Up next as part of our Mood Board feature we spoke to Arron Carter, vocalist of The Uncharted about the books that inspired the story of their new EP ‘Perspectives’.
Brave New World & 1984
Two of the most famous novels on supposedly ‘utopian’ societies. The former dealing with dictatorship by pleasure, and the latter using state control and surveillance.
I read both of these books during and building up to the making of the EP and their influence features throughout. I loved the idea of an imagined utopia that becomes a dystopia once implemented, both of these books are essentially commentaries on communism and its failures. In Perspectives, The Narrators’ world is based in these ‘utopias’ and he is essentially a character like Winston in 1984 who has no freedom and no individuality. By the end he becomes someone who is unique and an individual, like the savage in Brave New World. Fortunately, for our narrator, his story ends in a much happier way.
Anthem & Atlas Shrugged
The idea of individualism is something very important to me. I read ‘Anthem’ a long time ago and it is a crushing short story, a world without an ‘I’ and no ego.
The narrator of the EP starts out as an imitator, a formless substance and a fake, a conformist through and through. Throughout the EP he becomes a person who can stand on his own two feet and who can live for himself.
While I don’t agree with many of Rand’s ideals, I believe we ultimately all want to become the best we can and that we have great power over what we can achieve and that we must live for ourselves (whatever and however that is).
Notes from the Underground and Nausea
The Narrator in Notes From Underground has a profound existential crisis that especially influenced the song in ‘Catch 22’. I read this along with reading Sartre who is quoted directly in ‘Catch 22’. I was strongly influenced by the idea of being condemned to freedom and responsibility in life. Dostoevsky has some of the most profound philosophy throughout much of his books and the main theme of ‘Revival’ is inspired by a passage in his novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’.
The Outsider & Metamorphosis
Both of these books are fantastic. Although none of the songs on the EP are specifically written with these in mind, I read them during and before the writing of “perspectives” and they had some influence, especially on the more absurd side of things.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Perhaps the greatest book I’ve ever read, my main copy is tattered and I have 4 in total. This book is profound and really urges humans to use all of their potential and become who they are. While Nietzsche was an elitist, everyone can take something away from this book with its call to discover the best that lies dormant within us.
