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In the summer of 2008, (this past summer), I lived in a small town called Kemptville. This is a quiet, small town in the middle of a field. It has no bookstores, no art stores and no music stores. Which is pretty much all a girl like me wants. In this town, it's all about farms and pizzerias. So, in order to find good music you must take suggestions from your friends. Which is exactly how I found out about Four Year Strong! My friend Sam and I had like, this battle of the bands almost. But in the sense of like, trying to top each other's random bands. He didn’t like much of my bands. But I totally loved his suggestion of Four Year Strong. I was excited that they were playing warped tour, but then I got pretty bummed that it down poured and I could not see them. I hope you enjoy the interview. I was pretty much crying with laughter!

"A rainbow unicorn playing bass guitar."
Josh Lyford: Four Year Strong.

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

My name is Joshua Bo Lyford and I am the lead skinflute/human organ/synth player in FYS.

How was Four Year Strong started and where did the name come from?

Four Year Strong was conceived in the back of an 89 volkswagon golf parked down a dirt road, I guess before they gave us up for adoption they wanted to give us an old family name and our great uncle on our dads side is named four year strong.

What Exactly inspires your lyrics and is there one that has the most meaning to you?

A lot of different ideas come into play when Alan and Dan roll around in the hay thinking about lyrics, mostly candy, donuts, flowers and pecks on the cheek. Any lyric they write that leads to memories of them holding each other makes me happy.

You guys were signed to Decaydance in Feb, how did that come about and how do you feel about it?

I feel really good about Decaydance, both them and ISurrender have been amazing to us and I look forward to working with them as much as possible.

Do you have an ultimate goal for your music? Any things that you know you want to accomplish with it?

We've been talking about things a lot in the van lately, and really if we could just conquer the world and brainwash all the pretty girls into sordid love acts we'd be content. You know, nothing too intense, humbly spoken ideas workout the best in our opinion.

What other artists are you inspired by? What do you take from that inspiration that applies to your music?

The hilarious answer would be the keyboard player from Rammstien, but the honest answer would be just going to hardcore shows growing up and just seeing everyone going f*cking nuts. We all try to get wild and hopefully the crowd will to.

For anyone who hasn’t seen you live, what can they expect from a live show?

A rainbow unicorn playing bass guitar. And a good time, just come, lose your mind and stagedive! Get up front and sing along, this is a show not a poetry reading.

(Jen's Note: Unicorns are metal.)

What has been your biggest challenge as a band, and what as been your best moment?

The biggest challenge is trying to keep sane, we tour a lot, and we're New England boys. Going without the seasons makes us lunatics, I missed most of the foliage turning which really wasn't cool.

What fuels your passion for what you do?

These people are my friends, I genuinely have fun going nuts and seeing the world with them.

What can we expect from you guys in the future?

Live wolves two stepping on stage

Here at The Sound Faction we are 5 of the most random people. So we like to end our interviews on a less serious note, with 5 random questions just for some laughs. If you’re not up for it, no problem!

Listen, I'm always up for a challenge

What girly movie do you secretly love?

Alan would be better at answering this as he is a girly woman man and loves girly woman movies. With that being said, I did have a weird boner for Mathew McConaughey in How To lose A Guy In Ten Days.

If you were a scented candle, what would you smell like?

Pine trees, pinecones, pinesap, and wolf pack

If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

Any sort of mythical adventuring creature, a la a gold loving lvl 5 Hill Dwarf, or lvl 13 Dark Mage.

If you could be any old school rock god for a day, who would it be and why?

Probably GG Allin, Mother-F*cker literally took shits on stage and flung it at people, and like fought girls. I couldn't get away with any of that, although I did shit my sleeping bag at our tour managers cousins house.

What is the one female fashion trend that absolutely confuses you?

Wearing clothing.

Thanks so much for taking time to answer some questions for us. Enjoy the rest of the tour!

Thank you very much! I’m going to go crawl back into the inter-band cuddle sack!

Thanks again to Josh Lyford for taking the time out to talk to us! Check out For Year Strong on their MySpace Page, or Purevolume Page, OR Homepage to hear samples of their music, and find tour dates near you!