Traverse City Record-Eagle

Seether Brings On The Hard Rock

TRAVERSE CITY -- As Seether's new album "Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces" readies for release in late October, front man Shawn Morgan has had personal tragedy and disappointments to try to find beauty in.

Yet Morgan, 28, who will play with his hard-rock band at Streeters in Traverse City on Wednesday, said the album was named before his brother jumped to his death from a hotel window and had nothing to do with his ex-girlfriend Amy Lee writing a scathing song about him and releasing it with her band Evanescence.

"I was driving home from a studio one day and it seemed to sum up all of the pieces," Morgan said. "It sums up a philosophy I'm trying to live by. It came out of nowhere.

"At the time, it was meant to mean take life's experiences that are often less than pretty and try to turn them into songs," he added.

The band canceled some concerts in August after Eugene Welgemoed, who kept the last name that is Shawn's real name, jumped from the window of a hotel in Rapid City, S.D., while the band was there to play a gig. He had worked for the band and Morgan said he didn't want to talk about it.

"My brother and I were very close," he said. "He was actually on tour with us, working with us. I'm planning on maybe doing an album in his honor."

Also, Lee has made no secret of the fact that her song "Call Me When You're Sober" is about Morgan.

"I might not have behaved like a gentleman, but I certainly didn't deserve that," Morgan said.

He doesn't plan to write any songs or make any statements in response.

"I decided it was best just to let that one lie," he said.

Seether has been promoting its new single "Fake It" heavily on the Internet and Morgan said response to the song has been about "80 percent positive." The band recorded two versions so the one designated for the public airwaves does not have to have a profanity bleeped.

Still, some fans don't think the band is seething enough these days, judging by Internet comments that it seems to have lost its anger, Morgan said.

"They're basing an album on one song and that's always ridiculous to me," he said. "It's supposed to be a fun song. It's not supposed to be nervous and angry all the time. We're trying to find beautiful things in negative spaces; trying to see the good in the bad."

When the band plays here, it will be a three-piece group rather than four as it has been. Lead guitarist Pat Callahan left the band in 2006.

That caused the band to somewhat change the way it works in the studio, Morgan said.

"We just decided to make an album for the album's sake, rather than trying to worry about pulling it off live," he said. "We just have fun with the album and worry about whether you want it to sound the same way live later on."