Interview With Underoath: Who Would Jesus Vote For?
March 9th, 2009 | Published in Interviews
Underoath has become, in only 8 years, the most successful band of it’s kind; touring the best venues of the world and selling hundred of thousands of records. I met Grant when they played “Terminal 5″ last October.
It was one of the last warm days of the year, the trees were staring to lose their leaves but we were in the middle of the Indian Summer so the temperature was nearly as high as a day of June.
I arrived at Terminal 5 where I was supposed to meet Grant but instead I ran into Aaron, the drummer and also the lead singer of the rock band “The Almost”. I will never know why and how but he was fixing his bike right next to his tourbus. He looked at me and said “are you here for the interview?”, of course I said “Yes?”, However he was actually talking about his interview and the only member we were here for the Bassist, so I just assumed he was talking about Grant.
He looked at me straight in the eye and said “can we do it here? I really want to fix this bike” but before I could answer, the girl who actually was Aaron’s interview showed up and said “wait, you’re MY interview!”.
Aaron apologized for the misunderstanding and Grant arrived 2 minutes later. He took us to the backstage and offered me a beer that I drank in record time.
Noahm: Underoath kind of started as a high school band and now you’re headlining one of the best venues of New York, Terminal 5. How does that feel?
Grant: It’s awesome, it’s cool. It’s definitely like a gradual process, it’s not as overwhelming as you might think I guess. It’s not like if we jumped from a basement to Terminal 5, I’ve been in the band for almost 8 years now so it’s kind of like a lot of touring.. but it’s definitely awesome, I really feel blessed being able to play in a place like this, it’s awesome that’s for sure.. I’m happy to be here
N: Did you have a goal when you started the band?
G: Honestly, not really. I was in high school and I just wanted to play music, that’s all I cared about at that point. I was paying a lot of money and wasn’t making anything, it was just about going out and being able to play music for people and that was the only thing we cared about, as far as business goals go.. I remember my ultimate goal for the band was to sell 2 thousand records and it’s gone way over that, everything is just like gravy on top.. it’s awesome.
I never had the ultimate goal of being a rockstar or something..
N: What about a venue you’ve always dreamed about?
G: I guess Red Rocks in Colorado, 15,000 people in the middle of the mountains.. if I could play that venue I’d just be like “holy crap” but now I’m just way beyond any expectations.
N: Has anything weird happened during tour, something similar to what happened to The Kills’ tourbus (ndlr. the bus got stolen)?
G: Not really actually.. so many new places we’d never been before like South Africa, but as far as crazy.. not really, there’s nothing that really stands out. We’re doing Conan O’Brian tomorrow, that’s pretty cool. But crazy is a weird word to me anyway.
N: Talking about touring different countries, how different is the crowd across the ocean?
G: Well.. we played for children in Africa so that was really different, I can’t really compare. When we play in a different country it just feels like the crowd is more grateful, being an American band and going all the way there, they’re just so soaked that you’re there.. it makes the shows a little bit more awesome.
N: People are not used to the idea of a Christian metal band in Europe, when you guys play a song like “Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape”, does the crowd react differently than the crowd over here?
G: We don’t play that song every night, but we never had any trouble.. Even in Germany it went just fine though I don’t think they have Christian bands in Germany.
I think we’ve been around for a long time so our crowd knows about our beliefs, and we’re really respectful about our beliefs and about people who don’t believe in what we believe in. We just say we believe in that, we play our music and that’s it.
N: On Wikipedia it says that there were three different bassists playing on the record “The Changing of Times”, who actually played bass on that record?
G: There was just one (Octavio Fernandez), I wasn’t even in the band yet. I joined like right after the record was done, I toured with them to support the record though. I had joined the band when the record came out, but I didn’t participate in the recording.
N: Your new album contains more electronic sounds, and there’s definitely more moody songs (ndlr. the last song of the record “The End Is Here”). Do you think the next record will have more of an electronic feel?
G: I don’t know, I think we’re pretty much a heavy metal band but we’re definitely all about trying new things and being creative, that’s why we have a keyboard player, we love trying new things. But I don’t thing it’s gonna be this overwhelming takeover, it’s one of my favorite songs of the record though, it’s really different than the other songs.
N: Sometimes the titles of the songs are unexpected, who actually choses the titles of your songs?
G: Spencer mostly does the titles and he kind of like comes back to us and asks what we think about them, and sometimes he changes them according to what we told him. I like how he chooses the titles though, for this record the last song is about the end of the world and the first is about hope so I think it works out pretty well. He writes the lyrics and then just chooses the lyrics.
N: Many parents might not like the fact that their kids listen to such a heavy sound like Underoath. What do you think about that and what would you tell their parents?
G: It’s a little bit like my parents, I’ve always liked hardcore music and my parents only listen to cute Christian music and they didn’t understand why we were screaming and all that.. Hopefully the parents won’t think it’s a bad turn off for their kids, I think they should show our lyrics to their parents. That’s what I did, I showed our lyrics to my mom and she read them and she liked them actually, if the parents get the message and if they’re open minded they’ll understand. I can’t really control it from where I am but I hope parents will understand.
N: You said during an interview that Underoath wasn’t the kind of band that would win a Grammy Award, and a year later you were nominated…
G: (laughter) True. That was for a music video so it’s kinda different, but we don’t look at ourselves as a hit band, we’re not like a MTV band, we don’t have radio hits.. but maybe who knows, someday we’ll win, we never know. But we are definitely not gonna change who we are to be successful. We had the opportunity to make one hit song but we didn’t want to do that so we refused.
N: Do you think that Jesus would vote for McCain or Obama?
G: (laughter) someone told me that today actually, he was just jerking around about Jesus and politics. It’s a tough one I think. I will vote for Obama at this point, personally. I think Jesus would vote independent though, maybe for Ron Paul, he would vote for his own guy you know. Maybe I should say he would vote for McCain because he’s a Republican Christian and that kind of thing but I think there’s evil in both sides so I can’t really tell.
N: What’s the first thing that comes up to your mind when I say “Belgium”?
G: Beer! Definitely beer, very good! I remember an outdoor festival we played over there with Goldfinger, the Groezrock Festival. It was great! Belgium, nice weather, good shows and perfect beer.
N: And what about Belgian chocolate?
G: I actually think about Swiss chocolate, not Belgian chocolate.
N: Madison Square Garden?
G: The Knicks, huge, someday hopefully, maybe.
N: USA?
G: Mhh, great country, a lot of problems, definitely. I love it and I’m grateful that I live here, I think there’s a lot of bad things but a lot of good things too.
N: Last one, Underoath?
G: Playing a show tonight, New York City, doing good, just touring, it’s awesome.
N: That’s it, thanks for your time Grant!
G: No problem, Noahm! I enjoyed it! Hope you enjoy the show! Thanks!
Here are the photos and the review of the show:
