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Gigging Northern Ireland talks to Welsh sensation Funeral for a Friend during their visit to Derry (that's right, not Belfast!) and before their show in the Nerve Centre. Talking about all things including cake, American labels and their ten year anniversary, we get an incredible insight in one of the UK's best bands - a perfect example on how to do things.

Are you enjoying your short visit to Northern Ireland so far?

Darren: We had a day off yesterday wandering around a bus yard, not one of the most exciting things to do really, hanging around a bus yard.
Matt: The countryside was very nice but, we were in the middle of no where and we went to a place called Rafters and they had awesome food even for vegetarians so that was pretty special. The weather's not too good today but tomorrow during out day off it was alright; it was sensible weather.

What attracted you to play in Derry, instead of Belfast?

Darren: Well I think that we're happy to play Ireland as much as possible really. We've always enjoyed our visits over here and we've always come to Ireland which I know a lot of bands don't do so we've always made the effort to come here right from the very first tours we ever did.
Matt: The last time we were here it was so much fun that we thought when we were working out the logistics of this tour that we wanted to come back to Dublin and we always intended to do Belfast so Derry the logical choice.

Are there any Northern Irish bands that you have taken a particular interest in?

Matt: [points to a Jetplane Landing tee-shirt] Good Band! I don't know about Northern Irish bands - I'm not sure. A band that we like that I'm not sure if they're from Northern Ireland is Kerbdog. I don't know which part of Ireland they're from but they're definitely an Irish band! They went on to form Wilt but the band they were before that were more hardcore, they were awesome.
Darren: In Case of Fire are a band who have toured with us in the past and know pretty well.

What do you think of Daveit Ferris since he is your support for tonight?

Matt: Actually, the last time we were here he was supporting us as well with a different band - The Mascara Story - and yeah, he's really cool. It's nice to know that we, as mainland acts, that we try and bring what we see as the best in current British bands and things like that so to have local acts and talent be there to support us is something that we're really trying to encourage.

You must have toured with many artists, established and ones trying to make a name for themselves. Are there any that have stuck out as ones you'd definitely want to see again?

Matt: There's probably quite a few! When we did we did our first tours with, well bands that probably aren't around anymore to be honest! A lot of the bands that we brought over have split up. I guess we did a tour a couple years ago with Kids in Glass Houses when they were starting out and they were apart of the Raw Power [Management] family and it's nice to see them get some recognition now. Even members of older bands; we used to play a lot with Cry For Silence from the London area whose members are now in a band called Spy Catcher which we're currently playing with on the UK mainland tour. It's nice to get back in touch with people we haven't seen, or converse or hang out with for ages.
Darren: It's a nice surprise when you get together with a support band and you realise that some of their members were in bands you toured with before.

You've just recently released a greatest hits album entitled; 'Your History is Mine', what inspired you to do this? Would you rather have waited a few years before releasing an album of this nature?

Matt: We didn't really have any, well, I'm not going to say that we didn't have any choice in the matter but technically if we chose to not be involved our old record label would have put it out any way. It was a contractual obligation; they had the rights to the first three records and they wanted to put out a 'best of' and we thought, basically, that if we let them do it themselves it could be rubbish and we didn't want our name attached to anything that could potentially be crap so we chose to be involved in the selection, artwork, and adding four additional new songs to the release just to make it that bit more special. We wanted it to be the best that it could be for what it was gonna be.
Darren: We didn't believe in the idea that we are a band that should have a best of album out. I don't think that a band with four albums should have a best of best of album; you should just go out and buy the four albums! If we were a band with maybe, ten albums, well that's fair enough.
Matt: We felt that because it had our name on it we wanted to make it at least, somewhat appealing. We didn't want it to be a waste of time for our fans either so there are four new songs that makes it that more interesting. I would have defiantly waited another ten or fifteen years.
Darren: I like to think of it as the end of a chapter maybe, of being with that record label and then these four songs are showing where we're going in the future and it's something that should be checked out.

What would you consider to be the point where the band hit it's big break?

Matt: Probably, it would be the first EP really because technically, if it wasn't for that then we wouldn't be where we are now.
Darren: It was quite unusual the way things happened for us compared to other bands because we got signed before we even played a show together. We had these four songs and we decided to record a demo before we had played a show so that people could pick them up at shows and give to promoters to get more shows and from those four songs the label, well it was a studio that had a label side to it and they liked the songs to much that they wanted to release it. People got excited pretty quickly about it. The PR guy that we had working for us had some contacts from Kerrang! and Rocksound and stuff like that so he handed it to them and it got some glowing reviews. It all sort of escalated pretty quickly and before we knew it we were doing showcases for about twenty labels up in London and people from American labels were even flying over.
Matt: It was unbelievable! That was before we even had a manager! We were just getting emails upon emails about all these random things. People from record labels in the States wanted to release it and people flying over from Sony wanted to watch us and we were like "What the fuck. What's going on?!" The band was just a weekend thing!
Darren: We thought the songs were great but we didn't think it would have the impact that it had; it was quite an unusual situation.
Matt: Our first EP was definitely the catalyst.

What would you say contributed most to your success? Do you think it was just sheer luck?

Matt: It's because we're awesome! I think we were just in the right place at the right time. The sound was probably just fresh to people. A lot of American bands were starting to this sound but we were the first British bands to gain success from doing it and I think we lay down the blueprint for a lot of bands to come after; I don't know exactly what it was. I think we were so different; musically our tastes are so varied that when it comes to writing music it's quite a mix and match of different influences. I don't think there is one think in any of our songs that could be pigeon holed in any of our songs that can be discerned as one particular style of music, it all mixes up quite continuously. We get called post-hardcore or emo-core quite a bit and there are so many labels out there of what our music is so we kind of go with rock. That involves absolutely everything!
Darren: We didn't have any kind of master plan on trying to go about gaining success or anything like that!
Matt: We didn't want it, really, technically! We weren't a band that was out these whose predominant goal was to be famous. We wanted to play shows, we loved what we were doing and it got us away from the daily grind of what our everyday lives were.
Darren: I think that's what a lot of people and kids do when they join bands, it's for that escapism. That's the weird thing, when you least expect it, it all kind of happens, I suppose.

Do you have any big plans for your ten year anniversary you can share with Gigging NI?

Matt: Ten year anniversary; I don't know, I think it would be something quite remarkable, I didn't even think that we'd get past two or three years for some reason! It seemed like bands just release a couple of records and suddenly fall off a glacier.
Darren: We definitely worked really hard, slogged away playing a lot in America as well. I think that's something that a lot of people in the UK wouldn't realise but if we weren't in the UK playing shows we wouldn't be sitting at home on our asses, we'd be in the States or somewhere else in the world working away!
Matt: Cake! Ten years of cake. We'll have ten different kinds of cake to represent each year.
Darren: Are there even ten different kinds of cake?
Matt: You can get tarts! Marble cake, chocolate cake, fruit cake, Victoria sponge cake, maderia cake, coffee cake, banana cake. I'm rolling around in cake here, in my head! I'm really hungry now.
Darren: He loves his cakes!
Matt: Cake. I love cake.

Do you have any songs that you really love playing live?

Darren: There's none that I really dislike playing live you know.
Matt: There's probably one or two for me that are frustrating.
Darren: Some are tougher than others, some are hard on the night and I think trying to perform and play is the hard thing sometimes.
Matt: The two that I love playing the most because of the general feel of the room, the vibe the room gets when we play it is Juneau because I think it means a lot to so many people now and it's just become a sort of anthem of ours now. I think if we didn't play it, it would be weird. Roses for the Dead is another one that gets a feeling in the room when you play it that's just palpable. The most difficult one that I've come across is Recovery; especially when you do the vocals in the studio and don't actually run it live before you commit it to tape. Recovery is most possibly the hardest song I've ever done vocally because when you're standing still it's piss easy and you're not putting any extra effort on your body but when your running around it's not the easiest thing to get those high notes.
Darren: Probably the hardest song for me quite often is probably the new songs because it takes a while to get it worked into a live environment where you can work out how to perform certain parts of the song like when to stand still so you don't fuck it up. Escape Artist is a big favourite of mine to play, it always tends to get a massive cheer and a lot of people seem to be into that song.
Matt: That songs does feel really good.

FFAF is known all around the world; do you ever get overwhelmed by your global fan base?

Matt: I can walk around my hometown and nobody bats an eyelid! I don't think that we've ever truly become world famous but we're known to our fans across the world that support us. It's a weird idea because you'd never think that your music would go that far and reach so many people. When we turned up to places like Thailand and Singapore for the first time it was unbelievable. I felt as close to how the Beatles could have possibly felt. We had security guards keeping the fans away from us...
Darren: ...like a human chain holding back all these fans trying to claw at us; it was bizarre!
Matt: You can imagine working class boys from South Wales finding that a bit weird! It was mad! We just feel very fortunate that we have the opportunity to play to so many people worldwide and they actually care about what we do enough to support us and we just feel really grateful for that opportunity really otherwise we'd just be stuck at home doing shit jobs! It's definitely something that we're very proud of to achieve that level of success as a band worldwide, it's really cool.
Darren: Definitely.

How are you feeling about the rest of the tour?

Matt: It's at the point now where part of me thinks; "Oh, we're counting down the days!"
Darren: Yeah, we're seeing the finishing line.
Matt: You do get a little tour fatigue especially when you're in a compact space.
Darren: Tours go on for a good few weeks and you start to get to the end of it and you're still enjoying the shows and looking forward to each and every one.
Matt: That's the highlight really, getting off the bus and playing a show!
Darren: The rest of it's quite mundane.
Matt: You'd be surprised how the routine makes everyday like Groundhog Day; you wake up and it's exactly the same thing.
Darren: It's not all strippers and cocaine; they don't exist in our world.

Gigging Northern Ireland says Funeral for a Friend played the Nerve Centre, Derry, on the 24th October 2009

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