from left to right: Underoath tour manager (Brent), Tim McTague [ lead guitar ], Chris Dudley [ keys/synth ] & Grant Brandell [ bass ].

COUP DE MAIN: On UNDEROATH's second trip to New Zealand, how does it feel to be back?
UNDEROATH - TIM MCTAGUE: It feels awesome! This is one of our favourite places in the world. We have a friend here, Rowan... so we get to see all the cool things that only locals know about. It's pretty sweet. Swimming. Cliff-jumping. Hanging out, it's cool.

CDM: How does this time round, compare to 2006's Taste of Chaos visit?
U: Taste of Chaos was cool, we had a day off here as well. This time, we're more familiar with everything so we get to be more comfortable. Instead of seeing everything and not knowing, we know what we're doing now.

CDM: Is it important to Underoath to tour small markets, despite the long plane ride just to play one show?
U: Yes, we actually specifically requested this show. We knew we were coming over to Australia and we said that, well if we're coming to Australia we want to go to New Zealand. So we told our agent to book a show here. So yeah, it's really important.

CDM: What's the difference between on-the-road-touring and long-haul-flights?
U: Honestly, you would probably think otherwise. But this is more tiring. Doing the whole time-change and lots of flights and then day off, then play, then time-change, lots of flights... When we're on tour in the States, we're on a bus and we get to sleep in the same bed every night. We get into a routine. So even though we play more shows in a week, we're more accustomed to it. So this is cool, cuz it's always changing. But sometimes early flights really throw a wrench in the day. It's a lot more tiring. But it's also a lot more rewarding in a lot of ways too.

CDM: Your latest album is titled 'Lost In The Sound Of Separation'... What is the sound of separation?
U: Figuring out where you fit. Spencer our singer, does all the lyrics and the record names. But 'Lost In The Sound Of Separation' is being lost in everything, that everyone is trying to tell you what to do. Just really trying to focus on where you need to be as a person. Clearing your head. Taking in everything. But also going the way you feel you should go, regardless of who says what.

CDM: The album has been described as "resolute". What resolutions did the band make in the creation process of 'Lost In The Sound Of Separation'?
U: We found our sound. We found a lot of answers to how we function as a band, as well as ourselves. Individually, we found how to be husbands, how to be friends, how to be band-mates, how to be a lot of different things. So that's a big, big question. It would take hours to answer.

CDM: Your song 'We Are The Involuntary' talks about giving up, or giving hope. What gives Underoath hope?
U: People. The kids at our shows. Everything. Our families. Our friends. Our wives. Our faith. God. Everything that we see, is a little glimpse of hope. The more older you get, the more you realise that all the problems you have aren't necessarily specific to you. That they're problems that humans and people have been having for centuries. It makes you feel less helpless and more equal. You realise that everyone is going through the same stuff and that there's always been someone in the problem that you're coming into.

CDM: 'The Created Void' has the lyrics, "let's do this for truth"... What is truth? If every person has different perceptions of truth, how do you differentiate between them?
U: Truth, is just honesty. Truth can even be, being wrong. If your just being straight-up with your intentions... even if you ask me the wrong question, or you think that this person left this band here, or there, or you have some fact wrong. If you were honest about it and you were up-front about it. If you had a positive intention with it and you accept correction. That's being truth. That's living truth. God doesn't say, be perfect. He says, follow me and when I tell you that you're doing something wrong, then admit that that's wrong and then change it. That's living in truth, to me.
It's not living perfect. It's not living in the right all the time. That's where people get so held up on. They're like, we need to be in truth. Even if they're wrong, they'll fight to try to make someone think that they're right because they don't want to be wrong. Cuz then they don't think that they're living in truth. For me, living in truth is living a life knowing that your screwing up every day. You know your a piece of crap but the second you realise that... STOP. Make a note in your head and heart saying, starting at this day I realise that doing this is wrong. Starting now, I'm not going to do that. Or try not to do that. That I think, is the closest thing to living a truthful life for me.

CDM: What about people fervently believing in something, trying to create truth?
U: There's Muslims that would die in a plane, just to kill you and I. Well not you, but us. Cuz we're Americans. People talk about Jesus... there's no greater love and commitment and truth, than dying for a faith, or a cause, or a people. The same people, felt the same way when they drove those planes into our buildings. Were they right? I think you and I, would agree they were completely wrong. But to them, that was the ultimate sacrifice. They believed it so much, that they would leave their wife and kids behind and kill themselves, just to kill us. So no, I don't think that's true. But searching, constantly being able to figure out life, is truth. There's really no facts. Faith is not a fact. It's not a truthful thing. It's a truth to me, maybe not to you. So in turn, even our truths aren't truths. The only thing that's true, that this colour is what it is. That it's black. That's a fact. Saying that the way you handled yourself out there, was right or wrong is up for debate, everyday. You may think you did it wrong today and tomorrow realise you did it right and vice versa.

CDM: 'Coming Down Is Calming Down' has the lyrics, "there are demons inside my head". Are internal demons or external demons, tougher to battle?
U: Internal. I think that God said in the Bible, that you have powers over demons. All you have to do is speak to them and they'll flee. If something came in here... if something around is maybe not being seen or being seen, I think that you can have authority over that. But I think that when you let it get inside of you, when you let it get inside your head and start controlling you. That's a lot different of a battle to fight.

CDM: Do conservative Christians give Christianity a bad name?
U: I don't think conservative living, is giving Christianity a bad name. I think it is forcing conservative living upon others. Or thinking that conservative living is the only way. I don't think you have to not smoke and drink and be Christian, to be a good Christian. I think there's plenty of Christians that don't smoke, don't curse, don't drink, don't do anything. But with that, comes a lot of struggle. Like looking down on others that do, as well as not being open to going out to places where that stuff is happening. We have plenty of friends that come out to shows and hang out with bands that smoke weed, or do whatever they do, get hammered. But even though it's not something they do, they put themselves in situations where they accept people like that. They look at people like that. They are open to people like that. I think the people that don't do that, are the people that are in a really bad spot.
I think we've all been there as people. We've all grown up and gone into that and come out of it. We're still trying to figure out where we fall in-between. Conservative Christianity isn't what's wrong with Christianity, it's everyone. People who smoke and drink and somehow aren't Christians... to a conservative Christian, are equally at fault. Cuz they look at that person and are like, oh you don't do what I do so you must be one of those conservative douchebags. Everyone needs to be okay with the fact that everyone sees God a little bit differently.

CDM: Is it judgement, versus acceptance?
U: Judgement is a word that's used a lot, in a bad way. Like, only God can judge. Don't judge me. This and that. If I saw Chris or Grant, or Brent, or you, drugged out on the side of the road with a crack-pipe in your mouth... that's not a judgement. That's just telling you what's going on. It's not judging Chris to be like, Chris you probably shouldn't cheat on your wife. Everyone's always like, well let me do what I want to do because you don't know what I've been through. Well, it doesn't matter what he's been through. If he's cheating on his wife, which he doesn't... that's an extreme example. It's not being judgemental of me to say, yo! Snap out of it. You're being a douche. But, there are certain things that people do judge people on like clothing and trivial things like that, that really don't matter.
Keeping people in line according to what they claim to believe in, is different than judging. If you say you are a Christian and you say you believe in the Bible and you say you believe in this, this and this. Then the next day you turn around and do this, this and this, doing something different. Then some-one coming in and saying, well you're not doing what you should be doing, based on what you told me you want to be doing... that's not judging. That's keeping your friends in check. Judging, is going to her who I don't know from Adam... and saying, those shoes are trashy! That shirt is white! Whatever. It's like, well you don't know why I do things that way.

CDM: ... So it's to do with your intentions?
U: Yeah! Some-one who doesn't believe in God, can't be held to the same standards as people that do. If you don't believe in the Bible, or believe that you should live the way the Bible tells you... and I do. I can't expect you to see things the same way. You don't look at life the same way as me, so therefore I can't expect you to adhere to the way I see it. The same way, you can't expect me to go, just take a hit of this weed. It's just weed! Well, maybe to you. But to me it breaches a weird balance there. So you just gotta be open to that.

CDM: Explain the lyrics behind 'Emergency Broadcast: The End Is Near'?
U: It's about the end of the world. It's about humanity collapsing. It's about a lot of different things. Spencer actually wrote it, so I don't really know. That's a Spencer question. But it's one of my favourite songs, musically and lyrically for sure.

CDM: Underoath, are celebrated within your genre for musical experimentation. What haven't you tried yet, that you are wanting to in the future?
U: Different instruments. Different time-signatures. Different structures. There's always something you haven't tried. That doesn't mean that no-one else has ever tried it. I don't think that we are so experimental that we are re-inventing music. There's probably a million bands that have done what we did on our last record, on their own records. But for us, in the way we do it. With our take and our spin on it, we have never done that as our band. It's not just pushing yourself but also just pushing what you know is immediately around you, with the knowledge that your not doing anything completely original.
At this point, music is music. Short of squealing like a pig and jumping around, being like LOOK! No-one's ever done this. Music is music. When you have guitars and bass and electronics and drums, you can't really do anything that hasn't kinda been done by somebody else. It's more like, re-inventing yourself. Also, trying to re-invent yourself within the confines of the culture that you're in. Cuz even though it may have been done fifty years ago, no-one's heard it yet. Now, with this new technology with these new sounds, with these new ideas. Constantly being able to look at where you're at. Where your music is at and just going. We are going to push us and everyone else. But we definitely don't claim to be inventors of anything. We just try to do the best that we can, of doing something interesting and different.