South African rock band Seether has changed over the past two years. Sure the hard riffs and driving beats are still there, but it is the experience gained through life’s curveballs that really sets their new album, Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces, apart. Shaun Morgan, John Humphrey, and Dale Stewart first gained notoriety with their 2002 album, Disclaimer, and its massive single “Broken.” With this one song, Seether was put on the rock map. Now several albums, a highly publicized break-up, and a stint in rehab later, Seether has released their most solid effort yet.

Let�s start with some background information: How did Seether get started?

Dale: It was in May of 1999. It�s funny, I think there�s not one original band member. Shaun joined the band as a singing guitar player. It was originally a five piece band and they kicked out the keyboard player and the vocalist so Shaun started singing. Then the bass player left so by default I joined the band. That was almost 10 years ago now.

And John how long have you been with the band?

John: A little over 4 years.

Where did the band name come from?

Dale: We had to change the name. We used to be called Saron Gas. When we came over to the States, it was right after the whole 9/11 thing and they were very nervous about the whole terrorism thing. The label thought it would be a good idea if we changed the name so we did.

And where did you get it from?

Dale: The song by Veruca Salt.

And what made you choose that? Just a fan of the song?

Shaun: We were just a fan of the song and every other name we thought of was taken. It was like the 50th one in a row so we just basically settled on it because there was nothing else.

Well I�d say it�s worked for you. Who are some of your influences?

Dale: There�s so many. As a band, I think we have influences from all over the place, from real old school stuff like The Beatles and The Who to newer bands, rock bands, folk music, whatever�s good. We listen to anything across the board. Mostly older stuff though. There aren�t really many new bands these days that we are really into. Are you into any new bands?

Shaun: No. I like everything before the 80s and after the 80s up until 2000.

How did it feel to have both versions of your second album (Disclaimer and Disclaimer II) sell so well?

Dale: It�s awesome. You never know how people are going to react to something like that. We were scared that people were gonna get pissed off that we released it and pretty much made them go out and buy it again. Initially, it wasn�t our choice to do that so what we decided was we would basically attach an EP. We didn�t want people to feel like we were just trying to scare them into buying the album again for just one more song. We decided to add a bunch of extra material to make it worthwhile for fans who bought the original one.

And I�m sure the fans appreciated that. �Broken� is perhaps your biggest single to date. Give me some insight on that song.

Shaun: I don�t talk about lyrics so you talk about the song.

Dale: Well, �Broken� was a song that was on our first album way back in the South African days. When they were making The Punisher movie, the director of the movie (Jonathan Hensleigh) really liked the song and wanted to know if we could do a soundtrack type version of it. So we went in the studio with Amy (Lee of Evanescence) and basically did a big soundtrack type version of the song with strings and this and that and really did it up. It wasn�t really something we�d done before and then it kind of got a life of its own. That was when the label thought we should re-release the album. All of that really started because of �Broken� and because of the response. It did really well for us and exposed us to a market that hadn�t heard of us before then.

I read you were supposed to name Karma and Effect something else (Catering to Cowards). Why did you change the name?

Dale: Why did we change the name?

Shaun: Because the old president of the record company (Wind-Up) got mad. He thought it was a personal attack on him. So he wouldn�t allow us to use that name.

Was it a personal attack?

Shaun: No. He was just a fucking idiot. He�s no longer with the label. He�s a pseudo-conservative, goody two shoes, donate money to charities but then fuck bands out of money kind of guy. So he�s a walking hypocrite. The whole thing was we had been fighting over artwork for about two months and then right at the end we�d settled on artwork and I had to leave off two images that I really wanted: one being a line of bullets with one bleeding and the other one being a heart with cables coming out it. He saw both images as being disturbing and offensive. So I went to numerous record stores, major chains that supposedly are conservative, and I found examples of albums that do sell images like that. The whole thing was just a big ugly fight and he asked what the album was called and I said �Catering to Cowards� and he took it personally. It wasn�t necessarily anything to do with him, I understand it was applicable at the time, but it was more to do with the government and just generally the fact that no one is brave enough to be themselves. Everyone is into trying to be just like their buddies and dress like their friends. I think cowardice and apathy are fairly closely related.

I can�t believe he took it as a personal attack.

Shaun: He�s a bit arrogant.

My favorite song off that album is �Gift.� Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Shaun: I wrote the music to it and showed it to the band one time. Our old guitarist didn�t like it so I almost didn�t ever show it to the band again. I almost gave it to my ex-girlfriend (Amy Lee) but luckily she forgot about it and we finished the song. It was kind of the single that didn�t really do much because �Remedy� just wouldn�t quit and then we released �Truth.� By the time we got to �Gift� everyone had run out of steam because there was a new Evanescence album coming out so they had other things to focus on.

That�s unfortunate because I know you made a video for it.

Shaun: Yeah, the video confuses the shit out of me, man. I don�t even know what it�s about. I don�t think the director knew what it was about. I think it was just a whole �we have a general idea of what�s going to happen and let�s fly by the seat of our pants and see what happens� situation. I don�t there is any sort of narrative. I think there was an attempt at a narrative in the video, but having been there and being an antagonist in the video or whatever I don�t know what the hell is happening. The director is a great guy and had he had a more concise vision we would have had a better video. But, you know, I do like the video anyway.

It�s a great looking video but I couldn�t figure it out.

Shaun: Yeah, it�s a little different but nobody knows what the hell is happening. It�s like a surrealist video. There�s really no point as long as it looks pretty. I was kind of bummed because I think that song could have been a strong single for us but so many people are working on so many albums and when a new one comes out they move on.

Watch the video for “Gift” now
[flv]http://digitalet.net/videos/seether_gift.flv[/flv]
Discuss the writing process for a Seether album.Shaun: We go into a room full of mirrors and look at ourselves jam. No, basically, I write a lot of the ideas, sometimes it�s whole songs and sometimes it�s just ideas. If it�s whole songs, I send them to the guys and if they have any suggestions then we work on those. If there�s not, then it�s kind of another one in the bank. Then we get into a room together, which we don�t do often because we don�t live near each other; it�s not like we live in the same neighborhood and get together once a week and jam or anything. Before this last album, we hadn�t played together in six months, so we got together in a room and a lot of the stuff came out of just the excitement of us being together again and playing together. I�ll start something and John will get inspired by it and Dale will jump in or it can start anywhere really. One of us will go, �Man, that�s fucking cool, let�s work on that.� It�s really that simple. It�s fairly organic and it doesn�t take very long. There�s not really any kind of fixed process. Being the guitarist in the band, obviously you write most of the ideas and stuff but none of the songs make any sense until these guys play on it. If they haven�t played on it, it�s just a Shaun song, it�s not a Seether song.

Are you constantly writing while on the road?

Shaun: No, not really. We just came out with this one (Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces) so I�m just allowing myself to breathe, man. It�s been a shitty year; the only good thing that came out of it was this album and being back on the road. I�m kind of just appreciating that until the end of this year. I�m taking a sort of writing vacation and then I�ll start next year because I do want to have a whole album, I want to have 20 or 30 songs for the next album by the time we finish touring so we can pretty much get in and record a new one.

How did your much publicized experiences over the past year influence this new record?

Shaun: Obviously it�s going to be personal and the lyrics are going to reflect that. I don�t know that the music was affected in any way. Music just comes out with whatever mood you�re in. Lyrics are more retrospective, music I think is more situated in the present. That part of any song we have is the most current aspect of the song. The lyrics are far more retrospective and take care of the stuff I still haven�t dealt with.

CHECK OUT PART 2 ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20TH! YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS SHAUN’S RANT!

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