Seether Drummer John Humphrey Talks 3 Pieces, Singles, Headlining, and More [INTERVIEW]

Seether, currently on tour with Sick Puppies and Kyng, hit the Casper Events Center with their "Triple Threat Tour" Friday, October 12th. In honor of what is sure to be a show that will blast your nipples off, I had a chance to catch up with the hard rockin' drummer of the 3 piece band that began as "Saron Gas" in Pretoria, South Africa (The band changed its name to avoid confusion with sarin gas, a lethal nerve gas manufactured but never used in World War II by the German Army Weapons Agency. The name Seether was chosen as a reference to the Veruca Salt song, "Seether")

Tee Roy: Rock 96.7 is on, and on the phone with me- Mr. Humphrey, John Humphrey and John, you may not remember but I’ve actually interviewed you a couple times now.

John Humphrey: Have we? Have we done it a couple times?

TR: We have, and you know, obviously my melodious voice didn’t really stick with you, but that’s alright.

JH: (Laughs)

TR: You guys are on the road with the Triple Threat Tour and you’ve got Kyng and Sick Puppies coming with you. When you’re headlining your own tour, do you actually get to hand pick who’s on tour with you?

JH: Yeah, actually we did. We put this bill together specifically and I have to be honest; my brother, who’s a bass player, musician who lives out of Denver Colorado, Jason’s his name,  turned me on to Kyng. He’s a big music fan, sometimes out of left field, he turned me on to King and the musicianship is just amazing, you know? I’ve said it’s like Black Sabbath but a bit more progressive and they have a great drummer, Pepe, and they’re an awesome band so personally, I played it for Shawn and Shawn liked it, so when they came up as an option for an opening band we definitely jumped on with those guys. And of course, we’ve toured with Sick Puppies before, we know those guys are great. And we thought it made sense, putting it all together. Each band is a 3-piece band.  We’re talking about power trios here. And triple threat man. We thought it’d be a good bill to have these 3 bands.

TR: You bring up 3-piece, originally Seether started out as a 3-piece, and then it becomes a 4-piece, and now you guys are back down to a 3-piece- do you like that, as far as a drummer goes? Is that better for you, or does it matter to you?

JH: Yeah, no- I really like it. Ya know, you have to kinda fill in the gaps, so to speak, musically on stage. Because when you do a recording, which I feel, ya know, you can do added instrumentation and you can add, ya know, those oral sounds and tricks and pops and whistles, if you will. Live man, it’s just a raw experience. Some bands use backing tracks or Pro Tools and we’re just three guys up there making all the noise; only coming from the three human beings that are up on stage. No added accompaniment so I really like it. I have to work a little bit harder and, like I said, fill in the gaps but I really, I dig it man. Shawn’s a great, great guitar player, as well as singer and lyricist and I personally think nothing is missed live. If anything, it might be a little bit heavier.

TR: Now again, you guys are on tour, you’re all over the place. You’re gonna be in Denver, as a matter of fact, the night following ours and then you guys head over to Europe. What’s the difference between crowds in the US and across the ocean?

JH: I think, ya know, maybe radio is a little bit different, in the sense that, of course, we have a hardcore fan base here and it’s not always just based on our latest single, but over there radio seems to affect the crowds a little bit different and when you win a fan over there, they’re with you throughout. And of course we have fans over here in the US but you go over there and they appreciate it. You don’t get over there as often. I mean, we’re going back there for the third time this year, but it’s been 4 or 5 years since the last time we’ve been over there so they’re really, really appreciative when a band from the states can get over there and play for them and we’re really looking forward to it.

TR: You guys are still out on last year’s Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray, a great disk by the way… as a matter of fact every album that you guys have put out for the last 9 or ten years have just been fantastic. But I read somewhere that you guys are trying or maybe considering to quit putting out full LP’s and starting to get just to the 1 or 2 Ep’s. Is there any truth to that?

JH: (Laughs) Ya know, I think the nature of the business is changing and we kid about maybe, ya know, putting together a 4 or 5 song EP, designating one of those songs as the single, and then hitting the road for 6 or 8 months, and then going back into the studio, doing another 4 or 5 songs, and eventually when you have enough songs put together, you can maybe put that together as a group or an LP. It just seems to me that, ya know, the nature of it is kind of changing and to take 18 months to 2 years to write and to produce a new album- it just seems ludicrous to us. It just seems like it’s a little bit different now and why not just throw out a couple songs, cause in most cases people just buy the single anyway? Of course, we have a recording contract but that’s all up for debate. It isn’t necessarily that we are gonna do that but just from our experience and what we’re learning out here is that things in the business really essentially have changed. It would almost make sense to us just to do an EP and hit the road, ya know?

TR: I think you hit right on it too; people can go on itunes or wherever you get your music from and buy just the song you wanna hear or whatever else. Does that kind of help you guys when you’re writing music; you see what individual songs people have bought in the past and try to stick it in the same frame, or does that have nothing to do with it?

JH: Yeah really, some songs that are singles, obviously because they’re played more often obviously are more prominent than sort of the tracks that don’t become singles. So really at this point, we do music because we enjoy it or the approval team, if you will,  the check list is amongst us guys or a producer and we really just ask each other, ‘is this something we would like if we heard it from somebody else,’ or ‘is this cool, are we liking this,” ya know? And we kind of use ourselves, really at this point, as a barometer. We’re not gonna come out of left field and put out a freakin’ German polka album. We try to do music we like and if we enjoy it then we’ll put it out there and we’ve been very fortunate that a lot of other people have enjoyed it as well, but that’s always the roll of the dice, ya know?

TR: Obviously Seether has some South African roots, Shawn and Dale are both from South Africa, I see you guys are wanting to play a big music festival. Do you guys get to play in South Africa a whole lot?

JH: Yeah, yeah we were just there. That’s one of the perks of being in this band. I’m the American of the group and every album cycle we get to go over there so we were just there in August and this was my 4^th or 5^th time over there. So we’ve done some great shows and it’s really cool to go home, see their families and to see their homecoming and to go visit a country that otherwise would never see us.

TR: Now one final question before I let you go, I know you’re a very busy man. What’s the biggest difference between headlining a show and just being one of the opening acts?

JH: I think it’s that you get to play longer, ya know? Just the singles alone over the years take up almost 75 minutes and I think we just enjoy being able to play longer, do filler tracks. Of course earlier this year we opened for Nickleback, those guys are awesome. We got to play some cities, we played Madison Square Garden, I mean some really cool stuff. But when you get to headline and do your own show and those people are there mostly for you, just for you, and you get to play those few deeper cuts and mix up the set list, ya know, that’s always fun too. Of course that tour is all on your shoulders but we love doing that. It’s what we are. We’re a live band, a touring band, always have been and we really like doing those shows.

TR: Is the tour going really well for you?

JH: Yeah, it’s been great man. It kicked off in Kansas City at the Midland Theatre, sold out and it’s been awesome. I, of course, am from Oklahoma City, so we just played there, did a big homecoming show for me. We haven’t been there in several years, so that was an awesome show so yeah, it’s been a great tour.

TR: Well alright John, I appreciate you taking the time. Where can we go to follow along with you guys and get more information on Seether?

JH: Yeah, absolutely. Seether.com and of course we’re on Facebook and all that stuff.