FasterLouder.com.au > Australia's leading independent live music hub. Stock up on music and tour news, reviews, gig photos and idle gossip, or bitch to your heart's content in the forums.

The Unseen - a band many people might not have heard of yet in Australia but I assure you that if you’re into punk with a ‘speak out’ attitude, then these guys will more than likely grab your attention. Before we go on, I’d like to point out that although The Unseen ”’speak out’ about issues, they are not a part of the sudden ‘boom’ of Anti-Bush punk. On the contrary, they’ve been around since the dawning of the early nineties and have released four albums among many EPs: Explode, So This is Freedom, The Anger and The Truth and their latest release, State of Discontent.

Mark, was at first the drummer of The Unseen and soon shifted from backing vocals to lead. According to Mark, the quartet were “the only punks” in their town; So it’s not at all a coincidence that these guys came together to share their love of music and voicing opinions. During their early days, these guys went through member dismissals and changes, which in the end helped them evolve into the sensation that loyal fans have come to know and love.

However, this band’s success isn’t based on a fairy tale rise to stardom, they spent years making their demos and getting booked nationally before they caught the attention of bands like Rancid (who are taking The Unseen along for their UK tour later this year), Anti-Flag, The Drop-kick Murphy’s and AFI. Mark describes the band’s rise to success as a “goal meeting process” and stresses that “in the punk industry, bands help each other out… it’s not always a case of being at the right place at the right time”.

Since music is constantly changing and so is the specific genre’s popularity, how do The Unseen feel they’ve contributed to ‘reviving’ the punk scene and are there any other bands they believe have helped it along the way? “Well, I don’t think it’s been a revival, the music has always been there but the popularity of it is constantly changing.”

So how does Mark and The Unseen feel about fronting an audience in Australia? “We never thought we’d even get to go to Australia so we don’t know what to expect. In terms of the turn out being big or small or whether or not they will know any of our songs.” Was there any particular reason for the underestimation of traveling this far south? “We never really thought about going to Australia until about I’d say maybe a year and a half, two years ago, when we started hearing good things from some friends of ours… At first we never thought we’d get a chance to do it because of financial issues and because Australia was just so far away. But when we signed up with HellCat Records a lot of things started to change for us. You know like a lot more press opportunities, a lot more touring opportunities and one of the things that came up was Australia, and when we got the offer and the chance to do it we jumped at it.”

Now, will The Unseen be making a special effort to go sight seeing if they have time? Considering they never thought they’d head out our way? “You know what, When we’re on tour we don’t usually get to see much. But I know that on this tour we get a few days off and there are some days where we’ll be in the same place for a couple of days at a time.” So as far as anything in particular they want to see, or he wants to see? “I’d like to see the animals and the architecture you know just all that stuff.” It’ll be a sight to see when Mark and his mohawk come face to face with a Koala.

However, all Koalas aside and getting back to business, although Mark and The Unseen know the perils of touring as do all bands, many reviewers have called their shows not only energetic but memorable. One has to ask, is part of the memory due to live improvisation or an amazing set list? “We usually play most of the same songs every night, because there are certain songs we do that are better than others live, also there are certain songs people always want to hear. So I’d say every night we might change up two or three songs, but for most parts it’s a lot of the same songs.”

Okay so maybe it’s not the set list that makes their performances stand out, perhaps they do something that individualises them? “Not that I can think of, we don’t really have any freak chants or sets of cheers or anything like that. If there’s a good crowd then the show is always better. Just like if there’s a low energy crowd it’s not as great for us. In a way we feed off each others energy, it’s not what we do that makes the performance great, if the fans or the crowd are awesome then we are pulled into the atmosphere.”

If you’ve heard State of Discontent then you’ll know that the energy that the record oozes is pure punk. It doesn’t differ in an extreme way from their other releases under their old record label however it does feature an awesome cover of ‘Paint it Black’. So concerning new musical production does it mean these guys will be mixing it up more often or will they preserve their trademark style? “Since producing with HellCat Records we’ve had our friend Ken from The Drop Kick Murphy’s doing some of the producing. I mean we aren’t going to go techno or pop or anything, we’ll be pretty much who we were when we started because that’s who we are.”

For all you Unseen fans out there who are looking to interact with the band, (or get exposed to them) if you’ve discovered MySpace.com you’ve probably searched every band you could think of and tried adding them. Now log back on because The Unseen, have indeed set up a My Space: http://www.myspace.com/theunseen. The guys log on regularly to interact with their fans and post sneak previews of their new songs from their upcoming album (due for release next June 2007). If My Space is not your thing,  they do have a website http://www.unseenpunks.com.

Now for the important news, those of you wanting to discover the sounds of The Unseen, get yourselves ready because they’ll be hitting our shores in September. Below are the dates and venues so check them out!