Seething Beauty

Jan. 20, 2008

In South Africa they are legends and even eight years after they changed their name to Seether, they are still known as Saron Gas in their homeland. Now based in Southern California the alt-metal rockers are embarking on a new tour to promote their fifth release “Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces” that reached #9 on the Billboard Album Charts. The group will make an appearance in Northern Michigan this Friday, Jan. 25 at Streeters’ Ground Zero nightclub.
Seether is hot right now despite some early challenges after the release of their American debut Disclaimer. Founder and frontman Shaun Morgan feels that there were several factors for the band’s early struggles.
“Brainstorming record industry executives decided to re-release our album (titled ‘Disclaimer II’) in 2004 with some bonus tracks and the single “Broken” that we did with Amy Lee (Morgan’s girlfriend) of Evanescence,” said Morgan. “Well, sales picked up and we were sent out to tour in support of only one song. It pissed us off because we knew we should be in the studio working on a new CD. After all we had just come off the road for two years promoting the CD and we had a bunch of new material we wanted to record.”
Then there were personnel issues.
“We had guys in the band who were either looking to move on to bigger bands or they just wanted to get laid,” said Morgan. “It was frustrating because Dale (Dale Stewart original member and bass player) and I were looking for guys committed to the band. Now with drummer John Humphrey I know we have a guy committed to this project for the right reasons.”
So how did you come to sing a duet with Amy Lee?
“Well, she was a fan of the band, and at one of our shows she walked on stage and started singing backing vocals,” said Morgan. “Well someone liked it and we were asked to record the song as a duet for the movie ‘The Punisher.’ Now don’t get me started about that either, because that really pisses me off as well.”
Okay don’t get pissed, but it is such a great song and it was on the soundtrack for the movie, right?
“That’s not the point. we were totally bullshited. Seether was asked to record the song with Amy for what was going to be this awesome love scene in the movie,” said Morgan. “We were okay with that because we could visualize the song in that type of seen. Then the movie comes out and we are pumped and go to the theater to watch it. The song plays while Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is listening to a little radio washing the dishes. We felt betrayed and exploited. It was obvious no one from the movie studio gave a shit about Seether’s credibility or our career.”
In 2005 though you came back with the CD Karma and Effect and it appears that at least from your lyrics, you have a lot of rage towards the industry. Was there pressure from the label to follow up “Broken” with a radio friendly album?
“That medium is fickle,” said Morgan. “We had no ambition of having a pop single with any song on that CD. We just concentrated on writing a rock album.”
Industry insiders have pointed to the fact that Morgan was asked to tone it down and cut out the swearing that was weaved into the songs. He also titled the album “Catering to Cowards” as a tongue in cheek towards industry executives.
Morgan’s anger and rage put the band back on track. “Remedy” their first single off the Karma and Effect CD climbed quickly to #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts and spent five weeks at the top of the charts. Their song “Truth” also charted climbing to #8.
Seether charted frequently with their debut release “Disclaimer” as songs “Fine Again,” “Driven Under” and “Gasoline,” all charted and helped them to attain Gold record status. Then in 2004 the label released “Disclaimer II” with the bonus tracks and the hit “Broken.” That album went Gold and a DVD was released that went Multi-Platinum, selling over 5 million copies to date.
The success of the DVD and the “Broken” single led critics to point to Seether as simply capitalizing off Amy Lee’s and Evanescence success.
“There is no doubt that having Amy on with us has brought us a lot of new fans,” said Morgan. “But we had a lot of fans and three hits before I met her. See, this pisses me off as well. People see the video and they think we are her band. No, get it right, we are Seether and she joined us.”
Morgan is less pissed off these days and no longer worries himself about what the fans and critics are thinking or saying.
“I used to think more about what the fans thought, but ultimately I wound up stunting myself creatively,” said Morgan. “The point of being a musician and writing music and being in a band is that I can write an optimistic-feeling, accessible song if I want. Even though it wasn’t written about an optimistic experience, I opted to see a positive in the situation. Rather than my usual reaction, which would be to get all piss-y and moan-y about it.”
All seems to be well in the Seether camp. Their current CD Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces with its #1 hit single Fake It (spent 11 weeks at #1 on the US Mainstream Rock Charts) has the band in demand. They are currently on a tour of North America selling out shows. They will perform Friday night at Streeters Ground Zero Nightclub. For tickets or additional information visit
www.streetersonline.com or call the box
office at (231) 932-1300.