Seether bassist Dale Stewart on new album 'The Surface Seems So Far,' fatherhood and more ahead of Pittsburgh show

Dale Stewart, the bassist for post-grunge veterans Seether, thinks there should be a calculation for “road years,” similar to the math surrounding dog years.

“It’s like, how old are you in road years? In road years, I’m 73,” he said with a laugh. “Going by the equation.”

In real life, Stewart is only 44, but hundreds and hundreds of shows would put him much older in “road years.” According to setlist.fm, Seether played 190 shows in 2008 alone, with the band’s total already surpassing 1,800.

“Man, those were crazy times. And those were just the nighttime shows. Oftentimes we’d go to radio stations and do an acoustic performance during the day,” Stewart said in a call from his home in Georgia. “So you go there, do four or five songs acoustic and do a meet-and-greet and then you do the show that night. So it’s almost like two shows a lot of those days.

“Those were really fun times looking back, but at the same time, it was really draining. That’s a big workload. But when you’re young, you can handle it. I think we’re all kind of middle-aged now, and you’re not quite as resilient as you were in your 20s, early 30s.”

That makes Seether’s upcoming five-week co-headlining tour with Skillet sound like a drop in the bucket in comparison. The tour, which kicks off Tuesday in Asheville, N.C., hits Stage AE in Pittsburgh on Monday, with Tim Montana and Royale Lynn opening the show.

Seether is touring in support of their new album, “The Surface Seems So Far,” which will be released on Friday. The group’s ninth studio album, which features plenty of raw but radio-friendly songs, has been ready for months, and Stewart can’t wait for the band’s fans to hear it.

“We’re really proud of it. I think it’s a great album,” he said. “I know everyone says that, ‘Oh, the songs are great. You’re gonna love it.’ But I really think it’s great. … You’re always kind of cautiously optimistic releasing an album. You’re like, OK, well let’s expect the worst, but hope for the best.”

The first single, “Judas Mind,” already hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart and sets the tone for what turned into a heavy album.

“We’ll kind of sit around and come up with lists of what we think should make the album, should make the final cut. And it just happened that a lot of the really heavy stuff made it. And like you said, it’s very much Seether. It’s not a big departure,” he said. “… I think we stay true to ourselves and just make the music that we like. We just make the music that we’d want to hear.

“It definitely sounds like us. It’s a little bit heavier. I think there’s a bit of a maturity to the album, a maturity to the songs. And I think that shines through. But it’s very much just a balls-to-the-wall Seether album.”

With the upcoming tour, Stewart is looking forward to adding fresh songs the mix of their hits like “Broken,” “Remedy,” “Breakdown” and “Fake It.”

“I love playing new songs. Some of these songs we’ve been playing so, so many years, like, ‘Fine Again’ and ‘Broken.’ We’ve been playing these songs for over two decades now. So we’ve literally played them like thousands and thousands of times,” he said. “And I still love the songs, and they have a very special place in my heart. But at this stage, the songs almost play themselves. But there’s almost zero thought that kind of goes into it.

“It’s just a muscle memory thing that happens. Have two double whiskeys, and the music just kind of plays itself,” he said with a laugh. “With the new songs, you could still screw it up.”

Although Stewart is looking forward to hitting the road, he’ll be missing his family, with a 2-year-old daughter and 10-month old son at home.

“So maybe it’s good that they’re little, because the little guy definitely doesn’t understand,” he said. “My daughter’s just starting to realize when I’m gone. She understands now that, oh, Daddy has to go to work.”

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Seether frontman Shaun Morgan, in a recent interview, said he was leaning into the “dad rock” aspect of the band since most of the members are now fathers. Stewart, who said the band has “a lot still be be angry about, angry enough to write heavy music,” said his perspective has changed after becoming a parent.

“You have a different outlook on life and a different set of problems and things to be concerned about,” he said. “We all have kids now, and now you’re worried about your kids, what does the future hold for my children and this and that. Having kids really changes you. I didn’t realize how profound of a change it would be.”

Stewart said there’s a different kind of satisfaction from playing live, something that just can’t be replicated.

“You want to get out there and do shows and get to where you’re on stage and feel that just from the crowd and the adrenaline rush,” he said. “And then that first song, you hear the people cheering and you see their faces light up and you play a song that you know that they’ve been waiting for. There’s just nothing that compares to that. And once that drug’s kind of in your system, it never goes away. It’s in there for life and you kind of mold your life around that desire for that feeling and for the music.”

With Seether’s tour for their new album just getting underway, the need to start working on new music isn’t there.

“Toward the end of this touring cycle, we’ll start thinking about new music, coming up with ideas,” Stewart said. “Being an established band now, you don’t feel the urgency of, ‘OK, we need to get an album out as soon as possible. We don’t want to lose that momentum. We don’t want the fans to forget about us.’ In the beginning, you can’t afford to not tour, you can’t afford to take too much time off to write.

“Whereas now we can take a step back if we’re not satisfied that an album is ready or that there’s enough material to make a decent album. … So not having that time crunch and that pressure, that definitely helps a lot.”