Unearth's Next Album Revealed

06/04/08 5:30pm

by Andre Mihsin (CHARTattack)

Hot of the heels of a successful headlining tour and the release of their Alive From The Apocalypse DVD, singer Trevor Phipps and the rest of Unearth are already to record their next album. It may sound cliched, but with the most stable lineup in the band's history and some help from a friend, this could be Unearth's strongest and most diverse record to date.

ChartAttack: On the Alive From The Apocalypse DVD, you addressed the band's constant lineup changes. How solid is the current lineup?
Trevor Phipps: Now it's as solid as it's been ever, besides when we had Mike Justain on The Oncoming Storm album cycle. Buz [McGrath, guitar] is an original touring member. The first few years of touring he wasn't a full member, but he's been there since the beginning of '98. Ken [Susi, guitars/vocals] has always been there. I've always been there. Slo [John Maggard, bass/vocals/piano] has been there since 2001 when he started touring full-time. So the four main dudes are there. Then we got Derek Kerswell on drums. He's not an official member yet. I think we'll wait to announce anything along those lines until after the next record is recorded. But he's been touring with the band for almost a year. We've been friends with him for a long time and he's been doing all the touring and writing for the record and all the future touring — he's pretty much our drummer. There's some legal bullshit we got to get out of the way, but we'd rather just focus on the record instead of worrying about legal bullshit. But I would say the five dudes we have now is the most solid we've been in a long time and I can't see anyone getting out of the picture any time soon.

You said you guys have five or six songs in pre-production. How do the songs sound and how is the writing process coming along?
I love it, man. It's a lot more comfortable writing with Derek Kerswell on drums than the last album was with Mike Justain. We fought through that last record and I think we had some good tunes. We're all proud of that album big-time, but there was definitely a fight with Mike Justain because it was just increasing over the years that we weren't seeing eye-to-eye with him.

Do you think you're going to throw in one of the piano-driven numbers like "Aries" or "Big Bear And The Hour Of Chaos?"
"Aries" and "Big Bear" kind of just came out of left field. That wasn't something we planned on doing. Those songs were actually born in the studio, so there's no telling if that will happen again. It happened on the last two records, so there is a chance that it might. But it's not something that we set out to do.

I think throwing in those kinds of songs is good because it breaks up the monotony of the constantly heavy tracks.
It breaks it up a bit. It gives the record some division, but some continuity at the same time. With Slo being a pretty damn good piano player, it's really easy for us to be able to do that. He's actually a piano player first and a bass player second, so it makes it easier to do that.

On the last record you worked with Terry Date, who does records for Pantera and Slipknot, but you decided to go back to The Oncoming Storm producer Adam Dutkiewicz for this album.
It was great working with Terry. It was an experience and he's definitely a talented dude and a great engineer, but we definitely have more of a chemistry with Adam. Also, Adam's a great guitar player [he plays with Killswitch Engage] and he might hear a guitar harmony or a riff or whatever that Buz or Ken aren't hearing, because that's happened in the past. There's a song called "The Charm" from the Endless EP and the whole underlying harmony was an idea that Adam had and it made the riff stand out that much more. That's the kind of shit he can bring to the table, where Terry just had such a great ear and he had ideas for certain changes in songs. But I think Adam really does help contribute to the overall project, where Terry is more the guy that will let you do it yourself and try to get the best sound possible.