The past year has seen several bands from what came to be known as the New Wave of American Heavy Metal call it day, the most recent being Chimaira. One of the bands that are still alive, kicking, and getting ready to drop their sixth full-length is Unearth. Metal Hammer recently spoke to the Massachusetts metalcore outfit’s vocalist Trevor Phipps about what keeps them going on the how they’ve managed to stick around for nearly 15 yearly.
Phipps first commented on how they react to trends:
“Sometimes it’s all about the trend of the time. We’ve never been one to follow trends, we just write the songs we want to write. We’ve been going for 13 years non-stop and it has been an up and down rollercoaster, but it’s been enough to keep us around.”
Then, he mentioned the renewed interest in many bands from the 80s and 90s:
“You check out bands from the 80s and 90s like Anthrax and Exodus, they had their lulls for a while but they came back. Take Testament, a favourite of mine personally, they went downhill for a while. Their songs didn’t but as far as album and ticket sales they did. But now they’re back, as big as ever. It’s weird to see but you have to ride the rollercoaster if you want to stick around.”
Then he discussed their upcoming record Watchers Of Rule before continuing on about doing things your way as a band and not giving into pressure:
“It just turned out to be more aggressive and vicious. The last record we did was more structured with clean vocals, while this is more chaotic. It fits as we like to write out balls-out heavy stuff. The whole record is fast throughout, there’s a lot of notes. When I was growing you had to digest the better records and live with them for a few weeks, and they’re the ones that stick with you the longest. Something about your brain likes to stick with them, whereas a very immediate pop song you might get sick of that pretty quick, bands that follow that route don’t stick around too long.
“I think bands that don’t give into pressure and keep doing it their way will reap the rewards in the long run. Our intention the whole time has been to model ourselves after the likes of Hatebreed, Cannibal Corpse and Slayer, although they’re a much bigger level, to just keep going and get the band as big as we can for as long as we can. We don’t want to end, we’re going to give it everything we can for as long as we can. We’re always touring and releasing albums, like those bands who always tour and maintain a career throughout all the peaks and valleys, you’ve just got to fight through it.”