● Original rock vibes in your latest release, well-done, guys! Tell me more about the band formation and the story behind the band name?
The band started when Alberto responded to Jeremy’s Craigslist ad, a drummer but he was looking to play keyboards in a band. Alberto and Jeremy hit it off on text messages based on their love for Rush. When they met in person, Jeremy brought his brother Matt, a bass player, to join the band. Jeremy ultimately decided that he would be drumming. So we had our musical trio, now we just needed a singer. We went through months of searching, countless auditions and couldn’t find anyone that fit the vibe of the band, along with having the right attitude. In the band, we call these “the dark days” because we were at a point where we didn’t think we’d ever find the right guy. One day, Alberto was invited to a work lunch with a few co-workers. We were five guys, but there was one guy he never met – Ben. During lunch, Alberto overheard Ben saying he was a lead singer in his band in the UK. Eureka! Alberto barged in on their convo, stopped everything and asked him about what he just said. Alberto invited him for a jam, and it was magic. A few jams later and we were complete. Now… the band name, another long and frustrating time. We just couldn’t think of anything for months. When we got our first “practice show” at a friend’s cottage party, we just randomly called ourselves The Mandela Effect. Scrapped that pretty quickly after. One night in a car ride back from practice, Alberto and Ben were talking about how we just can’t find a name. It’ll never be found… then the word came up “unfound”. The Unfound. We messaged the group chat this name and the rest is history.
● First, I am kind of curious, you’ve been more than two years, and I just found two singles only, may I know why?
So as you can see from our last answer, we had many months of no singer, no name, but we always practised every week, once-twice a week. We started writing songs but since we first met as a trio, it was around a year until we started playing live shows. When we finally had four songs together to record, we recorded them in our home studio, and it took many mixes and mixers to get it done right. There was a big-time period spent there along with the “singerless” months and no name days. We put a lot of work into our promotional work for the singles, including the music videos. The band is inspired by cinema as well, and Alberto is a film director as well, we strive to make the best looking videos we can. Thus the lengthy-time period for the production of these. For example, our newest music video for “Down South” took about a year to make! This was a combination of dealing with the pandemic, and also the fact the animation just takes a long time in general. But we are extremely happy with the results as we are with all our videos! All this being said, just gives an idea to answer your question, besides the delays with having no singer early-on, and the pandemic recently, we are working on a single-by-single release strategy and put a lot of work into every one of them!
● ‘Down South’ is your upcoming and latest release coming up on October 21. Tell your fans more about its topic and themes.
The song is our take on the classic “driving” rock song. The writing process started with Alberto’s riff, which immediately conjured up images of empty highways and hot sun, so the name ‘Down South’ followed quickly after. The song’s lyrics are about picking up and starting again, which is a bit of a rock n roll cliché but hey, it’s a great one! We all have songs that we love to blast when we’re on the move, and this is our contribution. Continuing with the theme from our very first video for ‘Sooner Or Later’, the animated video for ‘Down South’ is all about letting go, picking up and starting again, but the video also explores the obstacles in your journey to start again
● Although I haven’t found many releases, still, you are keen to provide melodic hard rock hits, is this planned during the songwriting process?
Our writing process is organic and everyone is equally involved in the process. We start every practice with a 15 to 20-minute jam to warm up, and this will usually start with a riff from Alberto, Matt, or Ben and it will take its journey from there into other riffs or just a continuation of that first idea. All our rehearsals are recorded so if we feel there was something cool in that jam, we will take it and start developing it to turn it into a first rough version of the song.
● I noticed that the ‘Down South’ video is graphic visuals only other than the filming style of ‘Monochrome’ and ‘Sooner or Later.’ Was this idea based on your vision for the song?
Because of the lockdown restrictions of the pandemic, it was difficult to get our usual team together for a music video shoot, so we decided to do something different. Alberto always had wanted to direct an animated video, so this was a good opportunity to pursue this. When we first wrote and even when we finished recording the song, we had no idea it was going to be an animated video. We only knew that we wanted to continue the story and themes that we developed in the music videos for “Sooner or Later” and “Monochrome”. The visuals matched the branding of the band as well, the modern, sleek, minimalist vision fits well with our black and white approach. We never planned to make this an animation from the beginning, but we took this opportunity and are really excited about how it turned out!
● Also, I am wondering, is it a part of an upcoming album?
Yes, it is. You can expect a full-length album in 2022-2023.
● Finally, thank you for the chat and tell us more about the rest of the 2021 plans.
We have a couple of more singles that we recorded right before the pandemic started, that we just finished mixing and mastering. These will be released in 2022 leading up to an album.
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