If you've been reading our features lately, you've probably noticed that Drew Ailes interviewed a ton of bands on the Sounds Of The Underground tour this summer. Well, here's yet another one. This time, Drew sat down with Unearth bassist John "Slo" Maggard for some conversation.

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How's the tour been progressing?

Yeah, it's still early in the tour, it's the first week, but everything's been going real smooth and it's really cool to be a part of this tour. First time out for this tour, everyone's doing a great job and everyone's working it out. It's been a blast so far and hopefully it just keeps getting better.

How does the Sounds of the Underground compare to the Ozzfest tour?

It's kind of like a miniature Ozzfest. You don't have so many of the pros leaning over your shoulder the whole time and kind of rattling your nerves. There's enough bands on here that were on Ozzfest and have that experience. So the experience of being on Ozzfest and all the friends that we already have with the other bands, we're just kind of lending hands and just doing it. It's kind of like all the control is in the band's hands, and it's cool, you know what I mean? So it runs a lot more smooth and if there's a difficulty, everyone works through it. That's the big difference, everyone lends a hand versus "No, you can't do that"...

It's not as stiff.

Yeah.

You guys recently did the video for "Endless", how did that work out and who did you shoot that with?

A guy who works over at Prosthetic Records, he's done an All That Remains video and a few others I'm pretty sure. The video was great, he did a great job. All the clips were great. We booked a show at the Showcase in California, it's a small club and it was sold out months ahead of time. It was just crazy. It just really captured a small club show for us, it's amazing. The video's great, I love it.

I know Eulogy's re-releasing your old EPs and live tracks, was that a label decision or the band's?

It was kind of a contractual thing. We owed Eulogy some material when we went to Metal Blade, so part of the release to let us go was to be able to put this out as another supplement album, like a compilation.

While it's old news now, was Mike Justain formerly of The Red Chord easily incorporated into the line-up?

Yeah, yeah. He worked out well. We got him in and we wrote "The Oncoming Storm" with him, and so far so good. He's a great dude and a great performer. We enjoy playing with him.

In pretty much any interview with you I've read, you've talked about gambling.

Oh yeah. [laughs]

Does that ever get you guys into some sort of trouble?

Not me, I've never been in any bad gambling trouble. Basically if you're a good gambler, you'll always leave yourself an out. That's pretty much how I live with my professional gambling sidecar that is my life. When I'm not doing this, I gamble. That's what I do. I don't have any other job. So you know, I always leave myself an out. If I'm having a bad day, I just let it go. Just go back another day with a fresh head. There's a lot of tricks to it. For me, it's just knowing numbers and having experience.

Is it just you who's the gambler, or is it everybody?

Everybody's kind of into it now. As time has gone by they've all created an interest of their own in it. But I think I had a lot to do in that, just kind of making them play poker with me all the time and shit like that.

I know you guys grew up listening to a lot of older metal bands, and taking that into consideration, how does it feel to be on a label like Metal Blade, who've been around for such a long time?

Yeah, it's cool. They were always a cornerstone in metal when we were growing up. It's nice to be a part of that family. They treat us really well, they treat us as if we're one of their cornerstone bands. It's really cool. Every time we have some trouble with something, they're there to catch us when we fall, and it's good. They just keep pushing us, and keep pushing us. So we have no complaints with Metal Blade, I think they're a great label to be a part of.

I read that you're also a big fan of Herbie Hancock and a lot of jazz fusion. What other bands?

I listen to so much different stuff. A lot of it is the stuff that's given to me by the people that I know that have good taste in that type of music and whatnot. But yeah like I said, I'll listen to anything from Herbie Hancock to Liquid Tension Experiment, a lot of good Dream Theatre prog stuff. I enjoy that stuff just for its musicianship. A lot of people can't stand it because it's over their heads or whatever. I definitely don't listen to it to sit back and relax, but I definitely listen to it when I'm in a good mood and I've got a lot of energy that day and I just want to listen to some good musicianship.

Are you satisfied being out on tour as much as you guys are?

Yeah. It gets troubling sometimes, you know, you just have a rough week or whatever and there's not much sleep. Gear breaks every day, and you're just getting frustrated. And maybe you drink too much and have a hangover. But yeah man, I love it though. It's good. Every time we play and the kids are having a good time and I see that, it makes it well worth it.

On a similar note, how was playing the Download Festival? Did you have any sort of anxiety playing in front of that kind of crowd?

The Download Festival was awesome. That was a great time, it was a great show. I had a blast. I didn't really have time to feel weird about it. We basically got off the bus and found out we were playing in like, an hour and a half, so I just kind of pulled myself together out of a fucking sleep and just put my shit on and got up there and did it and had a great time. I don't really feel show jitters or anything like that anymore. Usually like, the first day of the tour, I'll be like, "Ughhh, I hope my rig's working right," you know what I mean? We just had some crunch time before we left...didn't get a chance to check everything I'd like to...That's about all the jitters I have. But after that, whatever.

Where are some of your favorite places to play, either here or overseas?

Geez, that's tough. I love playing everywhere, it really doesn't matter to me. As long as there's kids somewhere that want to listen to it, then we're down. Australia recently was amazing, and Japan. We went there for the first time and that was such a good time, to play shows out there to sold out crowds in clubs and just be like, "wow, I can't believe you know about this shit." It's awesome, so, that was a good time.

This is kind of a stupid question I just threw in there for the hell of it, but I remember old pictures of Unearth, and I know you joined the band a little later, but all of those guys had tight cropped hair and baseball caps and everything.

Yep, I was one of them.

Oh really? Not that you guys are really an image oriented band, but was that just touring that kind of gave you guys a more "weathered" look so to say?

I don't know, man. We all came from different places. Both Buzz and I had long hair when we were kids. I had hair down to my ass at one time, when I was younger. I cut my hair, cuz I'm fucking balding, so whatever.

You are?

A little bit, I got a crazy hairline under this mob, but I grew it back out. Last hurrah, see where it goes. We just kind of did it, you know? No one even really talked about it, it just kind of happened. We just woke up one day and all of us had long hair and we were just like, "oh. well, hey. alright." It's funny.

What other kind of things are you interested in aside from drinking and gambling?

I'm a huge fan of movies and really good TV series. I'm a big fan of stuff like Law & Order, CSI...I'll watch Court TV and Forensic Files and stuff like that. I'm into all that type of stuff. I watch a lot of movies. When I get home I basically go to Blockbuster. I've got the monthly movie pass and I just like, start on one end of the place and see what I haven't seen yet and just grab a couple every day and bring 'em home...let my cat around or whatever...[laughs]

Why do you think Unearth in particular have risen to the level of success that you guys have? I know that's probably hard to say from inside the band.

I think we got to where we're at from just...playing hard and not giving up. We've overcame a lot of adversity with like, having fill-ins constantly for a long time and just touring was always really tough, trying to get it together. We just kept going with it, it was all about just playing shows. It was all about what we wanted to do from when we were kids. Just get out there and play some shows and have a good time. We kept with that and didnt let the other shit bring us down. I think that's really what was the equation in the whole success. If it is success, I don't even know. I think we're all just still playing shows, but uh, we definitely have a good time with it. It's all about getting out there and acting like jerks, having a good time to either laugh at us if they're not into it, and smile if they are. We just go out there to have a good time and try to think of new ways to make people laugh, pretty much at this point. Bring out the chonger on stage now.

I was going to ask that, do you guys ever get shit for doing anything like that?

There's been a couple random emails that we're "ruining hardcore one day at a time."

I think that's kind of flattering.

[laughing] Yeah, see...

To have that kind of power, to ruin an entire genre.

Yeah, I know... exactly. Not to mention that we never claimed to be hardcore. We just had a hardcore ethic to us in some way or form. We're just a heavy metal band, you know. We're all good dudes and I think that's where the hardcore ethic comes from. We're all good guys and we have a positive message and we don't want to bring down anything at all. We're totally rootin' for the positive side of life. Maybe somebody out there just thinks we're ruining hardcore one day at a time and hey, I get a good laugh out of that cuz...[laughing]...shit, I don't know man, it's just funny.

I don't know if you have any idea of this, but how is Ken Susi doing with his production and how he balances that.

He works real hard, man, believe it or not. I never thought back in the day that Ken would be one to work his ass off so hard at one particular thing like that. He was always like, neither here nor there, running around like a maniac all the time. But yeah man, he really takes a lot of great care in what he does with recording and production and stuff like that. He's getting better and better and better. I think it's something that he's really good at, and he's just getting a lot of experience under his belt right now. I think he's getting real good. So hey, we might see his name in lights some way some time, just for production reasons. We'll see.

Here's a great cheesy question: if you had to choose, what's the most exciting thing about being in a band?

[laughs] All the free Jim Beam. For me, that's the most exciting thing. Every time I see that full handle of whisky, I'm just like, "Yeah...that's great."

You know you've made a good decision.

Yeah, what other job am I going to work at this point in my life where drinking is my job? It ain't gonna happen unless I'm working in a liquor store where I have a really a lackadaisical boss. [laughs]

Does anyone in the band have any sort of side projects or anything, or is everyone fully dedicated and busy with Unearth?

We all dabble with certain things here and there. Ken's got a project called Burn Your Wishes. I've been involved with a couple side projects here and there, just nothing serious. I did some oppressive death metal type of project with some buddies back at home, and there's a little of stoner rock project that's forming back home, too, that I'm going to be a part of.

Have any names for those?

Nothing yet. We just get together and jam and hang out and have a good time with it. There's no pressure. That's the whole objective, because for Unearth now, it's like, "alright, we gotta do this, and we gotta do that, and we gotta go tour." There's a lot of pressure there, so it's like, an avenue to create and have that open-mindedness that we had way back in the day when we first started without all the pressure, and that's the whole objective. So whether it has a name or not, it doesnt even matter, it's doing its purpose.

I know it's probably difficult to predict, but do you have any idea where Unearth might be headed next, musically? If you'll be playing a specific style or try to branch off?

I really don't think we'll ever steer in another type of direction like a drastic change. We do what we do because we all like it and it's our cumulative effort. I don't see us going in any drastic direction. I think we're going to try to keep building off of what we have and try to get better at our instruments and write better music and just progress in the direction that we've always progressed with.

More cliche interview questions, are there any bands you feel people should be looking out for?

Ah, geez. That's a good question. There's a lot of bands out there people should be looking out for. Couple bands on Trevor's label...If Hope Dies and Since The Flood, particularly, I think people should be looking out for them, they're doing better and better every day. Those are two good bands to be keeping an eye out for. My good friends in All That Remains, they've sold quite a few albums now so they're doing okay on their own, but they're great guys. I was in bands with a couple of the guys before. They're just great dudes and they write great music, and I just hope they keep going up and up.

I think I have a really old demo of theirs sitting in my car.

Yeah, yep. I have that same demo.

The black and white one?

Yep, yep.

Lastly, is there anything you care to add?

All the kids who come out and support us, thanks a lot. We really really appreciate it, and we really enjoy being able to perform for you guys, and thank you for the support. We can't say it enough. Come out and have a good time and keep coming out and having a good time. We'll try to pull out new tricks every time.

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