And differentiate Unearth did. With the release of III: In The Eyes of Fire, the band has proven it is wholly committed to making itself better with age and changing on its own terms. Unearth also realizes that sometimes looking toward the future means tapping the past for ideas. But you might be surprised just how far back the five piece went to dig up inspiration for its third full-length release. “On this record we wanted to change things up a bit; metal is starting to get stale again,” Phipps says. “There’s so many bands doing the same formula that we’ve been doing since 1998, and a bunch of bands are doing that now. Some are good at it; some aren’t so good at it, as it goes for any style of music. So we wanted to reinvent ourselves a little bit, but still keep our main sound, so we went back further into our influences when we were first growing up and we first got into metal.

Phipps says band members listened to old tapes of Testament, Anthrax and early Metallica, “a lot of that really early thrash stuff that got us to love metal.” He adds their first records were more influenced by bands like At the Gates and In Flames, Hatebreed and Earth Crisis, whereas their most recent release is a mixture of all these sounds.

“When music first makes an impression on you, that’s the strongest impression it will make in your entire life..."

Phipps seems to understand just how important the bands that first exposed him to the wonders of heavy metal are, so going back in time to find something fresh made complete sense. “When music first makes an impression on you, that’s the strongest impression it will make in your entire life and it really shines on this record especially,” he says. “But of course we are all really used to each other; we’re used to writing with each other and we have a certain way of going about things. We don’t really need to dip into the bands we grew up listening to, but we do try to broaden our horizons a bit.”

Not only did the band dig up old tapes of thrash heroes, but called on a producer who has a knack for capturing the live, raw sound Unearth was looking for. “The main problem [with so many albums] is overproduction,” Phipps says. “With this album, we did not overproduce the record and wanted more of a raw sound on purpose. We went to Terry Date because he captured a live energy from Pantera, Deftones, Soundgarden; he’s excellent at getting that stuff.” With Date, Unearth was able to get a fresh perspective on its sound from someone with accomplished taste in raucous music.

With a bevy of other extreme bands playing a similar brand of metal to what the Massachusetts-based five-piece coined years ago, Unearth not only suspected, but also knew, some changes to its style were warranted. While Phipps admits he is not thrilled sometimes that so many bands have imitated what Unearth has done, in the grand scheme of things it should only make the band that much better.

“It keeps us on our toes; we have to reinvent ourselves and go out there and really stay on top of things and put out a fresh product for people. If we sounded the same on every record, than people would just get sick of us. As an artist you have to constantly change things up a bit so it doesn’t get stale,” Phipps says.

But changes need to be forged out of wanting to make them for the music’s sake, not for profit, the frontman says. “If we wanted to get rich, we would start a punk rock band, you know what I mean,” he says chuckling. “That’s not the most important thing for us. The most important thing is just to real music and have long career. Slayer has gone on for like 25 years; that’s an amazing feat for such a heavy band and that’s what we want to do. We keep on reaching these goals that we set for ourselves, and one day if we get as big as like a Pantera or a Slayer … that’s our ultimate goal. But we’re not setting our sites on that right now; we set our sites on small goals in front of us and are just trying to tackle each one at a time.”

In order to reach out to more fans, the band discovered the huge summer mega tours (i.e. Ozzfest and The Warped Tour) would mean exposure to a new audience that otherwise might never get to hear Unearth or other extreme bands. Even though Phipps admits to preferring the club circuit, he acknowledges how important the bigger tours have been. “Your fans, they know you, they know your songs and it’s a lot more intimate, so every night on a club tour feels amazing,” he says. “But on Ozzfest we make it amazing, and we can’t complain about playing in front of thousands of people; it’s a great time, but I’ll always prefer the club circuit.”

But without radio exposure and an outright bombardment of PR, Unearth is hard pressed to find any other way to promote itself than jump on big tours. “We are not played on rock radio, and that’s what sells,” Phipps says. “If a band has a hit on XM Radio, they are probably gonna get a bunch of sales. But with bands like us, we don’t have the luxury of having that kind of promotion, so the best thing to do to promote ourselves is to jump on these huge festival style tours like an Ozzfest or Sounds of the Underground; that’s just the best way for us to gain fans.”

Involving the audience never has been a problem for Unearth, no matter how big the show. “We love what we do and make a point of it every day to have fun with the crowd; we try to incorporate the crowd as much as we can,” the frontman says. “Even if they don’t know the music, it’s still fun; you can still incorporate them into the music.”

Having a good time and funneling that passion for what they do onto the crowd is precisely what Phipps, guitarists Buz McGrath and Ken Susi, bassist John Maggard and drummer Mike Justian live for. While having fun isn’t the only thing the band stands for, it seems to be the one finite vision behind Unearth. “As a band we’re about a few different things,” Phipps says. “Off the bat, with our live show, it’s all about having fun; it’s basically just rock ‘n’ roll, it’s heavy rock ‘n’ roll that we’re playing. And we have a great time. We drink onstage, we try to incorporate the audience so they can have as much fun as they can, and the more they have, the more fun we have. That’s the main vibe of Unearth—just to have a good time.”

From a lyrical standpoint, Phipps writes lyrics that are profound and quite serious, but he doesn’t want to force any messages down his listeners’ throats. He just hopes some people can relate to what he is talking about. “Lyrically, I deal with a lot of serious issues from politics to personal things that we all go through,” he says. “From personal tragedies to just bad things happening in life, serious matters. But there are some positive messages in there as well. So there is a lot I touch on lyrically, but I think the main focus of the band is just to have a good time. Music should be a release for people. If they want to go page to page with the lyrics and take something away from them, whether it’s negative or positive or critical, they can read the lyric booklet and take something from it.

“If they don’t want to do that, just put on the tunes and just rock.”

Continuing to tour like madmen, Unearth seems rather determined to keep up the heavy schedule, rocking out and having fun playing live on a near-daily basis. Phipps says he can’t even remember the last time his band was home for more than two weeks. But for everyone in Unearth, this is the job to have, and Phipps is unequivocal about the fact that just being able to do Unearth full time is a dream come true. “It’s gotten to the point where it pays our bills, but we’re an extreme metal band,” he says. “We’re not going to get rich off it, but it’s what we want to do for a career as long as people will come see us.”

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