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Warped Tour at Tweeter Center in Camden, NJ

August 12, 2005

Interview with Gareth Davies & Ryan Richards

By Kristin

Eric vizion Jones- OK Here are two of the guys from Funeral for a friend. Introduce yourself and ask your ?'s.

Kristin-   Hi, my name is Kristin and I am doing coverage for bacstagepass.com. My first question is "How did you come up with the name Funeral for a Friend?

Gareth Davies- Um...Matt (singer) actually came up with it. He was a big fan of this song called "Don't Fuck with fire" So um that kind of song can catch the whole vibe of the band. At first obviously everybody said "It's a little bit grim isn't it? But it kinda stuck anyway.

Ryan Richards laughs "They got the name of it before I joined so I had nothing to do with it so...

Gareth- Isn't that terrible. laughs

Ryan- I learned to love it though.

Other journalist in the room- I only have one question, The inside of the CD it's got the girl in all different stages. Whose idea was that and why?

Ryan- We wanted the artwork to...um sorta refers to how time changes things. That was done a lot with the lyrics before we came up with the album title and uh And the way it started from the girl back in the 50's or whatever, you know innocence the way things progress over time and the final picture on the front with the bullet proof vest
and the...

Gareth- Shows the deterioration of...

Ryan- I guess you ask yourself the question is she the aggressor?

Kristin- For people that have never heard Funeral for a Friend's music- how would you describe it?

Gareth- Rock music. It's really diverse than one span of music, this record is a more diverse one and this is how we sound now and how we are- This record is who we are.

Kristin- How does Hours differ from your prior release, Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation? 

Ryan- I just think it's uh - I mean recording wise it was just a lot more honest and very raw. We wanted it to sound like we do live and we do love the first album but we didn't think it captured us uh what we are live and we really wanted to do that with the new one so that's how we recorded it. That way the songs are more...I don't know um there's more room to breathe on it. You know we weren't trying to crowd everything in and over do it. We just really concentrated on the songs and let them breathe.

Kristin- Terry Date produced Hours, how did that come about?

Gareth- Um...when we started thinking about the second album I think we asked ourselves "Who would we like to produce it. We knocked together this list and we put down one ridiculous one down and we knew obviously we were going to be turned down. I said put Terry Date down for a laugh. Two, Two weeks later he was confirmed and we were like "How the fuck did that happen?

Everyone laughs

Ryan- It was kinda like that and um we met up with him and knew if he could tolerate this band, he could tolerate anything and uh he just understood the band really well . He had the vibe we were looking for.

Kristin- If you were to put together your own warped tour, who would be the first band that you would call to get on the bill?

Gareth- I don't like segregating people um I don't let questions that could piss people off. laughs

Kristin- You can name a couple if you don't wanna...

Gareth- At the moment My Chemical Romance cause their guaranteed to sell tickets.

Everyone laughs

Kristin- what was the last song that got stuck in your head?

Ryan- Probably the one we're hearing now at the Amphitheatre of Hawthorne Heights.

Gareth laughs.

Ryan- The song Ohio is for Lovers


Gareth- I literally wake up singing it. My eyes open and I hear "Hey there I know it's hard to feel." I'm like "FUCK!"
I try to get it out of my system but it stays the day.

Kristin- How does life on the road differ form life at home, besides family and friends?

Gareth- A clean toilet! (Everyone laughs.) Um I like to call going back home the real world. When you go back home to the real world you gotta deal with the pile of bills on the table your going to have to deal with.

Kristin- Yup.

Gareth- It's a whole world of shit when I go home...basically. Laughs.

Kristin- What band are you truly digging right now?

Gareth- Hmmm...truly- A band called "The Receiving end of Sirens" I saw them for the first time the other day.

Ryan- I am really digging uh "Bedouin Sound Clash" their a great, great band. You should check them out today if you haven't missed them already.

Gareth- They have kind of a reggae, police vibe.

Kristin- Ok, Thank you so much for your time, and I can't wait to see you guys play later.

Ryan- Cool thanks, and enjoy the rest of your day.