Warped Tour:Interview with From First to Last
Written by Lisa Rahman
Photos by Francesca Wahking
Date: September 30, 2008
From First to Last has bounced back with a vengeance. They lost their lead singer Sonny Moore in 2007 to pursue a solo career and was dropped from Capitol Records later on. The band was close to splitting up when guitarist Matt Good decided to take over as lead vocals and the band spent their remaining money on a recording studio for their third album. The band consists of Matt Good, Travis Richter, Derek Bloom, Matt Manning and Chris Lent. They’ve toured with Fall Out boy, Chiodos, and Atreyu. They’re latest self-titled CD came out on May 6th, 2008.

Lisa Rahman sits down to chat with Matt Manning about getting up after getting knocked down at Warped Tour 2008. Band's website: fromfirsttolast.com



Muted Magazine: So you guys have played Warped Tour before?

FFL: This is our 4th warped tour.

MM: Since you've started playing the tour, what has changed over the years?

FFL: It seems....it seems easier this year. Warped tour is kind of one of those things that as a band it's awesome to do. As far as a tour you can do in the States, well we're in Canada now, as a North American tour it’s the best way to get a ton of people to come out to one show. There's a lot of people who have never heard of you too so it gives you the opportunity to play to a lot of people that you wouldn't normally get to play to when you're normally touring. It's also, on the other end, very strenuous and brutal, and a rough tour. It's a thousand degrees every day, it's dusty outside, and it's a long day too and you have to get here in the morning. And you can't leave until late at night. But this year has been really easy for some reason, and I don't know if it's because I'm not as spoiled as I used to be, or if it's actually easier....I haven't really figured it out. But I'm having a really, really good time, and it's one of those things where it's like “Warped tour is fun, but it's going be really hard”.

MM: Cool. I know you guys have toured with some other big-name bands like Fall Out Boy, Hawthorne Heights...

FFL: KISS. We just got off tour with KISS before we came here.

MM: So what have you learned from these other bands and what have you taken away with you?

FFL: I wish I was in a band as big as their band, that’s what I take away from it. I think a lot of it, well there's KISS, but those aren't normal dudes at all, but it’s neat to see when you're young and starting out in the business, and you kind of look up to other bands, like “Wow, there's this band, and they're huge, and they're doing this thing” and you get to rub elbows with them, and you end up being like, “Whoa, I'm friends with this person now.” And they're all just normal people, and they just do what they do, the same way you do. It's kind of a neat thing, and I think what you can learn with all that is just to stick with it, because everybody has been through the exact same thing you have, everybody has been down the exact same path in the music business. Except for KISS, that was just a crazy thing.

MM: Was it odd touring with Fall Out Boy? You guys were the only kind of that genre.

FFL: That was actually a great tour for us. The majority of that is because the kids who would listen to Fall Out Boy....Fall Out Boy is just a gigantic band, and getting to do that, and getting to do a tour like that, you sound different, which is the main part of it. And you're playing music to kids who can't even fathom the kind of music you play because you're a heavier band on a tour like that. It was All-American Rejects and stuff like that. And you look different, and you look different on stage, and you have more of an angsty kind of I-don't-give-a-shit kind of attitude to a bunch of kids who are just like “Ohh I like Fall Out Boy from TRL.....What is this?” Also a lot of the time, a kid wants to be the first kid at their school to have a t-shirt of a band. When you're younger you take bands personally, especially if you listen to underground bands. When you hear this band you're like “Check out this band” and you tell your friends about it. And that was kind of like a moment for us, we got to do all that on a level where literally no one there had ever heard of us or heard of us. That was a cool experience.

MM: Last year your lead singer left the band, and shortly after you guys got dropped from Capitol records. So what was the thought process for everyone in the band?

FFL: The way you say it sounds scarier than it actually is. Do you guys want the lowdown on the real sneakiness of it? I might get in trouble for saying this. When Sonny called us we had been writing some stuff, and Capitol got merged with Virgin. So they were doing a lot of cleaning up shop and firing people, and everyone who we had worked with on Capitol got laid off. We literally didn't even know anyone there, and we were getting to the point where we wanted to record a new record, and they weren't getting the ball in motion for a new record, and then Sonny left, and we were just like “oh shit”, because we were with Capitol when he left. We were like “uh-oh, now what are we gonna do?” So we had to figure out, do we just record a record ourselves, and not tell them anything, and be like, “here's our record” and put it out, “and by the way Sonny left?” And we were just like “how do we fix this?”

The guy who manages us now, was friends with the guy from Virgin, doing all that stuff. So when it came down to it, we got him and our manager to go “hey, we know you're letting off a lot of people.” At that point we heard a list of the bands that were getting dropped, and we weren't on that list, and we were like “oh man, what if they don't drop us, what if they sue? What if we get in trouble?” We were kids; we didn't work for the Man. So you lose your singer, so we were like “hey can you talk to them and tell them we just want to leave?” ‘caus they had to free up a lot of money and stuff like that. So he was like “all right, all right, let me just make a phone call,” and he had called, and they were like “yeah, yeah, that's fine, thats good.”

They were cleaning up shop, and we volunteered to go, and that was cool because we kind of had this other plan going on. And then it all just ended up going to a new manager and everything, which helped us a lot with the rebuilding. When you lose your lead singer, that’s a huge blow, as far as your music career and everything, but he definitely made all that as pleasant as possible and as fast as possible. We instantly went with a new record and instantly started getting new stuff out there and putting things out as the band we are now, to just get the whole Sonny thing just out. So that was kind of like a process that could have been just terrible for us, but it turned into a blessing in disguise sort of thing.

MM: So do you find that the direction of your music has changed since that happened?

FFL: Yeah, I have. It's hard to say when we were writing most of the new record. Sonny wasn't there, we were all living in Florida and Sonny was living in Los Angeles. So we were sending music back and forth and we'd send him music and he'd be like, “I don't really like it. Here, check this out – it's something I've been working on.” He'd send us a song and, “What is this? We don't really like this.” So it was kind of getting to point like, “What are we gonna do anyways?” And he left and we were like, “Cool, we can write as a group.” And we don't have anybody to please. We don't have to get approval. We can do what we want. And we're a pretty tight-knit group of dudes and we just wanted to write music like we wanted to write. All we listen to is 90’s rock so we didn't want to put out a screamo record or a hardcore record, we wanted to put out just a rock record. We kind of wanted to get to where we weren't getting lumped into these little genres. We were trying to break away from it and write music that could be on the radio and that we could go on tour with bands like Foo Fighters or Linkin Park or something like that and be more accepted on that level as opposed to “the scene” or whatever it's called.

MM: So how has your fanbase changed since the formation of the group up to now? Have your old fans stuck with you?

FFL: The old fans have stuck with us and it's funny because when we do signings everyday, there are more and more people who just look normal. It's like, you get used to seeing the kids who've always been die-hard fans, crazy wild hair and they're all tattooed up and just look like very individual types of people. It's getting more and more like, “Wow, I never thought normal people would be into the band too.” It's a very cool thing and I love it. It's like, we're not isolating our fanbase at all. And that was our goal when we were writing the record – to make something that everyone can enjoy. Even my parents can enjoy the record. Before there was, “Get rid of all that screaming!” But now when I let my dad hear it, he was like, “I really like this song!” I was like, “Really? That's a good sign!” So it was pretty cool and a neat transition.

MM: I also read that you guys released your song 'Two As One' on MySpace instead of other means. What was your reason for that?

FFL: We were the first band to actually have a MySpace so it's always been great for us. We have half a million friends on MySpace and we get traffic through there constantly no matter what. Why not give back to the kids who built your band? Why give it to somebody else to put out or somebody else to promote? We do everything through MySpace, it's a gigantic thing and we were lucky enough to be able to grab onto MySpace before it blew up into what it is today. We have a lot of songs on there that we weren't supposed to put up. We're kind of a band who doesn't listen to anybody. We'll have our label people being like, “You can only do this, you can only do that.” and we're just like, “What are you gonna do – fire us?” We go against the grain a little bit when it comes to people telling us how to do things. I think a lot of that comes from being a band who people have kind of turned their back on you at points. You get to where you don't trust anyone and you feel like you built this with your own bare hands and no one helped you until you got it to where people were like, “Oh well actually I'll help you now!” And we were like, “We'll do it our way or you can leave.”

MM: So how do you feel about people downloading your music?

FFL: This is the way I look at it: People are going to download anyways. You can embrace that and keep giving them music to download because fighting it just makes you look like an ass. Look at Metallica. When did Metallica hit their decline? When they made a big fuss about people taking their record off of Napster. And then all of a sudden people were like, “You're the biggest band in the world, you're rich as balls and you're complaining that I'm downloading your music?” You should be happy people are listening to your music. But instead they started suing people and it's like, “Why?” People are going to download it whether you like it or not. You might as well embrace it and let them do it. Give away shit. We like giving away stuff to people. We don't make money doing this; we do it because we love it. Some people buy records. It helps us out but it's also like, “I'm not going to get pissed at you. I'm glad you listen to it.” At least you listen to it, that's all that really matters anyway.

MM: So as for Warped Tour, what is the craziest thing that has happened to you guys?

FFL: One time we had this crazy bus driver, the gnarliest dude in the world and he took us shark-fishing in Florida at Fort Walt Beach. So we go out there and it was getting dark and we'd been chumming for sharks for hours and he's been slamming beer the whole time so he was piss drunk by then. He gets down into his tightie whitie underwear and just does a back flip off the side of the boat and he's just swimming. There's no shore or anything, we're just out in the middle of the ocean, and there's just blood all in the water and he's just swimming around out there. I just remember being, “Dude, you are the craziest dude I've ever seen.” I can't believe he did that. There's been a lot of crazy stuff. I saw a dude put a pair of panties in his mouth that someone took a dump in for $100. He put them in his mouth and it was like homeless person panties, they were on the sidewalk. That was the nastiest thing I've ever seen in my life but I'll never forget it. That dude was crazy. I'd give him a high five if he was here right now. He might be dead though. MM: Anything else you'd like to tell your fans?

FFL: Iunno, thanks for sticking with us. Come out to the shows. We're always on tour; we're always doing new things. Go to MySpace.com – everything we do is on there, and watch From First to Last TV on YouTube.