It’s incredible to think that Seether have been around now for two decades. Well they have, and incredibly they’re as relevant today as they ever were, some would argue maybe even getting better with each new release. 2021 has been a year a lot of us have looked back and looking back over a twenty year career of a band like Seether things look incredibly good for the next twenty! To mark the anniversary comes ‘Vicennial’ (great name) a collection of some of their most memorable moments. We caught up with Dale to check out the album, talk about where it all began and what comes next. But first we had to ask about the biggest US Festival since Covid – Aftershock!
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Mark: I guess the best question to start with as it just happened is how was Aftershock? (The huge US Festival headlined by Metallica)
Dale: Yeah Aftershock was good, we had a great show, I had a great time. I did not get to watch Metallica play sadly, but I di hear that someone threw a tree stump at Machine Gun Kelly I think the next night, which I think was kinda funny because Shaun just randomly mentioned something at one of the other Festivals and people kept saying “Oh I see Shaun was in the news, he had a go at Machine Gun Kelly.” Ad I was like “Oh OK” so it was kind of funny that then happened. But Aftershock was good it’s definitely one of my favourite Festivals.
Mark: 145,000 people it must have been amazing to be there.
Dale: Yeah, and that’s big by American standards, you know we don’t get those big European style Festivals so it was cool for usre. It was great man, the crowd was fantastic. The response was awesome.
Mark: It’s just so great to know from this part of the world that is still so locked down that things are happening like that musically out there – it gives us hope!
Dale: Yeah, it’s a treat man juts getting in front of people again, and seeing how much fun everyone has. It’s an important thing, you know, I know a music Festival seems like a goofy thing – you know – go to a Festival, get drunk, hang out. But it’s kind of an important part of being human. Being around other people, being social. We’re social animals and I feel like when that’s taken away from you, you lose so much. That’s why solitary confinement is such a bad thing in places like corrections because it’s such a terrible punishment, it’s almost the worst thing you can do to someone, take them away from other people. And we’ve all had that to varying degrees for the last year or more now. So something as silly sounding as “We’re gonna go to a Festival, get drunk and party” is actually really good for your mental health – going out and letting off some steam, being around like-minded people who are in your ‘tribe’ you know. Have fun and listen to some music! Drink too much beer and get all stupid!
Mark: You’re absolutely right Dale, to a lot of us out here music is one of the most important things in our lives and to have that taken away is awful.
Dale: It is.
Mark: Getting to the new album ‘Vicennial’ I understand you also did a live stream of the whole thing in order live from the ‘Ace of Spades’ in Sacramento. How was that, I haven’t had a chance to catch it yet, but during isolation those sort of events are keeping a lot of us going?
Dale: They are. We chose to do that because like you said Australia is still heavily locked down so it’s been impossible to tour there, even travelling is hard, so until everywhere fully opens we’re still not able to go to a lot of places. So you are kind of forced to think outside the box a little bit and do live streams and so on just to interact with the fans and have some king of presence. Give people something to listen to – if you can’t be there in person at least do it online and stream it.
Mark: 20 years is a long time, like all anniversaries tend to, it must have got you reminiscing? What was it like 20 years ago being a hard rocking band in the part of the world you came from?
Dale: Well yeah, we started out in South Africa, and when we started out there were quite a few good (rock) bands but there were only so many venues you could play and only so many fans who would come to shows and buy the albums. Because of that everyone kind of had a shelf life and it wasn’t very long at all. So the scene was tiny, very small, and then being a rock band it was kind of an even smaller slither of the pie, because a lot people were into Pop music, and Gospel music was very popular as well as all kinds of other genres. But being a rock band you were kind of the ‘Black Sheep’ but we didn’t let it slow us down. We had big dreams and we were very hopeful however unrealistic those dreams might have been! But it paid off for us, you know. We recorded an album in South Africa and released it and sent it overseas and it ended up getting picked up by Wind Up records in New York City – and they flew us out to come and meet them to play a showcase. And then they signed us and all of a sudden we were these… it was almost like a ‘Flight of the Conchords’ kind of thing.
Mark: (laughs)
Dale: (laughs) Me and Shaun in New York City completely clueless and naïve and young. I love that Series! (laughs) I mean those two are hilarious – these two clueless idiots from this tiny little country and they end up in New York City with their band! (laughs) And they’re trying to make it by, and it really was kind of like that, it really was daunting coming from a small country to the Big Apple! But how exciting! What a crazy time it was – it was so scary to be there being so completely out of our depth but so exciting at the same time. We had such big dreams and we were so eager to do anything we could to make it happen. And it worked out for us but it could have gone either way. But it went well and it’s continued to go well which is even more rare. We’ve played with so many bands over the years who have come and gone so the odds that we’re still out there doing it are so astronomical. First of all to get signed out of a place like South Africa and then to still be a band that’s somewhat relevant 20 years down the line! It’s so unlikely.
Mark: And making some of the best music of your careers judging by ‘If you want peace prepare for war’ I won’t try the Latin!
Dale: (laughs) ‘Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum’.
Mark: (Laughs) Now that reminds me of school! But one of my favourite Seether albums I must admit.
Dale: Thank you.
Mark: It must be inspiring to be making music this good? There’s no sense of slowing down.
Dale: I guess you could say we don’t feel our age in a way! (laughs) But yeah, we love music, we love playing and as long as people keep listening to the music and coming to the shows we’ll keep doing it. I don’t think there’s any sense of us slowing down at all. We might slow down in terms of the sheer amount of touring we do but that’s all. When you start out you’ll do 300 shows in a year and it’s kind of out of necessity because you’re a baby band and days off cost money so you need to be there and carve out a niche for yourself. That takes a lot of miles on the road and a lot of shows under the belt. So I think now we’ve earned a few more days off between the shows and less of a crazy touring schedule. And we’re a little older now we’ve married, and you know, families and so on. So I don’t know if we’ll do the sheer volume we did ten, fifteen years ago but we’ll certainly keep playing as long as people want us.
Mark: We’ll certainly be there are The Rosemount where I’ve caught you the last couple of times. Take us back even further, I always like to ask this, when did you realise that music was going to be such an important part of your life? When did you first pick up that guitar?
Dale: Well I started out playing regular guitar first as a kid, I was very small when I first started playing but I was very small and didn’t have the discipline or the attention span to really take it seriously. Then when I was about twelve I picked it up again when I started listening to bands like AC/DC and Guns ‘n’ Roses – and I thought “I want to do that!” I want to play! And from there it was Metallica, Pantera and all these amazing guitar bands who really inspired me to want to play and do that. I jammed with friends and that at High School but right out of High School I had some friends with a band and they said they needed a bass player for the band, I said I didn’t know anyone but they said “You play guitar, you can play bass” and our singer had a bass so I borrowed it and that’s when I started playing bass. And in that band the guitar player in that band, his sister was dating Shaun and that’s how I met him. And he ended up joining what would become this band in the meantime and when their bass-player left I went over and joined them. And the rest is kinda history. But even then I loved playing and I loved music but it always seemed like a pipe-dream. It was kind of unrealistic even though we gave it everything and we were willing to do whatever it took it was always “Well let’s be real, it’s like winning the lottery to make a success out of this thing.” But it ended up happening. I think when we got signed and ended up moving overseas that was the “Wow” and I thought maybe that could be it. But even before that when we got the record deal in South Africa I worked for my Dad who has a fishing tackle business. I remember walking in and saying “Dad I need to quit my job because I’m going full time with the music thing. I’m going to give it everything.” I think he was like “Oh shit what’s this kid doing?!” (laughs) And I said “Look I’m a youngster if I’m really going to give it a shot I need to do it now.” I’ll have time to play catch up later if it all doesn’t work out, but somehow it did. It’s crazy how life works.
Mark: And here we are twenty years later.
Dale: So now releasing this ‘Vicennial’ album I really have been thinking back a lot to those days lately and listening to those old albums and stuff and it kind of makes it all fresh again. It really takes you back to that time.
Mark: It’s a cool name too, I love ‘Vicennial’ again from the Latin I see!
Dale: Thanks. It’s a different way of saying the whole 20 year thing – I don’t know what 40 years will be, I guess that will be the next thing – is it a double Vicennial?
Mark: It might be a Quadragintennial? It doesn’t have the same ring to it!
Dale: (laughs) Shaun’s the wordsmith, I’ll let him come up with that one. It came up this one.
Mark: That will be the Blues album, sat on the porch winding down.
Dale: (laughs)
Mark: As we’re speaking for the first time I have to ask you this one. If you could have been a ‘Fly on the wall’ in the studio for the creation of one classic album just to see how the magic happened, what would you love to have seen created?
Dale: Wow…. That’s a hard one. Oh man… I’m gonna say as a big Pantera fan ‘Vulgar Display of Power’ because that was the first Pantera album I ever heard and what really got me into the band. But yes, I’d just love to see that dynamic and just see Dime working on those solos, trial and error, I want to hear what he did before they settled on it. And the outtakes, the things they didn’t use – that to me was really their pinnacle. That would really be one I’d love to be a fly on the wall for.
Mark: A fantastically brutal album.
Dale: Oh it’s so brutal but it also grooves so well at the same time, if that does’t get your blood pumping you have no soul! End of story.
Mark: And a nice easy question to close -what is the meaning of life?
Dale: The meaning of life? I don’t know if there’s one answer to that, I feel like the meaning of life changes as one’s perception changes. I’ve always thought that the meaning of life is to be happy and do things that maybe make you happy. My wife’s pregnant now and I have my first child on the way and so now it seems that thinking in those terms is a little self-serving and shallow. So now I’m starting to think maybe the meaning of life is to perpetuate your genes – you know to contribute to the survival of our species. Or to make art, to help people, to contribute rather than take, to create rather than use. We consume, we’re all consumers but I think it’s important to give and create – whether you plant a tree or write a song, or read you kid a bed-time story. It’s all something positive. But I don’t think there’s any one thing, I’m still trying to figure it out. I just know I can feel myself changing with my daughter due in January. The closer I get to that I can feel myself changing, it’s an interesting feeling. I think we’re all selfish initially, I certainly have been, but I; ‘ll let you know when I find out, we’ll have a follow up and I’ll have a sentence for you or a paragraph – I’ll email it to you!
Mark: (laughs) In the meantime the record is out on Craft Records now, though I must admit I’m holding out for the two album opaque purple vinyl!
Dale: Absolutely
Mark: Thank you so much for talking to the Rockpit today Dale, hope to see you over as soon as this craziness ends.
Dale: No problem. Thanks Mark.
BUY VICENNIAL HERE: https://found.ee/seether-vicennial-r