Despite being dubbed “Newcomers of the year” by Metal Hammer, Unearth are far from a new band.  Formed in Massachusetts in 1998, Unearth have stomped out 2 ep’s and 2 full-length efforts in between a heavy touring schedule.  The hard work is starting to pay off as the band have just notched 100,000 US units scanned of their latest release The Oncoming Storm and are in the midst of a slot on the headlining tier of the Sounds Of The Underground tour.  Bassist John “Slo” Maggard took a few minutes out of a busy schedule to sit down with From Out Of Nowhere editor Rob Kern to chat about SOTU (Sounds Of The Underground) and share some stories from the road.

FOON: How’s the tour going so far? 

Slo: So far it’s awesome.  It’s been a great tour so far; we’re out with a bunch of our friends’ bands.  It’s a blast, a lot of drinking and hijinks. 

FOON: SOTU has only one stage, how are the quick changeovers going? 

Slo: Yeah, five minutes, except for Gwar, they get twenty.  They have quite a cleanup job (laughs). 

FOON: How did Unearth score a slot on the inaugural SOTU tour? 

Slo: We were asked to be on it by our manager who is also running the tour.  It was a shoe-in in that aspect and it sounded like something that we really wanted to do anyway.  We wanted to do a big festival tour this summer and you can’t do Ozzfest two years in a row, so here we are. 

FOON: What set tier are you guys playing in?  

Slo: We are on the headlining tier. 

FOON: You guys have your work cut out for you, there’s going to be some tired metalheads by the time the last tier hits the stage. 

Slo: Yeah, I know, we’re just doing our best man, just going out and hustling.  So far, so good, the reactions have been great. 

FOON: Have there been any bands on the bill you’ve made time to catch nightly? 

Slo: Gwar, obviously (laughs), they are just amazing and it never gets old, it’s a great show. 

FOON: I’ve never seen Gwar in the daylight before, I was wondering if the sunshine took away from the spectacle. 

Slo: I’ve seen them a few times in the daylight and it’s so awesome.  It’s not detrimental to their show at all in my opinion. 

FOON:  Unearth just wrapped up a tour of Europe, how did that go? 

Slo: It was amazing; we got a chance to go over and do all the big festivals like Donnington and Rock-im-Park and Rock-am-Ring.  It was a really good time; we did some off day shows from the festival with Lamb Of God and Every Time I Die.  Those are two bands that we have had the pleasure of touring with quite often and we are really good friends with.  It was just a really great time all the way around. 

FOON: Any interesting stories from Europe? 

Slo: Yeah, one in particular.  The first day actually we all got really hammered.  We had smoke and drank most of the day and Mike (Justian, drums) ended up passing out in some random porta-potty from alcohol poisoning.  We ended up having to push the bus haul back so we could hunt him down and try to find him.  Of course we couldn’t find him because he was passed out in a porta-potty somewhere on the grounds.  We decided to stick around and Ken (Susi, guitar) decided to stay late, take a shower and go to production and have them call the police and hospitals to see if something bad had happened to him.  While Ken was over in production he watched our bus pull away and take off, so he and Mike got left at the venue.  They had to take a train the next day, Mike had puke all over himself, they gave him a Suzuki mechanic jump suit to wear on the train.  Ken had nothing on but his pajama pants and a shower bag, when they showed up for the next gig they looked pretty ridiculous. 

FOON: Any story involving alcohol poisoning and a porta-potty has to turn out good…

 Slo: Yeah, (laughs), it’s a win-win situation. 

FOON:  I heard Unearth won Metal Hammer’s newcomers of the year award?  I guess they have a liberal definition for the term “newcomer”? 

Slo: Yeah, we weren’t mad about it.  It’s cool to win any kind of award for any reason.  We had a good time; they gave us the award right after we played a show in Munich.  It was cool. 

FOON: You’ve got a new video coming out too? 

Slo: We just completed a new video for “Endless.” 

FOON: Any studio plans once the summer tours wrap up? 

Slo: We’re gonna go home for a month and just start writing.  We already have started writing for the new record but we’ll get deeper into that.  We’ll take a month off to regroup, then we’re going to do a couple of tours in the fall and then after that it’s all studio time.  Get in there and put out a new album. 

FOON: How are the meet and greets going? I think that’s great that the SOTU tour is giving the fans a chance to meet and snag an autograph from their favorite bands. 

Slo: Yeah, it is cool, lots of fans are coming and checking us out, it’s great to meet ‘em all, it’s awesome.  It helps everybody out in so many different ways, especially the bands that aren’t really well known yet.  They set up at their merch booth and the kids come up, get their autographs, the fans are already at the merch booth so it gives them an incentive to buy something off the bands that really need the help, so it’s really cool. 

FOON: Have you tried Norma Jean’s BBQ sauce yet? 

Slo: (laughs) No, no I haven’t.  But I hear that it’s pretty good (laughs).  I love those guys, we’re really good friends with the Norma Jean guys.  We did a lot of touring with them this year; we did two months in the states and we went to Japan and Australia with them.  They are great guys. 

FOON: Summer tours call for BBQ, beer and fireworks, any junior pyromaniacs in Unearth? 

Slo: I think we’re too drunk to be dabbling in that sort of thing (laughs).  Not to mention, we’re too lazy.  None of us are big pyro dudes; in the past there has been dudes that we hung out with on tour that were avid fans of the fireworks.  One of those guys being Dimebag, he was a big fan of the firecracker gimmick.  But we don’t dabble in that, we’d probably blow a hand off, we just get dumb when we’re drunk.

 

 

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