earthtone9 interview
Publication: rock sound
Month/Issue: May 2001/Issue 24
Interview by: Darren Sadler

earthtone9: Up Close And Personal

Nottingham art rockers earthtone9 have had a busy year - with hundreds of gigs and the release of their blinding third album, 'arc'tan'gent', frontman Karl Middleton has become synonymous for sporting some of the most ludicrous styles in rock. rock sound calls in the fashion police...

As a film Saturday Night Fever looked at escape from the drudgery of 1970's working class life through the swirling lights and pulsating rhythms of disco, so we decided to let et9 escape from the drudgery of millennium life through the swirling silky riffs and pulsating rhythms of rock, We tackle guitarist Owen Packard with some burning issues.

What has been the most poignant moment for the band in the last 12 months?
There was one specific moment were Dave (Anderson - bass) and I were standing in the crowd in Switzerland watching Karl sing a song with Max from Soulfly and that was pretty telling. We were both just stood there and we were both like 'okay, we've probably achieved something quite good this year'. Moments like that come very rarely because you become so embroiled ion the natural process of being in a band you don't tend to notice when exciting things happen to you or if you are progressing. Every once in a while you get a sudden jolt of reality coming in and that was definitely one.

What's been the hardest moment since the release of 'arc'tan'gent'?
Last year we did 170 gigs and that comes at a cost - physically, emotionally and mentally. It's really hard to say as I try not to analyse this stuff too much, but the lows definitely can kick in quite hard! I think towards the end of the Soulfly tour we were having some major problems - we had two months on the road, we were driving ourselves and we only had one crew member with us. Anyone who's read our tour diaries will know that anything that could possibly go wrong did, and we were very much turning it inward and the cracks were appearing shall we say.

At what point did you think about throwing the towel in?
That's a bit melodramatic! I don't think bands operated like that, the throwing in the towel moments tend to be individuals - there was never a cohesive sense that the band was in trouble. It was just that we as people, as a group interacting, were having problems. Obviously 'arc'tan'gent' was a much more successful album for us, we've done a lot more touring, a lot more promotions and the biggest change has definitely been trying to balance that with just trying to have a normal life, be a normal person and not turning into a complete retard.

Is that something you find hard to do?
It's an ongoing challenge shall we say, it depends on the time as well, and also because the individuals in the band will be operating on a different scale so there are times when some of us are okay and others aren't. At the end of the day if we have a nightmare day as long as we get to the show, play for 40 minutes up there and perform well and do what we're supposed to do then everything else is completely irrelevant.

Do you not feel that not allowing fans into your personal lives will stop people getting closer to what earthtone9 is all about?
I don't see that as necessarily being a good thing because all we do is music, it's nothing particularly clever are particularly worthwhile, we are just in an extremely lucky situation that our job is to make music. I find it very difficult to go beyond that and make the band into this bigger thing that has all these links with people that's supposed to be communicating or informing them, we're not about that at all. I'm not knocking bands that do that and I understand having a close relationship with fans can be a very rewarding experience but personally that holds very little interest for me, I'd rather just get on and do our thing and if people enjoy listening to it that's brilliant. I also think that if you give people too much information, if you make yourself an open book, you take the mystique of being in a band.

Do you fell you're still misunderstood as a band?
Undoubtedly, but that's partially down to our own doing and secretly we love it! You need ways to keep yourself mentally stimulated with the way rock and extreme music works now it's very pre-packaged, thought-out and marketing driven. And it feels liberating to be operating on the very peripheries, if not outside of that.

Are you your record company's worst marketing nightmare?
We don't make it easy for them, but the point is surely for a lot of people - being enigmatic is why we are interesting. This is why some people are looking at us and saying kind things about us because we offer an alternative to the alternative. You can pick up any copy of any magazine and go through them, read the interviews, and if you took out all the things that were said in every interview, you'd be left with very little. There's a lot of shallow sloganeering going on at the moment, there's a lot of playing to the lowest common denominator, and as we repeatedly said in the past, the notion that we should in some way be talking directly to a 15-year-old nu-metal fan is totally absurd and I'm sure any right thinking nu-metal fan would think the same thing. Dumbing things down are the order of the day. I don't know if that comes across ad hideously arrogant but it's certainly not meant to!

Do you think music has become rather tired at the moment?
Music's become utterly soulless, utterly commercially driven, sanitised, ball-less, sad, and fucking shit, that's what I think. But when I was a kid I probably listened to ball-less sanitised, horseshit thrash metal and it's very condescending to say 'oh god in my day it was fantastic', 'cos it wasn't! Every style of music goes through the masses and there will always be a load of second generation, second rate copyists cashing in on whatever is happening. The trick is being able to see through that and pick up the bands that are genuinely interesting and I think for the most part those bands do get found. Obviously there is always going to be a case where you look back and say 'man they were amazing but they never got anywhere', but generally speaking good bands will get discovered.

Where do you think earthtone9 fit in? Do you you think the masses will pick up on the band?
Honestly? We've said this before and whether or not I actually meant this is for me to know and you to work out - but we feel our greatest goal is likely to be being one of those bands, that in five years time people will say they were really fucking good, they were well underrated. The chances of us actually exploding and becoming a major force are incredible small. You can chose who to apportion the blame to - maybe we're not good enough, maybe it's the fact that we're British, maybe it's the fact we're not on a major label with huge amounts of money, maybe people are just too easily led and don't have the guts to fucking listen to something and take it onboard for what it is.

Why has it taken earthtone9 three albums to get to the same level some bands achieve on their first?
Therein lies the question! As a band I think we all fell 'arc'tan'gent' is the first record that's fully realised what we always thought we were about. Now I know our first two records were done in extremely trying circumstances - very low-fi, very quick, very cheap - none of that's bad, but 'arc'tan'gent' was an experiment in fully realising the songs, taking them much further than we would have done in the past.

To what extent has the 'UK's biggest hopefuls' tag become tiresome?
I don't think it's become tiresome but it's very misleading. No-one really joins a British band, no one joins an American band, you just get in a band and that's your lot and do your own thing. If people wanna view us as a good British band but a hopeless worldwide band then that's as good as saying 'write us off then', we just want to get judged on the same scale as everyone else, but I think that's hopelessly optimistic. I don't think people will ever look at bands of our type in that way unless someone is able to do something clever and turn the tide.

With ongoing negotiations for a US record deal, do you feel you've still got it in you to go and tackle the US market?
I firmly believe yes, but only because we're happy to go the hardcore slog route and work hard to break the band, but I firmly believe with the strides we made with 'arc'tan'gent' we could work on American radio. I've certainly got what it takes more than giving it up and going back to a crap job that completely destroyed my soul and made me question the very point of existing.

Finally, tell rock sound some interesting tour stories.
I've certainly seen some dodgy things with Glassjaw! I very, very clearly remember coming out of one of the showers at a gig we did last year and they were all standing around outside the shower, strip naked taking pseudo pornographic Polaroid's of each other and as I walked through the room I saw Daryl (Palumbo - GJ's frontman) smooching himself in this big full length mirror trying to achieve an erection in order to get a more authentic shot! And that was just prior to having a full on street brawl which was swiftly followed by seeing some guy in his underpants dropping out of the balcony of a room opposite a bus trying to escape paying at a brothel! You'd expect Brussels to be a metropolis of bright ideologies and cool people but no, it had some pissed up fucking idiots looking for a fight!