Earthside: Embracing Ambition
In 2015 a talented quartet of musicians made their emphatic arrival on the progressive metal scene, leaving a significant imprint with their masterful debut A Dream In Static. A release that featured the cream of the crop of guest appearances such as Lajon Witherspoon (SEVENDUST), Daniel Tompkins (TESSERACT) and Björn Strid (SOILWORK). This release set EARTHSIDE apart from the hordes of bands vying for their own share of the spotlight and it didn’t take long for the anticipation to build, wondering what the next step would be. It’s fair to say no one, including the band quite expected an eight year wait for the follow-up but the journey to this point has been less than straightforward.
One of those hurdles was guitarist Jamie van Dyck being diagnosed with testicular cancer. “The hardest part was waiting to find out if I actually did have cancer,” admits Jamie. “My dad is a doctor and he was checking out my ultrasounds and he suspected that I probably did have cancer so that was an uneasy nights sleep waiting for the urologist to call. When he did call he basically told me there was a 98-99% chance that I did have it. I’ve probably made about 100 ball-related jokes since my diagnosis and it’s allowed me to deal with the whole situation. Uncertainty can be one of the most difficult things to process as a human. Knowing I had it and it was treatable was a lot easier to process. Just as we were making progress and getting good news that we were probably going to be able to salvage some of our upcoming European tour we were rocked with the unfortunate news about our good friend Danny Estrin (VOYAGER). It really puts life into perspective and we’re just grateful to be able to perform however, wherever we can.”
EARTHSIDE had every intention of following up their debut effort after a couple of years on the road, getting the record out there into as many hands as possible but Let The Truth Speak transformed into an undertaking that needed a lot of time and coordination to string together. “We were making jokes about releasing a teaser trailer about how long it took for us to release this record,” chuckles Jamie. “Einar from LEPROUS enjoys teasing us about it as obviously they are pretty efficient, releasing an album every few years and we were going to get him involved saying about how in that time they’d released Malina, Pitfalls, Aphelion and he’d released a solo album. We spent basically a full month touring the US with them and it was so sick to watch them play every night. The Congregation was fresh in our minds and we feel that it inspired some of the rhythm sections on the new record. We Who Lament almost made it onto A Dream In Static but we didn’t want to rush it and just shoehorn it into the record. We just ended up saving it for about another decade!”
One of the main reasons for Let The Truth Speak taking so much time was the sheer ambitiousness of the project as it continued to grow. You only need to take one look at the scale of personnel involved to realise this was not an endeavour which was to be taken carelessly. “There are a lot of collaborators on this record and I hope when people see that, that it justifies how long it took to complete,” explains drummer Ben Shanbrom. “This was a really big part of why it took so long. This record had such a wide focus and it was very ambitious to create something that was compositionally unconventional and making sure it all tied together from a production standpoint. A Dream In Static was a more introspective approach where we wanted to work with our dream ensemble of people in that rock and metal scope who our 16 year old selves would’ve been blown away by. This time we went for a more authentic approach with different styles and genres, slotting them into the EARTHSIDE template.”
Acquiring the guest collaborators for this release was far from a simple task for EARTHSIDE, particularly when the majority of musicians they had in mind either sadly couldn’t commit or had their plans considerably interfered with as a result of the pandemic. This led Jamie to taking a stab in the dark and leaving their fates in the hands of their fanbase. “I wouldn’t quite call it a moment of desperation but I reached out on my Facebook page asking who they would like to see us work with to see if we could discover any hidden gems who weren’t necessarily even in the same genre,” discusses Jamie. “We just wanted that X factor to transform our songs and take them to the next level. We got over a thousand replies and over the next six months I sat down working my way through the list, sitting down with my headphones or when I was on a drive looking for that spark or potential in collaboration.”
“We really wanted to pick out some talents that we think are insanely beautiful and remarkable and that a lot of people probably haven’t heard of before and there was no clear cut path to doing that,” added Ben. “With a lot of perseverance we made it work and now people get to discover these musicians and fall in love with not just what they have contributed to EARTHSIDE but what they have achieved in their own merit.”
“We turned a potential obstacle in not finding a lead singer who we felt was ‘the one’ and turned into an opportunity to work with a whole host of different people,” confirms Jamie. “It is still a bit more difficult when we’re touring but when we do finally get everyone who contributed in one place for a show that will be really special. We gave AJ Channer a blank instrumental template and gave him free rein, Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh‘s vocals were entirely improvised and he gave us a selection of takes to choose from, Pritam Adhikary sang in his native language of Bengali which he doesn’t even get to do with his own band so there was a real sense of personal pride for all of us.”
“All these people from different ethnic backgrounds, races, continents, it really added a sense of gravity to what we have achieved together. Dan Tompkins wasn’t even on the radar for the second record because we kind of made this unwritten rule for ourselves that we wanted to work with new people but we soon realised that rule was bullshit and we’d love to have the opportunity to work with him again as long as it was a different approach to his feature on A Dream In Static. We were having sessions at like 4am in the morning, coordinating recordings with singers from different countries. In the world of hip hop there are guest features all the time and it shows that genuine sense of community and I think that rock and metal miss out on that level of collaboration.”
Let The Truth Speak is out now via Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group.
Like EARTHSIDE on Facebook.