Between the Buried and Me’s Tommy Rogers Doesn’t Want to Get Older

As 2009 dies and introduces a new decade, Between the Buried and Me's Tommy Rogers has a lot of celebrating to do. Besides Christmas and New Year's Eve festivities, by the end of December the vocalist/keyboard player will enter the final year of his 20s and reap the ripe old age of 29. But rather than gearing up for a triple celebration, Rogers doesn't see his birthday as a reason to party. "I like to pretend birthdays don't exist," he tells Noisecreep glumly. "I don't want to get older," he moans.

Still, Rogers is excited for the new year, when full-on touring begins for the prog metal band's fifth studio album, 'The Great Misdirect,' which was released in October. "I think the record came out well," he says humbly. "We're hoping that the tour takes it to more people. It's hard to predict, especially in this day and age in music and all. We're just going to see what happens, hopefully the band can continue growing. We're just going to keep on doing our thing."

He obviously admires bands that just get on with doing their own thing. But, surprisingly, Rogers pick for most significant band of the past decide skews more to art rock than BTBAM's dark, pummeling thrash niche. "Personally, I'm a die-hard Radiohead fan. They are one of my all-time favorite bands. I'm a die-hard Muse fan, too. So it would be a toss up between those two." Purely for their tenacity and rise to the top from being a critical underdog, Rogers goes with Muse. "They might be on the top for me, just because of how much they've really stood out on this new record, and how much they've really pushed themselves."