by Maddy Howell
In the early 2000s, Underoath were at a crossroads. Following the departure of founding vocalist Dallas Taylor, the Florida band called upon This Runs Through frontman Spencer Chamberlain to fill in for their remaining shows. The five-piece operating under the radar in the local band circuit for a few years, conversation of calling it quits rippling through the rehearsal room, but once Chamberlain walked through the door - something changed.
With drummer Aaron Gillespie stepping into a vocal role to accommodate their new bandmate, if they’re being totally honest, Underoath weren’t supposed to make They’re Only Chasing Safety. An album born from a spark of inspiration and a fearless attitude, the band’s 2004 album wasn’t the product of any big ideas or grand visions. A group of Florida kids with no money in the pockets and nothing to lose, they never set out to leave such an indelible mark on the post-hardcore scene, but they surely did.
Blending the melodic elements of pop-punk with a hardcore intensity, as the gentle introduction to opener ‘Young And Aspiring’ fades into Chamberlain’s grippingly raw screams, the chaos is underway. The newcomer’s vocals harmonizing with the more refined notes of Gillespie’s cleans, their interplay created a new standard for dual vocals in post-hardcore. Their collision of heavier guitar tones with an accessible, melodic approach led to their explosive rise in the scene. Fusing pop sensibilities with hardcore energy, their fearless experimentation paved the way for an entire generation of post-hardcore unafraid to change the game.
An album of unmistakable influence, blending melody and aggression in a manner unheard before, two decades later They're Only Chasing Safety remains a pivotal reference point. Redefining a genre once suffering from stagnation, as Underoath spend the year on the road celebrating the album that broke them into the mainstream, Aaron Gillespie talks us through the story of how six unlikely local heroes were catapulted to scene stardom.
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Before we even get into the specifics of the album, 2004 to 2006 felt like such a moment for heavy music. As a band in their early twenties at that time… what did that feel like?
Aaron Gillespie - “It happened underneath us. We started touring full-time in 2003, and it was very underground, especially in America. The music we were playing was not cool, and it was the nexus of pop-punk. Yellowcard and New Found Glory were huge, and then Taking Back Sunday got huge, but I'll never forget sitting on the couch at my mom's house and seeing Thursday on MTV late at night. I remember thinking to myself, ‘There's hope, this could happen’.
Fast forward a year from then, They’re Only Chasing Safety was released and we were on the Vans Warped Tour. We started out the summer of 2004 playing to 200 people, and each day 1,000 more would show up. It grew exponentially, and back in the day there were no cell phones or social media. The scene was happening in cities and towns all over the world, but we didn't really feel it until the end of 2004. We got a manager at the end of that year, and after that summer, everything changed. The idea of ever making money from music never occurred to me, but we did our first headlining tour in 2005 and there were 3,000 people waiting outside, venues which only held 1,000 people. We thought the venues were too big for us, but there were all these kids outside. They were there for us, but we were convinced that there must be a football game happening nearby that they were all there for. We had no idea, so it was a strange time, but an inspiring time. I don't think we'll ever get a replication of that.”
Going into album four - especially with Spencer [Chamberlain, vocals] newly recruited to your lineup - did you have any real vision for what you wanted to capture?
Gillespie - “To be honest, this being the fourth album is funny, because we considered our first album. Everything we released prior was as a local band, and a local label had given us some money to make some recordings. We didn't even tour until 2003, and we didn’t have any expectations. I just wanted to make songs that didn't sound like our local scene, and I knew that I wanted to pivot. I liked songs you could sing along to, and I liked heavy music, but at the time those two things had never really been put together. We wanted to put the two things that we loved together, so we did it. The rest is history.”
Were you still working day jobs at that point?
Gillespie - “We never really had day jobs because we were 18 and 19 years old. We had little part-time jobs, but we all lived with our parents. We had all just graduated high school, and in my mind there was no world in which Underoath would be popular. I’m 41 years old, and it's still odd to me that this band exists. Hunger feeds art though, and we were so hungry. We just wanted to do something. Now, having made records that people hate and records that people love, I know there's no formula to it. You just have to be honest with your art, and people will either love it or they won't. For some reason, people loved that album. I wish that there was a formula to it, but I think hunger was the fuel. We were a bunch of kids who grew up poor in the suburbs, and we brought the world something they’d never heard before.”
Speaking on the dynamic of the band, how did bringing Spencer into the mix change things?
Gillespie - “We didn't have any plans to make an album. If I'm honest, we were going to break up. Our lead singer had left, so it felt like there was no point anymore. It felt like a sign to give up and do something else, because we weren’t successful. We were just a local band, but Chris [Dudley, keyboards & programming] knew Spencer. He was in another band at the time, but we had a handful of shows booked locally. He agreed to fill in for those shows, and when he rocked up to our rehearsal we just started writing. We didn't even really rehearse the songs we were supposed to, we were just writing the songs that would come to be on They’re Only Chasing Safety. I hate the word organic, but that's the truth. It felt like it was supposed to happen. Honestly, we didn’t have any idea people would like it. Music is subjective, I mean some people love New Kids On The Block, and I don't understand that. There’s no way of knowing.”
When you’re knocking out ideas like ‘A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White’ and ‘Reinventing Your Exit’, surely there’s a point where you realise you’re onto something special…
Gillespie - “I write a lot of songs for other people, as well as myself. The barometer for me with music is always, ‘Do I want to listen to this again?’ I remember around the time that we were writing that record, I would obsessively listen to those songs when we completed them. That means something. We were four kids, and Spencer and I shared $50 for six weeks just to eat food. We had nothing, so getting to hold something that we made was seemingly impossible. We didn’t even consider what other people would think, that was enough.”
You worked with James Paul Wisner on ‘They’re Only Chasing Safety’, who you’d also gone to for the first three Underoath records. Having worked with him before, was there anything you wanted to do differently on this record?
Gillespie - “We wanted to do something that had the potential to become something. I don't remember having any epiphany moment though, we just went on Warped Tour and watched it get bigger and bigger every day. Right after the Warped Tour, we went to the UK, and it was horrible. The album was still blowing up in America whilst we were there, and we didn't even know it. No one in the UK gave a fuck, and we were playing to 50 people each night. It was a real ego check, but it also meant that we never felt the big pop. When we got home, we went on tour in October of 2004, and it was crazy. I’m glad that it happened that way, because we weren't able to get ahead of ourselves.”
There’s an innocence and hunger to They're Only Chasing Safety that can only come from a band in their early twenties with nothing to lose. You're not trying to prove yourselves, and you're not trying to be anything that you're not, and as a result it’s wickedly raw…
Gillespie - “Like I’ve said, it felt like our first album, and you always hear people say things like, ‘I liked their first album more’. After 40 years of life, I’ve finally figured out why that gets said all the time. It’s because there's no pretense, and you don't have anything to prove. The only person you actually need to prove anything to is yourself, but as you do more records, it gets harder. You have to live up to expectations and the bars you create in your own mind, which is often impossible. The first record is always pure because there's no reason for it not to be. We were losers who grew up on welfare in Florida and lived with our parents. We didn't have any money, jobs, or girlfriends, and you can't ever get that mentality back. There's nothing to lose and everything to fight for, but you're fighting for your life, as opposed to fighting for recognition. I didn't know recognition was possible, and no one that I knew was rich or famous.”
Before this record, your former vocalist Dallas Taylor had been responsible for the majority of the lyric writing. What was it like to make the switch to Spencer and yourself handling those duties?
Gillespie - “I had always been like a closeted songwriter, but I didn't think it would be something I did full-time. It was a natural progression though, and it’s funny to relive those moments. My favorite music is British music, bands like Oasis and the Rolling Stones. Those bands always have these big, romantic stories about moments in their histories, but we don’t have that. Once the album was out we traveled and we saw the world, but before that we were just a bunch of kids doing something we were passionate about. All we cared about was playing shows and being the best band at those shows. We loved At The Drive In and Jimmy Eat World, and we wanted to mix the two, so that's what we did. They’re Only Chasing Safety is the sound of us taking two different colors, painting with the same paintbrush, and hoping to God it mixed. Somehow, it did.”
The 2004 Warped Tour was a huge turning point for this band. As people who’d grown up listening to so many artists in the scene, how did it feel to suddenly start playing on bills alongside them?
Gillespie - “We were still seen as the loser kids for years. Society wasn't like it is now, and everyone made fun of us. People were ruthless back then, and it's not like we have a crazy accepting society now, but there was no cancel culture in 2004. People said whatever they wanted and made fun of each other, so we were the outcasts. We were these dirty kids from Florida that went crazy on stage, and people thought we were gross. Other bands thought our songs were dumb, but the fans didn't. We had no real respect or acceptance from other bands until 2005 or 2006, and I think that is why we are the way that we are now. Now, I try so hard to be respectful and accepting of young bands, even if I don't understand the music. Every time I start to get salty about something I don’t understand, I remind myself that we were that band twenty years ago. I don't ever want to become the same as the bands who took the piss out of us, so I constantly check myself.”
How did you see Underoath fitting into the scene at the time?
Gillespie - “We’ve always been outside of it, and we're still outside of it now. We don't make a genre of music that's acceptable to the masses. We're never going to make those songs, and I don't think we know how to. I make country songs and pop songs for other people, but when I sit down with Underoath, I don't know how to make those songs. We make our own brand of things, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. To be true to ourselves, we always have to be making something that's a little bit left of center. That's who we are, and whilst I can listen to bands like Bad Omens and think it’s amazing, I don't know how to do it for Underoath. It would feel disingenuous for us.”
Whilst nostalgia is a huge part of this tour, Underoath are still in a state of constant evolution. How has the energy you’ve captured at these shows inspired your next chapter?
Gillespie - ”We just finished the mixes to our next thing, and whilst it doesn't sound like They’re Only Chasing Safety, it feels like it. There’s that hunger and urgency behind it, because we realise every day that we're just lucky to be here. Bands in our scene don't often last for twenty years, and they certainly don’t often have success for twenty years. To be able to tour in celebration of an album we made as kids and see people still excited about it… we’re so lucky.”
Underoath are currently on the European leg of the 20th anniversary of They're Only Chasing Safety Tour. The North American leg will pick up on September 18th in Norfolk, VA and stretch until the end of the calendar year - concluding with a hometown play in St. Petersburg, FL. on December 13th. The confirmed dates will also include appearances at Furnace Fest in Birmingham, AL. and consecutive plays at When We Were Young Fest in Las Vegas October 19th and 20th. See the complete list of dates and cities below.
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