James caught up with John Humphrey from Seether to talk about how the band formed, their current album release and tour.

Thanks for giving us this time to speak with you, can you first start by giving us a brief history of your band including details like how you formed and how you came up with your name?
Shaun and Dale formed a band in 1999, Shaun was the first member with different people then he got dale, it started out as Saron Gas in South Africa in 1999. They recorded and released an album called “Fragile” that gained some interest internationally, I believe Sony Universal picked up on it and sent it to their affiliate Wind Up Records, the label we’re now on in New York. So in 2001 Shaun and Dale moved to New York to begin recording “Disclaimer” they were a 3 piece as they had a drummer but he didn’t wish to relocate. A studio drummer recorded on “Disclaimer” till 2003 when they held auditions which I was one of the 5, they pretty much hired me on the spot. Then we did “Broken” with Amy Lee and our career took off so that’s that.

I’ve always wondered why you released “Disclaimer” then “Disclaimer II” which both had the same 12 core tracks, what was the reasoning behind this?
Because of the “Broken” song took off! It was only meant to be a part of the soundtrack for The Punisher and we were already recording what was to be “Karma and Effect”. We toured with Evanescence because of Amy so we could perform it every night and because we were going to all these new places with new found interest the label decided to repackage it, remaster it and then add the bonus stuff so the people who had “Disclaimer” also had more stuff.

What can you say is your best moment within this band?
The reason you end up in a band is being a huge fan of bands and getting into it, we’ve got to play with a lot of those people that I would call my heroes. We’ve done shows in south Africa with Metallica, its surreal to be on stage and look over to see James and Lars watching your band play. We’ve also touring with Audioslave and to have these guys become acquaintances and then perhaps friends later on are huge moments that mean the world to me.

Alright then how about the worst?
We’ve had band that have been on festivals and stuff, only mid level bands not exactly massive, not naming names but they’re the ones with the ego’s and they have all these really stupid expectations because even the legends like James and Lars are so laidback and really down to earth but bands like that are what annoy me a bit much sometimes.

Your New album “Holding onto Strings better Left To Fray” has been released recently and is being re-released here soon, how has this gone down with the fans and with the press?
Yeah we’re doing a UK release; it’s essentially the whole reason for this tour. We’ve extensively toured the states for the last 9-10 years, we put our foot down with the label and said we needed to get over seas because we hadn’t been to some of these places in 4 years and some never. Now we’ve been to Thailand, New Zealand and Russia, places we’d never been before because we’ve got fans all over the world but they’ve finally got the picture now and started to support that need from us.

You haven’t properly toured the UK since 2009 with Staind, do you find that this makes fans more eager when you come around?
We’ve done one off headline shows coinciding with the tour that have been really rammed! Our fans are really patient with us and do wait for us, it’s really touching because they go absolutely nuts, we’re on about returning to do a proper headline tour in the UK later this year to give you guys a proper set.

You tour relentlessly all year round, how does this affect your personal lives?
I have 2 kids back home and I’m married, I have a very supporting family and wife but yeah it’s really tough. With Skype and things I get to see them every day, it’s not the same but this is what I’ve done my entire adult life; touring, recording and writing music, this is our longest overseas tour too it’ll have been a total of 11 weeks so it’s a long time to be away from home.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
A zebra man I just think they look cool. That’s a tough question, good one. Sounds a little generic but hey I like them more haha.

Thanks for your time, is there a message for your fans reading the interview?
Thanks for sticking with us and for all the support, hopefully we’ll see everyone on this tour and more of you later on our headline tour.

Interview by James Webb