Arthur Seay - UNIDA (01/05/2013)
Hitting our shores for their first ever Australian tour, The 59th Sound chats with Arthur Seay of UNIDA.
On the eve of Unida's first Australian tour, how are you feeling?
We are very excited and ready to bring our sound and musicianship to the people. This has been a long time coming so it feels amazing!!
Unida are one of the headliners for Melbourne's 'Cherry Rock Festival', what have you heard about this festival?
I've been to Cherry Bar a few times. I always go when I'm in Melbourne I've been there when I was working for Slipknot and Limp Bizkit, love that place. I always have a great time and they are good people. Melbourne has such a great rock vibe,can't wait to get on that stage and pummel you all in shear blissful rock!
Cherry Bar is known for it's wild nights and unbelievable tales, what's the craziest story you've heard about Cherry Bar?
I've had a few stories there, well they started there anyway but I don't think I can tell them.
With such a strong history as successful musicians, did you feel pressure when forming Unida?
Not at all. Mike and myself were looking to start a new band and the first person we thought of for a singer was John. I told Mike well we need a singer how about that Kyuss guy, John? I had a friend who knew his girlfrind at the time and asked them to hit him up about jamming out with us. He got back to me and I told him to come check us out and if he liked it let's jam and if not no worries. We played a show out here in the desert, we just played instrumentals and John came out and dug it and we started jamming. So for prob a year it was just the three of us jamming and jamming with someone playing bass here and there. It'd always been the three of us. We're family, we have fun and really enjoy being around each other. We did that for a while until Brant Bjork hooked us up with Dave Dinsmore.
The band's hiatus came as a shock to fans, was this expected?
No, not realy but we went through hell with the whole Rick Ruben/American records situation.I just wanted to keep going. We were doing great on our own and touring Europe and doing it on our own, but it took a toll on us, living our dream then having it stolen from us and not by any of our own decision's, out of control of our hands. We never broke up we all just kind of took a break and went on to do other projects. I always know at some point when the time was right we would come together again and continue and prosper!! Myself, John and Mike are all lifer's we will always play music no matter what, whether it's for five people or 50,000 this is in our blood and our hearts and soul's.
On coming out of hiatus was there the fear of being forgotten?
I'll say no. Luckily enough the music and the fans we have are die hard. They stay into it and they spread the word. Look at Kyuss Lives (Vista Chino), they are bigger than they ever were and good for them they made great unique music. I believe in the music UNIDA created, it's not dated and seems to have standed the test of time and if people did forget well we're gonna make remember!! We are serious about what we do and how we do it! We doing this for the long haul not just reminiscing!
Speaking of fans this coming Australian tour has a lot of meet and greet opportunities with fans, with technology making it so easy to communicate and connect with fans what made you choose to have this face to face connection with fans?
We're all music fans and an organic band and we don't distance ourselves from the people, we hang out and talk to people and have a drink. The fans are the reason we have this great opportunity to be able to play our music in different parts of the world, it's a very special thing and we don't take that for granted. I've worked for the biggest bands in rock and it's sad to say some of them seem like they hate their job. Of course the drunk annoying getting in your bubble guy is a drag but there's comedy in that too, after the fact of course.
On this tour there are some great local support acts such as Arrowhead and Mammoth Mammoth, have you had a chance to listen to many Australian bands?
I listen to everyone that we are playing with I love checking out new music and hearing what bands are creating and actually have the Mammoth Mammoth vinyl and I listen to ACDC everyday.
What's planned after the Australian tour?
We have some offers for some festivals in Europe in June so we are working on that, then John will be supporting Vista Chino's new record out on Nuclear Blast and Mike and myself we will recording the new House of Broken Promises record which will come out on SMALLSTONE records.So when we're all done supporting those releases we will record and tour a new UNIDA record! I'll be sending John song's and riff's while we're all doing our other projects so when we are done we have a big head start and can get into the rehearsal room and fine tune the songs and start tracking! We don't want to waste any time,we are very excited about doing a new record and we are sorting out the Sony/American records album too. I've talked with our old A&R guy told we are doing UNIDA full ball again and want to finally figure out that record,weather they are interested in releasing it or where we can get it back.
Cassie Walker
UNIDA Tour Dates
On the eve of Unida's first Australian tour, how are you feeling?
We are very excited and ready to bring our sound and musicianship to the people. This has been a long time coming so it feels amazing!!
Unida are one of the headliners for Melbourne's 'Cherry Rock Festival', what have you heard about this festival?
I've been to Cherry Bar a few times. I always go when I'm in Melbourne I've been there when I was working for Slipknot and Limp Bizkit, love that place. I always have a great time and they are good people. Melbourne has such a great rock vibe,can't wait to get on that stage and pummel you all in shear blissful rock!
Cherry Bar is known for it's wild nights and unbelievable tales, what's the craziest story you've heard about Cherry Bar?
I've had a few stories there, well they started there anyway but I don't think I can tell them.
With such a strong history as successful musicians, did you feel pressure when forming Unida?
Not at all. Mike and myself were looking to start a new band and the first person we thought of for a singer was John. I told Mike well we need a singer how about that Kyuss guy, John? I had a friend who knew his girlfrind at the time and asked them to hit him up about jamming out with us. He got back to me and I told him to come check us out and if he liked it let's jam and if not no worries. We played a show out here in the desert, we just played instrumentals and John came out and dug it and we started jamming. So for prob a year it was just the three of us jamming and jamming with someone playing bass here and there. It'd always been the three of us. We're family, we have fun and really enjoy being around each other. We did that for a while until Brant Bjork hooked us up with Dave Dinsmore.
The band's hiatus came as a shock to fans, was this expected?
No, not realy but we went through hell with the whole Rick Ruben/American records situation.I just wanted to keep going. We were doing great on our own and touring Europe and doing it on our own, but it took a toll on us, living our dream then having it stolen from us and not by any of our own decision's, out of control of our hands. We never broke up we all just kind of took a break and went on to do other projects. I always know at some point when the time was right we would come together again and continue and prosper!! Myself, John and Mike are all lifer's we will always play music no matter what, whether it's for five people or 50,000 this is in our blood and our hearts and soul's.
On coming out of hiatus was there the fear of being forgotten?
I'll say no. Luckily enough the music and the fans we have are die hard. They stay into it and they spread the word. Look at Kyuss Lives (Vista Chino), they are bigger than they ever were and good for them they made great unique music. I believe in the music UNIDA created, it's not dated and seems to have standed the test of time and if people did forget well we're gonna make remember!! We are serious about what we do and how we do it! We doing this for the long haul not just reminiscing!
Speaking of fans this coming Australian tour has a lot of meet and greet opportunities with fans, with technology making it so easy to communicate and connect with fans what made you choose to have this face to face connection with fans?
We're all music fans and an organic band and we don't distance ourselves from the people, we hang out and talk to people and have a drink. The fans are the reason we have this great opportunity to be able to play our music in different parts of the world, it's a very special thing and we don't take that for granted. I've worked for the biggest bands in rock and it's sad to say some of them seem like they hate their job. Of course the drunk annoying getting in your bubble guy is a drag but there's comedy in that too, after the fact of course.
On this tour there are some great local support acts such as Arrowhead and Mammoth Mammoth, have you had a chance to listen to many Australian bands?
I listen to everyone that we are playing with I love checking out new music and hearing what bands are creating and actually have the Mammoth Mammoth vinyl and I listen to ACDC everyday.
What's planned after the Australian tour?
We have some offers for some festivals in Europe in June so we are working on that, then John will be supporting Vista Chino's new record out on Nuclear Blast and Mike and myself we will recording the new House of Broken Promises record which will come out on SMALLSTONE records.So when we're all done supporting those releases we will record and tour a new UNIDA record! I'll be sending John song's and riff's while we're all doing our other projects so when we are done we have a big head start and can get into the rehearsal room and fine tune the songs and start tracking! We don't want to waste any time,we are very excited about doing a new record and we are sorting out the Sony/American records album too. I've talked with our old A&R guy told we are doing UNIDA full ball again and want to finally figure out that record,weather they are interested in releasing it or where we can get it back.
Cassie Walker
UNIDA Tour Dates