Disclaimer (Seether album)
| Disclaimer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by Seether | ||||
| Released | 20 August 2002 | |||
| Recorded | 2002 in Los Angeles, California | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 45:01 | |||
| Label | Wind-up | |||
| Producer | Jay Baumgardner | |||
| Seether chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from Disclaimer | ||||
| ||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Ultimate Guitar | 9.8/10[3] |
Disclaimer (Stylized as *DISCLAIMER) is the major label debut album by South African rock band Seether, released in 2002. It features three successful singles which would remain some of the band's most well-known songs. It is their first release under their current name after changing it from Saron Gas in 2002 to avoid confusion with a deadly nerve agent known as sarin gas.
Background and release
A great deal of pre-production took place in South Africa with supervision from a Wind-Up representative. It continued in New York City before the album recording sessions began in Los Angeles. Veteran session drummer Josh Freese filled the role in studio before an audition took place at Leads Rehearsal Studio. Among sixteen others, Nick Oshiro auditioned and joined the band in 2001. Seether would also enlist guitarist Patrick Callahan in fall that year after performing alongside his then-current band in Philadelphia.[4]
Disclaimer was released with ten different cover variations.[5] These feature images from the "Fine Again" music video with people holding signs depicting a negative outlook or a poor situation in life. The concept to implement it through the album cover was headed by the video's director, Paul Feeder. According to bassist Dale Stewart:
- "[Feeder] came up with the idea of the people bearing [sic] their souls and holding up the signs and we thought it was a good concept. It's kind of like a thread that runs through the whole album, the fragility, or whatever you want to call it, you know in people. People are always screwed up about something, even if they act like they're not."[4]
In regards to recording and single output, the band allegedly faced a considerable deal of label pressure compared to future albums. According to a reflective Shaun Morgan in 2005:
- "...With Disclaimer, we were still pretty green and all the say-so was made for us. We really didn’t have much and most of those decisions, I felt, were bad ones. Last time around we had a manager from South Africa. She wasn’t very good at what she was doing and she was letting [the record label] walk all over us."[6]
Shaun Morgan said, that "producer was shit, so recording the album was a long process. Producer would come into the studio on Monday morning, after band worked for the entire weekend and disagree with song's ideas. According to Shaun Morgan it was mainly because he owned the studio and made money every day the band were in the studio. Eventually, album took 3 months.[7]
Seven of the tracks that appeared in their previous album Fragile appeared re-recorded on Disclaimer. The seven tracks re-recorded for Disclaimer were: "69 Tea," "Pride," "Fine Again," "Driven Under," "Your Bore," "Pig," and "Gasoline."
Songs writing
"69 Tea" was the first one that Shaun Morgan remember writing. He said
"We’d written songs in bands prior to that. I mean, I wrote that when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. So for me it was like, wow, this is just me by myself and nobody else. I spent a lot of my teenage years just in my room playing guitar. I used to have tapes and tapes of songs that I would just sit and record. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all of them but luckily some of them would stick with me and as the years went by, I’d show them to different bands and some of them managed to sort of hang in there. But that was the first one I remember writing. That was actually our first single in South Africa, which basically put us on the map. That’s a pretty fond memory."[8]
He also explained song meaning
"Religion is not something that I talk about or that I care for people to know where I stand. In '69 Tea' there's a line that says, 'Save me smiling Jesus, get off that cross,' and that was overwhelmingly sarcastic. I wrote that when I was 16. It was something that was just there in front of me and that's the way I wanted to say it."[9]
"Fine Again" is about how you can be fine again after a break up. Lead singer Shaun Morgan wrote it when his parents got divorced to reflect how he was feeling at the time. He was in the middle of the divorce and going through a lot of pain.
At the age of 23, Morgan experienced heartbreak, which inspired the song “Broken” and the lyric, “Cause I’m broken when I’m open.” Morgan’s wife did not follow him from their homeland of South Africa to the United States, and chose to live in South Africa with their daughter. And thus Morgan feels he lost out on his best chance to have the family experience he always wanted. He explained
“I really wanted that family, and I really wanted to be part of that family unit. And I really thought this was going to be my nucleus and my happy place,” Morgan lamented. “Ever since then I have had a hard time feeling like I’m worth anything. And ever since then I have had a problem caring. I feel like this emotional desert.”[10]
He wrote the song called "Gasoline" in 5 minutes on soundcheck and automatically lyrics came out. It is a song about all "MTV's girls" and their fakeness.[11]
One of his earliest memories was his mother waving gun in his father face. He was locked up along with his brother in the bathroom. Later his mother eventually gave him a loaded 45 caliber gun in case of being in danger. "Driven Under" was inspired by these memories.[11]
Asked about the song called "Fade Away" he explained
“Oh shit... I think Fade Away may be one of the most generic, terrible songs I ever wrote. I can't even listen to it anymore."[12]
Shaun Morgan had a girlfriend, who used to be a prostitute, when she was 12-year-old. The song "Love her", which is on Disclaimer II album is about this woman. She was a "rich kid", Morgan also said:
“Think about it. If you were a beautiful woman, you can get anything you want from this world... and that's sad, because you have no talent other than your parents that fucking were pretty. There's nothing beyond that, I feel like nothing has changed. I wrote this song very long time ago."[13]
Musical style
Disclaimer gained comparison to grunge acts of the early 1990s, particularly the angst vocal styles of Shaun Morgan and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.
Touring and promotion
Seether began extensive touring in promotion of Disclaimer in July 2002. They performed alongside the likes of Our Lady Peace into the following year.
Beginning with the sorrowful "Fine Again" in fall 2002, a total of three singles were released from Disclaimer. The lead single was followed by a similarly melancholy "Driven Under" in early 2003 and finally the more aggressive "Gasoline" later that year. Each song also had a music video which gained substantial airplay on MTV2.
Track listing
All tracks written by Shaun Morgan and Dale Stewart.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Gasoline" | 2:49 |
| 2. | "69 Tea" | 3:31 |
| 3. | "Fine Again" | 4:04 |
| 4. | "Needles" | 3:26 |
| 5. | "Driven Under" | 4:34 |
| 6. | "Pride" | 4:07 |
| 7. | "Sympathetic" | 4:07 |
| 8. | "Your Bore" | 3:53 |
| 9. | "Fade Away" | 3:53 |
| 10. | "Pig" | 3:22 |
| 11. | "Fuck It" | 2:58 |
| 12. | "Broken" | 4:18 |
| Total length: | 45:01 | |
Personnel
Chart positions
| Chart (2002) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| The Billboard 200[14] | 92 |
Certification
| Region | Certification | Certified units/Sales |
|---|---|---|
| United States (RIAA)[15] | Gold | 500,000^ |
|
^shipments figures based on certification alone | ||
References
- ↑ Taylor, Jason D. "Disclaimer - Seether". AllMusic. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ↑ Cherry, Robert (September 19, 2002). "Seether: Disclaimer: Music review". Rolling Stone (RS 905). Archived from the original on January 31, 2009. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ↑ "Disclaimer Review". Ultimate Guitar.
- 1 2 Interview with Dale Stewart, Nick Oshiro, and Pat from Seether Archived 2011-10-03 at the Wayback Machine. (November 2002). Retrieved on 1-29-11.
- ↑ Seether (2006). One Cold Night (DVD). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Wind-Up Records.
- ↑ Perlman, Jason Interview with Shaun Morgan Archived September 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. Ferrante's Power Equipment (2005). Retrieved on 1-29-11.
- ↑ , THE STORY OF SEETHER | (2002-2017), 16 October 2017. Accessed 02 February 2018.
- ↑ Seether: South African Seattle, VH1, 16 January 2012. Accessed 12 January 2018.
- ↑ , VH1, 6 May 2013. Accessed 12 January 2018.
- ↑ , VH1, 12 May 2017. Accessed 12 January 2018.
- 1 2 , VH1, 11 June 2011. Accessed 12 January 2018.
- ↑ , VH1, 29 April 2015. Accessed 12 January 2018.
- ↑ , Interview with Shaun Morgan, 11 June 2011. Accessed 2 February 2018.
- ↑ "Disclaimer - Seether". Billboard.
- ↑ "American album certifications – Disclaimer – Seether". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH.