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Interviews

Below you'll find magazine interviews with the guys. All the info you need is right there. Enjoy the reading!

Guitar World January 2001 -Brian Stillman “Rebels With a Cause Union Underground” “ Surrounded as he is by dozens of octogenarians in an Upper West Side New York City diner (where would you conduct a metal interview?), Union Underground guitarist Patrick Kennison--with his bright red hair, black nail polish, and shiny chains--fits in like a nun at a Slayer show. It’s a fitting, if weird, metaphor for the guitarist’s current mission: Making his band stand out in the wake of metal’s current wave of radio oversaturation. Luckily, Kennison has found a decidedly simple solution: bring back the arena show. ‘I grew up on stadium shows and loved every one of them,’ he explains. ‘Then everything started to get watered down in the late Eighties, so that by the time the Nineties rolled around, grunge was a necessary evil. But now, it’s more important than ever to have a great big, noisy, out-of-control show. Give the kids something to remember.’ Union Underground’s major label debut, An Education in Rebellion, with its first single, the bombastic ‘Turn Me On (Mr. Deadman),’ is the perfect soundtrack to such an outing. Loud, abrasive and completely rock and roll, the album recalls the days of Kennison’s early influences--Motley Crue and Kiss--without seeming dated or retro in the slightest. Not only is Education full of the harder-than-hell production chops found in today’s best heavy metal, it also dispenses with the namby-pamby whining and self-righteous bullshit upon which some of the genre’s Kornier acts have built their careers. In its place, Education delivers a clear, thought-provoking message to any and all authority figures--parents, teachers, cops, record execs--that might be tuning in: Fuck you. For Kennison and singer/co-guitarist Bryan Scott, it’s a message whose time has certainly come. ‘Lots of musicians today seem pretty content to just stare at their feet and sing about what a bad childhood they had,’ says Kennison. ‘That’s all fine and dandy, but when I listen to rock and roll, I want it to be loud and slamming, and I want it to kick my ass.’ AXOLOGYGUITAR: Guitar Gibson Firebird, B.C. Rich Mockingbird AMP: Peavey 5150 CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Pantera-Reinventing the Steel ALL-TIME FAVORITE ALBUM: Motley Crue-Shout at the Devil

Guitar One December 2000 -Bob Gulla “Breakthrough Artist The Union Underground” “Onstage, Union Underground guitarist Patrick Kennison cuts a figure like a classic punk, with red-tinted hair spiked skyward and an abundance of attitude. With a foot on his monitor, a fist in the air, and a grimace for the crowd, Kennison is in your face, showboating the guitar-centric material of the band’s major label debut …an education in rebellion. Funny, though, he doesn’t play like a punk. With a keen ear for pointed countermelodies and shred-style fills, Kennison sounds more like Mick Mars than Johnny Ramone. ‘Hell yeah, I grew up with that stuff. It was my foundation,’ says Kennison, referring to the influence of ‘80s metal on his playing. ‘Shout at the Devil is my favorite album ever.’ It’s a day after a triumphant Union Underground show and Kennison is now tucked into a booth at a diner in front of a plate of eggs. His gnarly rock-star attitude from the night before is non-existent--stripped away in favor of a genial smile--and his red-spiked hair is tucked under a bandanna. Despite a brutal celebration hangover, Kennison, who shares guitar duties in UU with singer/boy-hood buddy Bryan Scott, stays focused and articulate. ‘I started to play guitar,’ he recalls, ‘when I first saw the ‘Looks That Kill’ video on MTV. I was in 5th grade, and that was it. I could play those solos and songs mainly by ear. I did take lessons shortly after that. I remember one of my first teachers couldn’t transcribe a Motley Crue song I wanted because he didn’t understand the tuning. The whole thing was tuned down a step. I figured that out later on my own.’ After he and Scott mixed it up with hair metal and cover bands for years, they moved on to shred. ‘I remember buying the Paul Gilbert video and learning every lick on it. It was fun. I had friends who went on to record a couple albums for Mike Varney of Shrapnel [Records].’ But Kennison and Scott never took the shred so far as to paint themselves into a corner. Then came Appetite for Destruction and the shred era, at least for these two, came to an abrupt end. ‘I remember seeing some GN’R concert on MTV, and you could feel the vibe, not just hear it; it was so volatile. And it had nothing to do with people shredding. The actual songs were memorable.’ And so Kennison and Scott changed their tune, opting for the more song-oriented approach present on …an education in rebellion. They disbanded their 80’s-style outfit and started writing songs that sounded like the future rather than the past. More important, they invested in a 24-track studio, and spent all their income (about $600 a week) on the band, making cassettes, distributing them, and accumulating adequate equipment. Word in and around south Texas started building. ‘Who in the hell is Union Underground?’ They ditched their original singer, leaving Scott to do the vocals, and Kennison as the sole guitar player. ‘Bryan kept playing guitar for a while, but we realized we doubled a lot of parts. Some of the songs like ‘Bitter’ were simple songs and there was no need for it. So I ended up getting a stereo rig; with certain effects it sounded so phat that Bryan just told me to play. He plays on only two or three songs now.’ With Kennison as the lone holdout on guitar, Union Underground arrangements underwent dramatic adjustments both live and in the studio. ‘Now I use stuff like a whammy pedal for weird little harmony things and a Lexicon MPX unit that runs with my preamp that goes into my Peavey 5150s. There’s so much stuff that sometimes it sounds like two guitars. Plus John [Moyer], our bassist, uses a guitar amp, and when I go into a solo, he turns on his amp for a real distorted bass sound.’ With the help of his 5150s, Kennison’s Gibson Firebird and B.C. Rich do the rest. ‘With the amp, I found out that you have to turn the treble back and you don’t have to crank the volume all the way up. My problem live is that I didn’t want to stop. In a studio, I can just overdub one part with my phaser pedal and overdub another part with whatever. I didn’t want to be a tap dancer live so I got the Lexicon. Now, when I plug my guitar into it, it sends effects to the effects loop, and it also sends the distortion and extra gain to the front of the amp. I also have a wah in my pedalboard, so I’m all set!’ Now, with …an education in rebellion climbing the charts, powered by the emphatic single ‘Turn Me On Mr. Deadman,’ Union Underground has at last pulled it together at a time when the climate is ripe for innovative, melodic hard rock. ‘The best compliment we’ve gotten so far was when someone said they liked the whole album, not just ‘Deadman.’ I’m a huge fan of great records, not just records with a single radio hit on it and the rest filler. I’m into records like Appetite for Destruction, Dirt, and Master of Puppets, records you can sink your teeth into.’”

Metal Edge January 2001 -Cathy A. Campagna Union Underground A Different Kind of Education… “There’s punch, there’s crunch, and when Union Underground unleash them both, even the devil loses track of the debauchery. Hailing from the state that gave us the not too pretty chainsaw massacre, the Texas quartet drag the frolicking rock demon frolicking back to it’s grimy underground, as their Columbia debut, An Education In Rebellion, is full of Patrick Kennison’s teeth-grinding strings and Bryan Scott’s sprawling vocals, which are laid out with the same allure as the Pyramids. The rebellion only grows scarier, but strangely inescapable, with each listen. In fact the Pyramids seem to be the perfect symbol to represent Kennison and Scott--coupled with the bag-of-tricks drumming of Josh Memolo and stone-throwing bass lines of John Moyer--since those multidimensional triangles in the middle of the desert may be densely layered, but their building blocks are nothing but pure rock. Each track on Education has crevices deep enough to fall into--‘South Texas Death Ride’ with nether-world tones, and the winged pang of ‘Natural High,’ to name a few. These unruly professors have made it clear that they are here to educate with information from the old and new school of metal, and will leave behind a legend in their wake. How can they fail when they’ve already commanded the touring attention of industry top dogs Papa Roach, and are versatile enough to support Marilyn Manson on his current tour in support of Holy Wood. Metal Edge caught up with Union Underground in New York City, where they elaborated on the sway of their sound, their musical mission, and the inside story behind their live visuals… METAL EDGE: What did you bring to the Papa Roach and hed (pe) tour? PAT KENNISON: They are great bands, and they do what they do really well. I’ve always said ‘It’s never what you do, it’s how you do it.’ We are very much straight rock-We are not rap, there’s no DJ. We probably wouldn’t do that well if we tried to put a DJ or rap in with our stuff. We are more straight ahead rock. It’s not a throwback to the ‘80s, and it’s not trying to conform to new ways, either. BRYAN SCOTT: We are a much rawer rock band than those bands. I think we definitely stood out at that show because we are more of a big rock show. ME: Performing live, how do you articulate the power and the dynamics of the record? PK: It’s funny you should say that, because we are a little opposite and backwards from the way most bands start their songs and then present them live. A lot are written first and recorded, and then we figure out a way to play them live. It’s a challenging process, but everyone says that we are heavier live. We take that as a compliment, that means we are more aggressive than the record, and the songs come up more aggressive live. We don’t sit there and try to out- anything on tape, so we sound like the record. It’s just a louder, rawer version, so I think that’s part of the charm. ME: Given that element, does the sound vary nightly? BS: Oh yeah, there are always times when stuff is more intense than the night before--or stuff is sloppier--but that’s cooler. Every night is definitely different, so it’s cool to see how things play out. It could be a complete f.cking disaster, or it could be awesome. PK: I call it ‘the volatile vibe.’ Our shows seem that way, and a lot of my favorite bands--growing up Guns N’ Roses Live at the Ritz on MTV--had a volatile vibe about them. We don’t try to do that, it just comes out like that, that’s part of the volatile feel. ME: Does the title of your album suggest that you guys are here--for lack of a better term--to rage against the machine, and a lot of the factory-produced music currently saturating the scene? PK: Yeah. Musically, from my standpoint, the album goes against the grain of what’s going on in music right now. There’s a lot of rap/hip-hop mixed with metal, and we are not doing that at all. And it’s not a power-pop record, either. So to me, in the industry, this album says ‘This is our rebellion, the whole vibe and the music of the band.’ Everybody that has the album and has seen us live says that we are sorely needed right now. People don’t want to see ‘80s bands. People are getting tired of pretentious bands flashing cash in their video. We are neither one of those. BS: We do stand out a lot from what’s going on, because we are just a raw, ass-kicking rock band. But it’s also about the lifestyle that we’ve led--separately and together--since day one. When we picked up Shout At The Devil, we said, ‘This is what we are going to do with our lives.’ And we completely lived out lived on our own terms everyday--Outside of the norm, the rat race, and what society expects of you. You know, ‘The way you’re supposed to lead your life,’ blah blah blah… We do whatever we want, everyday. That’s the rebellion--It’s just the rebellion against the norm, and that’s what we’ve always done and always will. It’s a tribute to our lifestyle. ME: You mentioned Motley Crue, what do you think of their latest CD? PK: As Motley Crue fans, it was really hard to accept Tommy Lee not being in the band anymore. Even though we are influenced by them, the reason that we say that is because that was our era--you know, when you’re in elementary school, Shout At The Devil was a big deal. I would be hard-pressed to say that any of our songs sound like Motley Crue, but the drive is there. If the ‘70s gave you KISS, well, the ‘80s gave me Motley Crue, and I love Metallica just as much. It’s the attitude and the power of it--When you’re in the fourth grade and you saw Looks That Kill, and the pentagram and all that, it’s time to rock. I think that Tommy has huge balls, and you can almost relate to Tommy when you read an article where he says he was tired of playing ‘Girls Girls Girls’ every night. He’s got big balls, but it’s hard for me because I’m a huge Crue fan… That’s like Eddie Van Halen getting out of Van Halen. Those guys are great, and I’m going to admire those guys forever, but that’s my KISS, that’s my Aerosmith. That’s what Motley Crue is for me. ME: You may have the influence of the Crue, but there’s an Alice in Chains tone in your sound. Were they a major influence on you? BS: Yeah. For me, that’s my hands-down favorite band of the decade. ME: What do you draw from them? BS: I was always drawn to the darkness and the mood of their stuff. It was awesome. PK: They were a dreary sounding band without sounding whiny, and a lot of bands whine today. It’s really cool to be tortured and whine, but that gets old to me by the time you get to the second verse. Alice in chains had great harmonies, and drew elements of heavy rock, Sabbath-influenced guitar, but they were still dreary, so they stood out from most of those bands for me. Too bad the end of the movie doesn’t look so good for them. BS: We are taking over where they left off. PK: Even bands like Godsmack—I think Godsmack is a great band. They are not an original band at all, but they are doing the Alice in Chains thing, that’s what makes that band sound good, as well. ME: Bringing up the topic of sounding like other bands, where do you think the line is distinguished between drawing from your influences and just ripping off your influences? How far can you go before you lose the originality? PK: The word originality is pretty hilarious. I don’t think they really mean that, because if originality was really part of the picture, Creed wouldn’t have sold any records. It goes back to, ‘It’s never what you do, it’s how you do it.’ So when I got into Motley Crue and Metallica, I thought they were original, but then somebody gives you a KISS record and then somebody gives you the new wave of British Heavy Metal bands. Originality isn’t always the deal—If you want to be original, play a jug and a harp—That would be original, but it wouldn’t sound any good. BS: I think if you take a song like ‘Killing the Fly,’ it may sound like Alice in Chains, and that’s an awesome band. And that’s only a compliment if someone would come up to us and say, ‘Man that song sounds like Alice in Chains’—F.ck it, that’s f.cking great! So you always draw from the stuff you grow up on and the stuff that compels you to write music. There are always going to be elements of stuff that turn you on. If it’s unoriginal, whatever, it’s either a bad song or a good song, that’s the bottom line. People that are buying your record don’t give a shit about that at all. They either like it or they don’t. ME: What are your touring plans looking like? PK: We are going to be touring for the next year-and-a-half easy, if things keep going the way they are. We have hit the small markets that people may have forgotten—on a personal note, they’re some of my favorite places to play. Everybody will see us, and everybody will participate in the rebellion, so to speak. BS: We have a few things on the plate now—It’s really early, so we are going to do more of these headlining club dates, then we have something slated with Marilyn Manson, and possible Pantera. PK: One of the problems that we face when we bring our production, is that a lot of bands don’t want you to upstage them or something, but it’s hard for us to do our show at a lesser value than what we want. Even kids that haven’t bought the record see us, and they get so excited about it. We get so excited about it, and we do it on our own terms. We are not willing to let that go—We’d rather play in front of 500 people with our show, than play in front of 5,000 people. ME: What can we expect from your production? PK: Without giving too much of it away, the live show looks like an education in rebellion—There is some imagery going on. People see it and say, ‘Wow, you guys are sorely missed.’ It’s not a circus act with masks and clown suits or anything, but it’s an in your face rock band and a little bit of sensory overload. BS: Yeah, we don’t get as theatrical as like Manson—he’s a little over the top as far as theatrics, but it definitely works. It works in any setting, and that’s what’s good about it. We always maintain that raw power beyond the extra goods.

The EDGE Magazines MELTDOWN October-December 2000 Issue #1 -John Santos The Union Underground Armed with their first national release, can The Union Underground take their show on the road? “’We aren’t rock stars,’ laughs Patrick Kennison, guitarist and founding member of The Union Underground, an edgy rock group from the rock n roll hotbed of San Antonio, Texas. We are sitting in a circle of dilapidated couches in the back room of the Mix, a local hang out for the music scene folks of the Alamo city when they aren’t playing or working a show. Along with Kennison are Bryan Scott, guitarist and lead vocalist for Union. Where Kennison is the happy-go-lucky member of the group. Scott is obviously the no-nonsense frontman, set on making sure that, though the jokes and laughs are freeflowing in this setting, Union Underground are for real. ‘Just look at his truck!’ laughs John Moyer, bassist and newest member of the Union. Josh Memolo, drummer, laughs along with the joke that is actually the small, beat-up truck that moves Kennison from point A to point B with limited comfort. ‘Yeah, anyone who thinks otherwise just needs to look at what we drive around town to see we are all pretty normal’, Kennison concludes with a smile. The Union Underground has been a fixture on the tumultuous San Antonio music scene since 1994 as the hard-hitting rock outfit it is today. With a sold-out local release under their belts (nobody in the band even has a copy to their names) and thousands of three song sampler tapes to their credit, the Union has certainly been the closest thing to rock stars as far as recognition we’ve had in these parts in dozens of years. An example: a few weeks into this project, the boys from Union graced me with an advance copy of An Education in Rebellion, the first national release for Union on Portrait Records, a subsidiary of Columbia. This, indeed, is a hot commodity for the local fanbase, for Union Underground has really been out of the public eye for almost a year, playing very rarely during the whole signing and recording process. I work at a local CD store in San Antonio, so as a test, I play some of the new CD on a Saturday afternoon. The reaction had to be seen to be believed. ‘Dude, is that Powerman (5000)?’ ‘Holy shit! Is that out?’ ‘Omigod, Omigod! Can I get that here?’ Who are you?! Where’d you get that!?!’ …and the best one… ‘I’ll give you $50 bucks for that. I can so get laid with that CD!’ The CD came out July 18th to a national audience that is chomping at the bit for new rock and roll that isn’t some supped-up boy band drivel. Union Underground has always been compared to other national acts that have been popular and received airplay. There have also been a fair share of criticism from our local community of musicians and artists who frown upon this direct correlation with the mainstream. ‘Some people look at the radio and say ‘That sucks! We need to be different!’’, Kennison exclaims. ‘We aren’t afraid of the radio, though. Obviously if the programmers are playing some of this stuff, then maybe someone wants to hear it! We’re just not scared! Go ahead and say we sound like this band or that. Those are bands that are getting played all over the country, so let it rub off on us!’ Truth be known, the Emo-core and sweater rock bands that are so against the success story that is The Union Underground are generally not around long enough to prove them wrong. Hundreds of bands have come and gone over the past six years, but Union Underground is the one band that has consistently played and evolved to the ever-changing music world both in San Antonio and across the country. In the Beginning, Bryan Scott and Patrick Kennison were a couple of high school guys looking to play some ballsy rock and roll. ‘I was putting vocals on these demo tapes for these singers to learn,’ Scott explains while sipping a glass of ice water. ‘I finally told Pat, ‘This is ridiculous! I’ll just sing,’ and so we started over.’ Scott and Kennison are the two centerpieces in the arrangement of Union Underground. There have been other members in and out of the band since their first real show, a Battle of the Bands at the legendary rock club Sneakers. In 1998, Josh Memolo joined Union Underground as their drummer. ‘It was all pretty cool,’ Memolo recalls of his leaving his then current band, San Antonio’s Ghodsonic. ‘I played in both bands for a long while, but it was pretty clear to everybody that I was going to be a part of Union Underground.’ There were no ill feelings in his final departure either. ‘The guys (Ghodsonic) were really understanding of my choice to move to Union Underground,’ Memolo adds. ‘the two bands are friends, and we’ve been supportive of each other since day one. There is still al strong friendship between us all.’ With Memolo now in place, Union Underground needed to nail down a bassist. There had been, dare I say, a Spinal Tap-like turnstile at the bass position, with no end in sight. ‘We even fired a bassist during our negotiations with Sony in L.A.,’ Kennison adds. ‘We had to kind of put one over on the label guys that our bassist was sick, when he was really on a plane home from California!’ With a deal with Portrait records within their grasps, Union Underground was now in search of their own personal missing link. Enter dread-locked bass hammer John Moyer, then of the Austin group Soak. ‘We were at the White Rabbit in San Antonio, just kind of hanging out looking to check out the (Soak) show,’ Kennison explains. ‘We see this guy walking around with the dreads, the leather pants, and I’m thinking ‘This looks like a pretty cool guy.’ Next thing we know, we’re all up front checking him out in Soak. We all thought he was perfect from the beginning.’ So with their choice made, all that was left was to introduce themselves, jam with him, offer him the gig and steal him from his already very popular group. ‘I couldn’t believe the balls on these guys,’ Moyer laughs. ‘We get off the stage at La Zona Rosa in Austin, and there’s this knock on the door, and somebody says ‘Hey John, there’s somebody here to talk to you.’’ After their first meeting (‘I had heard them already,’ Moyer adds) in the backstage area at La Zona Rosa in Austin, Moyer listened to the demo tape that Union had given him. He listened to it about a month later. ‘I had my band already,’ Moyer explains, ‘So I had no intentions of ever playing or gigging anything with anyone else. But, after listening to the demo tape, I decided to call them.’ Moyer was asked to come and jam with the band to see if he felt up to filling in on bass for an upcoming show. ‘the show was cancelled,’ Moyer adds, ‘But I was still pretty intrigued by the demo, so I drove down from Austin to jam with them and see what was up.’ What was up was the perfect chemistry that Union Underground had been looking for. Moyer then had a huge decision to make. Stay with the already popular Austin band, or move to The Union Underground? ‘It was kind of funny actually,’ he says, ‘Because other people were already approaching my other Austin bandmates asking about who was taking my place, and when was my last show! I really wanted to think it through for a while, but in the end, I think everything has worked out just fine. I’m happy with these guys.’ So with the band finally solidified, rehearsals began for the assault which is began on July 18th, with the release of An Education in Rebellion, their first ever national release on Portrait Records, a part of Columbia and Sony Music. ‘We had an awful lot of interested labels, both large and small,’ Scott explains. “At first it was mostly small independent (labels). That’s how James (Jeda) became our manager. He was working an Indie, but dug us enough to work us to other labels. He really felt our sound was too big for an indie to handle or push properly.’ Though it seemed inevitable that Union signed with Columbia/Sony (‘They shared our vision,’ Scott adds), other majors were showing interest. Interscope, Atlantic, and Warner all at some time talked to the group. But, in the end, the Sony deal was the one that would take Union Underground to the masses. Creative control was a big issue with the group. The Studio Underground, a recording studio the boys built here in San Antonio, was where all the music for their demos and their first album was recorded, and the band really had little intention of relocating. ‘They (Sony) actually wanted to release our local CD nationally,’ Kennison says with a proud smile. ‘We said ‘That’s fine, but check out this new material we wrote.’ They were blown away by the new stuff, so we got to cut it instead.’ (Ed’s note: If anybody would like to make a band guy’s life complete, please donate your original Union Underground CD back to the band. They sold every single copy, and have not a single one for themselves.) So San Antonio band goes to L.A. to cut new CD, right? Not even close. ‘There was never any pressure to work anywhere else but here (San Antonio),’ Scott says. ‘It was never even considered, really. They (Sony) thought it was cool that we were from San Antonio instead of Austin or Dallas.’ The end result is no minor feat, either. An Education in Rebellion is the CD that seems to fill the void in today’s hard rock heavy metal market. Rhythmic without being diluted, Education delivers balls to the wall rock and roll at breakneck speed. Certain songs just jump to the forefront, such as ‘South Texas Deathride.’ Sheer aggression and anger come to mind, not to mention the mental image of a swirling pit of humanity, chanting every word like its life depended on it, as is common at the over the top Union Underground show. This is somewhere between Powerman 5000 and Slipknot, with only the best of each taken into consideration. ‘Turn Me On Mr. Deadman’ is the first release from Education, an ode to the overstuffed, angst less rocker we have all become accustomed to seeing populate our sad airwaves. This song reeks of radio hook, with the battle cry of ‘Turn me on, turn me on, Mr. Deadman!’ ringing in your ears. This song is the modern rock version of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. Rock radio is definitely turning on Mr. Deadman, to the tune of 59 adds first week nationwide. Most songs are happy with 15 or 20. That means Union Underground is being pushed in major markets all across the U.S. Stations like KQRX in Sacramento, which broke Oleander, and WAAF in Boston, which popped for Godsmack, are giving spins to the little Texas band with the rock arena attitude. Rehearsals were ongoing until the 10th of July, when the boys headed for Colorado Springs for a show in a mid-size venue to pre-promote the release. Education was originally slotted for an earlier release date of May 16th, but was wisely held back in order to avoid the onslaught of new releases by the heavy hitters of the rock world (Pearl Jam, Perfect Circle, Eminem). July 18th was the official CD release show at San Antonio’s White Rabbit. July 19th was Stubb’s in Austin, and then there is no telling when the boys will make it back to San Antonio, or even Texas for that matter. ‘We don’t know where we are going to end up with this CD, so we can only cross our fingers,’ Scott concludes. ‘We got to play in Miami on July 23rd for a radio station gig that put us on with Stone Temple Pilots. We were really excited about that.’ On that note, we break from the backroom of the Mix. Another band is waiting to be interviewed, and the non-rock stars invite us to join them after that for the late-night festivities ahead, which include a bikini contest at a local bar. On our arrival, we find the boys sitting back in a corner with their new sound tech, who resembles techno artist Moby a little too much to ignore. There’s free beer and food, and girls all around. My editor and I try to get close, but there’s no way, and we are relegated to the patio bar, where we watch the festivities from a TV screen. The bikini girls prance in front of our local heroes, and being men, the guys eat it up. The host of the contest repeatedly announces the judges as ‘Sony recording artists Union Underground!’, which is repeatedly met by the cheers of the mob. They may not be rock stars, but they certainly are digging what they get. So now The Union Underground prepare to embark on another rock and roll road trip that will last anywhere from six months to two years. If the album sales are good, the band keeps touring. Like anything, luck will definitely play a huge part of this game of rock and roll Russian roulette.

No Cover April 2000 -Bushman The Union Underground South Texas Deathride Mutherfucker “The story goes something like this: Two kids met. Both love Motley Crue. They live in Texas and hate the standard. Together they envision a collision of sound and video. They spend a couple of years honing the direction both visually (with giant projector screens) and musically (they had songs recorded and done before they had a band together). After scouring the Texas wastelands for the perfect unison, The Union Underground was a functioning unit after the two childhood Crue fans, Bryan Scott (vocals) and Patrick Kennison (guitars) found kinship in Josh Memolo (drums) and John Moyer (bass). The band has opted to take some modest steps in keeping with their vision. They don’t play shows that won’t allow their two large video screens that display imagery that the band feels is essential for the full Union Underground Experience. This selective gigging process is the reason you might not have seen the guys yet (along with the fact that their album, ‘An Education In Rebellion,’ doesn’t come out until May), but the band will be doing some extensive touring this summer raising the question, ‘How long will The Union Underground stay underground?…’ Bushman: I’ve been listening to the advance 4 song EP—Is that all that’s available right now? Patrick: Yea, that’s the sampler EP. Bushman: ‘South Texas Deathride Mutherfucker’ Patrick: Yea yea, that one’s been getting a lot of reaction. Brian actually wrote the lyrics (he and I wrote the music). I think the lyrics of that song almost sound like a Texas anthem. Like get into this thing or step aside. Bushman: When I first heard that, I thought you might be labeling yourselves from Texas. Patrick: The only other band out of Texas that we listen to is Pantera. Bushman: So Brendan O’Brien worked on this album? Patrick: He only mixed. John Cologner was head A&R at our label. He worked with him on Aerosmith records and even all the way back to some band called Jackyl. Bushman: You don’t remember Jackyl? Patrick: They were that AC/DC chainsaw band, right? He (Brendan O’Brien) actually didn’t step on board until the end of the project to mix it. Bryan actually produced the whole record and I co-produced it with a couple other guys on some of the other tracks. Bushman: Did you have this material worked out before you got signed? Patrick: We had an independent CD that was just regionally released. We recorded that whole thing at our studio. Once we got the labels attention, we had already written a bunch of new songs in that amount of time. So what the album is, is half of the material recorded in our studio and the other half of the new songs we did in two different studios in LA. Bushman: How much has Texas affected the personalities of the music of The Union Underground? Patrick: It hasn’t much for u s. None of us are hillbillies or rednecks at all. As a matter of fact, we get a lot of shit from rednecks and hillbillies. So we tend to get along with New York or L.A. people better. We’re kind of out of place down here, but there is a few bands down here (San Antonio) that definitely have the capability to fuck people up. Bushman: ‘Interactive Video’ Patrick: When we play shows live, we have two huge video screens. We’ve got different sizes for different clubs. About half of the songs in our set actually have video footage that goes along as we are playing the song. We do that for almost every gig, which makes us a little selective on gigs. We won’t play a gig if they won’t let us do our whole, or at least 85% of our show. Sometimes the video footage can be anything from Charles Manson to weird underground independent filmmaker stuff. It’s just a little bit of imagery that sort of spells out our vibe to the audience. Not that it’s shocking; we don’t have Faces of Death on there. But it definitely gets your attention. Bushman: And what’s the feedback from utilizing such a medium? Patrick: It definitely hasn’t been gimmicky, because we only do it on about half of the songs. The rest of the time, the screen just has a huge logo of us. So it’s not like we do a bunch of overload. It’s almost like U2 in a club with music provided by Satan. Bushman: How did the use of that medium become such an important part of The Union Underground? Patrick: Me and Bryan (singer) have always talked about that. We always thought, ‘Man we need a video screen or two video screens and we could fuck people up with a cool video intro.’ And then we thought ‘Fuck it, not only an intro, let’s put it on some of the tunes.’ We don’t spell it out too much, but it definitely gets your attention. Bushman: How do you see The Union Underground within the context of the new marketable hard rock scene? Patrick: Well, we know the whole market is saturated, but the way we come off…I’d say we don’t pigeonhole ourselves into any one specific genre, but at the same time, we don’t ‘dabble’ in too many different styles. So we have songs that could be played on the radio, but live, everybody that has checked us out has told us that we come off real intense live. We’re definitely looking to reestablish some strong things in rock. All of us are influenced by big albums. Alice in Chains ‘Dirt’. We all grew up on ‘Appetite for Destruction.’ We’re all big Metallica fans. As far as going back to early influences, when Bryan and I first met, we were just total Motley Crue fans in grade school. We have no problem admitting that. Bushman: How long has The Union Underground been around? Patrick: Bryan and I started the band in about ’95. In the course of ’96 and ’97 we started to get a real lineup together in getting the drummer we have now. And it wasn’t until recently that we hooked up with out bass player who was from Austin. We had initially started out (me and Bryan) just writing songs and recording them in a studio. Almost like a Nine Inch Nails sort of thing. Studio first, then put a band together to match it. Bushman: What does The Union Underground have to offer musically or stylistically that no other band can claim? (aside from the video aspect?) Patrick: I would say we have songs that are going to be timeless (that’s what we shoot for). We try not to say ‘Hey, this song is big right now. Or this sound is doing good—we gotta put a keyboard in there.’ We grew up with albums like, ‘Ride the Lightning’, ‘Shout at the Devil’ and ‘Master of Puppets’ which, I think, are timeless records. We strive to produce timeless songs. I guess time will tell if they are, but that’s what we are trying to give everybody. Bushman: What’s the biggest problem our country faces in this new century? Patrick: I’d have to say mind-control. Media overkill. People just always assume just because they read things that it’s true. Or because they saw it on CNN it carries some weight, and that’s not always the case. Some cops were messing with me and Bryan the other day. And one of the first things they told us (just because we look different) was, ‘What are you guys? Some kind of Rage Against the Machine fans? You like that cop killer music?’ A few months back, the cops had been freaking out here because Rage played and they had a big deal over it. And I thought, ‘Those guys have never sat down and read any Rage lyrics to realize those guys are on to something.’ All they did was listen to their redneck buddies at the police station, or watch something on the local news and figured out that Rage Against the Machine were cop killers. Bushman: Where does somebody look for the truth? Patrick: That’s a good question. I would say to not only just take in everything that you see and read, but talk to other people who might know information about stuff. Definitely choose your battles wisely. Because you should choose your media findings wisely also. Bushman: What aspect of the music industry needs a slap of reality? Patrick: Labels need to not concentrate on developing a great record that just goes out to the public. They need to find bands that they can have careers with. The market is so saturated and people are so eager to get things in and out, that all they end up doing is selling themselves short and not having bands like Metallica coming out anymore. They need to concentrate on bands like that instead of just getting the flavor of the week. MTV doesn’t even show the whole video anymore. I think you get a verse and a chorus. Bushman: What does The Union Underground fear? Patrick: We fear sexually transmittable diseases. And the label that’s only interested in the almighty dollar. Bushman: Speaking of which, everyone kind of bangs on the music industry as it’s an easy target. And you are sitting behind a wall of promotion that’s about ready to unleash their thing on you guys. Being that you are in the rare position when your label is probably going to do you a hell of a lot more good (at this point, at least) than bad, what are some of the good things about working with a larger label? Patrick: I totally understand when people talk about the corporate thing, but there’s people like John Colagner, who is the head of A&R at our label. That guy is so in touch with what’s good for a band and still knows what can do good in the market. We thought we’d be up against a bunch of suits, but some of the people at our label come up with ideas. They helped us choose the sequence of songs on the record and how the record should open. I went into it thinking, ‘They’re not gonna fucking know. They’re gonna tell us to put the single first on the record.’ They wanted us to open un the record (which we are) with something we were going to use as a hidden track. It’s almost the way Korn opens their new album, ‘Issues’ with that little bagpipe thing. So it’s not that bad. Some of those people actually know what they are doing and got there because they make good calls. Bushman: Where does the inspiration for The Union Underground come from? Where do you draw your sound and mentality from? Patrick: Bands that really got us going were Metallica, the first Guns N Roses album, Alice in Chains, Motley Crue. Bushman: What’s coming? When are people going to get to catch your live set? Patrick: We’re going to start touring around May. We’ll have some warm up dates off the radar around here. We’re not sure of all the dates. We did have an Ozzfest offer, but decided not to take it because if you’re playing on the second stage, and you don’t have a million albums out like Godsmack, they give you a 25-minute slot, no sound check, and we couldn’t use our video screens. We feel like the album, coming out as good as it did, and the video production, we don’t want to sell ourselves short. We don’t’ want to come off as arrogant with that decision, but I’d have to say people would just have to hear the record and see the show, and then they’d probably go, ‘Ok, I get it now.’ Bushman: Who is a Sinner? Patrick: Anybody who is judged as a sinner. Bushman: Who is a saint? Patrick: The flavor of the week. Bushman: What is the coolest? Patrick: The coolest is the most timeless. Bushman: What is the lamest? Patrick: All the boy bands out now. Backstreet, N’Sync, and all those other bands who don’t write their own songs and have no idea how their next record is coming together. Bushman: Messages to the masses? Patrick: Brace yourselves and watch out because we’re definitely going to fuck some people’s heads up.

No Cover Feb. 2001 -Rob Quillen The Union Underground No Hidden Agenda, They’re Here to Rock “How many of us can wake up in the morning, or early afternoon, depending on your career, look ourselves in the mirror, and confidently say, ‘I am doing what I want with my life.’? San Antonio movers and shakers The Union Underground, fresh from a month on the road with Marilyn Manson, a few weeks with Disturbed, and the release of ‘An Education in Rebellion’ on Columbia imprint label Portrait selling nearly 200,000 copies to date have accomplished this goal and have plenty to smile about…of course, it’s probably more like a sardonic sneer. We do have reputations to uphold, you know. The soundtrack to the newly released Wes Craven production of Dracula 2000 bears a song from the Texas hard rockers and after a minimal holiday break they are back to work shooting a video for their next single release ‘Killing the Fly’ before hitting the road again in mid-January on the Sno-Core tour with Slaves on Dope, Kittie, and Fear Factory, Ozzfest looming in the summer, 2001 is going to be a monumental year for The Union Underground. Whew! Staying true to their mission, singer Bryan Scott explains the philosophy of UU in a manner sure to cause a twinge of jealousy with even the highest paid accountants who have had a momentary desire to sling on a six string and pour out their soul to an approving audience. ‘‘An Education in Rebellion’ is about living beyond the boundaries of society. Since I was fourteen years old, I’ve dedicated my life to this and I’ve never lived a normal ‘what you’re supposed to do’ life,’ says power screamer Scott. ‘‘Education…’ completely sums up the way we’ve lived for the past ten years. When I was a kid I always questioned everything and never took ‘because I told you so’ or ‘that’s the way it’s supposed to be’ for an answer.’ Giving up on lifelong dreams, especially in the fields of art and entertainment, is a common downfall for many young dreamers. ‘You’re not supposed to be doing this, you know what I mean?’ Scott continues, ‘You’re not supposed to be doing exactly what you want to do with your life and that’s what we’re doing and I’m completely proud of that. ‘Education…’ represents that whole attitude and philosophy that we’ve lived for a decade.’ One need only peruse the magazine rack at the check stand of any supermarket to know the perils and sacrifices made by those destined for glory. Not even Dennis Quaid gets a break with his woman although he hasn’t had a hot flick in quite some time. Scott clarifies, ‘We’ve obviously struggled for years. You sacrifice a lot of beautiful relationships you have with people, whether it be girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, relatives, because you’re so relentless in your pursuit that you have tunnel vision and you can block a lot of people out that you might ultimately regret, but it’s burned in your blood and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ He pauses, then hastily adds, ‘But we’re having a great time, man.’ Scott and bandmates Patrick Kennison on guitar, Josh Memolo on drums, and John Moyer on bass have been hitting the circuit as a whole for approximately 4 years. Scott and Kennison, together for a decade, have played in various forms of the band until finding the current chemistry the group now boasts. Landing a record deal with Columbia last year instantly led to bigger and better situations culminating on the now brink of worldwide success. Coming off the Manson tour, certainly one of the high points in The Union Underground’s career, Scott reflects on the experience, ‘Personally, I wasn’t a big Manson fan before we went out on the road with them, but I’ve gained a certain amount of respect, after being on the road, for what they do and what he’s about. He definitely has what he does down. Even if you’re not a big fan it’s a cool thing to watch. He works his ass off and he’s a very cool guy. Very generous, very down to earth. It was cool hanging with him. He came and hung out in our dressing room. He personally picked us to go on the road with him after seeing our video late one night on Return of the Rock.’ Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But being on the road with freakish stars like Marilyn Manson is sure to cook up some serious devilment. ‘Always the usual debauchery, you know,’ clarifies Scott profoundly. ‘We tore up the place in La Crosse the other night with Spineshank. We went out to some bar and it was complete madness.’ But what about the infamous Manson? ‘Surprisingly, on the Manson tour, it was pretty tame,’ he recalls. ‘They were out on the first four weeks of the leg, so they were probably warming up. I was waiting for the big prank, because Manson is known for pulling infamous pranks on opening bands, but we never got one. The biggest thing they did as turn our banner upside down and crooked one night.’ Watch your back boys. When prodded for juicy stories of backstage shenanigans, ‘I neither confirm nor deny those allegations…’ is the disappointing response. Sure, there’s plenty of time for that sort of thing, but a guy can dream, can’t he? ‘We had a mom bring her two 13 or 14 year old daughters with her, but she was more into it that they were. It makes you wonder what they’re offering up at the end of the night,’ muses the Underground’s steadfast vocalist. Could it be that with the speed and quantity of musical performers popping in and out of the limelight that the days of the panty filled guitar cases are reduced, or elevated, depending, to intellectual morality observations? But wait, that’s like progress. Get rid of it! It’s nice to see there remains a minuscule sub particle of hope for our race yet. Another impressive move on the part of the band was the recording of a majority of ‘An Education in Rebellion’ done on their own, in their own studio before the Columbia signing ever occurred. ‘Fortunately technology has allowed for that to happen. Home studios can now get better sounding demos that some commercial studios and spend way less money,’ Scott emphasizes. ‘What you’re paying for in the big studios is a lot of comfort, a lot of ass kissing, a lot of runners, food, and scenery, but when you’re listening back in the monitors its’ not much different that what you’re doing at home. Then you see the bill at the end of the day and go ‘Jesus Christ, we have to pay all that back!’ It could be a cool experience, but the money is insane! We like to show that this is something we can do on our own and it gives us more respect with the label.’ It seems to be paying off beautifully as The Union Underground prepare for the release of their third single with ‘Killing The Fly’ while their second is still smoking. And impress the label they have, as Scott explains, ‘Columbia is a huge label with Sony as their mother company, but we’re on a subsidiary called Portrait that doesn’t have a lot of modern rock bands so we definitely have special attention in that area. You have the Columbia money with the indie attention of being on an imprint.’ It also helps to have someone on the inside in your corner. ‘Our A&R guy is completely awesome. He’s been an advocate and crusader for us since day one and he makes sure we get treated well over there.’ But the industry is fickle and sometimes belief in self is all that there is to keep a young band going. The Union Underground have a realistic approach to the rock star environment and claim only to want to leave a small scar on the face of the earth and hope to stick around for a few years, if not forever. They are counting on the fans. ‘Props go to all of the Unionheads out there. They’ve been treating us so well, it’s awesome. There’s tons of love out here.’ And the numbers continue to grow as fans of the straight forward, in your face, hard rock movement set up camp for the long haul. Scott blames the new talent, happily, ‘I think a lot of bands are putting new twists on things and adding texture and levels to heavy music that hadn’t been around before. I think something our record has that a lot of bands don’t is that we have a really solid record. There’s too much reliance on the one song, or there’s two good songs and a bunch of filler usually. I’m glad to see that bands are starting to put together great albums. I completely grew up on ‘Appetite For Destruction’ and ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘Dirt’ from Alice In Chains, those are ‘albums.’ From song 1 to song 11 or 12 you can enjoy the record without using the skip mode on your player.’ Oh how I praise the CD making gods for their ingenious invention! The interview inevitably comes to a close as the band must perform a soundcheck before going on stage at a club in Lincoln, NE. ‘This place in interesting because during the day it’s a strip club and at night they have concerts. There are all the flying poles literally right next to the stage. We’re going to get some of our techs out there with g-strings.’ Sadly envisioning techs in the form of Bill Murray’s famous refrigerator repair man, I weep.”

Hit Parader May 2001 -P.J. Merkle Union Underground Heavy Duty “If you ask Bryan Scott if he always knew his band was going to be successful, the vocalist/guitarist for the hot new heavy metal group The Union Underground will probably just offer you a wink and a smile. It’s not an expression of arrogance or indifference, but rather one of supreme confidence—the look of a guy who just senses in his heart and in his soul that the music his unit is making is destined to make a major impression upon the world’s rock and roll masses. And judging by the kind of reaction provided the band’s debut album, An Education In rebellion, it would seem quite apparent that Scott, guitarist Patrick Kennison, bassist John Moyer and drummer Josh Memolo are well on their way to becoming impact players in the ever-expanding field of New Metal practitioners. ‘I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that we’ve always wanted to be a successful band,’ Scott said. ‘I know we’ve all just come through a period in rock and roll where it seemed to be un-cool for musicians to say they wanted to be big. But we’re not like that. We play ‘big’ music. We believe that we can be a really big band. But I don’t want to sound cocky or overconfident. We know how much more work we’ll have to do in order to really start making our mark. Let’s just say that we’re confident that we’re bigger than your average club-sized, two-thousand-seater rock band. But that’s the way we’ve planned it since the beginning. Even when we were playing in clubs, we were doing an ‘arena’ show.’ Well, while they may still be a few months away from playing any arena-sized gigs (though there have been some recent rumors about some very interesting ‘special guest’ offers coming the band’s way), it’s easy to understand the quiet confidence that courses through the veins of these heavy-handed rockers. But such an emotional response to their present lot in rock and roll certainly did not come over night for this San Antonio-based unit. In fact, it took the band’s creative nucleus—Scott and Kennison—nearly three years of hard work to begin to get anyone out side of the group’s immediate family to give the Union Underground a second look. Indeed, just finding other like-minded musicians proved to be quite a test for this aspiring duo. After they first started writing and jamming together in 1997, the two had cut a broad swath through the local rock and roll talent before finally ‘discovering’ Memolo and Moyer, who at the time were looking for a major step up from their current musical employment. While this fledging unit’s immediate goal was achieving some sort of recognition in their home state, they sensed that an on-going stint in the relative isolation of San Antonio could prove to be a major hindrance to their long-term career aspirations. So as the group rocked on, filling area rock hangouts, and gradually building a reputation as the hottest club attraction in the Southwest, they also started eyeing more expansive musical opportunities. At the exact same time, a number of indie labels were beginning to become aware of the Union Underground’s local appeal, and quite a few of these firms stepped forward then-and-there to offer the band a recording deal. But these guys knew right from the start that they wanted to shoot for the top, and only a major label contract would permanently draw them away from their Texas foundation. ‘We always wanted to be on a major label,’ Scott said. ‘But at that point in our career, the only people who were contacting us were guys from the indies. We really appreciated their interest, and one of those guys in particular took such an interest in us that within a few months he agreed to become our manager. Initially, he had come to check us out and sign us to the label he was working for, but after seeing us on stage, and witnessing the kind of reaction we were getting, he came to the quick conclusion that we needed a much bigger forum than his label could provide. He ended up working our demo tape for more than a year, and that’s when a major label stepped forward with the kind of attitude and the kind of support we were looking for all along.’ With their long-desired recording deal in their back pocket, and their road-tested swath of heavy metallic tunes firmly in hand, the Union Underground felt more-than-ready to take their act into the studio. There they began laying down the wall-shaking, hard-hitting tracks that comprise An Education In Rebellion, a disk that loudly and proudly serves as this unit’s rock and roll call to arms. And that clarion call has quickly been answered by tens of thousands of young metalheads around the nation, all drawn to the group’s cause by the Union Underground’s rough-and-ready sound and their no-nonsense approach. Such songs as Natural High and Revolution Man—tunes the band had already preformed literally hundreds of times in clubs—provide all who hear them an overwhelming taste of the power and passion housed within each note this group lays down, both on album and on stage. In many ways it does seem as if the Union Underground has come along at just the right time in rock and roll history. With a sound that blends the discordant harmonies of Alice In Chains with the melodic structures of Motley Crue and the cutting edge sensibilities of Rob Zombie, it’s clear that this unit is perfectly situated to carry the heavy metal form to exciting new frontiers in the weeks and months to come. But while they’re quick to acknowledge the impact that their varied influences had upon them, this quartet is extremely aware that this is the dawning of a new day in the heavy metal world, and they’re anxious and excited to be part of it. ‘Obviously, everything we’ve ever heard has had an influence on us,’ Scott said. ‘I mean at one time in my life, Motley Crue was ‘it’ for me. Then in the ‘90s, Alice In Chains emerged as the most influential band on me. Layne Staley had the most evil voice in the world. But even if we have a familiar sound here and there, I think the whole attitude of the band is very fresh and interesting. We’ve taken our influences, and added some new twists, and the results are all us.’”