Funeral For A Friend

 
L-R : Jess and Gareth Davies 

Welsh quintet Funeral for a Friend are everywhere at the moment. They've made a name for themselves with their 'Four Ways to Scream Your Name' EP, 'Juneau' single and their most recent single 'Bullet Theory / She Drove Me to Daytime TV'. With their debut album 'Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation' coming out, the band took off on a huge UK tour (only 4 days after getting back from America). I caught up with them on the first night of their tour in Wolverhampton, and got to talk to the very nice but very tired bassist, Gareth Davies. 

Gareth: Check, check, 1, 2, check! I used to have the exact same mini disc and someone nicked it out of my car!
JWR Suzi: You probably know how to work it more than her then. 

I'm not too good at using it;it's the little thing going round, right? 

Yeah, it's going round, it's all fine! Wait, is the microphone picking up my level? Yes! Sorted. 

First of all, how are you and how was America? 

I am very tired, I'm still in American time mode which is 8 hours behind so I should be in bed. I should have been in bed about 4 hours ago but yeah, I'm fine. America was amazing, the venues were wicked, the kids were cool, all in all it was great. 

How was it supporting bands over there like 'Cave In' and 'From Autumn to Ashes'? 

Cave In were amazing, end of story. Their sound was just so thick and they're experts, they've been in the trade for a long time and they're really, really good at what they do. 'Every Time I Die' are our label friends out in America and they're really full on but the nicest guys you'll ever meet, Andy especially, the guitarist. He's super cool. From Autumn to Ashes are yet again an awesome band, they're good friends of ours. We've helped them out and they've helped us out. 

Did the crowds respond to you how you thought they would? 

Yeah, kind of. I mean, we still haven't got anything released out there yet. So when you think about it we're going out there with no one having a fucking clue who we are. 

Have you got plans to release over there? 

Yeah, there's a release coming out in 19 days time, the first 2 E.Ps are being released together out there. So it was weird to see kids singing along to songs that haven't been released yet, which is the joys of the internet. It's wicked. The kids out there who had heard of us loved it and the kids out there who hadn't heard of us seemed to enjoy it as well, which is awesome. 

Do you think you'll be going back to America soon? 

Yeah, definitely. It's in the pipe line that we're thinking of doing a tour next March / April time, which is when the album is released out there. There's talk of the Warped Tour but if it comes off, it comes off. It's not confirmed, for the record, like. 

What was it like being at the Kerrang! Awards? 

It was mental! Absolutely insane! Imagine sitting at a table and there's all the people you've ever idolised in music. We were sat at the front, where the stage was. You've got Metallica directly on the right hand side of your table, you look to the left and you've got Billy Talent and Blink 182, two tables across you've got System of a Down, and you're sat there thinking to yourself, "Why the fuck am I sat here?!" You can't make sense of it, you're sat amongst all these celebrities and it's just free drink all day long from the minute you get there. You get there at like 3 o'clock in the afternoon to a Champagne and Beer reception, you sit down at your table and there's like 6 bottles of Jack Daniels, 6 bottles of vodka, Jagermeister, rum, spirits, anything you can think of. Then there's the after show party where the beer's free all night again! And we won as well, so you can imagine the mess we were in! It was funny, we were just walking up to random people we'd never met before, like some of the guys in Metallica and just talking bollocks for like 10, 20 minutes. I can't even remember what I said to half the people there. I was watching the Kerrang! Awards back and right at the end when I'm talking to Justin from The Darkness, I can't even remember speaking to him, I was fucking wasted, I was absolutely shit faced! 

You seemed to think The Darkness were going to win Best British Newcomer. 

Yeah, why shouldn't they have? 

Did you talk to them about it, that you can remember? 

Well, we're on the same label as them, so I'd like to think there are no hard feelings about it. If they'd have won it, we'd have been perfectly cool with it. 

They won 2 awards anyway. 

Yeah, 2 out of 3 isn't bad, but 3 out of 3 would have been awesome, wouldn't it?! We understand, we've worked hard this year and The Darkness have worked hard this year, we've both done our own thing. Don't get me wrong, we're happy we won the award and we feel that we deserve it as well, but The Darkness have done well too. 

So you don't ever get the urge to put on a spangly cat suit and do what Justin does? 

(Laughs) Not very regularly! 

Would you like to? 

Depends how many drinks I've had! If you'd have said to me the night of the Kerrang! Awards, for example, "Put that on!" I would have. But no, I can't say I have, I haven't got the right build, or the right package if I'm being really honest! 

You've been compared to a lot of British bands like InMe, 

Have we?! 

Apparently! Do you see that kind of comparison? 

No! I don't think there's any British bands at the moment that sound like each other. Hell is For Heroes have got their own sound, InMe, I can't even tell you what InMe sound like. Do we sound like InMe, Ollie? 
Ollie the guitar tech: If I knew who InMe were, then I could tell you!
Never mind then! Sounding like InMe, fuck! They're nice guys and they're good at what they do and everything, but their music just isn't my thing. I like something a bit heavier. 

What bands are you into, then? 

Every Time I Die, I'm into my heavy shit, but I listen to a lot of Radiohead. I go from one extreme to the other, mellow stuff like Radiohead and Massive Attack, but I do like my heavy shit. It depends what mood I'm in. 

Do you have any favourite venues or places to hang out? 

Favourite venues, shit! I don't really give a shit as long as we're playing. It could be anywhere, it could be a fucking toilet in the corner of a pub! But my favourite venue in the country is probably Nottingham's Old Angel, it's so small and Nottingham kids love it! They just love music and love to rock out which is cool as fuck. But as long as we're playing, I don't really care where. I'm never in shock if someone says, "wow, you're playing in a venue this big!" I don't mind as long as we're playing, put me in the toilet! 

Have you got any obsessed fans yet? 

Yeah! One or two. 

Do they send you any weird things? 

They don't send me weird things, they just say weird things. I can't think of one off the top of my head. The weirdest one I ever had, she didn't necessarily say anything. We were just sat in the Old Angel, as it happens, just sat there eating food and this girl just appears and goes (puts hands to his face, with his mouth open wide) and just stopped breathing for like 30 seconds! All of us paused, like ready to take a bite out of the next piece of chicken, and she just says, "You're Funeral For a Friend, aren't you?!" and we were like, "Yeah." Then she just burst into tears! She just stood there and cried on the spot. We were just like, "Fucking hell! What do we do?!" (laughs) "We're not used to this shit! What's going on?!" Most recently, the day Thursday played in the Astoria, I can't even remember what day that was now, I'm that tired, but the show finished and I went outside and I just got jumped by about 10 people and the next thing I know I'm in the middle of the road with traffic going by either side of me, I was like "Fucking hell! What am I doing?!" But everyone's really cool, everyone's really nice, and we try and be nice back, even if we are tired. 

Do you get anything thrown at you when you're onstage? 

No, not really. Although, actually, I remember the last time we did a tour someone threw a bracelet onstage in Liverpool, and we were like, "bracelets, we like bracelets!" And the next thing we know we're just being fucking bombarded with them, they were flying at us in all shapes and forms! So we just picked them all up at the end of the show and put them in our bags and kept them all. That's probably the weirdest thing we've had thrown at us. 

What do you usually do after a gig? 

I sit down, have a cigarette, have a beer, chill out, and then go and have a chat with the people outside to say thank you for coming and stuff. 

Do you enjoy making videos? 

To a point! I mean, I enjoy making videos because I enjoy seeing the finished product, but the 16 hours it takes to film it is a fucker! It's a pain in the arse, it really is. It's just a really long, drawn out process. But thankfully, every video we've done we've been happy with. 

Who comes up with the concepts for the videos? 

Basically, directors just send in their ideas, and if we like it we go with it. We try and get as much input in certain things as we can, really. 

What are the best and worst things about being in the band? 

Best thing? Getting to travel around with my mates and play in front of people and enjoy what we do. The worst thing is being away from home so much, being away from family and loved ones and stuff, that's probably the hardest thing. And getting a £400 phone bill because you're phoning from America, that's what I came home to this month! But that's what I had to do to be able to talk to my girlfriend and everything, so that's cool. 

What have you got planned after this tour? 

We've got 4 days off and then we're off to Europe with Iron Maiden for a month, which is going to be wicked, it's going to be absolutely pumping, that is. Then I think we've got a month off at Christmas and then we'll see what happens after that. I need a break, I'm a tired boy! 

That's all my questions, thanks a lot. 

That's cool, thank you very much! I hope you can kind of make some sense out of it. I'm tired, still really fucking jetlagged! 

Thanks a lot to Gareth for tearing himself away from the many fans waiting outside their tour bus and coming to talk to us. The band were absolutely brilliant live, churning out track after track of deafening rock and keeping the crowd entertained all the way through their set. Their debut album 'Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation' is out on October 13th so go and check it out. You can find more info on www.funeralforafriend.com. 

Originally conducted for www.justwannarock.com