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www.kiwibox.com
11/1/2000
Unified Theory is a new group with the very soothing and longing tones preferred by many teens today. The group knows how people, especially teens, in today’s world feel, and they reflect that in their music.
All of the members of Unified Theory have had much prior experience with big labels. The drummer, Dave Krussen was the original drummer for Pearl Jam, and he has also played with Candle Box. Christopher Thorn and Brad Smith are former members of Blind Melon, and Christopher has also toured with Live. Just recently these guys finished up their tour with Live and Counting Crows. Kiwibox received an exclusive interview with the lead singer, and baby of the group, Chris Shinn.
When I called Chris Shinn up to do the interview, I went along with most stereotypes and expected to hear a rough voice. I tried to be as cool as possible. When he picked up, I was pleasantly surprised. He had a sweet, mellow voice, like everything was very cool. Even the fact that I had called a half an hour early was okay. The time zones had kind of messed both of us up, me being in New York, and him in Los Angeles. As I started talking to him, I noticed how excited he was to talk about Unified Theory.
Jasmine-How did you guys all meet and form Unified Theory?
Chris Shin- I met Christopher [Thorn] though a mutual friend while I was doing a band called Celia Green. Most labels would love my voice, but they didn’t like where it was going, but Christopher loved it, he loved my voice and everything. One day, my friend called me up and said “You know Christopher Thorn from the group Blind Melon? Well, he’s going to call you.” And, sure enough, right after we hung up, Christopher called me, and told me that he wanted to meet me. So an hour later, we got together to eat and talk about music. We hit if off really well, and the timing was perfect. The guitarist and my drummer in my band had just took off to play with Everlast, so I then left and went with Christopher [Thorn] for a week up in Seattle, and then I met Brad [Smith.] Within a week, we wrote and Cessna and Passive, and recorded them.
Dave [Krussen] literally lived in the same neighborhood as Christopher, and they had played in a band together. As a favor, Dave came in and played some of our songs with us. Dave was the original drummer in Pearl Jam and he played for Ten. Dave wanted to play with us however; Dave had just picked up a tour with Candle Box, and was unable. So the three of us continued to write music. Soon, though, Dave came back to us because he was really interested in our group. We were really grateful because he was the person we wanted originally. It just really worked out well.
Jas-What was it like touring with Live and Counting Crows?
Chris-It was amazing. Christopher, our guitar player, had recorded with them [Live] on their last album, and played his guitar. Right around the time that I met Christopher last year, he was in the middle of making that record with Live. They’re friends from years ago and they actually wanted him to join their band, but he declined because he wanted to do what we’re doing. He had done a short tour with Live, and played the Tibetan Freedom Concert with them, but his declining made it a lot easier for me to leave my band too.
Live has been the sweetest group to us. They have always said, from the beginning of our band, ‘soon as you guys get the record going give us a call, and we’ll hook you up,’ and they did. It was really cool though. There was this one time when I was standing on stage while they were paying, and Ed [Kowalczyk] pulled me out to sing in the intro for “I Alone.” That was amazing.
Jas-I was looking at your web page, www.unifiedtheorymusic.com, and I just wanted to say that it’s really nice. Are you in charge of the web page?
Chris-Well, it’s funny because one of my best friends who I went to High school with is a self taught web designers. He insisted on doing our website. It’s exceptional, we’re really proud of it. It’s won awards and everything. That gave this band life in the beginning. We weren’t able to tour directly after the album came out but we were still able to keep in touch with the fans through the site.
I really like talking about the website because we’re really proud of it. The Internet thing has been a big thing for us. Brad and I both are the big computer geeks. Every night on the road, we get to our hotel room and fight for the phone cord to send and receive email. I try to write every single person back who writes. It’s getting harder and harder to email people back, more and more people are writing to us. We also have some great hardcore fans who have been around from the beginning.
Jas-Well that’s great that you guys are actually the ones who answer your email.
Chris-Oh yeah, I would never have someone else answer our email. I’m not going to do that. I’ve had people write back and say ‘this isn’t really Chris’ and I laugh and say ‘What are you talking about, you emailed my personal address.’ It’s really funny.
Jas-Yeah, I noticed that you also have a daily journal on there.
Chris-Yeah, I have to update that. I really enjoy writing in it. Usually when I go to the site I go to get the messages to answer email while on the road. You can check out our new video online also. There’s a part of the website you can to go to and check out the video.
Jas-So personally, you really like the Fin song best on the album?
Chris-Yeah, Christopher, Brad and I took a trip down to the Bahamas and my dad was nice enough to let us go out in his boat down there. We had a great time. It was time in our lives where we were putting some closure on some old chapters and starting a whole new chapter of our lives, and Fin is definitely about that. Fin is the theme song. If there is a song on this new album to define who we are, it is definitely that song.
Jas-How was it shooting the California video?
Chris-It was cool. It wasn’t the band’s vision. Most new bands would not be shooting a video as soon as we did. Tom Shadyac is the president and owner of our label, and he’s a big film director he directed “Liar, Liar,” “Patch Adams,” and “Ace Ventura.” He’s a huge director, so he was able to pull some strings to get this video made. But a video wasn’t in our budget. We ended up paying for about a fifth of the video. He paid for all the rest. The catch was that we had to use a director that he believed in, which we thought was fine. It’s just a live footage rock video. It was shot on Sunset Blvd, which is also really crazy. But it was a lot of fun. I will never forget it.
Jas-So you have members from Pearl Jam, and members from Blind Melon, how do you deal with the expectations of the fans when they know this before they listen to your music?
Chris-Well, the majority of our fans have come from Blind Melon. We have been accepted graciously by these fans. There was a lot of skepticism on what we were going to sound like. But they were thinking of us as a continuation of Blind Melon, which we’re not, it’s a whole new band. A lot of people don’t realize it at first. Just because they hear Blind Melon, or Pearl Jam, they automatically assume, that it’s going to sound like that, but it’s not. We don’t sound like that. People ask what it’s like to try to fill someone else’s shoes; I’m not filling anyone’s shoes. I wrote half of those songs. Once they see us live, they’ll see what we’re like. We’re basing our success on touring. We have amazing crowds who don’t leave until the very last note, and they’ll stay and talk to us afterwards.
Jas-Very cool. So you plan on touring in the future, do you know who you’re going to tour with?
Chris-Right now we’re going to tour alone, and then in Texas we’re going to meet up with a group called Vast. We’re going to tour with him through October. We have a few more things coming up. The Meat Puppets want to take us out in January of 2001. Then we’re thinking about doing something with the Wallflowers. They’re friends of ours too. Then Live really wants to take us out after the Counting Crows thing, but that’s just being talked about, so we’ll see.
Jas-Well, good luck with everything.