INTERVIEW: Arron Carter – The Uncharted

Once and a while, you come across a band that have such a detailed goals, and such understanding of what they are creating, that they simply can’t not achieve. THE UNCHARTED are one such band, whose name itself is a declaration of change and discovery. Their debut EP Perspectives isn’t a pile of haphazard attempts at music, it’s a complicated record that hold heart and technical prowess to a high standard. The progressive metalcore septet have comprehensive notation on each song’s structure and narrative, and that’s without delving into the meticulous direction of the music itself. Clean vocalist Arron Carter spoke to us about the liberation of THE UNCHARTED’s genre bending sound, the dynamic of live performance and the personal experiences that led to the creation of their debut EP, Perspectives.

Firstly, for those who have yet to hear Perspectives, what can they expect from the record?

Arron: You can expect melodic, heavy music and emotional lyrics. Along with this, the vocals are a dual focus and this gives them a nice punch and counterbalance. There are a lot of orchestral layers and electronic elements which glue everything together. We have tried to take all the styles and ideas from genres we love, the music we’re inspired by, and incorporate them into something new. There is also a mixture of pace within the EP, it’s not just five ‘heavy metalcore’ songs. Peel away the layers and Perspectives is so much more than that.

As this is your first release, how was recording the EP for you?

Arron: We’d previously recorded a few singles, so we had a good idea of what to expect from the whole process. We spent a lot of time in the months before on pre-production, mostly due to the complexity of having seven members, a mixture of vocals, synths and orchestral elements. Recording the EP was a really positive experience for all of us – we all get on incredibly well so when we weren’t in the studio we spent a lot of our ‘downtime’ chilling out together binging on Netflix and eating copious amounts of junk food [laughs]. Working with a producer who is so fully invested and part of the process, who knows how to get the best out of you and your music is an essential element, and as a team, we produced something we’re all just so proud of.

The EP was engineered, produced, mixed and mastered by Daniel Kerr who has worked with a lot of names in British metal. How was the experience of working with him?

Arron: A lot of people had recommended Dan to us and there is definitely a reason for that. He is a master at his craft and is a perfectionist which is what you really need when going in on a project like this. His production knowledge is ridiculously good, but he is also extremely clued up with his instruments as well, knowing how to get the best sound out of them, what works song wise and how to make the songs the best they can be. We really clicked with him and working with him was really easy – it felt so comfortable. He knew what we wanted and how to get us the product we were after. We’d highly recommend him to other bands.

When writing Perspectives, was there any personal experiences that contributed to the overall narrative?

Arron: Each song has a very personal meaning to me and also to others in the band. The perspectives of the EP are all ones that I have personally experienced. Deathdrive is about feeling like life has no meaning, and essentially a nihilistic perspective on life. At many pivotal points in my life I have felt like this, and for me, the answer was to create my own meaning (Visions and Revival). Songs such as Catch 22 talk about existentialism. Reading a lot of philosophy, coupled with different life experiences, had led me down many rabbit holes, in regard to what life is, what it means, and my purpose in life. The idea of Catch 22 is feeling like no matter what action you take you are damned. ‘Half Light’ was the idea of speaking your truth at all costs, something that has become harder to do these days and anyone who has had to silence themselves will relate to it. It’s essentially a song about freedom of speech and individualism. Horizon is about finding meaning in life and deciding on a path to follow. As you can see these concepts are relatable and common experiences people have.

Alternatively, does writing about an unknown character’s perspective give you all detachment to write something bigger than yourselves?

Arron: I think it’s very difficult to write about something you haven’t experienced, and too much detachment is bad. But having a subject through which to tell a story can allow for more freedom of creativity, it allows for more elaboration.

You combine a lot of genres in your music, do you find that liberating when you’re writing?

Arron: Yes, for us it means we’re not locked into a particular way of doing things. This allows for more creativity, which we think is important. We each bring different elements to the band and we feel this allows us to be more varied in our music. There are varied music tastes within the band group – of course, we all love the heavier genres, and the bands that we personally listen to have had huge inspiration, but we also bring in inspiration from the other genres of music we listen to.

Equally though, people do like to identify bands with genre-tags. So, how would you best describe The Uncharted to someone who has never heard of you before?

Arron: “melodic/progressive metalcore“. We have so many elements and the songs vary throughout the EP, that it’s quite difficult to pin us into one genre, but if we had to add genre labels it would be something like that. If you are a fan of anything that fits into those categories than hopefully, you would enjoy what Perspectives has to offer.

Technically, THE UNCHARTED have a big, complicated sound. How is that worked out between you as a band?

Arron: We tend to write in stages, so we add layers to the music as we go through. Having Aaron [Finch, keys] playing the orchestral and electronic elements really helps. A lot of bands just have this as a backing track element so these parts come in here and there. Aaron is playing these parts throughout the songs, which helps give us that ‘Wall of Sound’ vibe. Having two separate vocalists also helps with blending cleans and screams over each other, to add an additional layer of tonality.

The dual vocals add another big dimension your music, how did you figure out the tone of your voices?

Arron: This has been something that has come with time and working together for a while. We feel we complement each other incredibly well as vocalists and have a good counterbalance. We have had time to test and trial ideas in previous singles of how to combine both cleans and screams and interweave them throughout the songs, instead of just having blocks of just screams then a clean chorus etc, as this has been done a lot already. Arron takes most of his inspiration for the clean vocal elements from what he listens to, being a big fan of bands like TESSERACT and PERIPHERY. Same applies to the screams – Pete [Lee, harsh vocals] listens to a lot of different music from Metal to Grime, which helps with lyric styles and the flow of his vocals.

As well as being a heavy EP, it’s also emotionally weighty. What do you hope people will take from this record?

Arron: An inspiration of some sort. There is a way out of darkness and problems can be worked through and solved. Your life is worthwhile and can be imbued with meaning that you give to it. Being yourself and being true to yourself is one of the most important parts of a happy life. I hope people will listen and relate to the ideas and perspectives echoed in the EP and come away feeling better. We wanted this EP to be relatable to people. Obviously, the lyrics have been written as a narrative but this doesn’t stop people reading and perceiving them in their own way.

Concerning performing live, what is the energy like with all seven of you on stage?

Arron: We try to give off the most energetic performances we can. Sometimes it can be a little restrictive movement wise with so many of us cramped up on a small stage, and there have been many occasions when we’ve bumped into each other, although it can also make for some interesting situations, and a good opportunity for both vocalists to get on the floor and interact with the audience.  On the whole having seven members plays to our advantage as there is a lot going on visually on the stage all the time which keeps it interesting for our audiences.

What is in store for THE UNCHARTED for the rest of 2018?

Arron: We are playing Holloween at the end of October supporting OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME, LOATHE, IMMINENCE, ACRES, INVISIONS, THECITYISOURS, and LOTUS EATER in Southampton. It’s going to be our biggest show to date, and we’re honoured to be on the bill. All of the bands we are supporting are big influences on us so it’s pretty much our dream show. Mega grateful to the OHOH lads for inviting us to play, we can’t wait for it.

We have some cool ideas for video content for some of the other tracks on the EP and are also actively working on new material, taking what we have learnt from this EP and building upon it to make something even bigger. Hopefully, that will make an appearance in the latter half of next year.

We are also looking to hit the road start of 2019, touring the U.K with some of our friends in bands that we think are among some of the best in the U.K. at the moment.  Watch this space!

Finally, is there anything you want to leave our readers with?

Well, first of all, thank you so much for reading! We would love you to check out Perspectives if you haven’t already, which is available for download and streaming on all major outlets now, as well as available in physical form from our Big Cartel store. Holloween on the 27th is the big one, and it would be great to see some of you there!

Perspectives is out now via self-release.

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