Forever the Sickest Kids headlined a concert in the Tavern at AU on Friday, Nov. 6. In a somewhat unconventional interview with The Eagle, guitarist Marc Stewart and keyboardist Kent Garrison discussed the band and their relation to — among other things — karate and snuggies.
The guys, who said they were psyched to be here at AU, talked about the unique vibe of college shows.
“You gotta prepare yourself mentally for the difference,” Stewart said, while Garrison called it a “nice change in scenery.”
Although the band only has one album out, “Underdog Alma Mater,” songs from their new EP, “The Weekend: Friday” (out Nov. 17), show the band’s growth since their debut.
“It’s like in karate,” Stewart said. “Obviously, you start out a white belt, and after a couple tests and stuff, before you know it, you’re a red belt, and then brown, you know. So it’s kinda like that.” Garrison simply stated that the new songs are “more polished.”
“The Cheap Date Tour” is aimed at getting fans to come out despite the current economic crisis. “We tried to make this tour a ‘Cheap Date,’” Garrison said. “So if you wanted to go on a date and didn’t feel like going to a restaurant and spending $40 on a meal and spending $40 at the movies, you should come to the ‘Cheap Date Tour’ — get in for $15!”
Stewart, instead, joked sarcastically about the downturn.
“We definitely tried to charge more for everything,” he said. “We probably increased our prices by like 60 percent. So I think that helps out a lot.”
The tour features, along with others, the Rocket Summer, a band that has toured with FTSK before, on the 2008 Alternative Press Tour. Stewart discussed about the advantages of touring together again.
“It’s like when you go out on a tour; it kind of takes like a week to get to know everyone,” he said. “So I mean, this time there’s not that ... awkward period or dead period. We just hopped right in.”
Just a few seconds later, after joking about them all feeling comfortable around each other naked, someone inside their dressing room — a classroom a couple of feet away from the hallway where the interview was taking place — yelled something incoherent.
Stewart sprinted off and attacked the guy screaming “MARC!” inside. A moment later, Stewart returned to the interview, with a quick “sorry” and an explanation:
“He was making fun of my Snuggie because one time, as a joke, I wore it naked into his room.”
Snuggie talk aside, the band’s new direction can be summed up in the song “She Likes.”
“I think the song ‘She Likes’ is the song on the album that kind of just has everything,” Garrison said. “It’s catchy, and it’s rock ‘n’ roll, so I think that song kind of sums up the new stuff.”
As for a favorite song from the first album, Garrison picked “She’s a Lady.”
“[It] is probably our song that we like playing every single time and it feels like the first time, for me at least,” he said.
As the interview came to an end, Garrison searched for some last words.
“American ...” he paused. “American — heck yeah.”
You can reach this writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com
