wonder if the members of Underoath could have ever guessed that they would be touring the world promoting their fourth full-length with their fifth in the works when they released The Changing Of Times in 2002? Or if they had any idea that their progressive metal would launch them into one of the biggest bands in this scene, creating a demand for them that would sell out the largest rock venues world-wide? Underoath is a band that most of us have had the privilege of growing up with in our ears, evolving with the times, keeping themselves not only relevant but continually pushing back the walls of the box staying steps ahead of the game turning them into influential giants in our scene. Talk to them though and they are convinced that they are just normal dudes, incredibly busy, but normal. We love them for their humility but if we each had ten minutes with them we could spit a list a block long of ways that their music has influenced, even changed, our lives. However, I had to tame myself during this interview with Tim McTague and Chris Dudley so that I could get some facts for you on their upcoming release, their views on music and what has been happening over the last two years since their last release.

You guys have really evolved to more of a progressive almost experimental metal sound over the course of the last two albums. Where do you see yourselves taking your sound with this new album?

Tim McTague: Right now we have like four rough ideas for new songs. Its really kind of different like not drastically different, I think we definitely sound like our niche but it’s a little more aggressive musically. Not just aggressive with like lots opens and feedbacks, its got

a lot more attention to detail with how the drums and bass kind of play off eachother. It just feels a lot more driving.

Chris Dudley: It’s kind of hard to tell where the record is going to go as a whole just because we still have another half of the record to write. I think it could go a lot of directions. Some of the stuff we have now is really, I don’t want to say jammy, but a lot of it is more instrumental and thought out than anything we’ve done. We’re making a conscious effort to do things that we haven’t done before. We know what we’re capable of and what we’ve done in the past so if we wanted to we could continue to do what we’ve done and not really change anything and obviously we’d sell records. We’re at a spot where we just want to push ourselves individually and as a group to do something that we’ve never done before. We have this one song that is 58 seconds long and its super fast, super heavy, really balls out, middle finger in the air type of song. Then we have other stuff that is five or 6 minutes and is really slow and jammy so its kind of weird at this point.

Is your sound something that you guys sit down and discuss the direction of or do you just start jamming and see where it flows?

TM: We kind of just start jamming. We discuss broad stroke ideas on where we want to go but nothing like “we want to write this kind of song or album” its more like “let’s just write” and the more songs start taking shape we say like “well this is happening more than not or we have a lot of slow songs so lets focus on having some more energetic songs” stuff like that. But as a whole the song kind of comes naturally and we use that as a starting point to kind of sculpt the record around.

Is there any idea for lyrical themes or album art yet, or is it still too early?

TM: There’s nothing, not any lyrics. We do lyrics last in the studio.

You guys recently got back from New Zealand and you are doing a European tour starting in March. What is the plan after that? Will we be seeing you on tour or will you be recording most of the summer?

TM: We go to Europe for three and half weeks in March and April. Then we pretty much spend the majority of our time after that finishing up writing and we go to the studio in June or July and have a new record out this fall. I think we are going to be doing a two and half week tour right in the middle of summer just to get out but the details of that are not yet clear.

You released the last album in late 2008, catch us up on the last year in the life of Underoath.

TM: Oh man. Well we did a full four months, five or six continent world tour for all of 2008. Last year we spent a lot of time doing a bunch of crap. We did some overseas stuff, we did Soundwave. We did Warped this year then our last headliner was with August Burns Red this last winter. Now we’re doing some Europe stuff again this Spring then going back into the studio then probably repeating that (laughs).

You guys are just kind of conquering the world right now.

TM: Trying to (laughs).

We did an interview with Living Sacrifice a few months back and we talked a lot about their influence on younger bands. Underoath’s name came up again and again. Talk to us about how Underoath’s influences have changed over the life of the band.

TM: We started out just young kids in church, in the underground church hardcore scene. There was a pretty good hardcore scene in Tampa and we just kind of branched out from there started touring with a lot more people and getting turned on to a lot more things but now our influences range from life to art to specific bands. All the way from Every Time I Die to Radiohead and Bjork to really weird folk stuff. I think our influences are very expansive and maybe not being able to be spoken about to a degree because I’ll feel like I’ll leave something out. I think you can definitely tell on our records when we began opening our minds to different stuff versus being down with the stuff we had.

Chris, what are some of your personal influences?

CD: I think for me what influences me in general is just hearing bands do something that excites me. As far as my individual instrument, hearing bands use electronics in a cool way I think is really inspiring to me. As far as purely electronic music, off the top of my head, there is maybe three groups that do it well. I think it’s really hard to make something purely electronic really good. I think Imogen Heap does that really well. Thom Yorke, the electronic stuff on there is really good. Bands that use electronics well, I think that’s really cool. Obviously that’s what I try to do is find a balance of just making it cool, because with electronics it’s easy to make it sounds cheesy and or forced into the song not just building the song around it, just having a bunch of synth parts you know, which I’m completely not into.

What does it mean to you all that Underoath is now the band influencing a multitude of new artists?

CD: I think that it’s weird more than anything. I remember when we were coming up and there were bands that we looked up to saying “Oh those guys are awesome! It’d be cool to be like that one day!” To think that we’re that band for someone is just kind of odd because we don’t really see ourselves as those types of dudes. We’re just six dudes who happen to play music together. We talk to people and they say “Your music influenced my band or me”, its really just flattering more than anything because if anyone ever looked at us the way we looked at other bands growing up, it’d be an honor.

TM: I don’t know how much influence we’re really having. If we are influencing them I think that’s cool. We just play. We kind of take the responsibility and come to a very level headed common understanding that what we do influences people like that. It doesn’t feel really appropriate for what we do. If that’s happening we respect it and hope that it’s a positive influence. We’re not writing music to influence other musicians but I hope we do inspire some sort of boldness and abstract takes on things that are mundane for some people.

You guys are known for touring like crazy. What’s the your secret to constantly touring and maintaining healthy relationships within the band?

TM: A lot of work. We had a lot of lineup changes prior to 2003. At the end of this year it will be six years strong that we’ve had the same lineup. It also helps in a lot of ways that the record that Spencer first came on, They’re Only Chasing Safety, did a lot better than we thought and put us in a really cool position to be able to tour bigger places and tour in a bus and that really made comfort levels go up and stress levels go down. So overall it’s been a really cool experience and with that comes a lot more work and responsibility in different areas. But overall it’s been very positive and very do-able thing. Touring used to be super hard and it is taxing on our families. Emotionally it’s hard but physically its better, we’re able to sleep. It’s kind of a trade off. It’s definitely our thing just being honest with each other and knowing when to give people space and knowing when you need your own space before you blow up or say something stupid.

CD: I don’t think there’s really a secret to it. I think it’s just first of all you need to have a group of dudes that’s friends. You have to be friends first and a band second. You hear so many times of bands going on tour then getting on each other’s nerves or getting in fights. At the end of the day you need to be able to come to a person as a friend not just someone you play music with. I always look at being in a band and being on tour as being married. I see the dudes in the band more than I see my wife and daughter. Its like being married to five other super opinionated dudes living in a steel tube for eight months out of the year. Its not easy all the time. Its something you have to work at but I think that’s with anything that involves relationships. Being married is the most amazing thing in the world but you have to work at it. You got to enjoy what you’re doing and not being doing it expecting to get some sort of reward whether it be money or people coming to your shows or selling records. If we were going for that we would have been done a long time ago because that’s just what we’re going for.

Tim, is Underoath something you see yourself doing for as long as you can or do you sometimes feel like you are winding down?

TM: I always feel like its winding down but at the same time I’d do it for as long as I can. In that respect we will do it as long as we can but we’re definitely prepared for it to wind down. But as long as there are kids at the shows and we can keep writing records and have fun doing it, you know?

Chris, do you see yourself still doing Underoath five or even ten years down the road?

CD: I hope so! We’re going to keep doing this as long as the people who listen to our music continue to support us. I’d love to say that we’ll do it for the next fifty years but I don’t think that’ll really happen because there are very few bands that are able to stick around forever like that. I think that even when the point comes where we say “Alright, we’re not really able to do this anymore, we can’t afford to be away from home or no one is coming to our shows”, I think we’re still going to be playing music its just that we’re not going to be able to do it the way we are now. I’m definitely not looking forward to that day because doing this is all of our dreams and we love doing this more than anything in the world. I think when that day comes we’ll still play together and maybe put out music on line or whatever the case may be. I think this is an overused comment but the kids that come to shows and buy records really do allow us to do this. We talk about this all the time, we walk out on stage and there are kids cheering and we are on stage being the exact same thing saying “holy crap!” It really is a two way street and we do our best to let people know that. But it can be a cliché thing to say to a crowd to get cheers. We talk about that regularly, how blessed we are. We don’t really think that people that come to shows know what that means to us because it allows us to keep writing records and going on tour which is what we love. We want it to be like dudes talking to dudes and hanging out, whether it’s going to Dennys after a show or talking about movies. I think that when you put yourself up on a pedestal like that it takes away the opportunity to have a real conversation with someone and get something meaningful out of it. If you have someone telling you you’re great and wonderful then there’s nothing you can really get out of that.

If Underoath were to end tomorrow, what would you see yourself doing?

CD: I would probably call in some favors and figure out what sort of job I could get to support my family. That would be my first priority. I thought about trying to do something like a publicity group. I don’t have any sort of resume so any where I tried to get a job would laugh in my face (laughs). Right now I’m doing what I really feel God is calling me to do and I know this is where I’m supposed to be but in some ways I know I need to because this isn’t going to last forever. But for now I’m trying to make the most of opportunities that I have.

TM: Probably start another band.

Tim, what do you think that might sound like? Hypothetically.

TM: I do like what we do but if I think if I were to start a new band from scratch it wouldn’t necessarily be like that. It’d be a lot more like Blueprints for Friendships Personals (laughs).

What does music mean to you personally?

CD: From a super young age music was something that really spoke to me. Before I was able to play an instrument I was into music. I had a really wide range of music played at my house. My mom was super into Aretha Franklin and Fleetwood Mac and my dad was into Guns N’ Roses and Dire Straits. Then my brother was into gangster rap and Metallica at the same time so I grew up with an appreciation for all these types of music. I knew what it was like to have a record or a song have more of a feeling than “Oh that’s a cool part or lyric”. We’ve seen the power of music and what it can do in people’s lives like somebody putting in a record and when its done realizing that they need to rethink their life or God speaking to them through a song. I think that everyone to a certain extent realizes the power that music has whether they acknowledge it or not. That’s why we wake up every day and do this. If we can have that impact on someone even in a small way I think we can all sleep well at night.

TM: Everything really. Without sounding too kitchy, music can change people’s lives. Music has the power to inspire people to do great and horrible things all at the same time. I think its one of the most ancient forms of communicating ideals as well as direct vibes. I think its something that is very powerful and we don’t take lightly. We always try to make sure everything is something whether it is musically or lyrically.