From its beginnings in South Africa to opening for Evanescence and headlining concert tours, Seether's ascent to fame has been something of a dream come true for the members of the band.
In fact, only by a stroke of luck did Seether get the opportunity to join Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin on its current tour, drummer John Humphrey said.
"We replaced Puddle of Mudd and started this thing in August," Humphrey said. "Because we'd been away from touring for several months, this tour gave us a good head start before our new album came out a few months later."
The tour proved to be so successful that promoters booked a second leg of the tour for early 2008, which is set to come to the Bryce Jordan Center at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The tour wraps up April 2 in Connecticut, and Seether will be back on the road April 8 to headline a tour with opener Flyleaf.
Humphrey said the varied musical tastes of the band's members shaped its sound.
"If you ask any one of us, we're pretty diverse," he said. "We have some things in common and some things that are pretty different. We all love the heavy stuff, like Pantera. For [vocalist] Shaun, his songwriting is heavily influenced by grunge, the Seattle sound. He's a huge Kurt Cobain fan."
Seether founding members Shaun Morgan (vocals) and Dale Stewart (guitar) are from South Africa, where the first three-piece incarnation of Seether was born.
"They relocated to the United States, but the drummer wasn't too keen on that," Humphrey said.
The band began searching for a replacement; Humphrey auditioned for the band and joined in fall 2003.
"The first thing that we did as a band together was recording 'Broken' for The Punisher soundtrack," Humphrey said. The success of the single brought the band national recognition. We began a full tour with Evanescence. We did 'Broken' with Amy Lee [of Evanescence] every night."
Coincidentally, the other two opening bands on that tour were Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace.
"We've had a lot of fun [with the other bands]," Humphrey said. "We get along really well -- no drama."
Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace both played the Bryce Jordan Center last year, opening for Nickelback. All three bands on this year's bill draw comparisons to the kind of "post-grunge" hard rock that characterized Nickelback's All the Right Reasons, the highest-selling rock album of 2006, according to billboard.com."I have loved Breaking Benjamin since high school," Katie Klinger (senior-elementary education) said. "After last year's concert at the BJC with Nickelback, I quickly became a big fan of Three Days Grace as well."
Despite the similarities between the three bands, each is distinct in its own way.
"I like Breaking Benjamin the most out of the three," Sean Sage (junior-professional golf management) said. "They have a dark tone, hard rock approach to their music, which I enjoy."
Humphrey said the tour brings a group of like-minded bands having a good time on stage.
"For a reasonable price, you're getting a lot of great bands who all have singles on the radio and a lot of good music," he said. "It's going to be a good time rock and roll show. We just turn things up to 11 and kick crap over."
Klinger said she is excited for the show.
"I'm a new fan of Seether, and I love their hard rock sound," Klinger said. "It will definitely be a new and exciting experience to see how well Seether performs with these other two amazing bands.
