BLESSED AND CURSED
The Thoughts of Seether Frontman Shaun Morgan
2006-01-24
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Decrease Font Size“Broken,” the hit duet recorded with your girlfriend Amy
Lee: blessing or curse?
Blessing definitely, but with elements of curse. Obviously, the song was huge
for us. It got us a lot of international exposure, and it did a lot of things
for us like skyrocketing the profile of the band. I think that the only negative
thing about it was really the impression that we need Amy to make us successful.
In the States, we were already a gold-selling band just from what we had done
with touring. Still, I guess there’s an element of truth in it. A lot
of countries wouldn’t release our album until we did “Broken.”
Now they’re all jumping at the chance to release it and cash in on Amy.
It’s funny because we’re gold in Canada now, and we’re platinum
in New Zealand. We’re doing well in all of these countries that were originally
really hesitant to release the album. Now they’re all excited about the
next one.
Did that experience take a toll on your relationship?
Yeah, it definitely did. I felt a little emasculated at the time because I was
being told that my girlfriend was the reason I was successful. It wasn’t
so much that I minded carrying gifts around for people from them to Amy or anything
like that, but I did mind when someone would come and bullshit me for 30 seconds
when all he wanted to know was where Amy was. I should have listened to my parents,
man. Don’t work with the person you’re with. That’s rule number
one.
Tell me about the title of your new album, Karma and Effect? Is it
true that you had to change it from Catering to Cowards?
We didn’t have to change it, but we figured we would do it in order to
keep everybody in high spirits about the album. One of the people at the label
was offended by the title. He thought it was a personal attack—which it
wasn’t—so we just decided to be the bigger people and change the
title so we could get back to having everybody really happy about the new album
and promoting it with all of their energy.
Why was it taken as a personal attack?
We had some discussions about artwork and some of my artwork wasn’t approved.
It was a pretty long fight, but the thing is that I only fight for things that
I believe very strongly about—artwork being one of them. We gave the title,
Catering to Cowards, to the person who I was fighting with right after
that fight had ended, and he took offense to it. It’s understandable that
someone would think that this kind of title would be aimed at them, but I think
that at the same time, it’s a little arrogant.
So, what was the title really referring to?
It was a jab at corporate America if anything, rather than a jab at the label.
I feel like there is this crazy conservatism creeping back into pop culture
and modern-day America. In some states, you can get 25 to 30 years for smoking
a joint, but only 15 for killing someone. It was largely a statement about that.
What changes would you effect in modern-day America if you could?
Wow. A democrat in office, probably. It would take me an hour to say everything
that I’d like to see happen, but as far as the music industry goes, I
would like to see music get a fair rating system. For example, if I say “shit”
on my album just one time, I’ll get the same sticker on my album that
Eminem would get. If you go watch a PG-13 movie, you’ll see heads rolling,
breasts and they’ll probably say “fuck” once or twice, but
if you say “shit” on your album one time it gets this brand that
it’s completely wrong for children to listen to. Not that I’m writing
music for children at all, but the system should be fairer with respect to the
medium and the content.
