It's never a surprise to hear a band extol their latest release as their best ever. In fact, we should expect it. Why release something that isn't your best? But it is an eyebrow-rising moment to hear someone say they never liked their band's past records; not in retrospect, years removed from them, but during the time they were released.
"If I wasn't in the band, I wouldn't have listened to our past records," says Spencer Chamberlain, lead singer of Underoath, in an Exclaim! interview. "The poppy stuff from before isn't my style, I've never really listened to pop music."
Of course he's referring to former drummer/singer Aaron Gillespie's clean vocals that interspersed Chamberlain's screams. It's a dynamic Chamberlain simply accepted when he joined the group in 2003.
"When I came into the band eight years ago, there was another guy who just said, 'I do all the clean singing parts.' So I just said okay -- I was the new guy what could I say?" Chamberlain explains.
But on Underoath's latest album, Ø (Disambiguation) -- one that Chamberlain says he enjoys and would listen to even if he wasn't in the band -- he had his first opportunity to take control of all the vocal parts.
"I was really looking forward to that," he says. "On every record, I've been able to hit higher notes. That's just from practice. But hitting the high D-sharp [on this record] was a surprise to me."
While Ø (Disambiguation) was released last month via Tooth & Nail Records, Underoath are anxiously waiting for their big headlining tour, which begins in January with Thursday, who are playing 2001's Full Collapse in its entirety.
As Chamberlain says simply. "It's going to be awesome."
You can see the full list of North American tour dates, which includes two Canadian stops in Toronto on February 13 and in Montreal on February 14, here. And read Exclaim!'s entire Underoath interview, here.
"If I wasn't in the band, I wouldn't have listened to our past records," says Spencer Chamberlain, lead singer of Underoath, in an Exclaim! interview. "The poppy stuff from before isn't my style, I've never really listened to pop music."
Of course he's referring to former drummer/singer Aaron Gillespie's clean vocals that interspersed Chamberlain's screams. It's a dynamic Chamberlain simply accepted when he joined the group in 2003.
"When I came into the band eight years ago, there was another guy who just said, 'I do all the clean singing parts.' So I just said okay -- I was the new guy what could I say?" Chamberlain explains.
But on Underoath's latest album, Ø (Disambiguation) -- one that Chamberlain says he enjoys and would listen to even if he wasn't in the band -- he had his first opportunity to take control of all the vocal parts.
"I was really looking forward to that," he says. "On every record, I've been able to hit higher notes. That's just from practice. But hitting the high D-sharp [on this record] was a surprise to me."
While Ø (Disambiguation) was released last month via Tooth & Nail Records, Underoath are anxiously waiting for their big headlining tour, which begins in January with Thursday, who are playing 2001's Full Collapse in its entirety.
As Chamberlain says simply. "It's going to be awesome."
You can see the full list of North American tour dates, which includes two Canadian stops in Toronto on February 13 and in Montreal on February 14, here. And read Exclaim!'s entire Underoath interview, here.
