After 12 years, five EPs, and soon-to-be six studio albums, one would think that Funeral For a Friend (FFAF) were about to run out of steam. However, as much as the post-hardcore rockers from Bridgend in South Wales realise that in such long careers breaks and times of relaxation are necessary to keep things fresh, they certainly have not run out of ideas and will not be hanging up their respective instruments in the foreseeable future.
With the start of the New Year comes the release of their sixth studio album Conduit. When I asked the guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts whether he thought the album was going to continue harking back to their early work, he replied quite frankly: “Yes, I’d say it has more in common with the first few EPs, Between Order and Model and Four Ways to Scream Your Name. I think as a band we have gone on a journey and got back to the same drive and passion that we had when we first started.” In this way, the band has experienced quite a progression. Some, however, would say they have rather regressed in style over the past decade, most notably in the concept album Tales Don’t Tell Themselves. This was quite a change of style from the earlier post-hardcore material that launched the band: “It wasn’t that we didn’t like Tales, but Between Order, Four Ways and Casually all sound like the same band; with Tales we did something honest that was right at that time. We were getting labelled a lot as screamo and emo at the time. When we first started, ‘emo’ wasn’t the dirty word it is now, I think we were just worried about being pigeon-holed and wanted to push ourselves out of that, the problem was when we came to Memory and Humanity, we tried to write a record too soon after Tales.”
FFAF released Tales Don’t Tell Themselves, their third studio album in 2007. Then, after considering releasing an EP in March 2008 they decided to instead release a full album which became Memory and Humanity: “I think as a band we should have thought about taking a break. It’s not that I don’t think Memory and Humanity wasn’t fresh enough; we just put too much pressure on ourselves to deliver a record quickly. Originally it was going to be a seven or eight track EP, but then we thought if we have all of this material we might as well put out a record. In hindsight, we definitely pushed ourselves too hard and too far to get it done in such a short time frame.”
The band have had many line-up changes over the years significantly long standing guitarist Darren Smith left in 2010. “We’re still really good mates, and I’ll catch up with him, and when he left it was for the right reasons and I think it’s been the same with everyone. We’re quite lucky in a sense because when people have wanted to leave they have always been quite up front about how they’re feeling and been like “I don’t think I can do this anymore”. At the end of the day we’re all friends and it’s pointless being bitter and angry over it all.”
After Darren left, the Bass player at the time Gavin Burrough switched to play guitar. Kris explains: “It’s strange in the case of Gav because I’ve known him since I was fifteen or sixteen and we’ve been jamming together for years, so his playing style is actually more similar to mine than Darren’s so when he changed and we started playing together it was easy and it felt right.”
Another significant recent line-up change has been the addition of Pat Lundy on drums after the departure of Ryan Richards. Pat Lundy, who left the band Rise to Remain in January of 2013, was at the top of FFAF’s list of drummers that could replace Ryan Richards: “When Ryan left and we heard that Pat had left Rise to Remain and wasn’t doing anything; we thought it was an absolute no-brainer to ask him to come and try out.” Pat Lundy learnt the whole set list for the band in seven days before his addition. Lundy brings more metal style of drumming to the band and having recorded all the drum parts to the new album himself this definitely comes across in the first single ‘Best Friends and Hospital Beds’. “Ryan was more of a rock drummer, where he was really creative was how he used cymbals in tracks. The way he would texture a track is by putting in little bell hits and cymbals splashes; whereas Pat is more of a harder hitter so the way that he plays sounds louder.”
The band came out of the buzzing alternative music scene in Bridgend, during the early noughties, and because of this the band has never had an issue finding replacements for members that have left: “We have never held open auditions for a position; it wouldn’t feel right for us to be meeting someone for the first time when they were playing with us. So it has to be someone we already know and are already friends with.”
The Bridgend music scene has produced to very successful bands over the years, including the Lostprophets, Bullet for my Valentine, The Blackouts, Attack! Attack! and Kids in Glass Houses, which is surprising considering how small it is compared to the rest of the country. “I think it was a great moment in time really, we all knew each other, we were all friends and played shows together, shared equipment and we helped each other out. And it’s nice to see when you’re from an area and the door opens for someone and you think maybe you can sneak through as well!
“I feel American bands get enough coverage from the press in the UK and they don’t need a helping hand from British bands, but for British bands it isn’t that they don’t get the coverage more with touring; American bands tour with other American bands but I think what we do is we all help each other. We have taken lots of bands on tour with us.”
FFAF aren’t a band that are worried about addressing tough subject matters in their songs. For example, ‘Roses For the Dead’ especially is a song that has spoken to many people because of the way it addresses life and death, love and loss. I asked whether or not the band makes a conscious decision to address these issues. “Well Matt writes all the lyrics and I don’t think we ever tried to shelter him or tell him a subject matter couldn’t be approached, so we let him write and do whatever he wants and whatever he feels passionate about, especially with ‘Roses for the Dead’. We get a lot of fans telling us that it helped them through a tough time in their life or helped them deal with something and I believe it’s a testament to how open and honest Matt writes and how well he puts his feelings into lyrics”
Funeral For a Friend certainly have had a long run and a lot to show for it. Every fan out there will be hoping that they can deliver another twelve years of diverse exciting music, just like the first.