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BostonHerald.com - Music News: Bay State boys Unearth success
Bay State boys Unearth success
By Dave Wedge Boston Herald Chief Enterprise Reporter
Saturday, July 29, 2006
There’s keeping it real - and then there’s Unearth.
The band’s new CD comes out Aug. 8 on Metal Blade, one of the big labels in heavy music. And it was produced by legendary kingmaker Terry Date, who has lent his Midas touch to Nirvana, Deftones, Pearl Jam and Pantera.
That alone might give lesser bands J Lo-sized egos, but the Bay State boys of Unearth haven’t forgotten their roots. They proved it recently by showing up unannounced at a show at the Tiger’s Den in Brockton, a renowned underground hardcore hot spot.
“Kids got the opportunity to be right there onstage with us. It was actually cool that they got to sit right in front of my amp watching us play,” guitarist Ken Susi said of the all-ages show. “Some guys in some bands think they’re too big for that. But a few bands from this area remember what it’s like to play crappy shows.”
The men of Unearth will be playing a considerably more prestigious gig for an immensely larger crowd when they storm into the Tweeter Center with Ozzfest on Tuesday.
“It means that you’ve succeeded in what you’re doing and that’s an honor, but it doesn’t mean anything more or anything less than things we’ve done in the past,” Susi said. “We still put in the same amount of effort and we still bleed the same blood we did in 2000.”
The band had the chance to jump to a major label but stuck with Metal Blade because the label let Susi and his bandmates - vocalist Trevor Phipps, guitarist Buz McGrath, bassist John Maggard and drummer Mike Justian - record the album they wanted. What has emerged is “Unearth III: In the Eyes of Fire,” a stripped-down, old-school hardcore throwdown that’s a punch-in-the-gut gift for fans tired of bands selling out.
“Metal is being kind of saturated and watered down,” the guitarist said from his Grafton home. “We want to be one of those bands like Pantera that sticks to their own sound. We just went in there and played the music. There’s no tricks, no nothing. And you can feel the passion and the blood from the band on this record.”
The formula worked. “In the Eyes of Fire” lures you in with classic speed-metal grooves before blasting you in the grill with a stinging hardcore sucker punch.
Susi has also made a name for himself by producing the scorching “Angel Maker” by fellow Bay Staters Burn in Silence and new CDs from up-and-comers Scars of Tomorrow, Screams of Eridia and Beyond the Embrace.
It all adds to the band’s underground ethos and bolsters the belief that magazine covers and big-money tours mean nothing if you’re faking the funk.
“We never had anything handed to us,” Susi said. “We’ve slept in the streets and eaten out of trash cans. We’re not NSync. We don’t have money and girls thrown at us. We’re just dudes who play music and work hard.”
dwedge@bostonherald.com Unearth plays Ozzfest Tuesday at the Tweeter Center, Mansfield. For tickets, $39.75-$85.75, call 617-931-2000.
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