Interviews

Unearth

Interview with Slo on Mar 26, 2005 by Archive Bot

Hailing from Massachusetts, the virtual metal and hardcore capital of North America, Unearth bring a new sense of talent with charismatic riffs, thought provoking lyrics and pummeling breakdowns. Slo from Unearth is a big, humble dude, with mutton chops and chops from hell on the bass. On a recent stop in Santa Cruz as main support for Atreyu, he took time out and answered a few questions. Understandably tired after almost six weeks on the road, our writer Greg Weissel took some pity on him and asked him stupid questions about mutton chops, bad ideas for merchandise, and what the future holds for Unearth. Their last album “The Oncoming Storm” is out now on Metal Blade.
 
punkbands.com: Dude, what’s it like to be in a band with one of the most bad-ass names ever?
 
Slo: I like the name of the band. It’s a strong, one word thing. There’s no prepositional phrase to be had.  I dig it.
 
punkbands.com: How did this tour get put together?
 
Slo: Face The Music booking just came up with a good package tour for Atreyu headlining tour. We were offered it, we agreed. All the bands on it are awesome, all chilling dudes.
 
punkbands.com: Do you think file-sharing affects a band like Unearth more or less than a Metallica? It seems like Unearth appreciators would be more likely to put some money back into the band, in the form of merch or tickets even if they don’t buy the music.
 
Slo: I have never had a problem with that. You know, we started playing shows in front of five kids tons of years ago, and if it wasn’t for friends hooking up other friends with the music they would have never known. Back then distribution was shot for the underground scene for the most part. I have nothing against it, even today when distribution is way better. It’s all about kids liking the music. There’s a lot of kids out there who don’t have much money. I was homeless when I was a kid, I didn’t have money for music - I stole that shit.
 
punkbands.com: Does Unearth make most of its money through music, merch, or touring?
 
Slo:  Through touring yeah, we do well on merch. We’re doing better overall than we used to.
 
punkbands.com: Unearth has had some great merch. Anything that stands out in your mind, or makes you smile when you see a kid walking around sporting it?
 
Slo:  Yeah,we got this new T-shirt design that’s shot. It’s just skeletons in business suits looking up at the sky as bombs are being dropped on them. It’s ridiculous. It’s so stupid, I love it.
 
punkbands.com: Ever think about Unearth branded shovels? Or miners helmets?  The lights could go out during a breakdown and all you’d see would be the headlamps swirling around in the pit as people danced.
 
Slo:  We tossed around some of those ideas and probably some of the better ones were the Unearth chonger - beer funnel and the Unearth lawn ornament.  It’s a hardcore kid, and when the wind blows, the windmills go.
 
punkbands.com: Why did Unearth re-record Endless? And with that midtempo ‘all I have wasted’ singing in the middle? Jeez .That song already destroyed, why mess with success?
 
Slo:  The original recording is the best. The problem with that song was we wanted it to be heard on a more wide spread scenario and in order to do that we had to put it on this new album. The Endless EP, or EPs in general, don’t scan a lot of copies. Only the diehard fans are going to look for it and everyone else is probably not even going to know it exists.  We wanted that song in particular to be heard. Unfortunately, it came out well, but there were certain things with the recording process that I didn’t care for too much that i had no control over, like i thought the china was too low in the mix.  I love china.  China makes me want to rip peoples’ heads off.
 
punkbands.com: Did the fancy metallic ink on the Endless EP in anyway influence the musical direction of The Oncoming Storm?
 
Slo:  Did the ink effect anything musically? No.  We just wanted to do something different.  We had Derek Hess design the cover and we thought that sketchy style he’s got would look good in foil print.  But it kind of backfired because it was so expensive to do that some places, especially up in Canada, charge an arm and leg for it.  I’ve seen that EP go for over twenty-five Canadian dollars.  And that’s too much, I mean, give me a break.
 
punkbands.com: Have you ever seen any Unearth tattoos?
 
Slo:  Yes.  I’ve seen some people here in California that have some of the lyrics tattooed on them.  I saw a guy in the last couple weeks that had the angel design tattooed on his back.  I saw a bunch of kids in England that had them.  There’s quite a few kids out there that have done some Unearth ink.
 
punkbands.com: We’re both from the east coast.  Why is it that people from New England are so good at everything they do?
 
Slo:  I don’t know about that, I’m pretty much a shithead. (laughs)  I think that there’s just a good community up there.  A lot of bands tend to help each other out more and look out for each other, and kind of have a friendly competition with the music too.  We end up touring a lot with bands form the east coast in general.  It’s always a good time.
 
punkbands.com: That Unearth DVD was an amazing capture of the intensity of a live Unearth show, but it was only three songs!  Any plans for a longer video release?
 
Slo:  I really don’t know.  I heard there was supposed to be a full length DVD coming out at some point.  I know we are going to be releasing the entire set on disc with some bonus material.  I think the Endless EP, the Above The Fall Of Man EP, and the entire DVD show will be on a live disc release later this year.
 
punkbands.com: I voted Black Hearts Now Reign as  ‘breakdown of the summer ‘04’.  When the beat drops on that shit, does your heart sort of jump into your throat like mine does?
 
Slo: When we were writing new material, that was my least favorite song.  I felt that live, it just didn’t have as much energy as a lot of our other songs.  It’s a little more complex to play so movement is a little more inhibited than usual, but it’s a good song.  From a live point of view now, I’m really psyched on the reaction we get from that song.  I think that has a lot to do with the DVD.  People kind of associate that song with what they saw on the DVD.  When it gets to that part, we have fun with it.  We stop, there’s a long ass pause, sometimes Mike gets up on the bannisters and hits the drums from up there.  You can see the excitement in the kids and that’s what really gets me.  We’ve always been the band that has a better set if the kids are having a blast.
 
punkbands.com: What’s your favorite song to play live?
 
Slo:  This Lying World.  I get a good vibe from that song in general, I dig it.  Playing it live, I have a lot of fun with it.
 
punkbands.com: Why do people fight at shows?  At the last Unearth show I saw in Jersey, people nowhere near the stage, the pit, or even the dance floor were fighting.  It was disheartening.  Will you tell them to stop?
 
Slo: Yeah, cut that shit out.  You’re always going to have someone who’s going to start a  fight or you’re going to have someone who’s going to misunderstand something.  I wish people would keep it in perspective.  They paid for tickets so they could go and have a good time, not so they could get in a fight with someone and end up going home a bloody mess or put someone else in the same predicament.  This band wasn’t built on fighting.
 
punkbands.com: Unearth is on the Sounds of The Underground tour this summer.  Excited?
 
Slo: Yes, I actually am very excited for that tour.  I am really psyched first off because a lot of the bands we know, we’ll have a good time like we did on Ozzfest, like heavy metal summer camp. It won’t be as long as a tour as Ozzfest.  I’m the kind of dude that if you put us on the road for four or five weeks I’m sad to see it go.  But once you get to the two month mark, I want to shoot myself.
 
punkbands.com: How does a huge tour like that differ from the one day only excitement of a Hellfest or something of that nature?
 
Slo:  I like the tour because if you have a shitty show at Hellfest or New England Music Fest, that sucks. It’s a bum out, and you look at that year’s  festival as just a bum out if that’s the case.  When you have a rolling festival, over the course of a month it seems like everything gets better and better, there;s more hijinks to be done, bands just get silly, and we come up with dumb ideas, like dumb shit to do onstage. The kids that go to a show will probably see something only they will see.  It can be fun and make people laugh, you know, just be a jackass or something.  That’s what we do.  We’re just jackasses.  We like to pull a lot of dumb shit.
 
punkbands.com: What is the biggest difference between the audience for Ozzfest and the audience for this upcoming summer tour?
 
Slo: I’m curious to see the difference.  I really don’t know what the difference is going to be.  There’s a lot of different types of band on the bill.  I think you’ll lose a chunk of that Ozzfest crowd that only goes to Ozzfest, you know, the kids for whom that’s their main music IV.  I think a lot of kids that go to Ozzfest have opened up a lot more, especially with the second stage at Ozzfest the last couple years being focused more on the underground bands.  Hopefully we can get those kids out to this show too and have a good time.
 
punkbands.com: Unearth has gone from saying ‘I aim war at you” in My Heart Bleeds No Longer  to saying “free us of this hate” in the anti-war song The Great Dividers?  Has success turned Unearth into wimps?
 
Slo: No, no, not at all.  We’re a band that stands for fighting for what you believe in.  Absolutely.  But, the last album was recording under the pretense of a wrongful war, and it’s unnecessary.  All the things we’ve been involved in politically as a country have been very questionable.  the albums isn’t saying that one thing is wrong or one thing is right, we just trying to say to people, “Hey, open your eyes and stand up and fight for what you really believe in.  Don’t fight just to fight.”
 
punkbands.com: What is it with Unearth and mutton chops?
 
Slo: Let me give you a little history of our facial hair:  back in western Mass. where I’m from, we practice a thing called Mustache March and Mutton Chop May.  If you look at the last time we played the Fillmore (SF) with Hatebreed and Damageplan - if you find the photos in some magazine you’ll see all of us with mustaches because it happened to be Mustache March.  So we fuck around with a lot of that crap.  I think Mutton Chop May was what really got it going for me because during MCM, I thoroughly enjoyed not having to shave half my face.  So i kind of just left it that way because I don’t get to shave all that often on tour, and when I do I want to make it simple so....
 
punkbands.com: What’s the best perk that comes with being in a band like Unearth?
 
Slo: The best perk to me is being able to hang out with my best friends.  Just going out there, playing and laughing every night.  if the band ended tomorrow, I’d be sad, but it was a good run and I had a great time.  I wouldn’t regret a thing.
 
punkbands.com: Ever sign boobs?
 
Slo: Unfortunately, yes. I’m not necessarily into that sort of activity.  Usually, I’d have to be really drunk, and then I’d just laugh at it.  I’m not a rock star like that, and that kind of move just screams rock star. It is what it is.  You just do it, laugh, and walk away.
 
punkbands.com: Do you see Unearth sticking with Metal Blade for the foreseeable future?
 
Slo: As far as we know, yeah.  I think we owe Metal Blade another album.  Where Unearth goes beyond that, if there’s a future past that, we’ll see.