If the best new music tends to catch you unawares, hearing metallic hip hop act UnityTX for the first time is like opening the door to a surprise party and getting a party popper to the face. The band’s mix of rap, hardcore, industrial and nu metal allows them to blend earworm catchiness and effortless groove with juddering, hip-stomping heaviness to exhilarating effect. Having honed their craft for the best part of a decade and lit up stages alongside the likes of Silverstein, Deez Nuts and The Acacia Strain, they’re now preparing to take on the world - and make a positive change while they do it.
“My whole motive was to open the door for kids who look like me,” says UnityTX frontman Jay Webster. “It’s alienating to be in a circle of people who claim to be outcasts but don’t accept you being there. And once you speak out on things like this, you start to get more naysayers - people are like, ‘Why does it have to be about colour?’ Well, because wherever you look there are no Black or Hispanic people!”
Jay’s chilled, philosophical demeanour stands in marked contrast to his band’s latest LP, Ferality, where his nailgun flow punches through the heaviness with ruthless precision. He admits the mixture of hip hop and heavy music has always fascinated him, ever since he first heard nu metal via Linkin Park in the early 2000s, which in turn lead him to the likes of System Of A Down and P.O.D.
“It made me feel like I could like hip hop and rock,” he says. “I could rap like [P.O.D.’s] Sonny Sandoval – one of my favourite songs was Youth Of The Nation because it was telling the story about kids who were from a not-so-good neighbourhood who went through struggles. That song gave kids like me a reason to exist in this space.”
Beyond onstage representation, Jay also highlights how ticket prices can be a serious barrier to participation and diversification - something that clearly strikes a chord given his own struggles with homelessness. “You get the people who are putting on shows asking an arm and a leg for tickets,” he sighs. “A lot of kids who don’t have shit in life might like this music but can’t access those shows.”
But if lack of funds can be a hindrance for artists and audiences alike, it’s also given Jay a hunger to push through, succeed and engage with communities who’ve traditionally been shut out.
“We were playing house shows and people’s basements,” he says of one of UnityTX’s earliest tours. “I hold onto that memory so dearly because it showed what the true culture is, especially for us kids from the grit who don’t have shit to our names. We were out there just fucking playing and having the time of our lives.”
Jay’s mix of hard-earned swagger and quiet inward focus is immediately engaging, and reflects the sheer ambition and thought that’s gone into his band’s sound, a fresh presentation of familiar elements that makes them kindred spirits with the likes of Zulu, Nova Twins and indie rockers Mint Green. These bands are mapping out their own terrain – Jay going so far as to suggest that we’re now witnessing an exciting “hybrid era” of genre- splicing and experimentation.
“It shows growth,” he says of the way these artists are blowing up. “I like the fact that you have these bands popping in a scene that doesn’t remind people of legacy bands. I don’t want to just work with metal artists. I’d like to work with EDM artists, rap producers...I’ve always wanted to work with Dr. Dre and Trent Reznor – my biggest influences.”
Hearing Jay speak, you get the clear sense that he knows his mind, his art, and where he wants UnityTX to take him. So for all this admirable confidence and ambition, it’s surprising to learn that Ferality was born of stress and uncertainty.
“When I first went into the studio with [producer, Andrew] Wade, I only had one song written and I didn’t think it was expressive enough,” he says. “I wrote [2019 album] MADBOY when I was homeless and going through the worst time of my life. But when it came to Ferality, I was dealing with a lot of stress. I felt like everyone was putting pressure on me, that I was constantly being pushed and expected to deliver with the snap of a finger. I felt like I was going more and more feral, man - I was so amped up all the time that I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.”
That sense of bottled-up tension – and its subsequent release – is palpable, and doubtless helped make Ferality as compelling as it ultimately is. Thankfully, though, it seems Jay’s now found some much-needed balance.
“I’ve slowed down and learned how to appreciate the little things,” he says. “Before, I was always mad at the world. Now it’s all about finding appreciation for everything - for the universe, for life, for existence, for yourself. Even for the people who talk shit, because everyone serves a purpose at the end of the day. I’m just a kid from Dallas who started writing music at the back of my grandmother’s house, and I’ve gone around the world with it.”
