Interview – Underoath

April 13th, 2010 by Sophie

Ruled By Rock caught up with Florida’s, Underoath where the band discuss Nandos, having their van turned into a chicken and the writing of their new album.

Check out our review of Underoath live at the London Koko HERE.

Words: Talie Pemberton and Sophie Egboh

Firstly Hi!

Christopher Dudley (Keyboards) – Hey, hey!

After an interchanging line up, you have been the current Underoath that we know and love since 2004’s ‘They’re Only Chasing Safety.’
Was there ever a time when a totally new band was going to come of everything, or were you always going to be Underoath?

Chris – Umm, well at one point we thought about possibly changing our name, back in 2003, it was going to be the same line-up you see here but, um at the time, we didn’t feel like going through all that and everything, so we just decided just to keep it cause, y’know, it works!

Fair play, being a Christian band how have you adapted to the ‘sex, drugs and rock n roll’ stereotype?

Chris - We have adapted, we are now sex drugs and rock and roll! [laughs] No not really, um, I don’t know, that’s just not really what we’re into.
I don’t think there’s really a whole lot of difference between being on the road and being at home with that sort of thing, because what I found anyway, is that temptations that you have are one way or another, going to come about in your everyday life; like whether it be with friends or random people or what not. So you know I think that, us just as much as anyone else, you just have to know who you are and be comfortable with that, and not be able to be swayed one way or another just by out side things that are going on.

Cool! What can fans expect from an Underoath show that they may not get elsewhere?

Chris - Expect from our show… [ponders] I don’t know! We play Underoath songs…

RBR - [Laugh] That always helps!

Chris - Yeah! We play originals, We’re gonna throw some covers in one of these days, just haven’t got there, so all originals now, we like to have fun, jam, hang, and if kids are having fun then we’re having fun!

You said on Twitter that no-one else is discussing the 600 million tonnes of water on the moon, you can discuss it now, what are your thoughts?

Chris - Yes. Weeeelll, I think it’s kind of a big deal! Did any of you guys hear that they found 600 million tonnes of water on the moon?

Spencer Chamberlain (vox) – Where?

Chris - Like all over it, it’s frozen and like frozen lakes and stuff. They found that like a week ago…

James Smith (guitar) - There is no moon…

Chris - Yeah, James is a moon denier, he believes the moon doesn’t exist.

RBR - So what is it if it’s not the moon?

Chris - It’s a projector…

RBR - That’s like denying evolution!

Chris - Woah! We had that conversation today too!

RBR - Discuss…

Chris - I don’t know, like, I would think personally that, cause the whole thing has been that we haven’t been able to find signs of life on other planets and stuff. Granted, there’s nothing living on the moon, but you would think that.

Spencer - Or is there?

Chris - Or is there?!

Spencer – We haven’t found that…

Chris - We haven’t found it yet, but you see, to me finding water on the moon would be a big deal because if like you ever wanted to put a moon base or something like that there now you know there is an abundance of water there. I don’t know, I just thought that was a big deal, I guess no-one else really did, but I did…

Toasty - I thought it was a big deal dude!

Chris - Did you not hear about it?

Toasty - Only when you tweeted about it

Chris - See.

Festival season is looming, are you playing any English festivals this year? Reading or Download?

Chris - Zero! We’re playing none.

RBR - None?!

Chris - Yeah, bummer right!

RBR - Err, yeah!

Spencer - What?

Chris - No festivals, this summer, here.

Spencer- It’s cause we’re recording.

Chris- Yeah, well what Andy [management] said, they tried to work it out- our management and stuff and it just didn’t end up coming into play, but now it actually works out cause that’s when we’re gonna be recording our record.
I would say it’s a fair certainty, we’ll be here next summer playing at least one. We’re gonna have our new record our and everything so, I cant say for sure, but I can almost say for sure that well be here next year doing it, but this summer we’ll be recording.

How’s record coming along? Are you writing lots of songs?

Chris - No we’ve done about five songs, we’re not done, but you know we’ve got a few ideas but during this tour we’re going to be writing, and when this tour’s done we’re working at home and we’re going to have two months straight of writing so that’s when we’re going to end up finishing it off, it’s turning out really well so far. The songs that we have we’re stoked on.

How do you think it’s going to differ from sound of separation?

Chris - It’ll be better! It’s going to be louder! We’re just gonna turn the fader up a little bit, so it’ll be louder, I don’t know, it’s hard to tell at this point, cause we’re not even half way into the writing

Spencer - We’re writing all the songs backwards, the chord structures gonna be reversed so it’s really the same thing.

What do you find is the main difference between UK crowds and American Crowds?

Chris - The accent I think, I don’t think theres a huge difference, Toasty, is there a difference?

Toasty - There used to be when we were playing the Barflys the whole time.

Chris -Yeah, at one point they were a lot smaller.

Toasty - Really lame!

Chris - Yeah! But that was years ago, now it’s awesome!

Spencer - Should you say that? I mean, can we say that on tape?

Chris- I mean, you guys are SO much more crazy than the rest of the world!

Spencer - See, is it better to say that? Or is it better to say they’re really really bad so that they shape up?

Chris - No cause maybe they ship out instead of shape up and say, I have a lot of fun at you’re shows, if you don’t like it then I’m not gonna come back!

Spencer - That’s true! I would say, they’re not as good so you better shape up!

Chris - See the UK crowd, we love them, they’re great, but they’re not as crazy, so you better shape up! Quote, Spencer Chamberlain 2010.

You’ve been around for nearly 13 years, is longevity important to you and do you think you’ll still be doing this at 60?

Chris - Um, longevity is important to me, I don’t think important is the right word but I think there’s something to be said about that. If you can continue to get older and write music that you like, and other people like. I think that’s the dream of any band to continue to do well no matter how old you are, I don’t think we’ll be doing this when we’re 60 just because you can think of like 4 bands that have lasted that long, chances are probably not but not necessarily because we wouldn’t want to.
I personally want to do this as long as possible, but with the way the music scene is and there are bands here today, gone tomorrow. Hope fully we’ll still be doing this for a long time but, who knows?

What is the most memorable show you’ve played?

Chris - Most memorable show I’ve played… umm… there’ve been a lot, we played a show in South Africa in the middle of a field, prairie thing, and it was crazy cause the stage was like super small, not a whole lot bigger than this room and it was kinda like a shed without a wall on the side, and the whole thing was set up kinda like a house party.
They’d have people selling drinks outta coolers, and there were these huge bonfires, it was a super cold night so while we were playing, there were these bonfires and everyone was just like hanging out. It had a vibe of just sorta going to a party which I thought was awesome, when we got done playing I just walked around and it was great, it was a lot of fun.

RBR- Sounds really surreal though?

Chris- Yeah! It was crazy, In the middle of nowhere, there was nothing for miles and there was like a cow fence around the whole thing! It was crazy!

What would you say is the worst day you’ve had on tour?

Chris - Oooh, um let me think? Bad days? Not a tonne, we’ve had a few bad shows, I remember that show we played at numbers with Coheed and Cambria, back in like 04, that was a really bad show [looks around] remember that show? That was one of the worst shows we’ve ever played cause literally every instrument broke at different points in the set, it was a disaster!

Spencer - I fell off the stage and hit my head

Chris - Yeah, it was just horrible! The worst show ever!

RBR- Was it small?

Chris- No there was probably like 1000 people there, it was a decent size…

Spencer - It wasn’t the crowd, it was us!

Chris- Yeah, the crowd was great, we just sucked, we were so so back, like every once in a blue moon you come off stage and feel bad that people paid to see what you just did, and that was one of those nights!

Are there any sorts of pranks that happen or is it pretty chilled out?

Chris - Nowadays it’s a lot harder cause when you tour in the van, it’s all about doing pranks to the other person, where it’s your personal property you can do what you want to the other persons van as long as you don’t mind getting it done to yours.
Where as now we’re in a bus, you don’t own buses so you cant really do any of that cause it’s not your property.
In the past there’s been some pretty awesome ones, when we toured in the van there’s been some pretty great ones.
One time we were on tour with Atreyu and we got there trailer and we unbolted the tyres and we got a chain and we chained the tyres to the top of the trailer and we put it on blocks. We got all the nuts and the key to the lock in this concoction, it had like mayonnaise, and pee, and all kinds of gross stuff, we also went to the store and bought 10 keys that were not the key and threw those in there to so they had to root around and try to find the right key

RBR - That’s a lot of effort!

Chris - It was a lot of fun!

RBR - Were they pissed or were they okay about it?

Chris- They were cool, cause the pranks were going back and forth, the night before that, they turned our van into a chicken, they got a bunch of maple syrup and poured it all over it then they got some feather pillows and ripped them open and threw it. Then they made a cardboard beak and tail and stuff, it was pay back!

RBR - Do you think you’ll have anything like that with current support bands We are The Ocean and Black hole?

Chris - Will we do anything like that? I don’t know, we haven’t even met all of them yet so we don’t know what the vibe is.

RBR - How did you choose them to support you?

Chris - Honestly; we got an email from our manager saying they wanted to do it with a link to their MySpace, so we listened to it and we were like ‘sure’ and that was pretty much it.

Fair play, as a band you are associated with non-profit organisation To Write Love on her Arms [TWLOHA] do you feel privileged in a position of being able to spread words of hope and community.

Chris - Yeah, I think in general that’s important to us, not necessarily through any particular organisation, I think they’re a great group and Jamie [Tworkowski, founder of TWLOHA] is awesome, and he does a lot of good, but I think in general through our music and doing what we do, that’s a big message and through lyrics and us as people. There’s a lot of negativity in general, and we’re just trying to do something positive.

Is it daunting to you though that a lyric or wearing a t-shirt on stage could potentially save someone’s life?

Chris - I don’t think that’s anything that we really think about, it’s more that we just do what we do, as far as lyrics go that’s just something that Spencer and Aaron [Gilespie, former drummer and vocalist] will write stuff, that speaks to them and that they think is awesome and if someone gets some thing from that then that’s amazing, but it’s not like we’re sitting down to figure what shirt we’re going to wear or anything like that, we’re pretty non-chalent about that stuff.

Any final words?

Chris - Nandos. We went there earlier it was awesome.

RBR - We were just talking about that, I had my first one on Monday…

Chris- Oh yeah? It’s Great, what’d you get?

RBR - Chicken burger and chips with the really hot sauce

Chris - Oooh, they’re really really hot!

RBR - Have you ever stolen any of the sauce from nandos? It’s really tempting.

Chris - No, the bottles look like they’re expensive so i don’t wanna feel like I’m actually stealing something; where as if you take like packets of ketchup, I don’t really consider that stealing cause that’s like packets of ketchup, but those bottles are like nice!
It’s great sauce though, it’s weird cause different Nandos in different parts of the world it tastes different, cause in some places the medium isn’t really that hot but here the medium is super hot! He [James] got a hot and he said it was burning!

James - But when we were in New Zealand I got extra hot and it was not hot at all! Today I was like, we’re gonna play a show… Ill just get hot, and it was hotter than the extra hot there.

Chris - Tim got the extra hot I think? Yeah. So Nandos, the end.

Tags: Atreyu, Chris, Christopher Dudley, James Smith, Spencer Chamberlain, They're Only Chasin Safety, Underoath
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