SEETHER guitarist/vocalist Shaun Morgan spoke to Detroit's WRIF radio station about the decision to title the band's new album "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum". Translating to "If You Want Peace, Prepare For War", the LP features 13 new tracks, including the first single "Dangerous", an animated music video for which was released last month.
"We had finished the album," Morgan said. "We got the masters back around about the 19th of February, so it's been done for a while. A few weeks after that, we had the shutdown, and I still didn't have a name for it, so it was kind of big deal. I was just coming up with ideas. I had a few ideas that I wanted to try out. There were maybe four or five on the short list, and I didn't really know which ones⊠They didn't really speak to me as much as when I came up with this one. I was just kind of going through the Internet and going, 'What about something in Latin?', just to be different, just for it to be different for us. So I basically found this. I love the 'Para Bellum' part. The whole made kind of sense with today's climate, and so I just settled on that for the name, because it just felt right. Basically, it's my kind of way of putting a time stamp on the year for me and for this album and for this band. I felt it made the most sense."
Asked if "Dangerous" is musically representative of the rest of the album, Shaun said: "I was kind of just writing for the sake of writing, and I wasn't really trying to restrict myself to any kind of boundary as far as what is SEETHER and what is not SEETHER. So, I just said, 'Okay, cool. I'm gonna write this song.' And it kind of just took on a life of its own. And it's very different to everything else, which is, I think, why the label kind of gravitated toward it for the single⊠I felt, and the label felt, and the management felt, that we wanted to do something that was different as far as the single goes, just because why not? We just said, let's try and stand out at radio. Let's try and make it something that people don't necessarily expect from us⊠For the rest of the album, there's definitely stuff that will be very reminiscent of what you know us to be, and I think you'll feel quite comfortable. It won't be, like, 'Oh, gee, what the hell happened to this band?' But I thought 'Dangerous' was an interesting way to sort of reintroduce ourselves."
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" is due on August 28 via Fantasy Records.
The "Dangerous" music video was created by noted Turkish director Mertcan Mertbilek, who has previously worked with SANTANA, Ray Charles, Ravi Shankar and Elvis Costello.
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" was produced by Morgan and engineered and mixed by Matt Hyde (DEFTONES, AFI) in Nashville from December 2019 through January 2020. The band is joined on the album by newest member Corey Lowery (ex-guitarist/vocalist for SAINT ASONIA and STUCK MOJO), Morgan's friend of 16 years, who also assistant-engineered the album.
Morgan and bassist Dale Stewart formed SEETHER in South Africa in 1999 under the name SARON GAS. The band released its first album, "Fragile", in 2000, and eventually caught the attention of American record label Wind-Up Records.
SEETHER has undergone several lineup changes over the years, with Morgan and Stewart remaining constant.
