The Truth Is Out There

Almost a decade in the making, Earthside's second album, Let The Truth Speak, finds the band in fine form. Yet the story of its creation and subsequent release has been peppered not just with world events, but personal battles. Singer/guitarist Jamie van Dyck and drummer Ben Shanbrom discuss how they rose to the challenges of creating a bold and healing cinematic sound that defies all expectation.

The best laid plans of mice, men and progressive rock musicians can often go awry. When Prog speaks with Earthside, on the eve of their return to European stages at Euroblast in Germany and ProgPower in the Netherlands, they’re only a handful of weeks on from the news that singer/ guitarist Jamie van Dyck has been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Today, Jamie looks and sounds in good health and is less interested in bemoaning his lot than in enthusing about his band’s return to the festival circuit, and their absolutely colossal new album, Let The Truth Speak.

“We delivered the mastered album to the label in May, and then I got the testicular cancer diagnosis [in September],” he notes with a shrug. “It’s all happened very fast. It was as simple as just removing the cancerous testicle, and if it had healed up well enough I could go to Europe as planned. It did make rehearsing and preparing feel very last minute and very rushed. While I was recovering, I didn’t want to stress myself out too much, so we didn’t rehearse nearly as much as I think we would’ve wanted to.”

Jamie van Dyke

He grins broadly, clearly just happy to be back.