Interview Exclusive: From First to Last

During the Take Action Tour, two of our writers had the pleasure to sit down with two of the members from From First to Last, Travis Richter (Travis) and Matt Manning (Manning) for a super-duper interview. They discussed touring with bands like Fall Out Boy, headlining tours, and even le Tour de France. Enjoy the exclusive interview, enjoy the exclusive photos, and enjoy exclusivity as a whole at Armed&Ready!

A&R: Your 4th album is set to be released on April 29th with Suretone records, how does it affect you going from a punk-based label like Epitaph over to more diverse labels like Capitol and now Suretone?

Travis: I think that when we went to Capitol, it was like “well, our contract’s up with Epitaph and we were wanting to make the step up to try to get the music out to more people. We never actually even put a record out on Capitol. Then we moved over to Interscope, and it’s like Interscope/Suretone. We’re technically on Suretone, which is like a subsidiary of Interscope. And I think that the energy there and how many people work there and we know them all, it really reminded me of Epitaph in the sense that we knew everyone that worked there. I don’t know, at the end of the day, it’s very similar to me. Where we’re at now and where we were at with Epitaph, it feels very similar. I’m pretty thankful for that because I really loved Epitaph.

A&R: So what made you settle on Suretone?

Travis: Jordan Schur, who is the president of the label, he used to be the president of Geffen. And when we were courting around, talking to labels, he just blew us away when we met him – his energy and how stoked he was on the band. He really befriended us and even through rough times made himself available to us to email him and ask him questions and get advice or whatever. He was just like a good friend, you know? So when Sonny left, he was the first guy to be like “I want a slamdunk for you guys, I want to do everything for you guys, I love your band.” So we were like “Ok, we’re just going to go with our gut feeling here,” and we were such good friends with him that it just seemed like the right thing to do. He actually manages our band and is the president of the record company. So it’s been a really cool experience for us to be able to put our first major release in this kind of situation. It feels really comfortable and safe to us, and we feel lucky for that.

Manning: In the beginning, it was like having a dude with no tie to you whatsoever and anything you do does not benefit him at all, still trying to be like, “hey, I’ll get you this, I’ll help you do this.” And it’s just like, “whoa ok, this guy’s going to help us,” and he just genuinely loves us and cares about us and cares about the band. I felt like it was meant to be, like this universal treasure that was bestowed upon us.

A&R: What was is like working with producer Josh Abraham as compared to your last producer Ross Robinson?

Travis: It was different. For one, instead of out in the middle of nowhere, we were in this really nice studio in Silver Lake. And we had this sick engineer Ryan Williams, who has worked on a lot of classic records. It was just awesome because we had spent a lot of time on the record, so Josh was able to spend less time on the music, and just moreso helped on making sure we were writing vocals to the caliber that we needed to write and singing and doing everything to tip-top performance. He literally was like, “You guys can roll with the music. This sounds sick, I trust you, just do your thing,” and so we did. We had been working on the songs for a while, and just went in and ripped them exactly how we had them. It was really cool, it felt like we didn’t do anything. We have this record, and it’s like, “wow, it was so carefree and easy to do.”

Manning: And the people working on it with you, engineers and stuff like that, are so pro and such veterans of rock music and records. These guys are pro and basically the best of the best. And when you an opportunity to work in that environment, it makes recording going from what you’re used to where you’re hammering stuff out and doing it over-and-over-and-over to “Hey man, here’s a chill environment, just do what you do and enjoy yourself because it’s supposed to be fun. Let us worry about getting tones and everything. You don’t have to sit in here and listen to a snare drum for two hours; here, this one sounds good.” And they’re so good that you just trust them. It just made everything super-fast and super-laidback and just easy and comfortable.

Travis: The record sounds really big, but it’s so raw. And it sounds huge because they’re just masters of their craft.

Manning; And they knew kind of what we wanted. We wanted a real sounding record, not so “run it all through pro-tools and clean it up to where it just sounds like robots playing.” We wanted a rock record, where you record what you play and you get what you record. As opposed to being like “yeah, we recorded this,” and then when you get it back, it’s like “whoa, that sounds great, we definitely didn’t play it like that.” It’s nice, it’s kind of a raw record, but on another level of recording.

A&R: The first single, “Worlds Away,” off your new self-titled album hit radio March 17, so I bet you guys are excited.

Travis: Yeah, it’s been cool. We’ve never done the whole “go to radio stations” thing, but we’ve been going and meeting the DJs and we did an acoustic performance of “Worlds Away” the other day on the radio. We’re just having fun with it and trying to be ourselves and have good times.

Manning: Yeah, so we get to get on and meet the DJs and hang out with them and talk on the radio. And a lot of people who’ve dug it are just like “yeah, I’ll play this” even before the actual radio release happened.

Travis: It’s almost like a world outside of mine because I didn’t grow up going to shows or in a music scene. I came from way too small a town, but I had a radio. So I really listened to the radio as a kid, I looked up to it a lot. And I know nowadays a lot of people don’t listen to the radio or don’t care about it, so I feel vintage.

Manning: You know, it’s something you never expected to be on especially how everything is gearing more towards internet and stuff like that. And to get to do the radio thing, ya know, we’re like one of the last, it’s funny.

A&R: What is your goal with the direction your band is heading in? Are you pushing to become more mainstream radio popular, or keep to more underground die-hard fans?

Travis: I think we want to get out from the pigeon-holing that genres or the scene or whatever does to a band. I’m all about kids having fun and supporting local music and underground music and everything, but the truth is I’m not 10 years old anymore. I’m going to be 27 this year and it’s not that I’m growing up, I still feel younger than most of the people that I know. But I want to start doing stuff where I’m branching out as much as I can.

Manning: Being in that kind of little zone for so long too, you get to a point where you’re like “hey, let’s see what else is outside of this.”

Travis: Yeah, I don’t want to live a stagnant life where I don’t change at all or do anything different with myself. I just want to constantly be evolving and shaping and changing and allowing and open for that stuff to happen in my life. If I’m not, I don’t even feel like I’m alive. It’s almost like I’m cheating life or something just like “oh yeah, I’ll just sit here the whole time and do this one thing.”

Manning: It’s way more fun just to see where it takes you.

Travis: I’ve seen a lot of the music out and the way it’s presented, and I would never want to be a part of that. But I do have a love for writing songs that tons of people listen to. I mean two of my favorite artists in the last 5 years of music are Andre 3000 and Gnarls Barkley. And I don’t even care if some kid doesn’t like that music, it sold more than all the music you listen to. There are so many people out there that understand how great this music is, so it’s just a matter of time before you do.

A&R: You need to weed out those kids that think maturity is a dirty word.

Manning: Yeah, and also those kids that are like “I just like this kind of music, I don’t even listen to anything else,” just because they feel like they’re selling out their little club or whatever. We’re not like that, we listen to literally everything – from death metal to country.

Travis: We just non-stop listened to the new Brad Paisley record because, honestly, it’s music. And they’re the best at playing it. It’s just like the new Mars Volta – yeah, well the musicianship is amazing. Some kid was like “that’s shitty, that’s like that indie-rock.” They said that about the new Radiohead, and I was just like “or you could just look at it as beautiful music if you would like to.”

Manning: The guys are incredible players and they write incredible music. Well what’s wrong with that? I’m definitely not putting our playability up to Mars Volta or anything, but we want to branch out to playing to more kids who are open to everything and music in general and are in love with music. Not “I don’t like that because it’s this way” or “I don’t like that because it’s that way.” Just more like “I love music in general. Period.”

A&R: Sort of a product of being afraid.

Manning: Yeah, I know what it’s like, we were all young. You know what it’s like when you’re growing up and your friends just listen to this, and you’re like “Yeah, I listen to them, I listen to punk.”

Travis: All the music is becoming trendy and fad. It’s starting to remind me of when I was in high school and it was the exact thing that I was busting my ass to get away from to move out of that. To be like “man, I am not apart of that, I refuse to say that I’m apart of this world or group or anything. I’m my own self, I’m unique, I’m different.” I remember when it was awesome to be that way. You know, I’m starting to feel that way like “man, I need to be on my own ,and be myself, and stand on my own two feet, and not be ever-supportive of this thing.”

Manning: I remember all the kids I went to school with were really into Grateful Dead and Phish, and I remember being like “Ugh! I hate this shit, I just want to listen to Bad Religion.” And now we’ve grown up and gotten over trying to be this little thing and fight against everything. Now it’s like “whoa, those guys in Phish can really jam their instruments” and stuff like that. It’s like opening up to everything.

Travis: It’s just the level of appreciation. You start to learn to appreciate things when you start getting older.

A&R: (joking) You think you guys will be doing two hour sets in ten years?

Travis: That would be awesome! It would be awesome the have two whole hours to plan out, and say, and do, and look, and be whatever you want. That would be amazing.

Manning: Like, I saw Mars Volta a few months ago and it’s literally like they sound exactly like their record, except every song is twenty minutes longer. And it’s the most incredible thing in the world. I mean, how can you not appreciate the pure musicianship of it and songwriting?

A&R: So, your band has gone through so many different musicians, even including Wes Borland as a studio and touring musician at one point. How has this affected your writing style and the evolution of your sound with each change in your band’s lineup?

Travis: Well, bass playing is one thing. There has been a new different bass player on every record, so that’s a big thing.

Manning: I at least want to be the bassist for two records (laughing).

Travis: I think Wes Borland on Heroine stepped up and wrote his own style over the record and I think Manning stepped up and did the exact same thing in his own way. But I think the songs in general resemble From First to Last people because it’s the same initiative of the songs. Like, Matt Good writing and me being like “yeah, that’s good, let’s use that,” and talking about what will come after it, and then getting with Derek and arranging the song. That will always kind of be the one thing throughout all the records that’s the same. And then even things like Derek writing some lyrics, it’s weird because we just went and did a song on our off day, and it was another song for the new record. We don’t have a name for it yet or anything, we just did vocals for it. But Derek wrote all the lyrics and it just made me realize how sick he is at writing lyrics and how that’s like a theme. That’s a thing about From First to Last that will always be the same because he’s written a lot of lyrics on all the records. He’s written a lot of lyrics that people really dig and grow attachment to. So I think a big core of From First to Last is still there, it’s just some aesthetic changes. Some things change, but there’s still this oneness.

A&R: You guys are scheduled again to be one of the headliners on this year’s Warped Tour. What about Warped Tour draws you to play it repeatedly?

Travis: I think it’s such an easy way for a band to get in front of a good crowd in a time when no one’s drawing a lot of kids, there’s not a lot of support for shows. No one’s got money these days, and everyone knows that we’ve gone through some sort of crazy financial stuff on the big political front. And I just feel like it’s a great opportunity to get out in front of people especially this year. There’s a big array of bands – you have some heavier bands like Everytime I Die and August Burns Red, but then you have radio/poppy bands like Gym Class Heroes, Against Me, and Angels & Airwaves. So I think it’s going to be a good year.

Manning: That’s also one of those environments where kids go to see a lot of different kinds of music, and it’s not just one club full of this kind of band.

Travis: At a fest, there are too many different kinds of people. The bullshit that they bring to shows, the differences, the boundaries they create that separate themselves from other kids don’t exist. It’s harder for it to mean something, you know? It’s very belittled there, like “that’s so petty, get out of here.” People are just there to love something that means so much more – just music. And it even means more than the clothes that you’re in or the latest breakdown that all the kids like. That stuff’s going to come and go and just blow away like it’s not even here.

A&R: You guys have been doing it every year since 2005, right?

Travis: Almost. We just did it last year, and the year before we only did like a week and a half. Then we had to drop off because Sonny lost his voice.

A&R: You guys learn anything from that?

Manning: Well, we haven’t had to drop off a single tour since we became a four-piece.

Travis: I know that we haven’t had one day off in 30 days. And when he (Sonny) injured voice, he couldn’t really scream every day.

Manning: There’s definitely a certain level of, when you get done with a show, what you can and can’t do. You can ask anyone, “hey, did you go party after the show last night?” No, we sit here, we don’t party, we don’t go out, we don’t to bars. After a show, you sit here and you kind of calm down, you know? Because as a band like we are, we sing a lot, all of us do. And you have to take care of yourself. Especially if you have a lot of shows in a row, one night out on the town screws up one show. And it gradually messes your voice up more and more to where it’s like “oh, I just dug a hole I can’t get out of,” and you sound like crap every night because you’re messing your voice up. So there’s definitely a level of responsibility you have to have as far as that. Like, there will be 29 days that we haven’t had a day off and you definitely have to stay disciplined to be able to make it through that.

Travis: I think too, like, we’re a rock band. There’s got to be this certain thing in you that allows you to rock physically with your voice and be cool with that.

Manning: You know what we’re saying? It’s not fun to do with a hangover.

Travis: It’s like an energy you have to get on. You look at people like Dave Grohl who can use his voice all hard, and for his voice for how deep it is, he sings high. He’s pushing this notes and it sounds sick, but to do that, you have to be able to be all you can be and want to do it. Getting up on stage has to be your priority.

A&R: You’ve also toured with bands like Deftones, Atreyu, Fall Out Boy. What’re some of your favorite bands that you’ve played with?

Travis: Fall Out Boy was actually really fun. I love those dudes. It was the biggest tour we’ve ever done. It was like 8,000 to 20,000 people a night. And we were the only band on there that wasn’t a pop-radio band, so we were just trying to be really intense. It was a really fun time in my life. I was talking with Jeremy of The Bled, and he was like “we’ve toured with them a few times, we’ve done these Saosin tours…” I mean, he named all these big bands, like The Used. And I was like “Dude, I wish I could do that.” I remember Fall Out Boy, Warped Tour, and headlining, but I don’t have any crazy stories of big bands. Like, we just did a show in Spain with H.I.M. and The Cure and those bands are huge and it was like 30,000 people. And it was so fun, I could get used to playing that every night.

A&R: What’s one of your most ridiculous on-tour moments?

Manning: This was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen to the point where people watching threw up. So we get to this venue, and we were kind of parked on an alleyway. And there were some panties that somebody had crapped in. You know, clearly they had taken a dump in their pants and taken their panties off and laid them on the ground. And they’re just laying there, so you know we just walk in and everybody’s looking at them like “aww, nasty man.” So at the end of the show, we’re all just hanging out and one of the guys who works at that venue, a younger cat, and another guy, one of the promoters or something, was like “Dude, I will give you $200 to put those in your mouth and bite down on them and keep them in there for 20 seconds.” And the dude was like “alright.” So he literally balls them up and puts them in his mouth and bites down and he’s just holding them. Everybody was like “oh my god!” One dude sitting on the side just started throwing up. And then the best part is, when he got done, he wasn’t like “Alright dude, I got to get some mouthwash.” Instead he gets a dip out, puts a dip of chewing tobacco in his mouth and says “That’ll kill every germ there is.” He’s probably dead now. I still can’t believe that was even real. It’s on YouTube somewhere, I’m sure.

A&R: This is more of a question for Travis. What’s the deal with your side project The Color of Violence?

Travis: Manning actually played bass on a string of songs we just recorded, which was awesome. I have a studio in Valdosta, Georgia called Earthsound Recording. It’s the one we built when we did Dear Diary. Lee Dyess, he runs the studio and everything. It’s really his baby. We kind of helped build it and everything and then we left, and he’s been running it for all these years. Just over the past six months to a year, me and Lee have been working together again on the studio, building it up and just trying to make it as pro as possible. So we went into that studio, and me and Derek pretty much just did like ten songs where it was all improv. We would just get there and write a song on the spot. Just come up with a riff, write a song, record it, and it would sound like doo-doo. And then the next day we would go back and he would study it all night and play drums. We pretty much put these songs together building them on the spot, a song or two a day. We sent it into Epitaph and they were just really blown away and super stoked. They were really amped on it, so as soon as the timing is right with From First to Last and everything, we’ll probably put out a CD.

A&R: So you think you’ll actually pursue it, and it’s not just writing on the side for fun?

Travis: Yeah definitely. We were talking about it and how it’d be this awesome kind of boutique band aside from From First to Last, and just an edgier and indier, but grind. The new stuff sounds to me like Black Flag meets surf music.

Manning: I’ve never heard anything like it.

Travis: It’s just super bizarre with Derek playing guitar and drums and Manning playing bass and just a couple random musicians coming in.

A&R: How do you split your song writing to decide what music goes to what project?

Travis: Well it’s easy because The Color of Violence is such a joke. We literally never think about it. It’s like “do you want to do this?” ”Yeah, okay. Let’s take 12 days and go in the studio and do it.” We show up to the studio and just start going. There’s no preconceived notion, so there’s no planning. There’s no “oh, so I have to be this way for one band and this way for another.” Truthfully, for From First to Last, Matt Good writes most of the riffs for it. So it’s always had this kind of sound. He’s like a faucet that’s on just writing all the time in the sound of Matt Good, and I’m just sitting there being like “I like that, I like that, I like that.” And that’s how the core sound of From First to Last is made. So with Derek stepping up, playing guitar for a band, it sounds completely different. I can’t wait for people to hear it.

A&R: Lastly, is there any new music you guys would suggest?

Travis: You know, the new Radiohead album. It’s not that new anymore, but it’s amazing. I keep listening to it. The new Mars Volta record is sick.

Manning: The new Brad Paisley.

Travis: Yeah, if you like true guitar shred, check out the new Brad Paisley. That dude is so crazy at guitar. Truthfully, August Burns Red, that band is tight. Every night they go up there like a bunch of machines and just annihilate.

Manning: Dude, The Bled’s latest record is sick. That band’s amazing. I watch that band every night, they’re just sick.

Travis: They’re ahead of their time. I love watching them. I don’t know, we’ve just been listening to a lot of the new Mars Volta. The drums on it kind of blow our minds. We’re trying to soak them in. He’s like an athlete for drums, but he still has the heart and soul behind it so everything has this sick groove. That guy’s a wizard.

Manning: He might be the 1990s Michael Jordan version of drumming.

A&R: Guys, thank you so much for taking the time out before rocking out to talk it out with your hearts all out....on paper.....or I guess not paper, but rather an internet music blog.

- Stansford

All Photos Copyright 2008 Zach Melick, Stoma Photography