From First To Last - A chit chat with Matt Good
When I heard about the 36 Crazyfists tour, that would actually stop in the Netherlands as well, I got completely out of mind. Some time later, again I heard some great news; Twelve Tribes had appeared at the bill. And when I thought it was already enough for tonight, I heard about a great band also appearing on stage as a second support act, From First To Last. I got their album a few weeks ago so I was really excited to see these guys doing their thing live. A week later, I had arranged an interview with From First To Last.
Jorrit (a friend of mine) and I went to Amsterdam to have nice talk with Matt Good, guitarist and vocalist of tonight’s show. He turned out to be a real nice guy.
Any special experiences from this tour you’d like to share with us?
Ehm… yeah, a while ago it was Mick’s birthday (Mick from 36 Crazyfists that is) and Andy’s (Twelve Tribes) as well. And we were all drinking and having fun in the bus and Mick was naked and his clothes were all ripped off and he was screaming around, which was really funny ofcourse!
And another experience was the London show. There were a lot of people to see us there and they were even giving us flowers and stuff. It’s a different kind of experience but that felt really special for us though.
What about your vocalist (Sonny Moore), we heard he isn’t doing that well?
Yeah that’s right, there’s something wrong with his throat. He can’t even talk right now. And it was already like that during the first week of this tour so he never got to sing actually. So he was flying home after a week, trying to get better. But he probably gotta go to hospital, we think he needs a surgery or something like that. His voice is just really, really bad.
So, who is replacing him right now?
Well, I’m doing all the singing parts and Travis (our other guitar player) is doing all the screaming. But he normally does that anyway, and I sing a lot anyway as well so it was kinda weird at first but we’re doing ok now.
So, did you get a good response from the audience till now?
Yeah, in the UK the response was amazing!
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How do you feel about being on stage together with such great bands as Twelve Tribes and 36 Crazyfists?
I love it! They’re great bands, and they’re all great guys to us. They’re really fun to hang out with and we’re never having problems with them. We’re just good friends and I really, really like them a lot.
Ok cool! But do you really feel like a ‘warm-up band’ on stage, or is the crowd really responding to From First To Last as well?
Well, honestly, we’ve kind of a different fan base than those two bands. And especially in the UK we definitely have quite a lot of people coming out to see us. And most people who like 36 Crazyfists and Twelve Tribes are pretty open-minded and they’re like: yeah they’re pretty cool! But then again, we were playing in Paris and it was a little less like that but there were still quite some people responding to our show though. And yesterday we played Belgium and nobody knew us over there. But they were all really open-minded and accepting us and buying our record, so that makes you feel really good.
Well, something about your latest album now, how did you come up with such a title? (Dear diary, my teen angst has a bodycount)
That’s from a movie called ‘Heathers’. That’s an 80’s movie from the States. It’s about this girl that meets a boy. She’s really popular at school and she’s having a lot of friends and the guy she’s dating starts killing all her friends. And then she’s like: ‘Dear diary, my teen angst has a bodycount’.
And those song titles, pretty weird as well, do they make any sense regarding what the song is really about or is it just for fun?
Some of them do. Because the song titles, that’s a big cliché for us. Sometimes it’s difficult to pick a title that really fits the song, really expresses what the song is about. Others are really just for fun like ‘I liked you better before you were naked on the internet.’, because that has nothing to do with the song. But it’s kinda cool, it’s kind of a different platform I guess.
The songs on the album are very varied, I can hear acoustic parts, slow parts, fast parts, screaming, grunting, clean vocals etc. this makes it quite difficult to put From First To Last in a particular genre. How would you describe your band to someone not familiar with FFTL?
I would say that we’re trying to make it look heavy and extreme but we’re actually trying to bring things to all kind of different levels. It’s very melodic and catchy but we just try to do crazy stuff. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. We’re writing new stuff as well now and it’s again pretty different than the material from ‘Dear diary’ so it’s pretty hard to describe our music. The new songs will be more focussed. We’re gonna try to bring all those elements together in one song and try to focus more on that.
How did you come up with the idea to use four microphones anyway? I mean, on the album it gives a great effect when more people sing at the same time, but don’t you think it gets a bit too chaotic when you’re playing live?
Well, that’s possible but it’s not like there are a lot of moments we’re singing all four at the same time. I think three of us singing at the same time is the maximum. But that’s something we’ve got to work out ourselves, I mean, it’s like playing as much as you can and getting tight with each other. But we’re doing very well with that.
I once read in your biography that guitarist Travis said: ‘We want you to feel like you’re watching the wrong band but listening to the right music.’ How do you achieve that?
Yeah, when you listen to our record, there’s like some heavy parts on it and it really sounds like a metal-record. But when we’re playing live we try to put as much physical intensity in the show as possible. So when you’re watching us you probably think we’re playing a bit heavier then we actually do. That’s basically what Travis tried to explain.
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On your website you wrote that you’re planning to write and record some new songs after this tour, have you got any new stuff already?
Yeah, we just finished a song. We’ve even been recording songs on the tour bus. I’ve got a laptop with the right tools on it and that’s why we finished recording another new song last night. We’re really excited about it.
So, are you gonna play some of the new material tonight?
No, we’re not gonna play anything new until the record comes out.
I also read that your first headline tour has been planned, I assume that you mean a US-tour by that?
Yeah, that’s right. We’ll be headlining in the US for three weeks or so. But as far as headlining a tour in Europe, we’re gonna do that as well in the summer. I’m not sure when we will be back exactly, but we will be back. That’s for sure.
How’s the FFTL-fan base anyway? I mean, the fan base in the US and in Europe. Do they differ a lot from each other?
In the US, we’ve got some places where we’ve seen the craziest people ever. In Europe it’s a bit different because there are a lot of people who’ve never seen us before. But those places in the US where we come all the time, those people just love us. And we really appreciate that.
Ok that already was our final question, anything left to say to our readers?
Ehm…………wait….I gotta have something right?! I don’t know man! Well, I’m excited to see the new Star Wars movie. That’s my last thing to say.
Thank you very much for your time and good luck with the show tonight!
And so, a nice interview with From First To Last guitarist Matt Good ended up not only by us thanking him for his time, but even by Matt thanking us and giving us a compliment for coming up with such nice questions.
Special thanks goes out to Chantal from Epitaph Records, for arranging this interview for us.