. It wasn't long before they played their first show at L’Intro on April 2nd 1990. However Zorba couldn't stay in the band and he left later that month but they did expand to a second guitarist with Pascal Plante. After playing their second show, also at L'Intro on May 26th 1990, they were signed to Imagination Records with an album release contract. That summer, after Pascal left the band, Boize started what would be five months of recording sessions at Cherry Studio. By November they had recorded nine songs, but the label's plans had changed and Boize legally broke their contract with them.
They were quickly picked up by Bill Hill Productions in January 1991 and immediately went to Morris Apelbaum's Silent Sound Studio to rework the Cherry Studio material. They did some vocal re-dubs and tried to re-mix some of the material but it wasn't happening. In February Bill decided to try at a different studio so they went to Frank Marino’s Starbase Studio. There they re-recorded some of the drums and guitars and also recorded a tenth song, "In Too Deep", featuring Kim and Dorian Sherwood. The reason for recording this new song was because Bill wanted to make a single out of it, press it on CDs and make a video for it and ship it off to radio stations. Instead, four songs were selected to be fully re-mixed and used on a promo tape, "I'll Still Love You", to send to the majors. When it came out in March 1991, a lot of promotion started, and Boize was invited to be interviewed by Tootall on CHOM-FM's hit show "Made in Canada" on May 15th 1991. In April, Boize also founded their own publishing company, Klink Publishing.
At their following show, May 18th at Sam's Rock Bar, they met a new fan, Steve Bahr (Steve Berger aka Minou), who would become their rhythm guitarist later that summer. With their new guitarist, Boize started writing new material for their anew release and started gaining a reputation as a local attraction in the clubs. In October of 1991 Bill Hill and his assistant Garfield Lamb offered Boize a deal for an EP, which would come to life that winter.
In January 1992, Boize went to Mot-tel Studio to record for the fifth time, this time for their first officially distributed album. The self-titled Boize EP was released on their own record label, U-Iliot Records and published once again with Klink Publishing. To promote the release, which would be pressed on 5000 cassettes and 500 CDs, they pressed posters (5000 units), t-shirts, hats and stickers and also shot a music video for “Get a Life” at Backstreet Underground (their most frequently played venue was opened on a closed night with a maximum capacity crowd for the filming). The album was released on April 21st 1992 at a huge party at Sam's Rock Bar, and the video aired for the first time that night (following by Musique Plus and MuchMusic. The next day they were invited again by Tootall on CHOM-FM's "Made in Canada" to talk about their new album. The next month Boize played with National Velvet at the Backstreet Underground and from there on national distribution deals started being offered (including a serious offer from Aquarius Records). Boize became a staple name in Canadian heavy metal and were booked almost constantly all around Montreal clubs. On August 15th and 16th 1992, Boize was invited to headline the Montmagny Festival (Festival Des Oies) o on its last two dates of the week long concert. Whatever was left of the merchandise pressed for the EP was sold out during those shows.
After headlining the festival, Aquarius Records, was even more anxious to sign the band. Unfortunately, before anything was signed, Perry announced that he wanted to leave the band in late September 1992. Boize had a series of shows booked for October and needed a new vocalist. After placing an ad they quickly found Carlos "Charly" Lopez (a Bruce Dickinson type) to take over vocals. To celebrate his joining, Boize went to play a cover of "Run to the Hills" at a local bar Rockpile that very night and the fans approved right away. Six shows were played that October, including the Backstreet Underground, Fuzzy's and a 3-night stint at bar L’Enfer in Sherbrookewhere they were begged to keep coming back. Bill Hill and Gralf Lamb was interested in getting the band back in studio again (in hopes of finalizing the Aquarius Records deal), and asked for some demos. Steph had already set up their jam space on Jarry to record their rehearsals, so in November they taped a few of their new songs and some of the old ones with new vocals. On December 5th, Steve left the band to go live in Gaspesie and get married, but the four others were brought back to Starbase Studio to do overdubs. Bill and Gralf used the February 1991 DATs of "In Too Deep" and had Charly sing his version over it. Before anything could be done, his previous band Alvacast decided to get back together and he left the band.
Steph, Bob and Scott decided to try once more and held vocalist auditions to find Ian (an Ian Hill type who also happened to play 12-string acoustic guitar). He seemed a perfect match to complete the band for the new year, and for the next two months they reworked the new material they had with Charly and wrote a couple of new tunes. To showcase the new line-up, Boize was invited to play a benefit concert for Claude Messier on March 20th 1993 and they booked half a dozen more shows to take place in April. Ian's leading man skills were completely different from Perry's or Charly's and the difference became apparent at their next concert at Backstreet Underground, when Charly even came on stage to sing a song instead of him. This caused serious tension within the band and Scott quit the band in early April. The other shows were so close to happening that the tickets had already been printed, but they all had to be canceled. The trio continued jamming together for the next month, but by May, Ian's inflated ego was kicked out of the band. At a last attempt to continue to Boize name, they recruited the Cinema Five drummer and had a few rehearsals, but things weren't the same. The original founding members, Steph and Bob, were once again back to basics and opted to end the Boize moniker. Their next band was "Emissary" from 1993 to 1996 until it would change name to "Breaking Violet" and stay until 1998.
Members
- Robert Kourie (Floyd Harem): Lead guitar (April 1989-May 1993)
- Stephane Fania (Zany Shultz): Bass, keyboards, drum machine (April 1989-May 1993)
- Perry Blainey (Fyia Powers): Vocals (April 1989–September 1992)
- Scott MacDonald (Siegfried): Drums (January 1990-April 1993)
- Don T. Remember (Zorba): Keyboards (February 1990-April 1990)
- Pascal Plante: Rhythm guitar (April 1990-June 1990)
- Steve Berger (Steve Bahr): Rhythm guitar July 1991-December 1992)
- Carlos Lopez (Charly): Vocals (September 1992-December 1992)
- Ian: Vocals, acoustic 12-string guitar (January 1993-May 1993)
- Don T. Remember: Drums (May 1993)
Discography
- The Bug (First demo, October 1989)
- I'll Still Love You (Full-length album November 1990) *released post-mortem
- I’ll Still Love You (Promo, March 1991)
- Boize (EP, April 1992)