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Posted Sept
24, 2003
Interview by Grayson McDiarmid
Interview
with Chris Lambert at the Trasheteria, Guelph on Sept 19th,
2003.
G:
How did you guys start? Give me a brief history.
C:
I wanted to start a band with a few guys and gradually as
things started getting more professional and more serious
we started getting a more permanent roster at which point
Richie (drums) came along. Gradually as we got more established
we came up with another bass player named Josh but due to
certain reasons he had to leave so we brought in Adam, my
brother. From then on we had a change in style, we had a different
approach on stage, we began to have more of a presence that
was a lot more in your face than what we had which was just
standing back and trying to deliver a message. It was then
that we decided we needed a fourth member. Well, to be honest
I didn't want a fourth member but gradually as time went by
Adam kept talking to me about this guy he worked with who
had just moved into Guelph from Ottawa and he's played in
punk bands so eventually I said "let's try him out but if
it doesn't work out the first day then fuck him, he's not
playing". He came out and he was awesome and we rocked out
like it was the first show we had ever done, in my basement
in front of my mom. From then on Farewell to Freeway has been
a four piece.
G:
What process do you go through to write a song?
C:
Usually either Brian (guitar), Adam (bass) or myself will
come in with a riff or something. Sometimes with a riff and
vocals. 90% of the time someone will just come in with a riff
and the rest of us will just feed off that person. We just
jam it out basically and have a good time until we feel something
and then we put it together and get the structure going.
G:
Who writes the lyrics?
C:
Mainly its myself. We've been trying to get all four of us
to write them lately. We've all been writing down lyrics and
bringing them in. All that counts is words on paper and then
you can always just get it structured. Now it's more of a
group effort instead of one person's views of something.
G:
Have the lyrics changed since there has been everyone contributing?
Has there been different subject matter?
C:
Well, yeah actually the subject matter has changed a lot since
when we started out back before Adam and Richie even. It was
a lot poppier, girly type tunes, with a lot of party, happy
high school stuff. As time went by and as we got harder musically
you can still talk about girls but you don't have to sound
like a fucking pussy. We got a lot darker and tried to get
more serious as far as the vocals went. We tried to get a
lot more variety and vocabulary so we didn't sound like a
bunch of eighth graders trying to start a band.
G:
How has the second guitar added to the sound and songwriting?
C:
Well it filled it up a lot. We were looking for one for like
eight or nine months. As far as songwriting it's good to have
another guy to come up with new riffs. Just overall one more
guy in there throwing his ideas in helps so much.
G:
What is Year of the Sun and what have they done for you?
C:
It's a local promotional company that later turned into an
indie label. They found a huge interest in us and they are
independent so they are trying to establish themselves just
as we are so they just want to help us out as much as we want
to help them out. The way they look at it is they want to
push off of us and we want to push off of them. It's kinda
been like a friendship type deal so we can push each other
up.
G:
There's a lot of hard music coming out of Ontario right now.
How would you differentiate yourself from hardcore or screamo
or whatever you want to call it? How are you different from
Alexisonfire or Silverstein or Boys Night Out?
C:
In every song we have screaming. In every song we have a chorus.
In every song we have some verses. The thing is in every song
they don't ever go in the same order. Nothing ever goes like
a standard radio song where it goes verse, chorus, verse,
chorus, bridge, guitar solo and then the end of the song.
We kind of have a structure where it's all over the map. Verses
are everywhere and the chorus comes in differently. Our structure
is a lot different then the typical song. We don't really
follow the pattern. We have a lot of influence from Adam who
listens to really heavy hardcore as opposed to me or Rich
who listen to poppier or more melodic stuff. We listen to
a lot of different stuff and I guess we get our sound from
meshing all of our thoughts and our influences together.
G:
As I saw tonight you guys have a really high energy live show.
What do you do to make that happen or does it just come together?
C:
It's just us being able to perform for people and people being
able to see our show. We have fun with it and take it from
there and it just goes well. The crowd usually feeds off what
a band does. Every show that I've been to or participated
in whenever someone on stage is getting the metal horns out
there, there will always be one dude screaming his heart out
or doing the metal horns right back. Everybody likes to contribute
more when you're onstage actually putting on a show. It's
not just showing up and playing instruments, anyone can do
that. That's the difference with live music, it's putting
on a show. It's listening to the music and seeing a performance.
When we're up there it's all about having so much fun and
getting into the music. It's no different then when you were
twelve sitting in front of a mirror rocking out as hard as
you can to an imaginary mic and imaginary crowd. You get out
there and you get to look out and see heads and just going
ape shit for whoever's there watching you.
G:
What are Farewell to Freeway's plans for the near future?
C:
We're trying to get out of Ontario as much as possible. We're
really trying to tour as much as possible and get our stuff
known wherever we can. We want everyone to hear our music.
We want everyone to see our live performance. We love to tour.
We want everyone in the world to check out our stuff. It's
punk hardcore mayhem we love to do it. We just want to work
hard. We won't give up but we'll give up lots to do it.
G:
Thanks a lot for your time and we will all look forward to
seeing you in the future. Check out the new disc "Between
Yesterday and Today", go to their website at www.farewelltofreeway.com
and for goodness sakes go see them live. There's a review
for the new disc in the review section.
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