Thursday the 2^nd of October marked a great night for the Scottish music scene. If you were in the Glasgow area and didn’t come along to the Garage that night then I have to tell you that you missed one of the best rock shows I’ve been to in a long while. With the remarkable “Thursday” headlining, supported by two very worthy acts in “Coheed and Cambria” and “Further Seems Forever”, the night was set to be “on the foshizzle my nizzle dizzle fizzle!!”            We were able to catch up with emo rockers Further Seems Forever at the show to ask them a few things.  

Void Avoidance: Who did your website? Starving Eyes!! Who in the band decided to go with starving eyes for the website cos that is just the coolest artwork ever?  

FSF Jason: Yeah its amazing right? Its actually a friend of ours. You ever seen that thing “emo game.com”? 

Void Avoidance: yeah 

FSF Jason: yeah well he did that. He’s just a friend of ours his name is Jason Oda, he’s from Boston. Uh we loved his artwork, he loved the band. We just sorta got together. He actually does all our t-shirt designs too.  

Void Avoidance: I saw the one with the “wummin” on the back. 

FSF Jason: do we have the one with the girl on it with the little flame things coming out? And the one with the big bird? 

Void Avoidance:

 I saw the one with the bird upstairs but I saw the one with the wummin on the website. 

FSF Jason: yeah we got a whole bunch more back home with skulls and all sorts a crap on them. They’re pretty cool. 

Void Avoidance: how does it feel for you guys to get out the US cos you guys have been touring there non stop for like three years or something? 

FSF Jason: its so fresh!!! Its so awesome! Like I’m so excited to come here. I mean I’ve been to other countries before but I’ve never been over here. I’ve always wanted to travel over here and to England and Europe. It’s funny cos the band used to be a band called Strongarm and they were supposed to come over here a few times. We were supposed to come over here like five or six times. Every time something happens and we don’t get to come over. It’s really like a blessing to be able to come over here and play and to play in fresh territory. Like you said, we’ve been playing in the states for what feels like forever now. We hit every state like five times a year or so. But yeah its awesome to come over and see the sights and try and understand everyones accents

Void Avoidance: We have really bad accents to understand!! 

FSF Jason: No, you have really good accents 

Void Avoidance: well I’m trying my hardest. 

FSF Jason: are you from Scotland?  

Void Avoidance: yeah but in America we would talk and nobody would understand what we were saying.  

Steven (void avoidance): aye man, I was ower there for a year talking all the time and nobody had a clue whet I was speaking about!! (in a broad Scottish accent)  

FSF Jason: What?!? 

Void Avoidance: AJ: yeah, like that!! I’m telling you, nobody had a clue what we were saying… 

FSF Jason: No no no, I went to subway today right. I figured subway…that’s very American…..I can go there get a sandwich…. That will be no problem!!! Dude it took like twenty minutes to order!!!! She asked me if I wanted salad on it and I didn’t know what that meant so I said “No I don’t want a salad” and she kept moving on. But then I was like “I’ll get some lettuce”. So she goes “you want salad?!?” and I was like “….no…uh..yes….” and then she put the lettuce on. Then something, I dunno the mustards called something different over here….. 

Void Avoidance: salad cream? 

FSF Jason: yeah that stuff. So you know its good to hear some culture and differences. 

Void Avoidance: What do you think your music can bring to the British scene? Before staying in America, I had never heard anything that had sounded like you guys. 

FSF Jason: I guess there really isn’t a lot of bands in the states that sound like us. I think we definitely have our own sound. But what we could bring to the British scene? Well that’s tough. I’m a huge huge British music fan! Like if you look through my cd collection it’s like, Radiohead, Coldplay….. 

Void Avoidance:I love Radiohead…. 

FSF Jason: Muse? 

Void Avoidance: yeah I like muse…. 

FSF Jason: I just got the new Muse record. I’ve been waiting to get “Origin of Symmetry” for like two years cos you can’t get it in the states. 

Void Avoidance: Its pretty good. Its so weird though cos I’m sure I got that album age’s ago in the states. 

FSF Jason: where!!!!? 

Void Avoidance: it was at some outlet mall… 

FSF Jason: I’ve been lookin for it forever in the states. I cant find it anywhere. See I bought Showbiz when it came out. Keeping up I know the records are out but to order them online over there is like forty five bucks or something. That’s ridiculus, I didn’t want to spend that much. So first thing I did when I got off the plane, me and him (pointing at a Brandon) went to a music store and bought both the muse records. 

Void Avoidance: that’s pretty cool cos I wouldn’t have imagined you guys listening to them… 

FSF Jason: yeah definitely, and like Sigor ros, Bjork…. 

Void Avoidance: you like sigor ros? This guy has got a good taste in music (to Steven who is sitting playing with his piercings) 

FSF Jason: I think me especially, but I think everyone in the band likes British music. Like Radiohead, I just saw Radiohead like two months ago and it changed my life. They’re like the most amazing band in the world!!! I dunno, even like Travis, I mean all my cds are like British bands so what we could bring to the British scene, I dunno, I think they got it pretty covered so far. Maybe a little bit rocking, but there are a lot of rocking bands over here too. The guy on our record label told us there isn’t anything that really sounds like us over here 

Void Avoidance: yeah there is nothing that sounds like you guys. I’m probably gonna ask this more to Steve cos he was in Strongarm. How do you think your music has progressed since being in Strongarm into “the moon is down” and then….cos I mean, “the moon is down” and “How to start a fire” are totally different albums too? 

FSF Steve: I think the music has definitely progressed and we’ve sorta gone into un-chartered territory and it’s just coming out of us which is pretty awesome. Its maybe stuff we typically haven’t written in the past but it still has little, you know, suttle trademark sounds here and there, but yet its grown I think as we continue to go on. 

FSF Jason: the new record’s gonna be totally different again I think. 

Void Avoidance: When you guy’s planning to go into the studio for that?  

FSF Jason: December!!! Yeah we’ll be in the studio in December and it will be out in the states in March or April or something. And we are gonna release it here at the same time.

Void Avoidance:  that’s good cos before we just couldn’t get any of your music over here.  

FSF Jason: yeah, we’ve been trying forever to get our record out over here and finally its coming out. 

Void Avoidance:  You guys aren’t traditionally a Christian band, you don’t play worship songs but you guys are Christians, you’re on the road a lot. How do you find you’ll keep on top of things spiritually? 

FSF Jason: well I guess I would go against one of the things you said. I mean it depends how you look at it because I personally would say that when we are on stage the songs we play are worship songs, to me anyways. I feel that when we play them live that’s a way of worship you know what I mean. And like we’ll pray before the set and when we’re playing its all for God and I believe everyone else in the band would say the same…right? Dad?  

FSF Steve: yeah!! 

FSF Jason: I call him Dad!!  

FSF Steve: we are not a ministry orientated band per-say but that doesn’t mean that ministry doesn’t still happen. Even in spite of ourselves sometimes. Yeah definitely, I mean, not just like the lyrics and the music, we are vessels and God has given us the gift to do it I believe.  

Void Avoidance:  What you got in your sandwich? 

FSF Steve: peanut butter and jam 

Void Avoidance: You described that when you are playing, that you feel as though you are worshipping God. Is that more to do with the God given talent you’ve been given or is that more to do with your lyrics or the way the band is or what? 

FSF Jason: I mean, I guess everyone can praise in a different way. We actually get ridiculed in the states because you know they have the “CCM” magazine over there, “Christian Contemporary Music”. And when our record came out, it had something in the review to the fact of like “steer clear of this record if you’re looking for like good wholesome spiritual topics”. And they have a rating system called “GPM’s” which is “God’s Per Minute”. We got zero GPM’s cos we don’t say God or Jesus in our music, or haven’t yet. We get ridiculed over there for not being “Christian” enough but on the other scene we get ridiculed for being too Christian. I mean, the way I see it, I’m a Christian, Steve’s a Christian, everyone in the band is a Christian. We are not necessarily a Christian band in the conventional sense I guess but everyone in the band is of faith….and…how am I trying to say this…..Steve, help me out here….. 

FSF Steve: We have a personal relationship with God

FSF Jason: Good job!!! 

FSF Steve: And the thing is, we have no problem sharing it either. I mean our music and our lyrics like to be thought provoking. So it’s like “Yeah there’s something different to this band” but maybe you can’t see it right off the bat. So you gotta dig in and sorta get to know us and get into the music. I mean sometimes we might feel led to say something on the stage, like Jason might say something but usually we don’t. and afterwards or before a show we have no problem obviously sharing our faith with someone who wants to know more about us.  

Void Avoidance: When you buy a further record and you take out the sleeve and read the words and on a lot of songs you start to wonder what they are really about. “A new dessert life” for example, its like man I wonder what that song’s about. What I wanna ask is, is any of your lyrics specifically about God? 

FSF Jason: Um I cant speak for the old record but for the new record, “I am” is about God, “the deep” is about God, uh, “aurora borealis” is about God, um….what other songs are on our record? 

FSF Steve:  “How to start a fire” 

FSF Jason: “How to start a fire” is not about God but sort of a Christian lift me up sorta thing. Basically every song has something, you see that’s thing. See that’s the thing, Satanist band write about Satan, Buddhist bands write about Buddhist. You know they go around their life and what they do is dictated by what they believe. And that goes for anyone, people without faith. So I think that just because I am a Christian and how I do feel about God and how I live my life, I think it would be impossible for me to write something that wasn’t from a Christian viewpoint you know what I mean? So you really could say that every song on the record and on “the Moon is Down” for that matter is written about God or for God or something like that because its coming from me and I am a Christian.   

FSF Steve: They could mean a lot of different things to people. I mean a lot of the songs on “the moon is down” were dealing with relational with other people but you could also commentate it to God as well.  

Void Avoidance: I’m sorry I don’t your new guitarists name….. 

FSF Brandon: Hey I’m Brandon, how’s it going? 

Void Avoidance: Doing good. How do you feel you’ve fit into the band? 

FSF Brandon: Well I’m the tour guitarist. Josh Colbert, he doesn’t go on the road cos he’s got a family and a job and stuff like that so that’s where I come into play and I go on tour for him.  

Void Avoidance: How did you get involved with that?

FSF Brandon: I’ve been best friends with our singer Jason of like 5 or 6 years now. We used to know each other back in Minnesota. We used to work together actually in a convenience store. 

Void Avoidance: Cool, I reckon that’s about it is it? Well we got one last question. For everyone reading this interview if you could say one thing what would it be? 

FSF Jason: Buy our new record and enjoy it. And not just in a listen to it every once in a while, but really enjoy it. Like read the lyrics, go to sleep to it a few times, meditate, do what ever it is you got to do. Hang out with it, just listen to it, enjoy it!! Then come to the show and sing along, have fun. I hope you like us and if you don’t I’m sorry but um….. I think that’s about it. 

FSF Brandon: And come hang out and let us know you’re into it. 

FSF Jason: Yeah, come hang out with us.  

FSF Brandon: We are a very humble band.  On that note we spent some time hanging out with these guys. This band is really awesome and real nice guys on top of that so you guys should check them out. If you haven’t heard them already, you don’t know what you are missing.  I believe they are hoping to get back over here real soon in the new year so keep your eyes peeled.