“Smells like gambling,” said Marc Stewart of Forever the Sickest Kids as he sprayed a random cologne found in the couch. PopWreckoning’s Casey Osburn was just getting a taste of the fun, quirky attitude to come in the course of an interview with the band.
Casey Osburn, PopWreckoning: Can I get you guys to state your names and what you play?
Johnathan Cook, FtSK: I’m Jonathan and I’m vocals.
Marc Stewart, FtSK: I’m Marc, I played Xbox last night, but in the band I play guitar.
PW: I love Xbox.
MS: Yeah, It rules.
PW: It does rule.
JC: What else did we play last night? I played Coyote Moon.
MS: Texas Hold ‘Em
JC: Have you ever played Texas Hold ‘Em?
PW: I have. I’m pretty good at it too.
JC: This is probably pretty cheap. I’ve never heard of this brand but it says ‘compare to Axe Kilo.’
PW: Laughs. Definitely pretty cheap. That’s definitely not Axe Kilo.
JC: We’ll give this to one of the crew members on our bus who really needs it.
PW: So how old are you guys?
MS: 22.
JC: 25.
PW: Are you the oldest?
JC: Uh yes.
PW: How did you guys meet?
MS: It’s kind of like a web, really. Before this me, Jonathan, Kent and Kyle were in a band and then Caleb and Austin were in a band. A little more back in the story, me and Kent went to high school together, me and Kyle are step-brothers and Kyle and Jonathan went to high school together so it’s kind of, ya know. And then Jonathan and Austin went to the same college with Kent as well so it was just kind of meant to happen, I think.
PW: Yeah, just fate. Where’d you guys get your name? I know you probably get that a lot.
JC: A track meet.
PW: A track meet?
MS: Yeah.
PW: Like, a high school track meet?
MS: Uh-huh.
JC: It was called, there was a charity that they were doing there called ‘Forever the Sickest Kids,’ and they asked us to form like just a band to put some songs together for the track meet and we had to call ourselves Forever the Sickest Kids because of the charity that was there. And so that was our first performance, so the name just kind of stuck.
PW: Really?
JC: Yeah.
PW: Did you guys have to trademark that then, as your own?
JC: Yeah. They hadn’t trademarked it. They just threw that name together for their charity and it wasn’t a real big charity.
PW: It was just like a local thing?
JC: Yeah, so they let us trademark the name for performance-wise.
PW: You guys formed in what, 2006?
JC: Actually, it was December of 07.
PW: Are you guys still kind of star struck? You’ve played a lot of big tours, like Warped Tour.
MS: Yeah, it’s like, I mean. I remember our first big tour was AP Tour and like I walked into the very first show and there were all these people setting up like banners around and I was like, it was a room in Houston that was like 1,500 cap or something and that was huge for us. I was like wow.
JC: I still get star struck in the morning when I wake up and Marc Stewart is on the bus.
MS: Yeah.
JC: It’s kind of awkward to be in a band with someone you’re star struck around.
PW: Yeah, that would be awkward. So how’s life on the road?
MS: It’s good. It could definitely get you down but we have a good attitude about it ya know and we just wake up. What’s that saying you say in the morning?
JC: Joy comes in the morning.
MS: Yeah, you just gotta have a great attitude. We’re all family in the band and all of our crew, we bring them on and make them our family too.
JC: When you hear that joy comes in the morning, it kind of entices you to wake up.
MS: Yeah, it does.
JC: You wanna make sure you get up for it. And we all have iPhones, too, which helps a lot.
Crew member walks through the room
MS: See there’s one of our crew family members right there. He’s new.
JC: Do you have an iPhone, Todd?
Todd: I do.
They all pull out their iPhones
JC: Yeah see, we all have iPhones.
Laughter
PW: Do you guys have any plans after the tour? Planning on getting in the studio again? I know you guys have an album coming out in November.
JC: We haven’t told anyone this.
MS: Interrupts. We’re gonna dance!
Silence
JC: I guess we’ll go ahead and scoop. You’re a pretty big periodical wouldn’t you say?
PW: Mmmhm.
JC: Uhm, we’re gonna go shoot the show Silent Library after this tour.
MS: This is the first time we’ve ever told anyone this.
JC: So you have exclusive information.
PW: Ooooh.
JC: I don’t know what that’s worth to you. Can buy us dinner or something later?
Laughter
PW: Yeah, I will! Go get pizza, there’s a really good pizza place down the street.
MS: Joe’s?
PW: Yup.
MS: I just ate there.
PW: Yeah it’s good.
JC: I ate there last time and it was amazing.
MS: It’s not bad.
JC: Oh! And we have an album coming out that we just finished. So we’re getting ready for like the whole release of that and everything that goes along with that. It’s an unbelievable amount of stuff to put out an album. So uhm, the Silent Library show then we’re shooting a music video in a couple weeks for the first single on this album and then we’re doing the halftime show of the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving game.
PW: That’s cool.
JC: Then we’re shooting another music video right after the tour is over in LA.
MS: Busy, busy.
JC: For a song called “Hip-Hop Chick.”
PW: Do you guys have an expected release date for this upcoming album?
MS: November 17th.
JC: Whispers You’re not…
PW: Everybody already knew that.
MS: Yeah, everybody already knew.
JC: Can we tell you a funny story before we go on?
PW: Yeah, sure I would love to hear a funny story.
JC: I was asking Marc earlier, I was complimenting him on his beanie, we were talking about something, and I asked him if he lost it and I was referring to if he started crying.
MS: My brother just got back from the Air Force like he was four months in Iraq, so he asked me if like I lost it when I saw the troops coming back to their family and I was walking right under a tree and the tree reached down and grabbed my hat.
JC: Laughs. It literally swiped his hat off his head right when I said did you lose it.
MS: It probably would’ve been more funny if you were there.
PW: Yeah, it probably would’ve been. It sounds pretty funny though. Wish I would’ve been there.
JC: On a scale of 1-10 how funny did that sound?
PW: If I was there or if I wasn’t there?
JC: No, not being there.
MS: Just the story.
PW: Eh just like a…
MS: Probably like a 3?
PW: 4, yeah.
MS: Yeah, it was about an 8 to us.
JC: Being there was twice as funny.
All laugh
PW: How would you guys describe your sound for people that haven’t heard you before?
JC: Sonic.
MS: Sonic Boom.
JC: Sonic Boom.
MS: Like if you, I once had this CD that had an airplane on it and it was just sounds of sonic booms and take-offs that different airplanes made.
JC: Airplane taking off noise
MS: It’s kind of like that.
JC: It’s what we try to make ourselves.
MS: Like if you were to say like an influence.
JC: Yeah.
MS: It definitely would be from that CD.
PW: From that CD?
MS: Yeah.
PW: What are some of your other influences, band-wise?
JC: I’m really influenced by this iPhone app right now that makes WAV sounds.
MS: Oh! I’ll show you what he’s talking about. Pulls out iPhone.
JC: That’s probably a big influence. Really besides the airplane CD and that application, there’s not much of an influence.
MS: Easy relax! This one I made, it’s called “Into the West.”
JC: Imagine having this by your ear on your pillow.
Puts the phone next to the recorder and plays this campfire-like song. Fire crackling, Native-American flute.
MS: Can you hear the fire and the flames? There should be a coyote in there soon.
JC: You didn’t tell me you made that.
Still playing…
JC: Can you feel that?
MS: Yeah.
JC: That’s probably our biggest influence.
PW: Yeah, that’s pretty awesome. Do you guys have any bigger goals, you want to keep this doing?
JC: We feel like we’re really close to being like the top two in the music industry. We’ve set so many goals for ourselves and reached them in such a short amount of time. We’re going on three years at Christmas time and it’s like man we’ve accomplished a lot looking back. We’ve been really headstrong and going really hard so I’d say one of our final goals is to cross over to the final pop crowd, become a household name ya know. Like we’ve got a lot that we’re currently accomplishing like a headlining tour which was one of our huge goals and this is our first one. Anything else? I mean, Marc used to score goals when we played soccer.
MS: Laughs Yeah.
PW: Yay!
MS: No, I mean I think we want to reach as many kids as possible cause like for me it’s really rewarding when we get letters from kids or Myspace messages or whatever being like you know ‘you saved my life’ or stuff like that. Just being able to change kids’ lives is definitely a big part of it.
PW: So you guys write your own stuff?
JC: Uh-huh.
PW: All of it?
JC: Yup.
PW: How do you do that? Like, what’s the process?
JC: I’d say our favorite way is to just as we’re… all six of us are constantly writing in our heads, bringing ideas into different songs. Say, every song is a puzzle, and then put it together.
MS: We put it together different ways.
PW: What happened in Philadelphia with We the Kings, what’s the story behind that?
MS: It just like, I mean, I wasn’t personally there for all of it so anything you’re going to get is ‘he said, she said’ stuff. It’s basically like a misunderstanding. Cops came in and tried to be awesome and over, trying to force their rank on everyone. Obviously you have kids who really don’t give a crap about that and are going to smart back to them and that clashed. As a police officer I think you’re supposed to be able to deal with things like that but they really didn’t.
JC: I think when the police say they are there to protect and serve that’s what we all think in our heads. But then when weapons get pulled out on kids without weapons. I had to watch one of our good tour mates get beat in the head with a baton. He had no weapon and he was handcuffed at the time so what are you going to do?
PW: Yeah, That’s ridiculous.
MS: As a police officer it’s your job to be able to withstand someone saying something to you. I mean you’re the authority.
PW: I want to hear a crazy tour story.
MS: This one time in Philadelphia…
PW: Laughs. Besides that one.
JC: When we were in a van, we were a lot crazier. One time we pulled into Arizona for the first time and we hadn’t seen cacti before as a band so we kind of pulled over and we were taking pictures with it and stuff. Someone had the idea to knock it over and try to put it in our trailer. And apparently they’re as protected as the blue bonnets are in Texas.
MS: It’s illegal to knock them down.
JC: It’s illegal to mess with the cacti. So Arizona Department of Transportation was right across the street when we did that so they kind of started to come as we were knocking over the cactus so we ran from them and that was pretty crazy.
PW: Laughs. That is pretty crazy.
JC: That was scary too. We were like ‘GO! GO! GO!’ So we left the dead cactus and felt bad about it later. That’s how immature we were. You got any other good ones?
MS: One of my favorites was K Dirty, our drum tech. We were by a Denny’s and it was a Denny’s with a bar in it right, I had never heard of that. But the windows were blacked out so you couldn’t see in but people could see out. He was like ‘man, I gotta go to the bathroom.’ So he’s using the bathroom and like facing the window and these two cops come and were both like in deep cop voice ‘what are you doing sir!’ It was pretty funny.
PW: How would you describe your fan base?
MS: I think our fan base is awesome like the kids, they just come to the show and they just forget about everything and the kids just kind of have like the best time of their lives and that’s what we want ya know? And we try to portray to them, we’re normal just like them and I think that they really respond to that.
JC: Like Marc said, we do, we’re the same people on stage as we are off and it’s like something that we don’t put on a façade or anything so kids can really relate to that. It’s really weird but they come baring gifts, like kids give us gifts all the time. I don’t know if a lot of bands get that but we get so many gifts. It’s just like they know what to bring us. It’s not like ‘oh cool thank you so much’ and then you go throw it away. It’s like holy cow, they know exactly what to bring Marc or something. So that’s pretty neat.
PW: That’s all I’ve got for you guys, unless you want to add anything else.
MS: New album comes out November 17th. There’s a presale that’s available on Amazon and SmartPunk so check it.
PW: Alright, Thanks guys!
