Interview with Unearth guitarist Buz McGrath

One of the most popular heavy metal/metalcore bands in the world right now is the Massachusetts five piece Unearth. In less than two years, these guys have risen from virtually nothing to the point where they are now doing their own major tours and selling hundreds of thousands of records worldwide. Unearth just recently unleashed their latest studio record titled III: In The Eyes of Fire at the end of the summer and it’s only helped make the band bigger than it already was, selling extremely well and being praised as one of 2006’s best metal releases. Although the band is currently in the midst of an extensive tour to promote the new record, we were able to catch up with guitarist Buz McGrath when Unearth recently made a stop in Toronto. Here’s what Buz had to say:

Although the band has been around now for a number of years, you could say that Unearth’s popularity really began to explode in Fall 2005 when you guys served as an opening act with As I Lay Dying on Slipknot’s arena tour. Now that it’s been over a year and a half, do you look back on this tour as a kind of turning point or a big break for the band?
Buz: Yeah I would say so. That tour opened us up to a whole new segment of fans that we’d never encountered. I mean Slipknot had become huge at that point and they went from playing you know, theatres all the way to arenas so it helped put us on display to a lot of new people who had never really heard of us before. For us, we’d never played shows that big before, Slipknot was just becoming huge, so… yeah I mean obviously it really helped us out. We also did some dates on Ozzfest and Sounds of the Underground just before the Slipknot shows which I think also helped. Those festival type shows can really help you know, a young band starting out because it opens you up to all these people who would probably like you but they’ve never really heard your music before. So yeah, I think Ozzfest and Sounds of the Underground were big, but Slipknot fans hadn’t really seen much of us until then and in the end I think it’s really helped us out as a band.

The Slipknot tour I just mentioned was in support of your last album The Oncoming Storm which you toured for extensively. What was it like touring for so long and was it hard to get back to writing and recording after such a long touring experience?
Buz: It was hard at times but we had fun, anytime you’re out on tour for that long it’s going to take its toll on you. After being out on the road for so long, you get back and you kind of just want to relax for a bit and not think about writing or recording. It was kind of tough getting back to writing after touring for so long, we’re not really a band who writes a lot on tour, we just like to party and stay focused on the tour so it was kind of tough coming home and getting back down to writing but eventually we got started. We started writing for this album very late 2005, early 2006 so it wasn’t even really that long ago. Once we did get down to writing, we worked pretty hard, some long days in there and yeah, we got it done in a relatively short period of time which is good because you don’t want your fans to have to wait you know, three or four years between albums, you want to get your stuff out there as quick as possible.

Your most recent album III: In The Eyes of Fire has been out now since late summer. Now that it’s been out a while and you’ve had some time to reflect about the record how do you personally feel about it and how does it match up to your past releases?
Buz: I think it’s probably our best record so far, it’s probably our most crushing record to date, not that the previous ones weren’t you know, hard and heavy but I think there’s a certain hardness or whatever that we didn’t have on the previous albums before this one. We worked with Terry Date on this one who you know, has produced so many huge albums in the past and I think we worked well with him, he really kept us focused and you know, he helped us keep on top of thing. On the last record we worked with Adam D. from Killswitch Engage who was also totally cool to work with, but Terry was awesome to work with and I think he helped us make the record that we wanted to you know, the record we set out to make in the beginning. So yeah, it was a great experience working with him.

The title of the album, In The Eyes of Fire can be interpreted in many ways. How did you come up with this title and is it a reference to a personal battle that you might have confronted in the past?
Buz: Um, yeah it basically can be interpreted in many different ways; you know a personal battle or struggle, whatever you want to call it, facing adversity…. I think it’s more of a question for Trevor, he came up with the title and he ran it by us and we thought it sounded really cool and fit the vibe of the record you know, it’s kind of a dark sound but I think people can get some hope or whatever out of listening to the music or the lyrics.

To produce III: In The Eyes of Fire, you enlisted the very well respected Terry Date who has worked with so many huge names in metal. Whose idea was it to work with Terry and why did you decide to go with him?
Buz: Um, well our record company Metalblade Records first suggested working with Terry. They brought up his name to us and we were all like hell yeah, we’d love to work with Terry, he’s done such amazing work in the past with all these other bands. So fortunately for us, our schedules happened to work well together; he had some time to produce for us while we were ready to record the album. We all knew of him from his past work which we were all such huge fans of so we thought it would work well. I think he got the best out of our band, it fit our sound well and I think you can hear that on the new album, I think it’s a really good flowing record and all the songs fit really well together.

Speaking of famous producers, you guys have also worked with Killswitch Engage’s Adam Dutkowicz on your last record. What do you think the main difference was between working with Adam last time and Terry this time around?
Buz: Well I guess the biggest thing was that we as a band took on more of a role in you know the whole recording process and producing. I mean Terry was our producer for this album, but the band was really involved in the producing side of it also this time around. We got more involved in you know, doing the production on the tracks and mixing them too. Terry was more involved actually in the engineering part of the album, he did help produce it but primarily he worked on engineering and making the songs sound the best that they could. We took on more of a producing role this time around and I think it’s turned out pretty well. Adam I guess was more into the whole producing thing with us, definitely more so than Terry was. And I mean, they’re both great producers and great people, they have different approaches but I think we’re all really happy with how our albums have turned out and we’d love to work with the both of them again.

Some people have remarked that they believe III: In The Eyes of Fire is your most crushing and intense album to date. Do you agree with this assessment?
Buz: Yeah I would agree with that, it’s pretty intense I think and that’s really what we were going for. When we started working on the record and we went into the studio, we really set out to make a really crushing, hard, heavy metal record that would top our other albums and really bring the band to a whole new level. I think we accomplished that, we’re all really psyched about the record and how it sounds and the reaction to it from the fans has been just so positive, everyone has responded really well to the new songs when we play them live. One thing that we always want to do as a band is keep progressing and improving. On this album we wanted to take our sound to a new level and working with Terry really helped with that. So yeah, I think we’ve made a really wicked record that will really please all of our fans.

Staying consistent with your history of insane touring, you guys have some extensive touring plans for 2007 that go into the spring including a month long outing with Slayer beginning in a couple of weeks. How did you get to be added to this huge tour and was Slayer a big influence for you growing up?
Buz: Oh yeah, we’ve all been huge fans of Slayer ever since we were kids growing up, they are such an amazing band and they’re one of the true pioneers you know, of hard metal so we’re really looking forward to this tour with them. They basically just asked us if we wanted to be apart of it, you know the tour and we were like hell yeah, we’re totally in, I mean we’d be crazy to turn it down, I mean how many bands can say they had the honour of touring with a band like Slayer? Not a lot of people. So yeah, we were totally down for it and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, I know I can’t wait for it.

Even though you guys have become quite popular, like other metal bands you don’t receive much attention from radio or mainstream music channels. Do you still find that touring is the best way to reach and expand your base of fans?
Buz: Yeah definitely touring is our main way of you know, going out there and attracting fans, we don’t get a lot of support from radio or TV, you know, music video channels so we gotta get out there and bring the music to the kids ourselves because you know, no one else is really going to do it for us. Metal is popular but it doesn’t get that kind of attention you know from the mainstream, basically if you don’t have three and a half minute mid tempo rock songs with catchy choruses, you’re not going to get a lot of attention that way. With what we do, you gotta just go out and tour your butt off to reach everyone, but I think it’s been working well for us, we’ve built a pretty strong base of fans over the last few years.

Besides the extensive touring you have planned, what else does Unearth have in store for 2007? When do you think you might begin serious work on a new record?
Buz: Well obviously our main goal right now for the next few months is touring, you know, just constantly touring behind this new album. We’re going to be on the road for the next little while; we’ll be touring pretty much non stop from now until right into the fall so we got a lot of shows ahead of us from now until then. This record has been out now for only a few months so I think it’s still got a long way to go, you know, in terms of people being into it and us promoting it and playing shows. After we stop touring, we’ll probably take a little break and then get right back to work on a new album. We really don’t want to wait too long in between albums; we want to keep it going you know, keep consistently giving our fans new material. I guess we hope to have a new album out probably by the end of 2007, like sometime in the fall, but you never know, there might be a delay or something but yeah, ideally we’d like to get a new record out by the time this year is over.  [ END ]