Funeral For A Friend

 

IT WAS seven years ago that Funeral For A Friend began to play music based on simple principals: to write songs that connected, songs about their lives, the lives of those around, and to enjoy themselves as they went.

In those seven years, quietly, they have chalked up some amazing statistics: the band have sold considerably more than a million records; all four of their albums have gone into the UK Top 20; they have three Gold records; have graced countless magazine covers, been the subject of broadsheet profiles and tabloid features; their tours sell out the nation’s larger venues in a matter of minutes; worldwide – from America to Russia, Singapore to Australia, Japan and beyond – they have a following more loyal than bands considered their equal.

And still, somehow, they’re the same South Wales boys who, in 2002, started this band with a desire to do something honest. But as new album ‘Your History Is Mine: 2002-2009’ attests, it’s been quite a journey.

WHEN FUNERAL For A Friend singer Matthew Davies looks back on a career that started with demo-recording in guitar player Darran Smith’s garage in 2002 alongside fellow bandmates Kris Coombs-Roberts, bassist Gareth Ellis-Davies and drummer Ryan Richards, he puffs out his cheeks a little.

“There have been a lot of tour buses, vans, airports, hotels and venues,” he says. “It’s been a long journey filled with people from different walks of life and different attitudes. It’s very hard to get across how some of it has felt – playing to 2,000 people in Singapore for the first time is a baffling thing. Perhaps when it’s all over and done with I’ll have the opportunity to sit back and go, ‘Fucking hell, I did that!’”

That, in part is what the anthology of songs on ‘Your History Is Mine’ is all about. A sequential exploration of Funeral For A Friend’s history from their early days to the present – as the double album’s inclusion of an EP’s worth of new material proves. “It’s the growth period of the band,” says Davies. “It’s all in chronological order and, if you’ve no idea about us, it hopefully provides some idea of our history and shows the thread that’s run through our band. We wanted to show where we started, what we went through and where we are now.”

Keen for the record to have depth and substance, rather than be seen as cash-in, the band pored over their material, determined to come up with a track listing that reflected their roots in Bridgend and their development over the course of four albums.

“We didn’t want it to be a collection of singles,” says Richards. “We wanted to represent all the elements of the band – from the early days to the recent ones; from our heavy side to our more melodic and lighter side. We’ve been as involved as possible in it – all the pictures are our own and it really does come from our history. It’s something that’s very much from us; we’re enormously attached to it.”

THE ALBUM reflects a history that started with a series of early EPs – that swiftly became fan favourites – before their first album, 2003’s ‘Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation’, announced them, as Kerrang! put it, as “the hottest new band on the planet”. The music Funeral For A Friend created was written with one simple rule in mind.

“All we’ve ever hungered for is to write good music and to continue to write good music,” says Davies. “We’re constantly trying to satisfy that with each song and album that we write.”

That spirit took them across the world and brought a further three albums, 2005’s widescreen ‘Hours’, 2007’s epic ‘Tales Don’t Tell Themselves’ and 2008’s expansive ‘Memory And Humanity’, all of which explored the blueprint first set out in Bridgend back in 2002.

“There’s so much to be proud of. There are so many good memories,” says Richards. “Listening back to the music it was really fun to see how things have progressed.” And in that period they, quietly, evolved into a band with an enormous and evergrowing fan base. A band whose achievements, perhaps because of the members’ personalities, have always been underrated.

“We’ve never been the type of band to shout about our own success and achievements,” says Richards. “Perhaps, also, we haven’t behaved in the sort of way other bands who have had our success might. We’ve just never been that type of band. We’ve always been modest people who just enjoy what we do.” “Some people perhaps don’t think it’s good enough to be normal,” adds Davies. “But I think it’s awesome to remain normal while making music, touring the world and having people connect with what you’re doing. We’re from blue-collar, working class backgrounds and I think that allows us to remain rooted. I’ve always tried to put across the idea that everyone at one of our shows is family. They’re there to share the same things we’re feeling.”

IT WAS in 2008 that Funeral For A Friend set about turning the negative of Ellis- Davies’ amicable departure into a positive. Already they had left their major label deal in order to release records under their own steam. The next step was to recruit new bassist Gavin Burrough. “I think Gav has helped us reconnect with how we first felt when we started writing music together,” says Davies. “Gareth’s contribution was always awesome but Gav is different and he’s brought something very exciting to the band.”

The results of which have led to a re-energised Funeral For A Friend. After a period apart following their last world tour in which they all wrote individually, they pooled their ideas. The results were four new tracks for ‘Your History Is Mine’. In part the material reflects the band’s desire to consider releasing only EPs in the future, in order to, as Davies explains, “maintain a freshness to the music and to allow us not to over-think things”. The tracks were also a confirmation that the second incarnation of Funeral For A Friend found it just as easy as the first to access their creative juices.

Most importantly, though, it allowed the band to provide a link between ‘Your History Is Mine’’s explorations of the past to what Funeral For A Friend see as their future. “It shows the transition in the band,” explains Davies. “The tracks mark a line between our formative years and what we feel is our best that is yet to come.” “It wouldn’t feel right for us to release this record without moving on to another chapter,” says Richards. “It feels like a bridge to something else. The album is the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. And, when we think about that future, the band feels better than it has in a long time. It feels like something new and special has begun.”

Tom Bryant, 2009