Seether Documentary narrated by Shaun Morgan

Um, my dad wouldn't let me play in a band, so I ran away from him. What did he have against you? He said my grades went down because I was in a band and I wasn't a very nice person to be around because he They wouldn't let me play in a band so I ran away from home to make a demo uh yeah I mean did you get very far? Well, I didn't get very far, I don't think so, I mean, I ran away when I was a kid. I was about five or six years old and I went to the cinema with my mother and we saw a film called Jock of the bushfelt and there was a story about a man who rescues this dwarf from a letter who is drowning.

I believe in a cube. at the end of the movie and the song performed by Johnny Clegan and um savuka and it was called Spurt of the great heart and I cried during that scene in the office because he was a little boy and I remember like six months to a year later. that every time that song came on the radio, the memory that was tied to it was so powerful that I always cried and it was the visual with the feel of the song, so that started and then I heard everything. when I was 12 13 years old was when I heard "nevermind" and I went home and played that CD from start to finish 12 13 times and pretty much, you know, decided on the spot that that's what I wanted.

I wanted to learn how to play these songs and I wanted to learn how to play like that and I never looked back. I joined another band that became this band. I was a rhythm guitarist in a band with a female vocalist on keyboards um and then a guitarist or lead guitarist I was using guitars and there was a foundation and a drama at that time. I never really imagined going anywhere, but um, yeah, I was in that band and he was in the band, he was in who he was. your band called no offense, no offense, that's true, I can't fast forward to about 45 or six months later, in an hour, at the time we decided to quit, we had some kind of crisis or whatever and we had a concert coming up in front of the drummer. and I, we, and we, we were desperately looking for a bassist and I knew Dale could play bass, so I thought, well, I know a guy who called me and we had a rehearsal and that made me learn 18 songs in about three days or something like that and we played our first show and it was great, it just worked and there was a DJ at night in South Africa, it was very, very instrumental in exposing us to new music, we gave him a demo of 17 probably the same 17 tracks that we gave to Dale so he would learn to be honest and then we would record them and all he wanted in return was McDonald's, of course, that changed once we signed, you know, a week after we gave him the demo, he's like, guys.

I heard this new sarin gas band and they started playing one of the songs. I told him, oh, this is great, he's playing one of our songs and then the next night he does it again, but he plays another one and then the next time he plays. another one and the next time another one plays, so it starts this kind of underground Rumble for us and it doesn't really translate to that point where more people come to the shows, but it does get the attention of the real public. PDS and the daytime radio programmers didn't have a band name and they had spent weeks recording with this guy, John, in his jingle studio and he said, look, you guys need, you need something, you need a name, so I had a vault full of sound effects CDs and they all had interesting titles, so we just picked a bunch of them with a hat and drew sarangas and that's how it became a band name, so it was this cool little thing that We did it and it was just us, so we built a catalog of 16-17 songs, so to speak, and the next thing we have the song on the radio and it starts showing up on the lists of people who believed in us and who had the power to expose ourselves. to other people with no money or advertising money, I mean, if you think about it, it's nice, I mean, it's a strange story, but that's how we ended up.

We got a phone call from our manager in June of 2001 and they called us to finish the records and said they wanted to take us to New York for a showcase. We didn't need to have many options in the movement. You know, it was moving and making music. or you don't move and you don't make music, so it was really again, it's like something I've wanted to do my whole life. He was a young guy and he was ready to do whatever it took, you know, just um, you know. Being given an opportunity like that, something we've been working on for so long, it was definitely a no-brainer.

You know he was ready to get on the plane and you know going abroad and you know what it's about. They got us, now we get to New York City, basically with a little piece of paper with an address on it, it's like right next to Time Squares, where else is the label? We're like, hey, what's the rent? in that place? and they're like oh, it's like 7,500 a month, the next month it came, we basically get a phone call like, hey, your plane leaves in a couple of hours, there's a change of plans, now we're filming in Los Angeles with Jay Baumgarner, like that that right before we moved to Los Angeles, our drummer who was 40 years old, was very homesick and left, so we moved to Los Angeles and at this point it's just Dale and I, but basically we started recording almost immediately and Then I went to audition for a guitarist because Windup was very convinced that we couldn't be a trio anymore.

We had to be a band of four. We tried to bring in another South African drummer because we thought it was important to have another South African to be able to do it. keep it as a purity element, she didn't work out which is a real bummer because he's a really nice guy and then we end up with Josh frozen playing on the album, we finish the album we finished recording and now we have to find members to play , so we auditioned and then found Nick Ashira. I felt like everything had been such a good trip until we moved to Los Angeles that at that point I felt like I almost felt like it was you know. the two parts "good to be true" faded very quickly to man this is not what I thought it would look like they seem to say so we didn't have a picture on the first one we had 10 different album covers and I think that for a new band to do that is a really risky thing to do and, in retrospect, it's something that you know, it's not a smart thing to do because I think people got confused and, you know, I think if you've done it. reached a certain level and you can do that kind of thing and get away with it, or they put out a CD called disclaimer, uh, you can look at this one and say, well, that's not the one I have, they have 10 different images for the cover .

I was, I found out about the audition and uh, there were 17 of us that auditioned and then we came back that night and they called me about a week later, this is your new guy, Pat, how long have you been with them? You just connect with the On the road, they were touring in Philly right before they did Ass Fest and, uh, my band was playing with their band and they said, "You know, we got to the bar" and they said, "You know we need another guitar from Johannesburg, please welcome Caesar at that time.” In the states we had a channel called mtvs and I remember Fine Again being played there so I was kind of familiar with the bands.

I was in a band before Seether, you know, it was the revolving door of drummers, they finally had an audition, so we went and auditioned for the band in Dallas, Texas, they were in the middle of a tour at the time Evanescent opened , so while our drummer was at the hotel, we auditioned, yeah, having grown up on opposite sides of the glare, we have a lot of the same musical similarities, interests and bands we liked, they grew up with American music, so it's funny that we have that connection when it comes to musical action. Amy wanted us to break up with Amy Lee, which we did after the first album.

It was finished, but they wanted to release it as a single and I didn't want it to be on the first album because I thought the first album was finished, it was a finished work, so we have to do something new, but they wanted to rush it, so the only compromise What we had was what we would add, you know, another nine songs to the original album or another eight songs, whatever it was, and then you know what we decided we would call a disclaimer tune. They discontinued the first barcode on the first album, so it just disappeared, we had nothing to say about it, but at least we were able to come to an agreement because, again, we didn't know what we were doing, right?

I didn't know we had a say in anything, especially with the previous owners of wind up discs, it was just them, they used bulldozers and bullied us because they knew they could, but a place I would be vacationing soon when I'm alive took More to go of 14 hours to form now the album Carmen Effect comes out next Tuesday, May 24. Make sure you get it now. Originally the album title was called Catering to Cowards. It's true, yes, yes, but someone took it personally, so we changed it. What cowards were you serving? uh uh corporate this is the first day this is where all the flights are done the professionals do their thing Sean will do a performance it's very warm being the announcer friend everyone I'm Dean a lot of negative things you said about us uh for a long time until the moment when you know the re-release of the album came out and you know instead of turning around and saying cool you know you guys okay we suck we said well hey we.

We're going to make another album that will hopefully make you even angrier. There was a lot of frustration. There were many people who treated us very badly. This is the effect of that. You already know. And there are many things that have happened to me in the last two years of the last three years and that has affected me and it came to light in this too. You know, someone told me years ago. I was like you want to have the type of song. that as soon as it starts, everyone knows exactly what song it is, right, they want to know oh, this is that song, there's no waiting like, oh, this is what I think it is or there's no kind of no doubt that okay this is the song I want to hear and this is the song that's playing right now so let me turn up the volume and I think a subconscious idea behind the intro was to make it one of those songs that is instantly recognizable and um e Even today we end most of our sets with that song because it's the one people love to see live, it's one of the biggest and it's a good way to end the set because you're nice. to put that big final point and say thank you very much for coming here is that song we wrote eight years ago, the most beautiful notes I have ever seen in my life, it's a little small, you need a magnifying glass, but impressive, as if When they get the CD, be sure to check it out because a lot of work went into this.

It's not just that you know the words on paper, there is a beautiful piece of art that we wanted to be like you know, if you go out and buy it and spend money. We wanted to make it worthwhile and something interesting to get to know and flip through, so thank you foreigner, we definitely want to at least explore the possibility of making an album like that again because for some people it was more accessible. For example, my dad liked it more than the things we do, he just wasn't happy and when he was happy, they were the best moments you could have when he wasn't happy, it was a horrible feeling, it's horrible, we all want to do it. to be living a somewhat normal life, he had a girlfriend that they were in love with for years and they've been apart for about four years and they got back together and it was like he was happy, happy that he ever saw him. really happy that you found what I guess you were looking for on the weekend I didn't mean for him to leave my intention was for us to sit down and talk about it because I'm the one who has to drop the ax and I'm the one who has to go to look there to begin to see how frontman Sean Morgan has checked himself into a rehab facility for an undisclosed substance abuse problem with television appearances promoting it.

Seether planned to perform acoustically for the three... weeklong tour in support of their CD DVD release called Knight about the rehab period Morgan said in a statement quote that these things are making me sick and could permanently damage me, so I need to take care of them as soon as possible, you know. We're very proud of you, you know, there were many, many difficult moments, but I think even through all that, you know the band is almost like that light at the end of the tunnel, well, let's get through this because you have to know music to write. or shows to play, an album to make, so it's almost like something new.

Okay, I still have that and that's just keep your eyes on that. You know if you fall try to get up and you know head towards that ladder into the tunnel you know you gotta keep going you know it's like you look for the positive in a negative situation it's with the whole theme of this area of ​​the album or you can go man this sucks and you can get on that and live on reasons to stop doing things and reasons to give up or reasons to call it a day, you have to tell yourself in your head that you have to stop thinking that way, yeah, you It's quite life-changing to sit down and say look, I have to start. being positive aboutWe will publish in June or July.

Whatever I think June was originally supposed to be, that was the goal. and then March turned into April and we were like okay, let me move it to July and then April turned into May and they said, oh, let's hope, let's keep that hope for July. We decided what we said and then we're going to put it out in August because I think it looks like the lockdown is going to go on for a while and you know. I think it's good to put out new music to try to maintain a sense of hope, go with the fans and with ourselves.

What I have learned in 20 years is that I now have a different perspective on the world. I used to have it, whereas when I was younger and started writing music, my perspective was basically me, it was my little bubble around me and my very close personal experiences and feelings and emotions, and now, in a way, I have cost him the network. much broader and based on what I see as dangerous, you know, no pun intended, but what I see is quite sinister looking from the outside in and how people interact with each other. I think it's great, we found it at a bad time. lyrical direction for me, this time I took my time.

I actually sat down and wrote them out beforehand instead of just waiting until the last minute. The good thing about this was that I was able to look at the lyrics more critically and really had time. studying them and crossing things out and rearranging things and my other focus was me. I was really trying not to repeat myself, uh, like I've done in the past and I think it's easy for us as songwriters to repeat ourselves because it kind of falls back on phrases and words that you know have had a lot of weight in the past and you want to keep reintroducing those. words just to create familiarity and I worked harder on this album than the last one.

I know there have been albums in the past where maybe I wasn't sure about some of the tracks on the album and maybe I wasn't 100 satisfied with it, but this, for example, is one of those that I'm about 95 satisfied with . You will never be completely satisfied with this album, but we still take it very seriously. We still love this job. We still really love creating music after 20 years of being in a band. And I think the best way to do it is. What you need to do is pay more attention and really focus on the things that you might have had as weaknesses in the past and try to strengthen them, so that was the goal after 2018 ended, we were all pretty exhausted and they don't live very close each other.

John lives in Oklahoma City, which I think is a 10 or 12 hour drive for him. Dale lives in Savannah, which is also another 10 to 12 hour drive away. Corey lives three hours away, which is fine, but you know. I just did my thing and I felt really good on this album and I, you know, I just wrote and wrote and wrote and after about 50-something ideas, 40-something ideas I said, well, that's enough. I'm starting to repeat myself now, so let me. I go back and look at what I have and see which ones I think are the best and then you sit there and stay calm, well, I like these 21 and I started working on those 21. and those 21 when they were done I sent them all to everyone in a big Dropbox folder so they could get the whole experience in one go and it turned out that when we started recording I couldn't choose between the 21 of us to make the album, so we just recorded.

All of this so we could make the 21 tracks, which is how we got the EP for the Wasteland EP. There are three tricks that were from those recordings that are also there and will be another EP as well with the remaining songs that will be released. That is a song. An example of this is that I preferred the demo version of the final product just because it had a little more Lo-Fi and less distorted guitars, but in the studio we were on a roll and that when you combine it with All the other things felt good, we should make it sound a little more like the other things.

The bass is now driving the true essence of the song, so I added the drums to it and then let my imagination run wild. Wild Man was one of those things where immediately everyone was like man, what's that, what's that, that's different, right, it still keeps the element of the band by having distorted guitars and stuff like that, but it has kind of options. melodic ones that aren't necessarily rock choices, I mean, you know, I have Corey, a Native American, he was like a friend, it sounds like a Native American song to me, you know, I was thinking, well, it had more of an Arabic kind of influence on it.

The Melodies and maybe you even know the Indian influences, but Anyway, regardless of what it was, I thought it was interesting. It was a riff I wrote in 2016 because I just got the news and my dad had cancer and I was really angry about it and it was originally a very different title. to that riff that was right before Poison The Parish came out, so we knew we did two years of touring and I totally forgot it was even there, but when I was sitting here it was one of those days where it wasn't. necessarily completely inspired, so I was going through all this stuff I had and I was like, let me see if there's anything that's usable and that song came up and I thought, oh man, this is cool, so I left it a step. down because I wanted a little bit heavier, a little bit sludgier and then I built the song around that and moved it away from the original inspiration, um because I felt like I could do a better job with that original inspiration in a different way, so not necessarily one angry because the anger over the diagnosis and subsequent passing was already over, so I was more on The Melancholy's side now, so if I wrote a song about it, I'd like to do it that way, but that's always the way it is.

I've understood that I don't care what a current trend is, right? I don't mind fitting into a shouty emo pop punk, uh, any subgenre of the right, I never, ever mind that and I know that we have very often been in the middle of one of those types of moments and we just stick to what we do and I think I always want to write music that's honest, that reflects me and that's true to who I am and I think if you do that, the fans can feel that and the fans appreciate that you know that I have fans that have been friends with me for 20 years and they say, man, it keeps getting better.

I think there's something that you can say that you just hold your ground and be who you are throughout everything and we've had some albums where I deviated from that a little bit and I was trying to be too smart, I was trying to be maybe too experimental, but I think even in those cases we still do it from an honest point of view and it always starts with I'm writing this because this makes my head move this makes my foot tap this makes me feel good these lyrics are I express myself because I'm trying to write my journal basically aurally and that's what I've always done.

We'll definitely be releasing some new music at some point where it'll be on the timeline, it's hard. Let's just say, unfortunately, we're at a place now in our careers where, like I said before, when you're Baby Ben, it's like when you get home you have to take it out, you're going to pick it up and while Now we can take a little bit more time to make sure the songs are ready and then go in and knock them out, but yeah, we're definitely going to start working on some new stuff and we'll keep an eye out There's nothing written yet, but it's in the future, so don't despair folks, there's something, something in the works, I just have to wait a little longer.