Aside from making and playing music in the multi-platinum alt-rock band SEETHER, Dale Stewart’s first love is “going fast, whether it’s motorcycles or cars, sports cars, race bikes. I suppose that is my other passion, my other hobby, when I am not touring or playing guitar, I’m off doing stupid things in vehicles”.
Having sold over 5 million albums, SEETHER is the biggest rock act to ever come out of South Africa. From headline runs to festival appearances all across the globe, the band has accumulated an extraordinarily loyal fan base, and this is a band that ensures every single performance delivers their fans all they could possibly want. Stewart is excited about returning to Australia to celebrate the release of SEETHER’s 6th album ‘Isolate And Medicate’.
Stewart states: “We have not been to Australia in a long time so we will try to play as many songs that people will want to hear, and cram as many songs into the show that we can, and make it worthwhile. I love Australia. I feel at home in the culture, it’s quite similar to South Africa in a lot of ways – on a Saturday you grill some meat and drink some beers and watch the rugby. I just love it over there; being able to enjoy a VB and a meat pie. Nothing better than that”.
With over 80 million YouTube/Vevo views and almost four million Facebook fans, SEETHER’s powerful online presence is solid proof of their hard won, fiercely loyal worldwide fan base. Stewart states: “I’d like to think we’ve built a bit of a career for ourselves. [pullquote]”We put the work in and hit the road pretty hard so I’d like to think we will have a career as long as we keep releasing music and playing; that’s kind of our goal”.[/pullquote] You know it is such a fickle industry, the music industry, especially now with the way technology is, and people’s short attention spans, and all that kind of stuff. I’d like to think that over the years we’ve got a pretty solid core fan base”.
Stewart’s influences are varied and visible in his music. Of his influence, he says: “A lot of different stuff. When I was really young I guess I listened to what my parents used to listen to. Fortunately they had good taste; Bob Segar and The Silver Bullet Band, Gordon Lightfoot, Chris Rea, Cat Stevens and stuff like that. So that’s really what got me interested and enjoying music and then at about twelve, I started discovering bands like ACDC, Guns N Roses, Metallica and that kind of stuff and I suppose it just really spoke to me and I wanted to do that so I picked up the old guitar and learnt to play. Yeah I think Slash was a big part of me wanting to play, and be as cool as he is, one day. [pullquote]”There’s nothing worse than meeting someone you idolise and them turning out to be somewhat of a douchebag”.[/pullquote] I have met him [Slash] at a festival we were playing at. It’s kind of a funny thing to meet your heroes. It was a very brief encounter but he seemed like a very nice guy”.
With Isolate and Medicate, Stewart says, “I like this album a lot. I’ve grown to be pretty proud of this one. It follows a natural evolution that the music follows. If you go back to listen to 80s stuff and it is different but if you follow every album, you see how the music changes. I think every band follows a natural evolution. We’re older now so you lose a lot of the teenage angst. The music comes from a different place now. It’s just natural. There’s a few that stand out for me. One I really enjoy is a song called Crash. I love it because it is different to the usual stuff, there seems to be a certain order a lot of songs follow to make sense but Crash didn’t need that. I think in terms of challenging songs, the song My Disaster, which playing technically it is a challenging song especially on the bass”.
As for what comes next, Stewart is being kept busy in the industry he loves. The band are “now in the middle of touring, after Australia coming back, we’re doing a run of shows with Three Doors Down in the States and then planning to go back to Europe and then a South Africa tour maybe at the end of the year. So we’ll be busy right up until December. Then early next year we’ll be doing Ship Rock, leaving from Miami down to Mexico, they’ll be music drinking and partying for about four days. I think it is going to be a little crazy. Then a break and working on new stuff”.
Catch Stewart with SEETHER on their tour down under.
ISOLATE AND MEDICATE AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2015 proudly presented by Metropolis Touring and Tombowler.
TOUR DATES:
Monday 29th June – Perth – Capitol
Wednesday 1st July – Adelaide – The Gov
Thursday 2nd July – Brisbane – Eatons Hill Hotel
Friday 3rd July – Sydney – Metro Theatre
Saturday 4th July – Melbourne – Forum Theatre
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Limited VIP Packages also available
Isolate and Medicate is out now via CAROLINE AUSTRALIA
