Two Truths & A Lie: Underoath's Spencer Chamberlain On How A Joke About Taking Drugs With Fat Mike Turned Ugly

Hoo boy. Tell Uppy, the former emo, she’d have hardcore lord Spencer Chamberlain from Underoath on her future column, she’d aggressively flip her straightened scene kid fringe and walk away. But it’s true – Spencer’s our very first international guest on Two Truths & A Lie! After a few years apart, Underoath recently got back together and just this month, released their eighth studio album, Erase Me – a solid eight years since their last. It’s a bit of a fresh chapter for them. Drummer Aaron Gillespie’s back in the band for the first time since 2010, the band have publicly disavowed Christianity and being a “Christian band” and as a result, Erase Me has hit back with a renewed ferocity.

I’m honestly so honoured to have Spencer reflect on the band’s early years with me for this column, and I especially respect how openly and warmly he shared stories about the band’s tougher times, his drug addiction and even the moment he recognised he needed to make a big change in his life. You can’t ever take someone sharing their personal battles with you for granted – and I don’t.

Oh, also, for Australian fans of the band, Spencer did leave me with this little tip-off: "We’ll be there sooner than later."

Truth

Spencer: I have a story about after Underoath broke up, I had a really hard time, kind of… had an identity crisis? Of some sort. That sounds kind of funny or cheesy but you know, you never buy into who you really are. Like, ‘oh! You’re that guy!’ but when you’ve been doing the same thing your whole life and all of a sudden, a couple of your friends say they don’t wanna do it anymore, you’re just some guy that used to be in this band. When that’s been your identity for so long, I’ve been Spencer from Underoath since I was 18 years old, you know? Life got really weird. People started kind of treating me differently, in the industry. And even in bars I used to go to, people weren’t nice to me anymore? I was like, ‘oh! So you were just nice to me because of who I was? And now that the bands quote unquote broken up, you’re gonna treat me like shit!’

I don’t talk about this a lot or tell people about it a lot, but my gut instinct was to leave. I’m not from Florida where the band was based out of, so I decided that I was at a crossroads in my life and I didn’t know what was maxed out. Obviously, I was still writing music and touring under a different name and trying to work on other people’s music and writing for other people and all that shit, and I was just like, ‘I’m gonna leave! I hate Florida. I don’t belong here. All the friends I once had who were in this band, we don’t talk anymore.’ I just kind of had no family here, so I moved to New York which is another city I thought I’d never live in a billion years. And I moved there to just kind of disappear… and it really worked for me! I don’t know if you know in Australia how CRAZY New York is, I’m sure you’ve seen pictures or if you’ve visited…

Uppy: Oh yeah, but I love that about New York!

S: But it’s SO busy that you can kind of disappear? Because no one really wonders who you are or needs to talk to you, and there are so many people everywhere. I just kind of spent all this time writing music, listening to music and being okay with myself. In that journey, I fell in love with myself again, which was the start of me discontinuing the drug use that I’d been doing for – you know, I was a drug addict for like, 12, almost 13 years – and it wasn’t until I got to maybe the biggest party place there is that I got to be alone so much within myself and my thoughts, that I learnt how to love myself again. I learnt how to… be okay with myself. That was like the start of my journey and then the band getting back together and things in my life going in the direction I wanted them to go. There’s a story for you I guess – I moved to New York to disappear. I’m back in Florida now, because the band’s so busy!

U: That’s amazing, and how long were you in New York?

S: I was there for… about three years?

U: God, that’s a long time!

S: Yeah! It was. It was great. I love it, if you could own something there and not have to rent all the time and have a future there, I would have stayed, but it’s so expensive. You’re never going to own anything there and I came back to be closer to the band and the guys.

U: Where did you stay in New York, were you in Manhattan?

S: I was in Brooklyn, like Williamsburg-Bushwick area in Brooklyn and I loved every minute of it.

U: I went the July before last and we stayed in Williamsburg and yeah, it definitely feels a little less hectic than Manhattan. And where you can feel like, MAYBE, moderately, you could afford to live there.

S: Yeah, it’s still wayyy overpriced!

U: And then you moved back when the band got together again?

S: No, I was still there after the first couple tours. I moved back here in September, so it’s been recent. I stayed there for a while – I was still on a lease so I wasn’t gonna up and leave because the band was doing stuff again. We weren’t even sure at first if we were gonna make a record yet, so I came back when it made sense for me to come back, you know?

U: And how do you feel about New York now? Like obviously you were putting yourself in the deep end by moving there.

S: I love it, I actually miss it. I really really do. It’s a rad place [laughs]!

U: I guess when you’re in the thick of it, it really changes your perspective.

S: It really does.

Truth

S: The first paycheck I can remember [from Underoath], we came back from tour in 2004 with Coheed & Cambria, that’s the first time we all got paid actually. And it was really funny because I was living… in my friend’s PARENTS’ house when Underoath started touring. When we made They’re Only Chasing Safety, I was living in my friend’s parents’ house because he had a construction company, so he would let us come back and work because we didn’t make any money touring for a long time! The first tour where we DID [get paid], I remember I’m looking at Chris [Dudley], like, ‘let’s get an apartment!’ I was so ready to get my own apartment and I think that’s the first thing I did, was rent an apartment. I’m a huge fan of living alone – which is crazy because I’m in a band and we’re always surrounded by people – and I love personal space. I like to know where my things are, I like to have my room and it’s clean and I know where all my shit is. So the MINUTE I could move out – most people would be like, ‘what, FREE RENT!’ – but like no, I was OUT. It wasn’t even my parents, it was my friend’s parents’, and I was like sleeping on a bunk bed in the same room as this kid I grew up with. And I’m touring and we’re starting to sell out shows and like, 'what the fuck am I doing?!' It was a bit weird at first to be living at your friend’s parents’ house and touring with a band and coming home from tour in the middle of the night and sneaking in, and they had younger kids that were in like high school! It was so weird. But that’s where I was living when it started!

U: And how old would you have been then?

S: I was in my teens. Like 18-19.

U: And where did you move to, like what kind of apartment did you get?!

S: I don’t know! Me and Chris got an apartment like, across from each other. It was in Brandon, Florida which is like this random city, not even a cool city! It was where I met Chris, we both just got apartments there, like across the street from each other. I don’t know why!

U: It’s like… you wanted the space but not TOO much! [laughs]

S: Exactly! [laughs]

U: Any raging parties at that apartment? Any good memories?

S: Not from that apartment, the party years came way later! [laughs] For me. The party years definitely got out of hand, but that was later.

Lie

S: Okay, the story I’m sure people have heard a million times, is that Fat Mike [from NOFX] on stage said that he did cocaine with the singer of Underoath last night, and we ended up breaking up and going home from that Warped Tour in 2006 and everyone said it was Fat Mike’s fault. And in that fabrication, that lie did spiral SUPER out of control. I WAS kicked out of the band. I rode all the way back from Pittsburgh to Florida, which is like a 20-something hour drive.

U: Shit!

S: With no one in the band talking to me. And if they did, they were yelling at me. And SCREAMING at me. And the funny thing about that is, yes, I was already using drugs, I was already pretty into coke, but at that POINT… I wasn’t at my bad years yet. I wouldn’t do it on tour. So the fabrication was that I did it with Fat Mike when actually, he would tell you that I didn’t. It was a joke on stage. We were talking about it [before], and I was telling him ‘I do it all the time but not on tour,’ and he said, ‘well, do you want some?’ and I said ‘no, I’m good.’ And I wasn’t doing it on tour at that point yet. And that lie… the guys [in the band] didn’t know I was doing it AT ALL, so they kicked me out of the band for being into drugs and they didn’t wanna be around me, and that’s definitely a lie that spiralled super fucking out of control. They had to have some meetings and talks before they let me back in the band, it was such a ridiculous experience. Like, I’ve never dealt with something like that before. There was like an intervention on the bus, it was a big deal, man.

U: Oh my god, so what did Fat Mike think of all this? Was he like, ‘crap, I’m so sorry, that was a joke guys’?

S: He called me on the way and apologised and I was like, ‘oh it’s not your fault, man’. It was a long time coming. The band wasn’t really talking anymore and I was clearly into drugs, it was fucking me up a little bit at the time. I’d just kind of distanced myself from them, it was the breaking point and bound to happen at that point anyway. He was like, ‘oh shit! I hope this wasn’t my fault,’ and I was like, ‘nah, it’s not your fault’. It was actually our A&R who I sought comfort in at one point, he’s the one that came out and told everyone that yeah, I was using drugs and that’s reallyy why it happened, not about what Fat Mike said.

U: That’s just insane.

S: We figured it out, but it definitely took some time.

U: So later when you were using drugs more heavily, were they okay with that or was it just something they dealt with I guess?

S: No, that was definitely in secret for the most part. That was something I kept to myself. It was something I had to figure out on my own and I had to figure out how to not BE that person anymore. And that’s what takes time.

U: I love that you had that story just STRAIGHT up your sleeve, normally people are like, ‘oh, man. I don’t know about a lie!’

S: Oh yeah, we’ve got enough fucked up shit, it’s happened enough, so it’s no problem! [laughs]

Underoath’s Erase Me via Fearless Records is out now.

If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honourable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn@gmail.com.

We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.