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My nineteenth birthday was one that I will never forget yet don’t really remember. I went up to Barrie to visit my best friend Katie in college and meet all her new friends. We celebrated my birthday all weekend. One thing I remember was her friend Kevin showing me a band called Funeral For A Friend. I remember the name because let's be honest here, it is a tad bit unusual! I loved them as soon as I heard them and when I got home one of the first things I did was go and buy Hours which was their current cd at the time. Hours quickly became one of my favorite cds and Funeral became one of my favorite bands. I was so excited to see them on the Warped Tour line up a couple years ago, but I wasn’t able to make it. I had wanted to see them for years. I saw they were coming to Toronto and I was so stoked. It was such a great show and I can’t wait for them to come back!

“I guess the whole song ‘History’ is about just giving the middle finger to the people who think you aren’t going to amount to much in your life at all.”
Matt Davies – Funeral For A Friend.

For our readers who don’t know who you are, could you please introduce yourself and what you do for the band?

Yes. I am Matt Davies and I do vocals.

You released Memory And Humanity last year, how have the fans responded and how do you feel about it?

I think so far, so good. A lot of the kids back home really, really like the record. It feels like it’s been out for a long time but it’s only been out for a couple of months. So for us it’s pretty much an old album already, but people seem to really enjoy it. There has been some really good responses, we’ve played the songs live. It’s been going very well. I love it! I think it might be the best thing we’ve put out to this point. I think it’s really a strong cohesive record that kind of puts all together the best parts of what we do as a band. And I love it.

You’ve received a lot of positive responses from press, especially Kerrang having won several awards. How does it all feel?

Um, I don’t really…It doesn’t make me feel anything really! (laughs) It is flattering to have people in those positions to write nice things about the music and I guess it’s neither here nor there. It’s really flattering but we don’t really take much away from it. we write the music we write and hopefully we like it and that’s the major thing that we try to do with our records is that we like it first and foremost and if other people like it then it’s a plus.

How does it make you feel to hear fans say that you’re their hero or that they have been waiting for years to see you live?

Um, kind of weird! (Laughs) I feel really goofy when people say that because I never know how to really react to it because I guess…I’ve seen myself in their shoes. So it’s hard for me to treat it as…I try to treat it as serious and professional as I can. It makes me feel really strange though! I feel really odd. But it’s cool that people are there that have been waiting for us to come and play shows because without those fans and without that dedication we wouldn’t be here doing what we do.

Being a band from the UK, coming over to North America and staying for probably longer than a North American band would stay in the UK what is the biggest challenge for you?

I guess maintaining a presence. It’s kind of hard for us because being, like you said, a band from the UK, we would only kind of play in the UK or Europe. Then we would play Australia and Japan. And in the US as well. So we can only dedicate so much time in one particular part of the world and it sucks because we would like to come back more often. Especially the US. We would like to play here a lot more because sometimes we’ve left it like eighteen months before we’ve come back around and it feels like we have to start all over again every time. So I would like to be able to come and cash in on the progress that we make when we come over to play. That’s probably the one thing I’ve noticed and that I kind of regret about being an international band, is we’re unable to make frequent visits to certain places.

So this one is kind of personal. I’ve been a really big fan since Hours and my favorite Funeral For A Friend song is History. And I was just wondering if you could tell me what inspired it?

To me that particular song at the time that we wrote it was a reflection on the kind of attitudes of certain people and friends of mine that they had when we were younger. They've resigned themselves to the fact that they weren’t going to amount to much. With their lives and with their careers. And I guess the viewpoint of the rest of the world is limited to some people, myself included at that point. I got into music and doing bands to kind of do something different. I wanted to kind of do something with my life that was against the norm of what my parents wanted me to do, or what friends expected me to do or what your teachers expect of you. So I got into hardcore music so I guess the whole song ‘History’ is about just giving the middle finger to the people who think you aren’t going to amount to much in your life at all. I guess for me, it’s a song about staying true to your dreams and following your dreams and not let anyone knock you down or get in your way of doing what you want to do with your life. No matter how stupid it seems to other people. I think it’s always important to follow what's in there (points to his heart) with a little bit of that (points to his head) yah know? I mean it’s like your own path is…you live your own life. What’s the point of living somebody elses’ expectations.

You recently started your own label. What made you decide to start Join Us?

Basically we kind of got fed up with people interfering with things we felt were so simple and it took about ten to fifteen people to solve a problem when it only needed one person. We always used to have to get people to sign off and okay things and it used to take forever and a day and it just felt like at this time in our careers right now we’ve got to just step away from that major label machinery and do things ourselves without any kind of…I guess anybody looking over your shoulder. We’ve always felt like that when we signed with a major label that we were always kind of like having to seek approval for what we’re doing. Yah know? We are the most stubborn band in the world. We hate when people try and chip in their attitude with what they think our music should be. We have made people at our old record label cry because of how stubborn we are (laughs.) So we thought right now with the way the music industry is going we wanted a way to be in control of our own destiny and have the means to distribute and write your own music. It simply can out of the necessity to do that. To be more in control of us as a band and what we do musically.

If you were in charge of the music industry what would be the first change you’d make?

I would get rid of everything!

(Laughs)

I would! If I was in charge of the music industry I would kind of look into ways to kind of go into the avenues where kids these days, where their mindsets are…I come from a music background where I love the product. I love the artwork I love the booklet. I would just kind of bring it back to that. I would kick technologies ass!

(Laughs)

I would bring it back to a time when people would really want to own a vinyl record player again. That’s what I’d do. I would bring back vinyl.

Jens Note: He gained about 600 awesome points for that one. Who doesn’t love vinyl?!

I would! Even though I like CD’s I think people would appreciate vinyl a lot more. Right now I don’t feel like people have the opportunity to appreciate music in general it’s so fleeting. It’s so instant. It’s balls! (Laughs) I don’t like the idea of music sucking balls. So I would take it back a step!

(Laughs)

We usually ask five random questions, but since you’re in a hurry I will ask you one of my favorites. If you were a scented candle what would you smell like?

Hmmm…Sage and Citrus! Because it’s always in my house. Actually no, clean cotton is the one! I have these candles in my house and it’s always clean cotton and there is like four or five. And I love them. They are just always so fresh! So I guess spring morning, as winter is breaking. It’s that kind of feel. So I like that one. I would be a very crisp scented cotton candle.

That is awesome! Thank you so much and have fun tonight.

Thank you! You too.

We would like to thank Matt from Funeral For A Friend again for taking time out of his day to talk with us. Check out Funeral For A Friend at their personal website, or their MySpace.