A band whose music has seen thousands of fans get back into a punk & rock style, Unwritten Law have certainly been one of the more successful bands to come out of the US in this genre & they certainly haven't let their success go to their heads either. It's great to see that they will be touring Australia in the near future as well, along with Australian favourites Bodyjar.
Leading
up to their Australian tour, I was originally meant to talk with
guitarist Rob Brewer, but he was missing in action the day the call
was to come through, so in his stead was Wade Youman, who was a very
nice, talkative guy who gave me the great pleasure of hearing a
little of one of the songs that will be on their forthcoming album.
We spoke about a lot of things, including the new album, Wade's
thoughts of where the online music scene is heading & of course,
coming to Australia soon.
We first off, covered where the band have been since their last album, with Wade telling me where he was calling from.
"Well, at the moment, I'm sitting here in my living room in San Diego & it's about 5 o'clock or something here in the afternoon. Look, we've been doing some shows since the last album & we're in the process of getting the new album together, you know, writing, rehearsing, recording. In fact, we're getting ready to master the whole thing soon & I think a lot of people are going to like where we're going on this one. I think... no, I know it's a real departure from our sounds. There's more of a rock thing happening on this album, which we sort of gave a little bit of an indication of on the end of the last album. I think older fans are going to love what we've done here & the new people wholisten to it are too, we hope. We're not 'leaving' our old style behind, but we've, I don't know, maybe outgrown that old punk thing."
Intrigued by where Wade was heading with the term 'evolved', I asked what sort of styles we might expect from the band's new album & when it was due. Wade also did me the pleasure of playing about 30 seconds of an awesome new songs which will be on the next album.
"Well, I think that's probably about the best way of saying that we've moved on from where we were. Maybe outgrown is a little too harsh, but I think as a band, we've definitely gone a step further with the songs here. Here, I'll play you some of one of the new songs (plays some of the song for about 30 seconds or so). You're the first person in Australia to hear any of our new stuff. It's called Hellborn. I don't know if we're going to be able to pull it off, but we're hoping to get the album out on January 1st next year. Whether that happens or not I don't know, but we can hope it does."
We got onto the subject of free downloadable music, covering things like the recent media attention focussed on Napster & other MP3 download sites.
"Look, I think free music is great. People can go out & find whatever they want & just grab it from the 'Net whenever they like. Where I have a problem is that some people are putting on music to download that they shouldn't be & that's short changing a lot of people. People who buy CDs aren't just getting the music. They're getting a whole package that's been put together by a band. It's not just the actual CD, it's also getting hold of the cover & the liner notes, the lyrics or whatever & if the person just doesn't get the whole package, they're not seeing what the band wanted them to. Of course if they just want free stuff, then of course they're not worried about that. I also think that they're causing some artists to lose out on what they really deserve."
Lastly, we spoke about where the Internet has taken bands as far as promotional things go.
"There's a lot of things that the Internet is good for. I don't think that a band can reall rest on getting exposure through it. They have to go out & do the live shows & try to sell their CDs other ways. It's a great tool for letting people know about you, like giving fans samples of your songs, which we've done a little bit & of course things like message boards let fans know what's happening & you can get in touch & speak with fans through that that just couldn't get close to you before this stuff cam along. You can also post your gig info onto a website much quicker than any other things, but I don't think there's any substitute for getting out there & doing it live."
Look out for Unwritten Law touring with Bodyjar soon.
