Veer Union goes against the grain

“The one thing that’s the most important thing when I’m listening to something that inspires me is it has to have raw emotion — that you believe every word that’s coming out of the singer’s mouth. I think that’s what we try to achieve.”

Crispin Earl

The Veer Union singer

By JOHN BENSON

vindicator correspondent

Real passionate rock is what The Veer Union lead singer Crispin Earl promises music fans they will experience when the rock band makes its Youngstown debut Saturday at the Rock the Block music festival, which also features Halestorm, Burn Halo and Since October.

So far, the band’s recently released debut effort, “Against the Grain,” has garnered positive press, with its lead single “Seasons” being picked as the official theme song for “WWE Backlash 2009.” Earl said he’s set the bar high for his band, which formed in 2004.

“I think every artist has influences,” said Earl, calling from outside of Milwaukee. “I can sit here and name off 100 different bands but, really, all I can really tell you is the band that got me started into wanting to do music was Led Zeppelin. They made me go, ‘Oh, that’s what I want to do.’ But then there are so many different types of music that I listen to that don’t necessarily represent what’s on the record. I listen to a lot of Soundgarden, Pantera, John Mayer, Erykah Badu and The Beatles.”

He added, “The one thing that’s the most important thing when I’m listening to something that inspires me is it has to have raw emotion — that you believe every word that’s coming out of the singer’s mouth. I think that’s what we try to achieve.”

While The Veer Union is starting to garner some rock radio attention, it hasn’t been an easy journey for Earl, whose biggest credit up to this point was contributing a few songs to Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee’s solo effort, “Tommyland: The Ride.” For the British Columbia, Canada, resident, his musical career has been one big struggle to overcome pigeonholing based on the fact that he is black. In fact, the cover of “Against the Grain” illustrates the great effort Earl has put forth over the past decade. You better believe it’s personal.

“The cover of our record has a rose coming out of the ground with a burned-out city behind it,” Earl said. “What that represents is basically that rose should not be growing there. It obviously took a lot for that rose to come up through the ground and start life. Basically, that’s been the bottom line in my career so far. I went through a lot of times where I delivered music to record companies and they were like, ‘Loved the music.’ And they’d ask for an 8x10 [picture], and I’d send it to them and they’d say they don’t know how to market a black singer.

“It really took every part of my being to continue going and to say, ‘You know what? I know that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is what I want to do with my life. So I don’t need a record company to tell me whether it can be marketed or not.’ So I went out there, busted my butt and, eventually, it came to a point where they came to me.”

Speaking to the idea of being pigeonholed within the alternative or hard-rock music scene, Earl said so far The Veer Union has garnered plenty of comparisons to Sevendust. However, Earl isn’t sure whether the similarities lie between their music or the fact both are led by black singers.

“I think people want to pigeonhole you as soon as they possibly can, so yeah I’ve heard Sevendust a thousand times,” Earl said. “And it’s funny, because the first time I ever listened to Sevendust was when I started getting the comparison. I was like, ‘Who is this band everybody keeps telling me I sound like?’

“So some people are just like that, and I’m not going to take any negative offense to it. Sevendust is a highly respected band, so to me I’ll take it as a compliment. I like to look at the brighter side of things.”