The Forgotten Interview (April 2008)

This email interview with Gordy and Johnny of The Forgotten took place right on the cusp of their recently release self titled album (which was reviewed on this blog in this post and was once posted on AirRaid). Josh over at TKO set this up and the interview was all set to run on AirRaid but then things got shot to hell and it never did. I wrote a feature narrative around the answers but that also hasn't been posted yet, but there's still a slight chance for that to go up at some point I guess.

BILL: It’s been a couple of years since I’ve heard any news about the band. Was there a planned out hiatus or was it just life getting in the way of the band?

Johnny - After Craig left the band, we were temporarily member-less for a while. Gordy went and did some Bastards tours for a few years. Gordy and myself got married (no, not to each other, we're already in a sexless marriage anyways haha). We found a new bass player (after I moved over to guitar), wrote some songs, switched bass players one more time and thanks to some key people in our corner (Lars Frederiksen, Michael Rosen, Mark Rainey and Ron Martinez), we have a new record. No hiatus was planned, the cards were just dealt and we played 'em the best way we could.

Gordy: I had hit burnout too. There were like 3 years where I was touring 10-11 months out of the year. Usually that is nothing to complain about but I was really grinding myself down mentally without knowing it. After the last Bastards show in ‘05 I took time off and got married and recharged my batteries. I’m glad I did because by hook or by crook, TF is better than it’s ever been and all the time off got us the right people with the right mindset.

BILL: How long has the current lineup of the band been together? Did the open call for members work out or did you end up finding people you knew already.

Johnny: Nick's first show with TF was December 9th 2006 in Santa Cruz followed by December 17th at the Warfield with RANCID. Jonny Manak was playing in TF and writing with us for a while and when he wanted to focus on other bands he'd already signed on for, we got Nick Schuneman within 24 hours of Manak departing.

Gordy: Well those open calls aren’t what we are about. They never work for us. Nick was part of our family and we respected him a whole lot before he even was a thought on bass. When he overheard a telephone conversation that our drummer was having about getting a new bassist he jumped the conversation and was in the studio in 2 days.

BILL: How was the European tour that you just finished up?

Johnny: Getting back to Europe was great. After not being there for almost seven years, I was really surprised how well the shows went. We had a GREAT band on the road with us, our new friends RADIO DEAD ONES which is pretty important. We were still with our old tour booking company, MAD, and had a great tour manager because of it named Schlumpf. With Bobby $500 franks and Greg Brodick in our corners for merch & video respectively, we played the SHIT out of seven countries in 17 days and (I believe) left a HUGE TF footprint all over Europe.

Gordy: Man that tour was fun. Quick and to the point but fun none the less. We were stoked to see that our fan base wasn’t gone. It was great to see so many old friends and make so many more new ones. I don’t know if the Arena in Austria will ever let us in the bar again, but it was fun while it lasted!! hahaha

BILL: Any plans for a tour of the States to support the new record?

Johnny: We're already playing mainland shows and will definitely be looking to do more.

Gordy: Oh hell yeah. We’ll get something up here in the next few months. National tours aren’t as easy these days as one may think but I figure we can do a few months out.

BILL: The first thing I noticed when I opened up my package with the new album was the cool “Japanese Import” theme on the artwork. Who did it/came up with the idea?

Johnny: I don't remember. I think touring Japan had us all digging on the kanji-style artwork. The early TKO release by THE UPSETS with the gold dragon and red background was also influential towards the artwork of the cover. We've never been a band big on spotlighting the members, so it's not full of pictures of ourselves, just lyrics, a couple band shots, and a simple design. We try to let the music do the talking for the most part.

Gordy: That was our producer and myself. Before we started pre-production on this Lars and I were talking album covers and he said that he always like the obi strips on Japanese cd’s. I found a graphic of a phoenix rising and thought it fairly apropos considering this was our first album with a new line-up in 6 years. I explained the concept for the cover art to Julia Smut at TKO Records, sent her the art and she came up with what you see on the cover.

BILL: One of the things I’ve always liked about you guys was that each album seemed to have its own personality. At least to me, Veni Vidi Vici had (forgive the generic terminology) a more upbeat ’77 sound, Keep The Corpses Quiet was more balls out thrashy, and Control Me had a more rock and roll edge to it. This one seemed to take the majority of the best elements of all three and meld them together. Was that a conscious choice? Do you guys all jam out ideas in practice or does one guy come in with fully formed songs?

Johnny: 99% of the time it's one of us coming in with just A BASIC guitar riff, myself for the most part with this record, and working it out with the entire band there. Eventually it will meld into a great song when you have good musicians around you. Another important factor was that we decided to demo this record twice before recording the final version. Although it delayed the album's release date quite a bit, I believe it had a huge factor in the success of the recording and quality of the songs. We hadn't previously spent this much time demoing songs. We never aimed for any certain style, just kinda played/wrote what we felt like hearing ourselves at the time to be quite honest haha, wrote a record that WE would listen to.

Gordy: Well thanks because that’s kinda what we were going for. I say kinda because the most important thing in writing an album for us is, doing whatever the fuck you want. We won’t be told what to do or what sort of vibe to emit. But we were also very aware that each album sounded different and wanted this to be the cohesive component.

BILL: The Class Separation 7” was I believe the second TKO release, so you have a super long history with them. Did you know Mark before the label started? What made you come back to TKO?

Johnny: With BYO Records, we signed a 1-record deal (Control Me) with an optional 2nd record. BYO decided to pass on our new material for whatever reason. Just as soon as we were out and "SINGLE" on the market again, TKO quickly swooped us up into bed haha. Since we'd already had mad history with them, the transition was quite easy. They were the label that released all TF's first material and we knew when Mark Rainey said he was in our corner and wanted to do this record, he meant it 100%. It's nice to have a record label who's excited about your upcoming release instead of just going through the motions, ya know? We continue to stay in contact with BYO RECORDS and consider Shawn Stern and Mark Stern life-long friends.

Gordy: Oh yeah, long history. I didn’t know Mark before we were on TKO, but none the less we have a long history. I feel that everything happened for a reason with this album. BYO is a great label and we were stoked to have worked with them. But this album required a lot of personal attention from everyone including the label and I believe only TKO has the personal investment and history to really care as much as we wanted someone to care about this album. That’s what really made this album I think; the personal attention to it from the band, to our producer, engineer and TKO Records.

BILL: Are there any plans to press the new record on vinyl or release any new 7”s?

Johnny: 12" full length will definitely be pressed soon. 7"s haven't been decided on yet.

Gordy: Well the vinyl version is out now and has a cd with it. I doubt we’ll do a 7” from album either. Right now we are focused on just pushing this full length and possibly doing a video for it.

BILL: Who are some good younger bands from your scene going on now? Anyone else nationally you’re into?

Johnny: RADIO DEAD ONES (Berlin), TWO POINT EIGHT (Sweden) and while not a young or new band, I think seeing THE AGGROLITES live will change your life

Gordy: I agree with Johnny there. RDO, Twopointeight and Aggrolites are all bitching bands. I’d like to add The Briggs, Switchblade Riot, Society’s Parasites, Wardogs and The Ignorant to that list too.

BILL: I saw on your website that you came in fourth place in the Punk Rock Bowling tournament. What are your strategies for next year to take it over the top? Who’s the best bowler and who’s the weakest? In Big Lebowski terms, who’s The Dude, who’s Donny, who’s Walter and who’s The Jesus?

Johnny: HAHA without bragging, I would definitely be the ringer on our team. I'm about a 170-200 bowler. BUT Gordy, Nick and Dave definitely had a lot to do with that 4th place Punk Rock Bowling finish in 2007 because I choked the last day and THEY had spectacular games that made up for my low scores, mainly Dave.

Gordy: Haha well I don’t know, I barely remember that movie. My band is all good bowlers except for me. I have lots of fun doing it, but really don’t take it too seriously. I just go to have a few drinks and play around. Haha. To me Punk Rock Bowling is not about the bowling nor the Punk Rock.

BILL: Any parting thoughts?

Johnny: Give the new "self-titled" record we just released a serious listen. We're super proud of it and hope everyone enjoys it as much as we do. This isn't just another FORGOTTEN release, it's honestly a piece of work that we spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears trying to get written and released and with the help of the people I listed above, we were able to DO IT!!! thanks boys

Gordy: Wow, parting thoughts. Hmmmm. So much to say and such little space to do it all. I guess if I had one thing to say it would be to my brother and sister punks out there. I know a lot of them are like me and don’t take their punk with milk nor sugar. I just wanna say thank you to them. Every scene will have the tourists and the lifers. It’s the fucking lifers that make this shit go round. Also big thanks to Ron Martinez, Mark Rainey and TKO records.