As it turns out, there is a death metal band right here in Madison. All the members have a great sense of humor and are “mainstream” both in appearance and speech. Their music, however, is anything but conventional.

Yes, the Madison collective is known as Buried Future. The band is comprised of vocalist Dave Labedz, lead guitarist Bobby de la O, rhythm guitarist Jesse Hendrix, bassist Andy Knutson and drummer Phil Harrelson.

The name Buried Future may sound like a calculated choice, but in fact, the name just happened.

De la O relates the story: “Me and Phil were in his car trying to figure out something cool. We’re kinda sitting there thinking, ‘OK, buried, buried — that’s good, let’s come up with something else. Buried what?” De la O points to Harrelson. “You did ‘future,’ didn’t you?”

Admits Harrelson, “Yeah, I don’t know what happened.”

To which De la O reacts, “One of us said ‘buried’ and one of us said ‘future.'”

Concludes Harrelson, “We were just throwing words together that sounded cool.”

Much like the name, there isn’t a lot to tell with respect to the band’s history. The Cliff Notes version is that De la O and Harrelson have been playing together since high school and through the years have had many lineup changes in various bands until the current lineup of BF was formed.

Despite the history and name not having much of a story, De la O’s approach to music is antithetical to this. This is especially true when it comes to the reasons why the band chose to play death metal.

Reasons Harrelson, “I think as we got better with our instruments, we wanted to challenge ourselves more. … We wanted to get heavier and play more radically and freely. We really like to challenge ourselves with our music, and death metal is the best way to do that.”

Adds De la O, “And you can pretty much always make [death metal] harder to play.”

Labedz then, as the de facto band leader, sums up the entire band’s philosophy. “In many ways this is the last vestige of music. This is the hardest music to play. We could conceivably play any other genre of music or any number of things that are more accessible. But it would be boring. It’s more fun to [perform] something that’s difficult to play.”

As the lyricist, Labedz primarily writes about philosophy. For example, Labedz cites the lyrics to “Point of Incision,” wherein he discusses Lockean ideals with respect to understanding self and how one’s mind works. “By having that argument in the song, I can work on something really specific and say something much more valuable than ‘Bush sucks.'”

From an e-mail, Labedz demonstrates he can also write an abstract political song. “You could look at ‘Identity Crisis’ as a ‘political’ song, in the sense that it’s about political systems, but after the first few verses of anti-war sentiments, it takes a step back and calls into question the validity of any political system. That is, political systems exist to put down arbitrary boundaries between groups of people and encourage a very primal, tribal competition between them. This competition then works to sustain those arbitrary boundaries, if not strengthen them.”

Buried Future also discusses what it’s like being a death metal band in Madison: The band states that “it sucks” and, after some hearty laughter all around, it is Knutson that gives a specific answer.

“Everybody hates us. It’s really hard to get your friends to come out to shows. The other people our age in this town are college students who are all hanging out downtown on State Street listening to whatever the fuck they’re listening to. Anybody who’s a little older that still lives in this town is probably here because they think they’re some kind of enlightened jazz hippie.”

De la O also qualifies the response. “There is a metal scene in Madison, but it’s really dominated by hardcore and metalcore, which we are really not a part of. … In my opinion, a lot of the people that are into [the metal scene] aren’t really open to this kind of stuff. So, our best shows are always out of town. We have some good shows here, but it’s 50-50.”

Despite the fact that “it sucks” to be a death metal band in Madison, Labedz states for the record they “will play anywhere that anybody wants us to play,” to which Harrelson throws in, “Yes, we’ll play for free.”

The most telling moment comes when I simply point out that these guys are all normal. Naturally, laughter ensues. And it’s because they are normal: both Knutson and Hendrix graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Labedz currently attends UW, Harrelson graduated from Madison Area Technical College and De la O currently attends MATC.

Jokes Harrelson, “I wear polo shirts to our shows. People don’t know I’m in a band.”

As for an album, the band just has mastering sessions left, and they hope to have it out by the end of the year. On a side note, the album artwork was done by David Fisher, of “C’est la Mort” fame.

Unfortunately, the band does not have any upcoming shows. For more information, head over to www.myspace.com/buriedfuture.