You’d think that after five studio albums and almost twenty years of performing that a band like Unearth would maybe want to rest on their laurels, but that’s not going to happen. The Massachusetts metalcore veterans just unleashed a beast of an album entitled Watchers of Rule. They’ve already switched into road-warrior mode and just completed their Hell or High Wattage Tour with Darkest Hour and are wrapping up their dates with Crowbar on the Symmetry In Winter Tour.
I caught up with guitarist Buz McGrath and vocalist Trevor Phipps recently to discuss the band’s upcoming road shenanigans.
Buz McGrath: Hey Johnny P, what’s going on there? Speak to me buddy!
What’s going on man?
Buz: You got two for the price of one today my friend, because you have me and Trevor Phipps.
Two-fer-Tuesday! Well, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?
Trevor Phipps: Hell yeah, let’s do it!
Let’s talk about the new album Watchers of Rule. Was there a sense of trying to please not only the fans who have been with you since you started in ’98, but as well as the newer fans? Or was it just a sense of, “Fuck it! Let’s just make what we think is a kick-ass album and let the chips fall where they may”?
Buz: I think this time around, I just wanted people to talk about us. I mean, we could have put out the same old Unearth record and it would have been good and the fans would have liked it, but I feel like we wanted a little bit more this time. We wanted to get a little more extreme with it, just to get people talking, just for that fact alone. Let’s do something different – not like get a cool haircut and have keyboards, but to take it to the next level and so far up that would make people say, “yo, have the heard the new Unearth record yet?”
Trevor: I do think there was a level of “fuck it” there as well.
So, no major surprises like some dubstep or techno thrown in there?
Buz: There is a hidden track that is all dubstep; have you found it yet? Yeah, once it gets picked up, we’re going to be rich.
Trevor: It’s actually called trans-dubstep.
Buz: It’s trans-dubstep-shoegaze-psychobilly.
Trevor: You have to get to negative track 1036 to get to it, but you’ll hear it…and it’s sick.
I think you’ve just created a killer new genre. Quick, you better copyright that before corporate gets a hold of it.
Trevor: Copyright Paul McGrath 2014 (laughs).
What made you decide to work with Mark Lewis again on the new album?
Trevor: This is actually the first time that he has produced us; he mixed our last one, Darkness in the Light. He’s one of the best in the game right now.
Buz: Definitely, he has a hot ear right now.
Trevor: He knows exactly what he’s looking for with the sound. We’re an extreme metal band and he knew how to bring that out of us. He mixed our last record really well and he mixed and produced this one really well too.
Buz: What we didn’t like is that he stops to eat chicken way too much. He’s trying to look like Dolph Lundgren or some shit, so he’s always eating chicken and broccoli or some shit and we’re like ‘hey man, we’re trying to do a record here.’ He’s over there grilling fucking chicken and I don’t have time for that shit.
I guess that would also make for a pretty messy mixing board as well.
Buz: Oh, it’s a mess alright (laughs). You know, I mean, guitar-wise, you always need that extra ear to let you know that you’re almost there. You know, like when you do that solo and you think you nailed it? You need someone with an outside perspective to let you know that you’re almost there, but not quite yet. He did a great job of putting us in check.
Trevor: If a track sucked that I wasn’t picking up vocally, he let me know. He definitely let me know that I can do it better in another take.
Everyone’s money is tight and if someone has two CDs that they want, with yours being one of them, and they can only afford to buy one of them, do your best sales job to get them to buy yours.
Trevor: There are plenty of reasons to check it out for yourself and see what you think. These songs are aggressive heavy metal songs, anthemic, and definitely worth a listen. You can listen to them on Spotify, YouTube, Pandora or  you can buy the record on iTunes or whatever.
Buz: If you like portability, get the iTunes and that works for us and works for the scan as far as ‘Unearth sold X amount of records this week.’ The iTunes is cheaper if you don’t want to go to the store and get the physical copy. I know a lot of people don’t do that anymore and now the physical copy has become the new special edition because you get the artwork and shit – which is fucking sick on this new record. You know, even if you want to get the new record and throw it in the trash and just listen to us on Spotify, we’d appreciate that as well.
You guys seem to go through more drummers than Spinal Tap. How’s Nick (Pierce) holding up?
Buz: He just texted me four minutes ago and said that he burst into flames; he spontaneously combusted and there was just this little globule on his drum seat. (laughs hysterically) Seriously, Nick’s been around since about 2011 and he’s a big part of the new record. He can’t leave us; he’s invested musically and stuck with us now.
Trevor: There aren’t too many drummers who can play the way he does, so he has to stick around because it’s mandatory.
Buz: He has no choice and if he tries to leave, we’re going to tell every band that he’s an asshole, so he’s fucked. We’ll tell everyone that he’s an addict and an asshole and nobody will ever hire him.
By the time this runs, your tour with Darkest Hour will have wrapped up. Do you have anything that you can share with us as far as upcoming live dates go?
Trevor: There are a bunch of tours that we’re working on right now that we can’t just talk about yet.
Buz: Do you have a band? Will you take us on tour? If you know of any bands that need someone to go tour with, just have them call us.
Trevor: We’ll definitely be playing a lot of live dates with this new record, so don’t worry.
Buz: If you’re reading this and you want to see us out on tour, please go buy the new record because that will help us line up tours.
That’s an important piece of that puzzle that people don’t realize when they just illegally download it.
Buz: Oh, no doubt!
I have a fan submitted question from Bo in Kentucy who wants to know what kind of advice can you give to metal bands that are killing it, but are from places where metal is not widely accepted, other than to move somewhere that does accept it or has a better metal scene.
Buz: I don’t think you have to move unless you live in someplace like South Africa where there’s only two places to play. If you are in the United States and you play metal, trade shows with out of state bands. You go find a place to play, whether it’s in your grandma’s basement, VFW hall, any club, a fucking backyard or whatever, get a band from out of state and say “hey, I’ve got a show for you, now you give us a show where you’re at.” If you get into something like that, then it allows you to get out of your scene where maybe it isn’t that hot and into a different scene and it’ll catch up with you.
Trevor: That’s how we did it. We traded shows with bands from our region. I mean, it took us a long time get there.
Buz: I think it’ll be even easier now because of the technology and the social media element to connect all of the people.
You’ve been doing this now for close to twenty years. Did you think back in 1998 that you’d still be kicking ass this long?
Buz: Nope, I just wanted to do a show with Earth Crisis or All Out War and that was the top of the mountain for us. We did that and we’re still here, a fucking million years later. We just went to South Africa for some weird reason and it was such a great show. There were people there who knew us and knew my name. I was like,  “how does this fucking happen?”
Trevor: When the band started out, we kind of set small goals for ourselves and if we didn’t reach them after a year, we’d look at it as if it was time to not do the band anymore. The thing is that we kept on hitting those goals and all of a sudden we were on tour. We were also on a pretty big indie label and we started touring the world. It’s been kind of a mind-fuck how cool is it to tour the whole world playing heavy metal songs.
Buz: Be careful what you wish for.Â
Unearth – Guards of Contagion Video
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If this crazy ride ended today and you had to go into professional wrestling to make a living, what would your wrestling names be?
Buz: My wrestling name would be Dong DeLuise and I’d have a huge fucking pipe in my spandex. Oh wait, either that or Yahtzee Sympathizer. We could be a tag-team and he could be Yahtzee Sympathizer and I will be Dong DeLuise. I hope my Plan-B isn’t wrestling because I couldn’t wrestle my way out of a paper sack.
Have either of you ever bought anything off of an infomercial?
Trevor: We actually invented something that could be on an infomercial and it’s called a “rigwowel.”
Buz: Great fucking invention by our bassist Slo Maggard.
Trevor: You get off stage or after the gym and you have a towel. You know, sometimes you reuse your gym clothes and the best thing to do is wring them out and put them inside your towel.
Buz: Your “rigwowel.”
Trevor: You roll it up nice and tightly and you put it in the corner. You unroll it the next day and the towel as absorbed the sweat and you have a nice and dry, semi-clean shirt to put back on and use for stage or gym.
Buz: Rigwowel, copyright Paul McGrath 2014.
I’d like to place a pre-order for two please.
Buz: Fuck yeah man!
I see that our time’s up and we have to wrap it up guys. Any closing words for the readers?
Buz: Don’t forget to buy the new record. No wait, just check it out, listen to it, no matter how you want to get it.
Trevor: If you don’t check it out, then you’re fucking up.
Buz: Yeah, you’re hustling in reverse.
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