Seether + More Take a Swing in ‘Baseball Tonight’ Theme Music Showdown
ESPN is holding a contest featuring several bands and musicians who have recorded their own distinct reworkings of the cable network’s ‘Baseball Tonight’ theme music. Artists including Seether, Staind, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Black Label Society guitarist Zakk Wylde have already had their versions of the ‘Baseball Tonight’ theme featured on the show this season, and ESPN wants you to help pick which act made the trophy-winning song. Each week for 11 weeks, two acts are facing off head-to-head in the competition, with the winner going on to face another act the following week. Staind were knocked out last week by Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker (who snagged 60 percent of the votes). This week, Barker is squaring off against Seether.
Hit The Lights: Shaun Morgan 'Surrounded by Morons'
Could you provide some background information on 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray'? Writing its tracks, and what Seether wished to achieve this time around? Shaun: Yeah. This time we worked with Brendan O'Brien, and he's by far the best producer we've ever worked with as far as how he works, and as far as how he works with us and how we work for him. He works fast and he works productively, and overall it was a great experience. We recorded the album in three different batches in blocks of five songs at a time, and then each time we'd recorded a block of five we'd go back to the drawing board and try to write better songs than the previous five. Basically we were just trying to better ourselves every time we went back to the studio. We ended up recording it in Nashville at Blackbird Studios, so that was cool because it was a very Beatles-themed studio. That gave everyone inspiration, coming into the studio and then having John Lennon on the wall. It was a good way to start. Other than that, I think we worked pretty hard on this album. With this album, every song found its sound. I'm really proud of this one. Are The Beatles a musical influence? Shaun: Yeah. Growing up I was a huge Beatles fan, and I still am a huge Beatles fan. I think they did pretty much everything when it comes to music; they did blues, they did rock, they did country, they did pop - they basically covered all the bases. I think The Beatles wrote the best songs we'll ever hear. Certainly any time I need to listen to something that's inspiring, I definitely listen to The Beatles. I preferred John Lennon's style of writing; I loved his solo albums. There's certainly a wealth of songs to pick from to gain inspiration. By no means will I ever be comparable to a band like that or will I ever write anything that's even remotely as good as a Beatles song, but certainly their inspiration makes my songwriting better. How did Brendan O'Brien come to produce? Shaun: I told my manager that I would like to speak with Brendan. Luckily I was in L.A. at the time and so was he, and he said yes, that he would have a meeting with me. We met in a coffee shop, and we sat down for about an hour. We spoke; I said "We'd like you to produce the album", and he said he would love to work on the album. He basically told me to just start sending him demos. I got back in my car, phoned the band and told them we got Brendan O'Brien, and nobody believed me. Eventually I guess we were in Nashville in February or March 2010, and we were doing some recording sessions for some tracks. He just basically took every song that we had and improved them - it just took us to the next level. As a good producer, I don't think you're supposed to write songs and I don't think you're supposed to change things completely from what they are. As a good producer, you're supposed to bring the best out of a band and that's what Brendan did. How did Brendan attempt to draw the best out of Seether? Shaun: We'd basically sit there and work on a song, and he'd say "Well, that part of the song is great. Maybe we can make the next part of the song a little more interesting by maybe changing the guitar line" or vice versa. He tried to make it as interesting as possible for the listener. He will find something that he likes about a song and he'll keep that element, and then he'll just expand upon that element. That's really his approach to producing. It was really interesting because we even started paying attention to the way we write songs because of that. We would start off writing a song in a certain way, and then ask Brendan for his input. We started completely adapting our songwriting process to accomodate what Brendan was gonna say, which ultimately I think made us write better songs as well. He can sing, he can play guitar, he can play drums. He can do anything; he'll sit down and work on any instrument with you. That's the most important part of being a producer, is to have that really good musical ear and be able to keep the integrity of a song, but make it more interesting. When Seether decides to record a follow-up to 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray', will Brendan O'Brien definitely be on the list of potential producers to work with? Shaun: Yeah, without a doubt. As far as we're concerned, we've found the producer we want to work with. I pray we'll never have to find somebody else. I'm sure he really had a good time working with us as much as we had a good time working with him, so I think next time it won't even be the question of finding a producer. It'll just be making sure that he's available. On 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray''s tracks, you generally don't scream as much as you did in the past. Is there a reason for that musical shift? Shaun: Well, yeah. I didn't feel like I wanted to scream as much on this album. I wrote a bunch of songs that were real heavy and real screamy, but I just didn't feel like they would fit this album - it wasn't what I wanted to put out this time. I'm not gonna throw in screams just for the sake of having them. It just felt like it wasn't appropriate this time. There's certainly parts on the album where there's one or two good screams on there, but the whole point of this wasn't to make one of those albums. I was trying to express myself by not having to get juvenile with it so there's almost no screaming, but having said that, the next album might just be full of it. I can never tell. It just so happens that this time screaming wasn't generally the right approach. Have you felt any pressure to include screams in Seether songs in the past? Shaun: No, not personally. I certainly felt like I was angry and that was the only way I could express it. It was more of a therapy rather than trying to figure out a way... It's just one of those things; you can scream or you can use words, and on this album I wanted to use words rather than just resort to the familiarity of screaming because as much as I enjoy doing it, it wasn't gonna serve a purpose. On past Seether albums I only screamed where I felt they were necessary. In terms of clean vocals, who are your influences? Shaun: First of all, I'd say Kurt Cobain was a bigger source than the whole Seattle scene. Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, that whole crowd. I like any band that I believe is melodic and is good at it; I'm a huge Tool fan, I love the Deftones. I'm quite a fan of female singers actually because I feel what they're doing melodically. There isn't necessarily one particular person I listen to all the time now, but I would say I'm pretty much influenced by everyone around me and anyone who might sing in any band in any kind of musical scene. Someone might play me a pop song, but then again it could be a Slipknot track that I like the vocals on. If any band is passionate in the vocals, then I might be a fan of it. Are there certain female singers you enjoy? Shaun: PJ Harvey I would say is probably my favourite. There's many songs though where I just find the female vocals to be really quite soothing, and just really creative. You said how you felt as though the songs on 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray' didn't call for screaming. How did you compliment the generally more clean singing on the album with your guitar playing? Shaun: Basically the vocals come last - I always write the guitar parts first. I try to fit a vocal to whatever the music is, and I usually try to sense the emotion of the music and then incorporate the lyrics and the melody into that. My guitar playing hasn't necessarily changed, but I think the vocals might've changed for the playing because again, the riffs and the music come first. Sometimes a vocal idea might come in, but sometimes I'll just work on music for a couple of weeks and not have any vocal ideas. I remember as a kid I used to write songs and just on the spot write the vocal parts, but these days I just focus on the music first. I focus on making the guitar work as interesting as possible before I even attempt a vocal. It's a little easier to put a good vocal over some good music than it is to put some good music over a good vocal. Is there a certain place 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray' is coming from? Shaun: I don't know if there's one particular place, but again it draws from my experience. It's all really based on things I've gone through and things I have to get out of my system. Again, there's not really any particular one place. I guess the idea of this album was to understand that just because you're afraid of being alone, that doesn't make it ok to stick around for the sake of it. I've been in that situation with friends and girlfriends - people I've been in relationships with - where it's been apparent from the start that you just hang onto them. You can't really tell why, but you hang onto them anyway. It's just a parasitic relationship for everybody involved. So singing these tracks was a cathartic experience? Shaun: Yeah. Every time I record an album, it's certainly a therapeutic process. It's a way to get things out of my system. If I didn't have that outlet, then I'd find it more difficult to live a somewhat more regular life. Sometimes it's difficult dealing with the issues I deal with as far as songs go though, so yeah, recording an album is always therapeutic. It saves me $140 a week on counselling (laughs). Do you ever find it difficult to draw on issues to write about, or are there plenty of things you can write about? Shaun: Thankfully I've surrounded myself - I guess my entire life - by a bunch of morons, so there's always fodder for songwriting. I don't think that one song ever deals with any situation enough. I think sometimes situations that inspired a song requires more than one song, if it's that much of an influential thing. To capitalise on that in a song, one can never deal with it in one take. I just keep mining issues that I have from thirty-two years of life. Sometimes the issues are more recent and sometimes they're a little older, but thank God I haven't run out of things yet. In what ways is 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray' a definite progression from 'Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces'? Shaun: I would say we approached this one more melodically than the previous one. I think we took a really long, hard look at the songs, and we worked on each song until we thought it was something that was superior to anything else we'd done. The whole focus on this album was to outdo the last one - and I think we do every time - but I think really there is just no real reason for why it's better than the last one. By the same token though, a lot of the time we wanted to make the guitars a little bit more heavy. You have the juxtaposition of a melodic vocal line and a heavy guitar, and I think that was the focus here. I love heavy music, but Brendan is the kind of producer who likes to have melodic vocals over heavy music. That was our only approach with this one, was to be a little bit more clear with the vocals and think a little bit more out of the box. Would you say there is a balance between delving into new musical territory but not making a complete 180 degrees shift? Shaun: I think with any album you do you have to be creative, but you also have to retain the elements of whatever first attracted people to your band. Having said that, every time you write a song there's still your band's vibe on the song. Whichever people were attracted to the band in the first place, they should hopefully be along for the ride. You experiment and you try to broaden old fans' horizons, and you try to attract new fans. It's one of those things. I think we've definitely managed to maintain a balance. I was quite mindful of that as well writing the album, because again, you don't want to alienate people and you don't want them to think of the band as recycling older stuff. I would say that we covered all the bases on the album. You've said how the guitars are heavier on 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray'. Is there anything else you'd say about the guitars on the album, compared to previous Seether albums? Shaun: Overall, I think the idea was to make the guitars heavy and interesting, and then from there add vocals to the songs. I think we spent a lot of time on the sound finding the right balances, and finding the right tone for each song. When we found a certain sound that we liked, we kept that in some cases - it didn't necessarily change with every song. If it wasn't broken, we didn't fix it. If we found something that we liked and we all agreed that it was the best sound, then we kept that. From the drum beat to the bass line to the guitar work to the vocals, the main focus was how to keep the listener interested. That's why it took so long as well. One of your favourite tracks on 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray' - "Tonight" - nearly didn't make it onto the album. Shaun: Yeah. We had basically finished recording the album, and had two studio days left to do overdubs and so on to make sure everything was polished. I went ahead and showed the band the song on the way to the studio and everyone freaked out, so I went into the studio and laid down guitars and vocals for it. We brought the drums back into the studio and laid down drums - we recorded it over those two days. I'm glad it's on there; I think it's a hopeful song and I think it's a positive song. Sometimes songs go unnoticed and fall through the cracks during the process, and you become overwhelmed by it. This one was very much in danger of that happening, so I'm glad it was saved at the eleventh hour. Brendan's the kind of guy that likes to record strong material, even if it means a long day in the studio or whatever. A Muse-influenced track features on the album too, titled "Roses". Shaun: I'm a Muse fan, and I think there's certainly a small ode to Muse on that song musically. I don't know whether or not vocally I could ever do anything as great as they do. When you try to tap into an influence like Muse, I think it makes a song more interesting. Why did Seether decide to title 'Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray' after lyrics from the track "Here And Now"? Actually, the lyrics from "Here And Now" are taken from the album title. I'd already come up with the album title about a year ago. I just took the title and incorporated it into the lyrics. I've never done that before, so that was interesting. I really liked the way the title sounded, so incorporated it into "Here And Now" because of that. What do you feel the future holds for Seether? What does the band hope to achieve in the future? That's an interesting question, because you never really know man. We hope that with every album we become more successful, and that the fanbase grows that much more. We don't really have any lofty goals or anything; we don't wanna win Grammies or anything like that. We want to keep doing this as long as we can. There's not a better job in the world, so long as we keep it...
Seether’s John Humphrey: ‘We’re a Live Band’ – Uproar Festival Chat
What’s Humphrey most enjoying about the tour? “For me at this point, it’s playing live that I really like,” he said. “We spent all last year in the studio writing and recording the album, and playing live is a very different.” “It’s in the moment. It’s what playing music all about, at least for me,” he added. “It’s about the audience being right there. The music business has its craziness, but that 75 minutes or hour you’re on stage, you can control. That’s what Seether loves doing. We’re a touring band. We’re a live band. It’s the show. I really love playing live and being on tour.” As for the set, Humphrey promises a mix of the old and new. “Right now, the set kind of it goes chronologically. We start out with some older stuff like “Fine Again” and “Gasoline,” and we work our way through to Finding Beauty [in Negative Spaces]. We’ve been playing “Country Song,” and we have a new single which we’ll be playing off the album called, “Tonight.” Then there’s “Remedy” and “Fake It,” and we always throw in a cover to have fun. We’ve been very fortunate to have success with Seether, and we have a lot of singles, so the singles alone could fill up an hour.”
There's No Way Out with Seether
Seether's hit, "Fake It," is the official theme song for Sunday's No Way Out. It's the third time WWE has tapped into Seether's talent to set a hard-hitting musical backdrop for some of our best pay-per-views. "It definitely took a lot longer, I think, for rock music and WWE to get together than I would have thought. But it's definitely something that we're always really excited to be part of because we know it reaches a massive audience," said Shaun Morgan, lead vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter for Seether. The South African band's "Sold Me" was featured in WWE's Bad Blood in 2004, and "Remedy" was the theme for SummerSlam 2005. "Fake It" comes off the band's 2007 album, Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces, which debuted on Billboard's Top 200 chart at No. 9. Since the album's release on Wind-up Records in October, it's sold close to 300,000 copies. "Fake It" has been the No. 1 song on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks for the past few weeks, and has had a constant presence on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, thanks to strong radio play. "It's just a song about anti-hypocrisy, and you know, I find that in the world we live in, certainly the world in general, there seems to be a trend for people to, I think, use other people to get as much as they can, especially in cities like L.A., and I unfortunately live there. It's something that you become more acutely aware of it once you're in that environment," said Morgan. "It's just basically about, you know, a call to people, and certainly to the youth of today, to be less interested in people like Paris Hilton and more interested in things of value you know and to be real people other than clones," he said. Seether are big WWE fans, and recently attended a live event in Tampa, Fla., where they met some of the WWE Superstars and Divas. "It was awesome. We were in the front row and I got to hang out backstage and see some of the names that were around when I was still a kid. My favorite moment -- you know, I'm a fan of the older guys -- was when I saw Undertaker. That's when I was star struck," Morgan said. "We hung out with Edge for a little bit and we got to go and have dinner with some of the rest of the Superstars afterward." Morgan explained that the backstage atmosphere of a WWE event was much different than that of a rock concert. "You know, it's like a bunch of guys that have their bags, and then they sign some autographs and then they get in their cars and drive home. It's far more laid back," he said. "There's definitely a lot of good vibes going on backstage." Morgan and his bandmates, bassist Dale Stewart and drummer John Humphrey, are on tour with Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin. "It's awesome. Actually today is the last day in Canada, which were very happy about, because it's been absolutely freezing and we question the wiseness of deciding to tour Canada in January and February," Morgan joked. "We head back to the States tomorrow, so we're excited about somewhat warmer weather." Morgan told WWE.com touring with Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin is a blast because the band members are friends. "It makes it easier if you're on tour with guys that you respect and admire and there's definitely a mutual respecting going on," Morgan said. "We're in a good position right now and were certainly having a lot of fun," he said. "So as far as the fans go, fans of wrestling and of us, thanks for the support and hopefully it will continue to be as great as it has been."
Seether Frontman Shaun Morgan Hopes to Save Lives with Rise Above Fest
On September 3, Seether and a host of other bands will gather in Gilford, New Hampshire, to rock the inaugural Rise Above Fest, the brainchild of Seether frontman Shaun Morgan. The festival is designed to raise awareness of the world’s teen-suicide epidemic. “Somebody’s gotta stand up and say something about (suicide),” said Morgan, who says he has suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life. “If we don’t tackle it, it’s going to get worse.” GUITAR WORLD: When did you get the idea for The Rise Above Fest, and why is suicide awareness such an important issue for you? SM: I had the idea this spring, and it kind of tied into what I was hoping to end up doing one day. I never thought it was going to be a festival, but some sort of foundation based on trying to help kids that are suicidal. Especially with what’s going on in the world these days, it feels like no one really cares. Agencies and charities that have been working with them for 20 or 30 years suddenly find that they have no more funding coming in. Suicide’s killing kids who are 12, 13, 14, 15, and it’s one of the biggest killers of kids in that age group across the country. I’ve experienced it, and I really feel like nobody gave a shit. The house I live in, the guy I bought it from shot himself. He was a retired businessman who was like 65, and there was no explanation. In the town I live in, there are like 10 or 20 suicides a year, yet it’s become something nobody really pays any attention to. All the crap they feed people and all the these drugs they stick in kids’ brains, I think it just makes it worse. Somebody’s gotta stand up and say something about it. It’s time we all stop fucking around and pretend nothing is going on. If we don’t tackle it, it’s going to get worse. GW: Why did you choose to benefit the National Alliance on Mental Illness? What stands out about that organization? SM: They are one of the oldest around, and they’ve always kept the focus on the families of suicides, failed suicides and the vets coming back from war. They cover quite a broad spectrum, so there are a lot of reasons we wanted to partner with these people. A lot of mental hospitals have been shut down recently, and a lot of their people have become homeless or become criminals because they have no choice. Suicidal thoughts and depression, I’ve suffered from them my whole life and deal with it in my own way. I was on all the routine drugs when I was a kid, all the cool, “Yeah, I’ve got a problem and I’m seeing a therapist” drugs. I was forced to go on those all the time. I feel like NAMI is a good organization. They encompass a lot of things a lot of people are afraid deal with or are too selfish and too far up their own asses to even care about. GW: The Rise Above Fest’s inaugural lineup is stacked with some of the genre’s top names. How did that come together? SM: I’ve known those bands for a while. They just happened to be bands we did a couple of shows with and asked them if they’d come out and do it. It’s really great that the lineup could work out, because I feel like it’s a good cross-section and covers a lot of aspects of rock and roll. The whole idea is to make the day as entertaining as possible. If the cause isn’t what makes people buy tickets, then hopefully the bands will be enough for the ticket price. It worked out that these bands would be in the area and were gracious enough to join on, so hopefully this will be the first of an annual thing. If it does work out, then we owe these guys a serious debt of gratitude!
Seether: An American band
South Africa is famous for fine wine, was infamous for apartheid and was the focus of the world this summer during the FIFA World Cup soccer competition. What South Africa isn't necessarily known for is rock 'n' roll. So moving to the United States was a natural progression for post-grunge rock band Seether, which hails from Pretoria, South Africa. "The scene is just a lot bigger here," Seether bassist Dale Stewart said by phone before heading into a show at The Pageant in St. Louis. "You can only tour so much [in South Africa]. You'll do a tour and probably play about six decent-size shows, and that's that; you've pretty much traveled everywhere." Seether, which now calls Los Angeles home, will make its way to the York Fair for a 7 p.m. concert Wednesday, Sept. 15, with Hinder and special guest Black Stone Cherry. Stewart, who retains a thick, British-influenced accent, needed some time to adjust to his stateside digs. "The main differences for me were just an accumulation of little things," he recalled. "When we first came over, it was really strange. Everything was different, down to the cigarettes you smoke or the beer you drink, the plugs in the wall, the stores, the side of the road you drive on. It's a connection of all these little things that really make it quite strange." On any continent, playing in Seether with bandmates Shaun Morgan (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), John Humphrey (drums) and Troy McLawhorn (lead guitar) is a dream come true for Stewart. He's only ever held one job other than musician: Throughout high school and for a short time after graduation, he worked at his father's fishing tackle business. "I was like, 'Dad, I'm going to have to quit. The band is starting to get serious,'" Stewart recalled. "I think [my parents] were a little worried at first, but I think they are happy now that we have had success and are doing well." In those days, the band was called Saron Gas, a homophonic redux of the odorless, colorless, toxic nerve agent sarin gas. "Things were pretty simple. … We had the band going. We were just young kids, and all we'd worry about was how we were going to get money to get drunk tonight and hoping that there would be girls at the party. … I always think fondly of those days." Then came the call that upstart bands wait for. With the help of a small South African label, the band sent copies of its first album, "Fragile," to European and American record companies. The phones rang, and at the request of music industry execs, the foursome changed its name to Seether. "I was 21 when I came over," Stewart said. "Wind-up Records gave us a call … and we were literally on the plane a week after the call. That's when the whole whirlwind began. It was pretty surreal." During a European tour, Seether tapped into a hit when Amy Lee, the face of headlining act Evanescence, sat in on a version of "Broken" from the first official Seether album, "Disclaimer." Back stateside, the track was re-recorded with Lee on backing vocals and used in the film "The Punisher." "Broken" peaked at number 20 on Billboard's Hot 100, and the single eventually went platinum. Stewart credits the band's success to hard work, dedication and a certain amount of luck. "I feel pretty grateful for what we have and what we've done," he said. "A big part of our success is our willingness to tour. We gave up everything for this. We moved countries. We left behind girlfriends and families. It's tough to do."
Seether not afraid to sing what's on its mind
More than most bands, Seether appreciates a solid cover song. But don't expect lightning to strike twice on the current tour, which hits the Civic Center May 19. The South African band harbors no illusions of shaking up rock fans like it did last year with "Careless Whisper." Leading up to Valentine's Day 2009, iTunes contacted the band and asked for a romantic number. Needing a quick turnaround, Seether decided not to write a new ballad but put its touch on a cover. The suggestion: "Careless Whisper," the treacly 1984 hit by Wham! "We thought it was kind of funny, because we don't think of Seether as a lovey-dovey band," says chuckling drummer John Humphrey. "But we thought it would be fun to take the song and rock it up." Out went the original's saxophones in favor of grinding guitars. And, somehow, it worked, with the surging grunge even more remorseful than George Michael's plaintive wailing. Even more impressive: Seether turned and burned the effort in just one day, during a tour stopover - yet it was good enough to reach No. 63 on the Billboard 100. Humphrey says the band has neither the hope nor desire to hit it big with another mass-hit cover. Still, on the road, the band likes to offer its take on established tunes. Last time through Peoria, in August 2008, a highlight of the set list was a re-do of Stone Temple Pilots' "Creep." This tour, the cover of choice is Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box." Such noodlings are the luxury of holding the headlining slot. As an opener, with less time to work with, Seether sticks to the hits. But as the closer, Seether can throw out a cover, plus other treats. "We get to delve into deeper cuts, stuff that's fun for us to play," Humphrey says. But don't expect any new material during the Peoria stop. The band has written an entire album of fresh tracks, recording four tunes so far. Seether will go back into the studio after the current tour ends next month, and the CD should drop in the fall. Until then, however, the new material will be kept a closely guarded secret. Unlike many bands, Seether won't give the songs a test drive in concert. "We want it to be fresh and new (in the fall) and have impact," Humphrey says. The album likely will sound much like Seether's typical driving grit, he says. However, the guitars will be a bit heavier. That's simply the result of the newest way the quartet writes songs. Used to be, frontman Shaun Morgan aurally sketched out the melodies before asking bandmates to flesh out the material. Now, however, all four get together, offering and following hooks and riffs. They'll record the efforts and play them back, listening for those that burst with the right touch. After they structure a song, Morgan adds lyrics. "A lot of it depends on the tone of the song and what's going on in Shaun's life," Humphrey says. "... Certainly, it's his vision."
Seether Drummer: ‘Holding onto Strings Better Left to Fray’ Was a Team Effort
When post-grunge band Seether set out to record their latest album, ‘Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray,’ they knew it would stand out from anything in the Seether archive. That’s largely because the guys wrangled mega-producer Brendan O'Brien to do all the taping-- a guy with whom they’d always wanted to work. "When [vocalist] Shaun [Morgan] called me over the holidays [in 2009] to say, 'I just got out of a meeting with Brendan O'Brien, man, he's gonna do our record, man,' we were just ecstatic and really excited to do that,” drummer John Humphrey told the College Times. “I mean, what could you say? ‘No, we'll maybe work with Howard [Benson] again.' I mean, at that point, it was Brendan all the way. We're such a big fan. "I think each time we [made an album], maybe we didn't find the guy we wanted, [and we didn't want] to go back and repeat the same thing again.” O'Brien is a keeper, but another reason Humphrey is so proud of the album is because it was more of a team effort than most of Seether’s works. “’Finding Beauty,’ more of that was Shaun, musically, having to take the brunt of the work and having to do it all himself," Humphrey said. "I had had back surgery right before that album was recorded, so he kind of did that himself." He added that Seether "are family. We spend more time together on the road, and have been, for the last eight years than we do with our own family, and I'm even married and have two kids. I love them to death, and that's the other side of me, but the three of us have been through a lot together, and we're family and we've worked together well and lived together and survived together."
Rock Music Is a Remedy for Seether's Shaun Morgan
Music is therapy for Shaun Morgan. "It’s a lot cheaper than a shrink," said the lead singer of South African alternative metal band Seether. Morgan is known for writing lyrics that stem from his own life experiences, which tackle his personal demons and dissect rocky relationships. "I can’t draw the way that I want to draw. I can’t paint the way that I want to paint, but at least with music, I can get to a point where it’s 99 percent of what I was aiming with when I started it," Morgan told Patch just a few weeks before the band's gig. "I sort of ran with that medium, because it’s the one that I can express myself best with." In a recent interview with Weho Patch, Moran discusses the band’s upcoming show at the House of Blues on Oct. 12 and divulges crazy antics he engaged in over the past few years on the Sunset Strip in a recent interview with Patch. Patch: You’re known for expressing personal experiences through your songs. Is it difficult to put that out there for the world to listen to? Morgan: It’s difficult to listen to it with other people around, especially people that I don’t know. If it’s somebody that I’m not familiar with. I get sort of embarrassed. But I think it’s somewhere where you put the album out and you don’t necessarily even think about it from that side anymore. Then we go out and play the stuff and we can focus on what we really like to do mostly, which is play music. There are definitely moments though when I’m like, I should have probably not have said it quite as obviously as that. Patch: What’s the story behind the title of the latest album, Holding on to Strings Better Left to Fray? Morgan: It’s mostly about letting go of toxic relationships – in any sense of that word, whether it be family relationships or friendships or internal relationships. I’ve spent a lot of my life in those kinds of situations and knowing that they stood for failure, but somehow you still cling to that hope that you can change the outcome, and it never happens. Basically I had to cut out a bunch of people. I find that once you’ve done that, it’s almost a sigh of relief so that you can move on. Patch: I heard when you were first experimenting with music, your father didn’t approve, so you ran away from home to pursue your career. How much of this is true? Morgan: I was 16 years old and it was some stupid thing. The band that I was in was doing a photo shoot for a local four-page music magazine. My dad wouldn’t let me be part of it, so I got pissed off. Basically he was also sort of anti me playing music, because as far as he was concerned, it was a dead-end street and a waste of time, so I ran away from home and I lived on couches and finished high school basically homeless, and then moved to a different city and started again from scratch. Patch: What do you think you’d be doing right now if you weren’t in this band? Morgan: I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’d be around. There have been plenty of times when doing this has kept me going, and there’s also been times when doing this makes me want to stop. It’s difficult to say. I was [thinking about] becoming a jeweler and I was going to set up a little shop somewhere and make jewelry for the rest of my life. That was one thing I was thinking about doing. I don’t know if I’d still be here though if I didn’t have a band. Patch: Do you still make jewelry? Morgan: I would if I had the time. I want to set up a studio when I get back home and at least set it up so that if I have an hour or two here. And it probably will be huge ridiculous pieces that no one will ever buy, but it will be fun to make them, because it will be these things that I’ve envisioned for years like big chain male chest pieces and just crazy stuff that would take just months and months to make. I’d do it if I had nothing but time and if I had no deadlines and I’m not trying to sell it to anybody. West Hollywood Patch: Was it difficult for Seether to branch out from South Africa and make it over to US radio? Shaun Morgan: We’d been in a band for three or four years and just touring around and living basically hand to mouth, touring in a pick-up truck and just making enough money at each show to put gas in to get to the next one. We eventually got a record deal, and when we sent that album to Wind-Up Records in the States, then they decided that they wanted to sign us. The most difficult part really was to get heard or seen in the States. Patch: I am sure a lot of aspiring bands can relate to that. Morgan: You know, the first two years you don’t get paid. You’re just doing it because you know you have to get out there and get your name out. I think some bands come out of the gate and they have a larger record company behind them – a lot of push behind them, so they don’t necessarily have to do the van and trailer days. They go straight to a bus and have a Top 40 hit. Patch: Did you have any horrible jobs when you were trying to fund the band back in the day? Morgan: Yeah I worked as a bartender in a biker bar, which was pretty crappy because it was a real seedy place. One time, some guy ended up pulling a gun on the bartender next to me . . . It was pretty rough for a while. I lived in London for about three months and I did construction work there . . . [as] the guy that carries all the rubble out. Patch: Tell me about the concept for the video for Country Song, which features a giant teddy bear dressed as a cowboy. Morgan: The idea was we were just characters in a little boy’s fantasy and it starts with this kid who has a bucket of toys and he drops it on the ground and he doesn’t realize that he is playing with these characters that are real live characters in some alternate universe. Basically he is playing with a sheriff teddy bear and we are the bad guys. I think it gets to a point where just doing the same serious thing over and over again just becomes annoying. We’re also huge Foo Fighters fans and every single video they’ve done has got a sense of humor behind it. Patch: You've got a show coming up at the House of Blues. Do you have any specific memories of the Sunset Strip? Morgan: The very first time we were in LA, we were super hammered at, I think it was, the Whisky. We ended up – this is pretty gross – going to one of those late night Chinese takeaway places. We started eating and I guess I got sick and I ended up throwing up all over the table in the restaurant, so we just ran for the door before we got something thrown at us. There have been plenty of times I’ve gotten trouble on the Sunset Strip and it usually starts at the Rainbow. Patch: What can fans expect from your upcoming show? Morgan: We try to be energetic. There’s no script to follow. There’s no backing tracks and there’s no cheating . . . [These days] everybody is getting up and hitting play on a computer and then pretending to play along and that really pisses me off. We're just three guys on stage playing. What you hear is what we are making, not any sort of augmentation, and I think that’s the way rock shows used to be and I think it’s sad that they are no longer that way.
Bassist Dale Stewart says one of the big lessons Seether learned in making its 2007 CD, "Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces," was to make sure to take the necessary time to create the album the band wanted. "We really took our time and made sure we had the songs that we needed," Stewart said in a mid-April phone interview. "I think it paid off. I think, I'm very happy with that album. It's my favorite one we've done to date. I think we definitely learned something as far as if you don't have to, don't rush it." Seether isn't rushing its next CD, either. In fact, the band is interrupting work on the record with a five-week tour that finds the group sharing stages with Hellyeah and Drowning Pool, and doing a few radio festival shows. But this case of "recordus interruptus" wasn't the original plan. "I think management assumed it (the CD) would be done by now and went ahead and booked a couple of shows," Stewart said. The new CD, which the band hopes to release in late summer, is still in the early stages of recording, with a couple of tracks completed and many others still being considered. But Stewart likes how things are shaping up. "I think this one is going to be a straight-up rock album," he said. "I don't think we're going to go too crazy with instrumentation. We want to sort of do something we can pull off live without having to run tape and tracks." The excitement that exists within Seether is a nice change for the band, which also includes singer/guitarist Shaun Morgan, drummer John Humphrey and new guitarist Troy McLawhorn (formerly of Dark New Day), who came on board during touring behind "Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces." In the time that led up to the recording of "Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces," the band went through considerable turmoil. For one, there was Morgan's breakup of a three-year romance with singer Amy Lee (immortalized in the Evanescence song "Call Me When You're Sober"), a stint in rehab for Morgan in summer 2006 and the suicide of Morgan's brother. The band also split with its management firm and saw guitarist Pat Callahan leave the group. Since then, though, things have been looking up for Seether. "Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces" became another hit album for the group. It gave the group two more chart-topping alternative rock singles in "Fake It" (a galloping and slightly poppier song compared to band's typically heavy and darkly hued material) and "Rise Above This," and a top-five single in "Breakdown." "I think that album did a lot for us, especially our first single, ‘Fake It,'" Stewart said. "There were a lot of people that didn't expect that from us. I think initially, a lot of people didn't know that was even us, to do a song like that. I think it kind of opened a lot of peoples' eyes." For now, though, the focus turns to playing live. And Stewart said the band likes its sound now that McLawhorn has restored Seether to a four-piece. "The three-piece is cool," Stewart said. "Shaun is a great singer and (guitar) player, but it's kind of hard to play and sing and do solos and thing all on his own. Actually, I think he pulled it off really well. But that's a lot of pressure on you. I think that was the main thing. Shaun felt really pressurized, and with another guitar player, he can concentrate more on singing and then just having fun and enjoying the show."
Seether visits Incirlik during USO tour
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey -- Seether, a three-person rock band from South Africa, performed a free concert for more than 300 members of Team Incirlik in the Club Complex's ballroom March 19. Members of Team Incirlik packed the ballroom as they cheered, screamed and sang along with the band. The band consists of Shaun Morgan, lead vocalist and guitarist, Dale Stewart, bassist and backing vocalist and John Humphrey, drummer. The concert was the first of two during the band's third USO tour. During this tour they are also slated to perform in Italy. "It's an honor to do it," said John Humphrey, Seether drummer. "To be able to bring a little bit of home to the military, to these men and women who do the job that they do. If it gives them a little comfort and (they) have a good time and take a break from reality for an hour and a half or two hours, that's enough praise for us. That's why we continue doing it." Seether performed their first USO tour in Japan a few years ago after being told by several service members how much they liked the band's music. Since then, the band continued performing shows for the military throughout the U.S., as well as Europe and Asia. "These USO tours are kind of a thank you to these people who allow us to do what we do - who are out there and have our backs and are keeping us safe," said Dale Stewart, Seether bassist. "It's the very least we can do (to) at least try to give back to them a little if we can say, 'Thank you for the sacrifices you guys make.' "And it's nice to meet the people, too," he said. While at Incirlik, Seether received a tour of Incirlik from Col. Chris Craige, 39th Air Base Wing commander, something Humphrey said was a fun break from what the band usually does before a performance. "Getting to see the equipment and the gear the crew and these troops take care of is really fun for us," he said. "Usually we're seeing dressing rooms and backstage areas, so to be able to see that and these men and women and what they're doing is really cool." After the show, the band signed autographs and met with audience members to show their appreciation. "Thanks to everyone out there," said Stewart. "We love you guys and appreciate you guys."
Interview with Pat, Kevin, and Dale of Seether
Schwegweb: How do you feel about being rockstars? Pat: Are we rockstars yet? The kids are rockin you in the suburbs, you are on TRL, the radio…. Kevin: It’s good to get radio play and I mean you write good songs hopefully I mean you right them for yourself but you want people to hear them. It is a whole weird business getting radio airplay. You know you don’t purposefully write things to get on the radio but once you do get on the radio it seems like a competition to see how long can we stay on the radio whose playing us can we get another one on the radio. To be a rockstar you got two kinds of people. You got the people who play it and then you got the people like us that just go on the road and play as much as possible because we like to play. We get along and we just want to keep playing. It’s pretty simple actually. How do you feel that MTV doesn’t play your new video? Pat: I am not an MTV fan. We took time and money to make this video and they are kinda like ‘Who are you? Who cares?’ You get more respect doing the grass routes way and getting fans and it’s almost more respectable. You have bands out there today that only have one video and one single and they sell an absurd amount albums and it’s like they haven’t played any shows yet. They haven’t even toured yet. You get longevity this way. Kevin: We want to get played but that’s not the end goal. You have to do videos. Its part of the contract and it’s a good way to express the song. Driven Under there was a problem with the scene, the one with the car exploding in it, and that’s totally absurd. You can have a rap video with guns in it, and I like hip hop its not a dis on hip hop, it’s the videos that they put out there are asses hanging out of bathing suits but we can’t have an imploding car that actually is to show its coming together. You can’t say the word gun but you can see people shooting the shit out of each other with a gun. Who are some cool people you toured with? Pat: Lately? Socialburn, Double Drive, Ra. Kevin:We are doing a lot of radio festivals where we get to play with bands like Godsmack and Saliva. We are starting a tour on July 5th with Three Doors Down. They saw us play in Miami and they are kicking off a big tour. We think they are really good musicians and we love their new record. Pat is a huge fan and they asked us if we would like to do a tour with them so we said yes. About your record. It’s very forceful… Because when you get angry and you have something external you can identify with it somehow makes the pain feel better. Kevin: Lots of bands don’t like to talk about their records because you half to find what’s valuable about it. Shaun’s not here and he wrote most of it. I’m a fan of the record. I just came in two or three months ago and I liked the record. Your sound could be described as the Deftones meets Nirvana. How does that make you feel? Pat: A lot of people say that. We get that comparison a lot. Kevin: Obviously the Nirvana thing comes in a lot. It’s not on purpose but when you’re a fan of something it just comes into your playing. Well it is a lot better than the “punk” thing that seems to be going on right now. Kevin: I’m not a fan of… well we are all music fans. If something comes out and its hip hop or something comes out and its punk and its good then its good. I’m not a bandwagon kinda person. So a lot of bands jump on it and try to put out a record that sounds like the rest. We aren’t trying to reinvent anything, just play stuff that comes across in a very genuine way. A lot of songs now are supossedly complicated guitar rhythms but actually the same riffs adapted from different songs over and over again. You guys do simple well it seems. Dale: I guess there are only that many riffs out there and that many cords and that many ways you can play it. Kevin: There is no problem combining stuff. As a drummer I grew up listening to The Police, Black Sabbath, a lot of jazz and my playing is, you know, just a conglomeration of all that. Shaun, Dale listen to a lot of people. To exactly copy it or rip it off that’s not cool, but to use it and make new music that is alright. You got to learn from the masters to create a masterpiece. I think there is acceptable violence and necessary violence but do you think violence, especially in this world today, is a way to find peace. Why do you think it’s so violent out there? Kevin: I’m not a violent person, but if I found myself in a situation where I needed to fight back then I definitely would. I mean I’m not a person who likes violence so I’m anti-violence. To me, there is always another way out. I would rather just walk away. Dale: I don’t know. It’s like there is a lot of violence in South Africa and I mean it’s like I got a phone call the other day a friend of mine had been robbed and shot. Its just violence happens there everyday someone is killed. Everyday you hear a story. Do you think it will get better? People like to blame music, maybe even your music for being angry. Do you think that is valid or are there greater forces at work? Kevin: Oh that’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit. They are all smiling on TV and they are telling you what’s going on and you are like no, no. I was there I know what’s going on. Just tell me about the weather and they are even wrong about that. Tell me whether it’s going to fucking rain or not so I know whether to where a hat…. At home I see a lot of kids getting healed by just getting into the arts. That’s been a really big savior for a lot of people. Music. Art. Sports. Just other things besides just sitting around.
Seether rose from the ashes, but won’t soon forget the dark times
Shaun, how does someone find beauty in negative spaces? You had to have been to dark places to realize that there are good places. I try to see the positive in everything even though it can be difficult. Life throws you curve balls and you have to figure out whether you’re going to let them get you down or manage to come out the other end and be ok. You came out of rehab ok, what was the road to recovery like? It was a long process and a lonely one. It was just me and a bad relationship, in a city that I hate with no friends around. It was a miserable and lonely time. It was good in one sense because I’m happy with what came out of it. People tend to kick you when you’re down. Have you been experiencing a world of cruelty since your release? Most people have been supportive, other have been dicks. I walked out of a hotel in Toronto once and a guy was sitting in his car waiting outside the hotel and he started playing “Call Me When You’re Sober” really loud. I don’t know what he was trying to prove, but it was just sad because he doesn’t know me. How do you feel about the side of you the world thinks they know thanks to Amy Lee’s song? Are her lyrics the whole truth? Being slammed by someone you were in a relationship with is difficult to deal with. Whether or not there was any truth in what Amy had to say, it certainly wasn’t necessary to tell everyone about it. It wasn’t a truth-truth, it was more like an exaggerated, woe is me truth. Now everywhere I go people are different because I’m supposedly this fragile alcoholic. It’s kind of like being watched all the time. Will you ever get used to having your personal life scrutinized? It is part of the job and it is something I have to grow accustomed to. It’s centered around me, but there are other guys in this band that they can dig into. Go bug someone else. I won’t ever get used to it. It makes me want to be more reclusive, hide out on the bus and not hang out with people that much. I never know what side they’re on. Team Seether or Team Evanescence? Can you take us back to the first time you heard “Call Me When You’re Sober”? When we broke up, the last time Amy spoke to me she said something about some songs on the album being about me and that I mustn’t get offended. When the songs finally came out everyone tried to hide them from me. No one at the label would let me hear them, even my manager. So I thought, “What’s everyone’s problem?” When I did finally hear it, I was disappointed to be reduced to something like that. Did you feel the urge to retaliate? I prefer to avoid situations of conflict. There are many things I could have said about her too. But I never did like to tell people that a song is about them. It’s never an attack on them, but more of a process to get it out of my system and now it’s out.
KISS collection is Seether drummer's pride and joy
It started innocently enough with KISS trading cards when he was in grade school. Since then, Seether drummer John Humphrey’s collection of KISS memorabilia has grown tremendously in size and value — and it also includes items that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley no longer have. Intrigued by the band’s look, and without even hearing a note of KISS music, Humphrey started collecting the KISS bubble gum cards manufactured by Donruss in the late 1970s. Luckily for Humphrey, a relative worked at a convenience store, so he had someone who could supply him with a steady stream of the 15-cent card packs. For his eighth birthday, Humphrey received a copy of the 1978 K-Tel Records collection “Star Power,” which contained the KISS hit “Christine Sixteen.” By the time the band released “Creatures of the Night” in 1982, Humphrey was pretty much immersed in all things KISS. He finally saw his makeup-wearing, costume-clad heroes in person, when the tour supporting that album came to the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Okla. Humphrey says his KISS memorabilia collection is insured and valued at $60,000 to $75,000. He has various items on display at home, and one of the more prominent pieces is the KISS pinball machine (made by Bally and introduced in 1978) that he purchased for $2,200 around 1999. “I was smiling from ear to ear when I got that thing,” Humphrey says. “It was broken and needed a little love. It’s still the crown jewel of my collection.” Humphrey said an auction house has been in touch with him about his KISS collection, but he remains an active collector. He really hasn’t parted with too many items over the years. “I’m trying to upgrade,” he says. “I’m picky about mint and still-sealed items. Occasionally I’ll eBay something when I’m home, which isn’t too often — I’ll sell some stuff if I’ve upgraded — but I haven’t really let go of anything. All of the important pieces I still hold onto and still have.” Humphrey has KISS items from all over the world, but he does have standards beyond those related to their condition. “I don’t really get into all the new stuff — the lava lamps, the teddy bears,” he says. “Some people get everything. With me, it’s the vintage stuff.” It would be hard to imagine Humphrey ever parting with two items in particular. One is an autographed outtake poster from the first KISS album. When the original KISS lineup reunited for a tour in 1996, The Nixons, Humphrey’s band at the time, opened for KISS, so he had Simmons, Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley sign the poster for him. The other item is the gold record for “Creatures of the Night” that was posthumously awarded to Eric Carr. “Being a drummer, I loved Eric Carr, and I was right there at that time when he came into the band,” Humphrey says. “I have since met his sister Loretta via the Internet and have talked with her. I told her that ‘Creatures of the Night’ was my favorite album. She gave me his gold plaque for that album. So in my hallway with my gold plaques for Seether, in the middle I have Eric Carr’s gold plaque for ‘Creatures.’” Humphrey also has some very rare photos of KISS recording its first album in New York that he recently passed along to author Ken Sharp, who is working on a book about the band’s history from 1971 to 1975. “Gene and Paul had lost their disc with the photos,” Humphrey says. “They had bought the rights, and Ken needed my copies, so I actually contributed the photos I had from my collection, among a few other things, for that book. It was cool to be able to do that.” When Seether is on tour — the band has done a bunch of shows already in 2011 supporting its new album, “Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray,” which contains the hit “Country Song” — Humphrey says he spends his off days seeking out KISS vinyl. “I love doing that and finding really cool stuff in little stores here and there all around the country and in Europe,” he says. “You can find shops with used records that are stacked up like [you ’d expect to see] on the set of ‘Sanford and Son.’”
Seether’s Shaun Morgan Offers Brutally Honest Look Back at 2011
Loudwire recently chatted with Seether frontman Shaun Morgan about 'Holding Onto Strings...,' the departure of guitarist Troy McLawhorn, touring and much more in a brutally honest interview. Q: The album’s name ‘Holding Onto Things Better Left To Fray’ is quite a mouthful; what does the title mean to you? A: It’s about letting go of thoughts and demons, it’s mostly dealing with relationships with friends, family, people that you share living space with that kind of thing and just being able to grow and understanding when something is bad for you, a pointless environment that you’re in and understanding that nothing about it is gonna get better at any point. It’s understanding the inevitability of failure of a relationship, before you walk down that road if you can see the outcome then why are you even doing it? I’ve had to deal with some people in my life and to string people along for a long time just becomes tedious as well, for example my mother, I don’t speak to my mother because she’s just not a very good person and it was a difficult decision I had to make but I made it because of the fact that she’s never gonna change who she is. Every single time I let my defenses down and I let her in and I pretend that everything’s fine, it’s takes too much effort sometimes, it’s just something that has never changed in the 32 years I’ve been around so I just had to move on. Q: This was the band’s first album in quite some time; what approach did you take writing and recording that differed from previous albums? A: This one took a lot longer to write because it was in batches instead of doing one writing period of six months and then picking out songs and going and recording an album. The first six months we wrote a bunch of songs and only picked four of those and recorded those first and we felt that we set the bar in certain levels and then from there on we wrote more songs. So basically each time we’d written a bunch we would go and try to write twice as many and we’d have another four, five good ones and record those and we’d go back and write again. So, it was a staggered process which is different for us because we like going in and just hammering it out and then go out on the road. I think what that did was it allowed us to look at the songs in a different way and really be critical of them, really say, “Okay, we’ve now done this, each song is as good or better than the songs we’ve already recorded" and if they weren’t than they’d get put away in an archive and we would just move on and try to write something else. I think because of the amount of time we had it took longer than we wanted it to but eventually came up with an album, from start to finish for us feels complete. It feels like there’s no element of the band that’s missing, for example we wanted to make sure that the heavy side was represented, the light side represented, the pop side represented, the metal side represented and sometimes when you’re in a certain period of writing you don’t necessarily explore all of the avenues and when you have more time to do that then you get more diversity. I think that was the key for us, that we had more time to do it and I don’t know if we want to spend as much time, next time on an album but I think the most important thing we learned was that we didn’t stop until the album was finished in our minds. When we were collectively happy with the album then we said we can put it out. Q: Vocally, you tried out some new things on this album, was it difficult for you to experiment, or did it come naturally as you were recording? A: Yeah I think it wasn’t too much of a pre-ordained kind of thing; it was really just going in and starting with music and seeing where I could go vocally. It took a little time, usually these days, I find writing a song in its completion music and lyrics and vocals all sort of mesh together quickly, that happens occasionally, it’s more of a process, it’s more of an analytical thing. I definitely didn’t hold back, I was definitely happy with the way the vocals sounded at the end of the day because of the fact that I didn’t feel like I was being constricted and I wasn’t being told “Okay, this is what you have to do.” Producers I’ve had before have restricted what I was allowed to do. Brendan [O’Brien] was far more open to singing instead of me grinding vocals out of my throat and often times I would do it the way I thought he wanted me to do it and he said, “It doesn’t always have to sound like you finished a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack." [Laughs] He installed a level of confidence in me, a lot of times he was in the vocal booth with me and he would sing harmonies to me and I would sing them into the mic. It’s kind of a scary, very introverted process, I like to have the lights off so no one can really see you because you feel quite vulnerable. The difference was, having Brendan in there, it was a big trust thing for me and I feel like he bolstered my confidence and made me feel like I think I can do it the way I wanted to do it, he wasn’t telling me what he thought I should sound like. Q: Can you talk about the song ‘Tonight’ a little musically and lyrically? A: It was a demo that I had, basically I would sit at home and write a bunch stuff and then I would put them on my iPod and listen to them and that’s how I would eventually come up with melodies and things. I actually had forgotten about that and we were in Nashville wrapping up the album and it was considered that we were finished because we felt that there were other songs on the album that were gonna be singles. We happen to be going through a drive thru getting coffee one morning on our way to the studio and the iPod was on shuffle and the demo came on and the other guys were like, “What is that, why aren’t we recording that?” I had a vocal idea for the chorus, that I’d been messing around with for a while so basically we just rushed to the studio and I went into a little room and just put down a vocal basically on my laptop using just the microphone, it wasn’t really finished it was just a chorus and a verse idea. We had already packed away the drums and guitars and everything so we had to break them all out again and we sat down and recorded that track late into that night and finished it. When it was done, it was clear that the alum had been missing that song. It’s fortuitous that it came on the iPod, if it hadn’t it would just be one of the lost demos that I have, literally I have hundreds of songs on my iPod that never make it because I forget to show them to people or I just never feel confident enough because they’re not finished. Lyrically, it started off a lot darker than it is and I wasn’t happy with the way that sounded, so I scrapped it all and started from the beginning and it took on a more positive note and I think that was something necessary on an album that deals with intense things, it’s nice to have something on there that’s a little lighter and a little more positive and hopeful. Essentially, at the end of the day, it’s our version of what you would consider to be a love song I guess. I’m glad it’s on there, it means a lot to me and it definitely needed to be there to give you that breathing space in the middle of the album. Experience needs to be something emotional but it doesn’t always need to be intense. Q: Seether have managed to persevere for over quite some time in an industry that’s pretty tough these days; what’s the secret to your longevity? A: hat’s an interesting question because when we first came out, it was pretty much when the emo and the screamo scene started and we didn’t really feel like we fit in then, and then there’s always been the pop punk thing which also came and went, there’s more of the shock rock phase where its bands more concerned about their hair dos than their music and more power to them I guess but it’s not what I’m into. I feel like there’s not much potential what we do, it’s heart-on-your-sleeve type stuff. We’re honest with ourselves, stick to what we believe in and we write songs that we feel are good songs, we enjoy playing them. If they get released to radio or whatever we’re going to have to play these songs for years to come so they’ve got to be songs that we really believe in, if you don’t then I think you look like an a—hole when for the next 10, 20 years you have to play these songs and you don’t believe in them. We’ve always been true to ourselves in that sense and if we as a band, as a collective group of guys agree that a song is a good song and we’re proud of the song and ultimately we enjoy listening to the song then it’s a good thing. We’re not the best guitarists, or the best drummers, or the best bassists or the best singers but I think the combination of the three of us together has been a powerful thing for me. Out of all the bands I’ve been in, in my life this is the one that makes the most sense, it’s the most cohesive and creatively the stuff that we come out with as three guys , when playing guitar as a little kid this was the stuff that I imagined playing one day. We’re getting closer to a place where we might have a distinct kind of sound but it’s really just doing what we feel we want to do, playing the songs the way we like to play them and just being honest with the music and lyrics and we don’t take ourselves too seriously, we just go on stage, there’s no fanfare, there’s no pre-game ritual, it’s just getting up there and having fun. We feel when you come watch us play you’ll here the songs represented and it won’t sound like the album because we don’t have three other guitarists and we don’t have a string section, we don’t have someone playing piano. I think live the songs should be able to translate as they are, the way they were written, an album is very much when you layer things on because you want to make it orally more interesting, that’s the goal for an album because you want to put as much as you can into it because you only get one shot, whereas live you’re there to do it every night. It’s more about playing the songs and having fun with them and really trying to have the people that come and watch you be entertained. Q: Please share your thoughts on the departure of guitarist Troy McLawhorn. A: Well you can’t make somebody happy in a situation where they aren’t; you can’t force them to believe in the same thing you believe in and see it the same way you see it. He left unfortunately and went to Evanescence and that’s his deal. There’s always been a rivalry I guess from Amy’s side with me, I personally the time or energy to invest anything into it. If he’s happier there then good luck to him, we are happier with him gone. We’ve embraced the three piece and we will continue to be one. We’ve tried to have another guitarist and then you become friends with guys and you really become family because you’re on the road all the time, you see a lot of things together, you experience a lot of things together. It’s like being in a marriage pretty much. Even the best marriages end at some point, unless it’s those freak accidents like where my grandparents are married for 50 years. He left on his own, I just didn’t like the way he handled it at the time so I was pissed about it when he left but there’s nothing you can do about it and ultimately at the end of the day, when the initial shock and anger wears off then you realize well you know what we’re in a better place and to be honest that’s how we feel. We have a lot of fun as the three guys now and I feel like we might have tried to hold on to something a little bit longer than was necessary as well. It was sort of pathetic when I had the album title and months later that’s when he left, if he’s happy then good luck to him, we certainly are happy without him. I certainly don’t think I’ll ever be friends with him again but there’s no animosity from the other guys. I personally don’t have any grudges or resentment but also I’m not begging for somebody to be my friend. Q: Any tour plans for 2012? A: We’re going to a bunch of countries we haven’t been to in a long time and some new ones and then we do a European tour with 3 Doors Down and those guys are really good friends of ours, they actually took us out on our first proper tour in 2003 so we’ve known them for many years. They’re great guys and we always have a lot of fun with them, they take care of us and we all look after each other. Apparently there are some things in the works starting up in April into the middle of the year, but nothing is confirmed yet. The touring unit is difficult, people are feeling it, people are hurting financially so it’s becoming something where we certainly understand and realize that we need to be smarter about the way we tour and find ways to cut cost for everybody involved.
Shaun Morgan of Seether (INTERVIEW)
As children, we all rode bicycles and climbed trees and had a jolly good time just being a kid. Seether’s frontman Shaun Morgan wasn’t that different from you and me … except he grew up in a turbulent South Africa. Calling in before a show in northern Mississippi, Morgan talked at length about his childhood, his influences, his band’s latest CD Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray, and how it was actually a song in a movie that showed him the power of music. Shaun, you were born in South Africa. What was it like growing up there? I grew up on a pig farm. My dad bought a farm when I was about five or six years old. My brother and I moved from my mother’s house and in with him. I actually lived on a pig farm till I was eighteen and it was like a twenty mile drive every day to get to school. He would drive one way to drop us off and drive another hour and a half yet to go to work every day and then turn around and come back and pick us up. But it was basically running around doing kid stuff on a farm, like climbing trees and riding bicycles and stuff, a really standard farm upbringing. As time went by things got more dangerous so we moved into the city cause farmers were getting chopped up and stuff on their farms. So we had to move into a safer environment. That sounds scary. Yeah, we moved to a farm and everything was open. Then having been there for four or five years there were bars on all the windows, there were security gates, we had to put in electrical fencing. It just became farmers were an easy target. You’re so outlying and so far away from your neighbors that they would just come on your property and attack farmers. Mostly it was the older farmers. But yeah, a lot of my family farmed all over the country so you hear stories from all over the place of farmers being attacked, just hacked to pieces. In Zimbabwe was the worst, just walking on and claiming the land and then just killing the farmers; but here, they were just taking what they could find and running away. It was an African country and it’s run by one of the more corrupt governments of all time, I would say. It promises it’s people a lot of things it doesn’t deliver on, so people are poor and they have to find other ways to make ends meet and unfortunately violence to a lot of people is not a big deal. Where did you move to? We lived in a city called Pietermaritzburg and that was basically the last few years of high school and I left and moved to Johannesburg. I started studying and went to college, studying for a bachelor of technology. I was planning to become a jeweler. Basically spent two and a half years on a three year degree and then I bailed at the end to be in the band full time. Thankfully, that worked out (laughs). Otherwise I’d be a jeweler somewhere in South Africa, working for some guy that pays you minimum wage. How old were you when you moved away? Right after high school I lived in London for about two or three months and then I went back and started studying. Basically I lived in London and sort of bummed around in 1999-2000, then in 2001, I was in college and basically started the band over those years. Then we got signed and had a record deal in 2001 from a company in South Africa called Musketeer Records. When we got signed, I dropped out of college, which I was in my last semester so I could have finished. But I felt like I needed to take care of the band. We didn’t really have a manager so I was managing the band myself. Also in 2001, the record company flew us over for a showcase and they signed us and basically in January 07, 2002, we got on a plane and came to the states. Oh that must have been extremely exciting. Oh yeah, definitely. It was one of those moments where you have a shot at a career cause mostly back home musicians and some of the biggest bands in the country still have day jobs. They all work a day job Monday through Friday and then on the weekend they’ll go out and pick up a show here and there. There’s really no way to sustain yourself touring cause you basically play bars and nightclubs. No tour bus, people will rent a van or take their own personal cars and drive to the shows so it’s a very different touring lifestyle over there. It’s a country the size of Texas basically and there’s only about four or five major cities you can play in. You’re touring is very limited. What was the music scene like there? A lot of bands, a lot of people, are trying to make it, like everywhere else. Unfortunately, there really aren’t that many bands that get signed. The record companies in South Africa make their revenue from international acts. So basically they just sit on their asses and wait for the international releases to come through in the retail stores and that’s basically paying their bills so why would they need local bands. For a short while there were some local bands getting signed, and they still are to a lesser degree. It’s just one of those countries that are very difficult to get signed and once you do get signed then you sort of get watered down and you become a sort of adult contemporary act. If they sign you and spend money on you, then you really have to sort of start sounding really, really radio-friendly. And we weren’t that kind of band so luckily we got the Wind-Up deal or otherwise we would have had to reevaluate our situation. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the Wind-Up Records deal I probably would have quit music. My girlfriend was pregnant, I was pretty much broke, so I go back to college to finish and try and get a job. Yeah, if it wasn’t for the deal, I’d be looking for a real job somewhere. What band first really rocked your world? Like when I was a kid? Well, the first time that music really affected me was when I was about five years old and my Mom took us to a movie called Jock of the Bushveld. It was kind of like Old Yeller, one of those stories where you fall in love with the dog and at the end the dog dies. And in this story, it’s a true story about an owner who ends up shooting this dog by accident because he mistakes him for a fox. And the song played was called “Spirit Of The Great Heart” by Johnny Clegg and I remember at the time it just moved me so much cause I was like, well, now I’m unhappy cause the dog’s gone, and the song was so powerful and that memory imprinted on me. And every time I heard that song on the radio, even years after that, I’d get emotional. I was like, man, this music stuff is powerful. That was like the first time I really understood the power of music. I guess there really weren’t many bands for us to watch as a kid growing up so when I was about ten years old or eleven years old there was a band called Mango Groove. They were sort of a very African rhythm with a white girl singing, and they came to the high school and played, and this was a huge band at the time. We watched them at a high school theatre or whatever and I remember thinking it was really cool seeing all these musicians on stage and they were actually playing and it sounded great and everyone was really into it and there was this really great energy about it. Tell me about first band you were in. I started playing in my first band when I was about twelve years old and the excitement of that was when you are in a room playing with your buddies and as horrible as it may sound at the time, you think it’s awesome (laughs) and that it’s the most amazing thing ever cause we’re making this noise and nobody else is. That was the first band I was in and it was called Molliestone. Some of the guys lived in a more affluent neighborhood than I did and there was a girls school, a private school. One of the guys was dating one of the girls out of the dormitory and it was the Molliestone building; I guess it was the name of the previous headmistress of the school so we basically just named it after that. It was kind of cool cause nobody knew where the name came from. I’ve been in bands called Monkey Spank and Free Beer. You know when you’re a kid you have nothing to lose, right, so you just kind of go with whatever. Monkey Spank was the band I was in the longest. Were you singing in all of these bands or were you just playing an instrument? Yeah, I was always singing, I was always the singer. There were a couple of bands that I played in where I was a guitarist or the drummer or the bassist but bands mostly wouldn’t let me play guitar. You know the first band I was in I was singing and then I joined another band and then I was playing bass but that was Monkey Spank and I was the bassist and singer. I basically learned how to play bass in that band cause I had no choice cause we didn’t have a bassist and it was easier to play than guitar so I did that and sang for a while. Basically the first band that I was in that I played guitar and sang in was this band. When did you realize you could sing and that you had a really good voice? I don’t know, I mean, I really don’t like my voice that much but back when I was in school I was in the choir, and I was in the music stuff at school, had a couple solo parts here and there, but when I went to high school it wasn’t cool to be in the choir anymore. So I joined the band instead. But yeah, in high school there was always the musical every year so I’d normally be in that as well and ended up having roles where I had to sing solos and things like that. Is it natural for you to be up on stage in front of all those people? There’s always that element of insecurity when you have to go out on stage. With time it becomes easier, obviously, but for example if you’ve been off the road for a while and you haven’t toured in six months and you go back out, it’s like, Oh my God, what am I doing? I forgot how to play the songs, I can’t remember the lyrics. But then most of the time we don’t take it very seriously, it’s supposed to be fun, so you just have fun with it. But I don’t like to get up and try to make it this really serious affair where you can’t make mistakes, it’s bullshit. Music for the sake of music is supposed to be fun and rock & roll is never ever, ever supposed to be anything but freedom. We just kind of look at it that way. I think John Humphrey takes it a bit more seriously cause he’s been around a little bit longer than we have in the studio and he was the drummer for the Nixons back in the day. He is the one that sort of holds it all together cause Dale Stewart and I have had too many cocktails every once in a while and sort of make the odd mistake here and there. But Johnny is the one that holds it down. Being a three piece it’s good having someone like that cause with John and Dale on the drums and bass it’s a really solid rhythm section. I feel a lot more freedom cause when we did have another guitarist, you have to play with the other guy and now that there is nobody else there, I can pretty much play and be more creative and more spontaneous in places. So for me, it’s like I have a lot more to do but I enjoy it. Do you remember the first song that you tried to write? Yes. It was a song called “69 Tea” and it was on Disclaimer. It was the first one I remember writing. We’d written songs in bands prior to that. I mean, I wrote that when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. So for me it was like, wow, this is just me by myself and nobody else. I spent a lot of my teenage years just in my room playing guitar. I used to have tapes and tapes of songs that I would just sit and record. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all of them but luckily some of them would stick with me and as the years went by, I’d show them to different bands and some of them managed to sort of hang in there. But that was the first one I remember writing. That was actually our first single in South Africa, which basically put us on the map. That’s a pretty fond memory. On your latest CD, the song I like the best is “Forsaken”. It has some really powerful lyrics to it. If I look back on the songs I wrote probably ten years ago compared to the songs I write now, I think that a lot of the time the lyrics have definitely grown and have taken on a sort of, it’s become a different animal. I now think about them and I try to sort of craft lyrics that are more easily put together because back in the day it was like, “Ok, let’s write some lyrics, give me five minutes”, and be completely unfamiliar with them, which I enjoyed because if you don’t really know how you’re going to sing these words and you haven’t even become comfortable with them yet, you’re not really sure of yourself around them yet and that comes across as, I would like to think, an interesting vulnerability, like you’re learning the song as you go along. Then you have other songs that have been around for years and years and years. Say you do a demo a year and a half prior to recording the song. By the time you get into recording it in the studio, you know the song so well the freshness of the lyrics is not quite there. But then you’ve had more time to put something together that might not resemble maybe a hack job. I felt like most of the time I would unconsciously allow things to come out and just write them down and think about stuff. I think now I have the time to actually look at the lyrics and that’s what Brendan O’Brien [producer] was really adamant about: “Before you do vocals I want a copy of the lyrics to make sure the lyrics flow properly.” He’d look at it far more scientifically, intricately I think would be a better word for it, and he dissected that part of the song whereas a lot of producers don’t really care to. They’re more concerned that you get songs on the album that sound like their albums. But Brendan O’Brien makes band albums rather than Brendan O’Brien albums. Well, he is certainly one of the best. Yeah, and there is a reason for that. He’s really easy to work with and he’s a really great guy. He works really fast and a lot of these songs we’d walk in the studio and we’d have the demos done but there were no lyrics and there were no finished songs. But we would sit and work them out in the studio and we’d make changes right before we recorded them so it was a really cool spontaneous process. I like that cause normally you learn a song so well, with the exception of the lyrics, but you’d have an idea. Then you walk in to record stuff that you’d been playing for three weeks straight because you want to rehearse so when you get in there you don’t want to make any mistakes and get through the process as quickly as possible and save money and everything. But by the same token this album took us thirty days to make and it was the quickest of all the albums we’ve done and it was the one we walked in the least prepared (laughs). I just think that’s because Brendan made it so comfortable and he really believed in us and he really stood up for us with the label, which gave us a lot of confidence so we felt sort of invincible for a while. My other favorite song is “Roses”. Yeah, those are the two that were a little bit more dramatic (laughs). There’s more drama in them and definitely, even musically, there was a sense of, I don’t know, Phantom Of The Opera (laughs). Brendan even played the piano intro and said, “I feel like I need a cape right now” (laughs) … But those were the ones that have like the big, I don’t know, those are the songs that should be in like a Twilight movie (laughs). There was definitely a little bit more drama in them and I like that. There was almost an operaesque feel to it and that’s not a bad thing. Maybe there was a slight nod to bands like Muse in there or Radiohead as well cause we wanted to do something that was different for us as well. We want to keep moving, keep one foot in the doorway but you can move the other foot around wherever you feel like going. You want to retain the essence of the band without losing it too much but also being free to explore as much as you like and as long as it doesn’t end up a piece of crap at the end we’ll record it. Who was your biggest influence as a musician and why them? Wow, I think when I started off my first influence was definitely Kurt Cobain. I was like twelve years old, thirteen years old, and I was really blown away by how honest Nevermind was and how angry it sounded and how emotional it was and vulnerable at the same time. So for me, it was all the things that a kid that’s just hit puberty start feeling and it was really powerful to me. And one of the other things was that my parents hated it (laughs). It was a win-win for me all the way around. I’d crank it up really loud, you know, and sit in my room and learned to play songs. That was what really inspired me to start and honestly, since then, I haven’t really had many people that, I mean there were guitarists like Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, Dimebag Darrell from Pantera; those are guitarists that you learn to play, learn some of their songs as you go along. But I never really aspired to be like anybody when I was a kid. Sure, I wanted to be like Nirvana but as you get older there is so much out there and I really loved PJ Harvey and Portishead and a band called Brand New. Who do you like to listen to nowadays? There is so much music that is different from what we do and that’s really what I listen to. I listen to a lot less music that sounds like us or that’s in our genre than people would assume. Most of it just bores me, it sounds the same, bands just writing about jacking off and that just pisses me off. It’s sort of reverting back to the eighties where that was the shit Poison used to sing about and Motley Crue. Nothing against any of those bands, it’s just not what I like to do. But if that’s what people want to do with their thing, that’s cool. I just prefer music with a little more substance to it. I listen to alternative bands, folk rock, singer-songwriters; Ray LaMontagne is one of my favorites right now. And honestly, the new rock & roll, the new music, that pisses your parents off is hip hop. As much as I’ve fought it off, “I’m never going to listen to rap”, Lil Wayne is a smart funny guy. His lyrics are really interesting and creative. These days I get influenced by everything and I’m inspired by everything. It’s interesting that you can combine so many different genres into one bowl and make music out of it. So that is what really inspires me now; it’s not really a singular musician anymore. Do you remember the first real rock star that you ever met? The first one that I remember that blew my mind was when I met Dave Grohl. I was like, holy shit, it’s Dave Grohl and he’s talking to me, no way (laughs). “I’ll totally have a sip of your Jack Daniels, totally. I’ve quit smoking but I’ll totally take it over”. I was a kid, man, and he was super cool. I’ve met so many other guys that are not cool. I actually think the first one I met was Chris Cornell, when he did the Audioslave tour. And Tom Morello, I didn’t know what to say cause I was like, “Oh my God, that’s Tom Morello”. You know, I’m a kid from Africa that was never supposed to even be in a band, really, so how am I sitting in these rooms sometimes with these amazing musicians walking around in the hallways? But yeah it was Audioslave and then my really favorite one was Dave Grohl. I was just a kid and he was really nice and really, really friendly and welcoming and really energetic and enthusiastic. And for a guy that’s been through all he’s been through and then to come out on top and is pretty much the coolest guy in the world, that’s pretty rad. Last Question: What are your plans for 2012? Well, it’s going to be quite interesting, really. We leave pretty early in January to do some countries we’ve never been to. We’re going to go to Thailand then we’ll go do Russia and Turkey, then we do a European tour with the Three Doors Down guys and that’s going to be great. Then we come back to the states and take a couple weeks off. In the summer hopefully we’ll have a tour we can go on and tour the states for a couple of months and maybe do some more festivals in Europe in June and July. That’s the first six months pretty much right now. It’s looking busy. Hopefully we’ll tour really, really hard and make the most out of the year with a couple more singles and see what happens. Busy is always good (laughs)
Band "Seether" holds concert for a cause
The band held "Rise Above Fest" in Gilford Monday night, raising funds for the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New Hampshire. "It's a festival we tried to start that we hope is going to become an annual thing in support of suicide awareness and mental illness awareness," said Seether's lead singer Shaun Morgan. The cause is very personal for Morgan, who lost a close family member to suicide. "I lost my brother 5 years ago to suicide and it never gets easier. This whole festival came about as a dedication to him and I think in a way to make a meaningless tragedy like that become meaningful," Morgan said. Hundreds of fans packed the venue to hear their favorite bands Monday night. Members of Seether said they want those fans to be aware of what people are not talking about. "I think it gets swept under the rug a lot and I don't think people like talking about it," Seether band member Dale Stewart said. "It's definitely something that deserves support and people to be aware of it. (Suicide is) something that seems to be on the rise."
Seether brings sold-out show to Flint's Machine Shop
"We're really excited about the stuff," Stewart told The Flint Journal via telephone. "I think it's definitely the best stuff we've done so far. I hope everyone else agrees when they hear it. As a band, we're all pretty excited about it. We're really looking forward to getting it out there." There is no name or release date for the collection yet. Stewart, whose band performs a sold-out show at The Machine Shop on Thursday, Sept. 2, said that the name will be finished in due time. "The name's usually something that comes near the end," he said. "We'll have ideas but right toward release time, we'll decide on something. An album is an ever-changing thing. When you're writing, the feeling changes, the emotion and theme behind the album is different, keeps changing. Then when you're mixing, things might change or the initial perception of it will change and the way you feel and the hard work — it all kind of ties together. Once the artwork and the music's done and everything and the title, that's when we start making final decisions about what the track listing's going to be. The album title and final touches on artwork, that usually comes together at the last minute." The forthcoming album is the sixth in its catalog. Seether released "Fragile" in 2000 under the name Saron Gas, and then as its current name produced "Disclaimer" in 2002, "Disclaimer II" in 2004, "Karma and Effect" in 2005 and "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces" in 2007. It is perhaps best known for lead singer Shaun Morgan's former relationship with Evanescence singer Amy Lee, with whom he sang the ballad "Broken." But the new album is the first produced by uber knob turner Brendan O'Brien in Nashville. "I think it was our favorite experience, as far as producers are concerned," Stewart said. "Shaun and I were talking last night and we said we think we've met our last producer. This one's not even out yet, but we're already keen to use Brendan on the next album. It was just great. He's an amazing musician. We just kind of share the same vision. It just worked out. I think we had the same goal of what we wanted this album to be. We worked toward the goal well. We worked together well. He's really efficient. He likes to work quickly, which is how we like to do things as well. We just gel well. He's such a great musician as well. He picked up the guitar and played along, or he'd sit down at the piano and play something. It was almost like having an extra band member there for that while. He's such a talented writer and musician and player and everything it was really good. It was a lot of fun." Stewart called the new album more "mature" and a reflection on what it has learned since it formed in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1999. At The Machine Shop, expect Seether to play at least one new track, a tune tentatively called "Country Song" because of a lick in the song. "I think it really shines through on this album, more so than the other ones," Stewart said. "I think it's definitely a step forward and a progression for us. The songs just seem like better songs, more thought out. When we started out, we were very green and we had all that angst and that anger. That's what the music is about. I think now we've been doing this awhile, I think we've learned a lot about music and about playing. We've become better players. Hopefully this album reflects that."
Seether Frontman Shaun Morgan on Mixing Reading With Rocking
Seether frontman Shaun Morgan had a busy year touring in promotion for the band’s latest album ‘Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray.’ With all of this touring, Morgan recently told Loudwire that he likes to occupy his time with a good book while out on the road. "I always have to have a book of some sort, I mean there’s not one specific book but I am currently reading a Hunter S. Thompson book," reveals Morgan. "I’ve never actually read any of his stuff before so I’m actually gonna go out and see if I can get the entire collection that he put out." While Morgan admits he's late to discovering Hunter S. Thompson, he's now excited that has the author's whole bibliography in front of him. "I’m kind of pissed that I haven’t read him up until now, but I was in the airport the other day and I just saw it and I literally read half the book on an hour and a half long flight," adds Morgan. "Usually you get on a plane, you read a couple chapters, you take a nap, I just couldn’t put it down. I’m excited that he’s got plenty of other books out there for me to read." As for reading in general, Morgan feels it's a great way for a rocker to take the edge off life on the road. "It’s a good way to escape into an alternate universe for a little while; we get caught up in what’s going on around us and it can be quite intense and emotionally and physically draining. Most of the time when you get those hour or two hour breaks and you’re really feeling tired unfortunately we’re like kindergarteners and we need nap time and we need ways to escape. If we can find healthy ways to do that, then it would be much easier than getting into the darker side of things."