Funeral For a Friend

Funeral for a Friend, have recently been praised for their latest album Welcome Home Armageddon. This record is a heavily anticipated return to their hardcore roots, and it has even been called, "Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation part two". Where other bands have failed to bring back the je ne sais quoi Funeral For a Friend have triumphed.

The Welsh rockers recently ventured up to Wakefield and I caught up with newest member Gavin Burrough to talk about the new record.

Your album Welcome Home Armageddon has recently been released how has that been received?

Yeah it's great, it's nice to be playing the songs that you've worked hard on over the last year. We're really proud of the record and we just want people to hear it. It's going well so far.

It's been compared to your 2003 album Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation, how do you feel about that?

I think that when we got together,and spoke about the writing process, there were elements of the band that were maybe missing. The ones that we knew people liked about the band and we wanted to introduce it back in. There's a lot more screaming, a lot more energy and it's fast paced, which we wanted to bring in. I suppose in a way you can kind of associate that with like Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation. I think at the same time we've still tried to keep it fresh and relevant.

Funeral For a Friend have been around for 9 - 10 years, why do you think there has been quite a big change in your sound?

I think when you're in a band you don't want to kind of rehash what you have done, you want to progress. I think the biggest change in sound was the third album with Tales. And I think the kind of impetus for that album was that everyone was copying what the band had done, and they didn't want to be associated with it, that was the big issue for that album. Now with this album we're trying to revisit our routes really and try and get that energy and aggression back into it.

The American pop-punk sound seems to be quite particular today especially in the charts, as a British band where do Funeral For a friend fit in there?

We're British Punk, pop punk. No I wouldn't say that, the Americans can do their thing and we'll do ours. Matt (leader singer) does sound a little bit American when he sings, he has a big passion for American punk bands. We're Welsh, but I think if we sang in Welsh accents it would be weird.

You have been awarded accolades like Best Band before, do these things change you ?

Oh they have it's gone straight to my head (laughing). No we're grounded people, we've all come from working class backgrounds and it's nice that people appreciate what you do and say nice things about you. At the same we know who we are as people.

How do you feel about the Welsh music scene at the moment?

I think it's great, tonight we've got a welsh band 'Tiger Please' playing with us. There's so many bands out there at the moment and so many good bands from Wales. When we started Lost Prophets were the first band to really kick it off from there on it's been obviously ourselves; Kids In Glass Houses, Bullet For My Valentine, The Blackout there's loads. There's really a melting pot for talent down there.

You guys are playing Wakefield's Black Flag, what do you think of Yorkshire?

Yeah we have been here plenty of times but not in Wakefield. We've played Leeds, northern people are nice.

What are you hoping for with tonight's show?

Sweaty people, jumping around and having fun.

What's Next for Funeral for a Friend ?

More touring, World Domination, just loads of touring going to Europe next month, festivals over the Summer and then Australia and America later in the year. Just pimping the album out getting people in people's faces, listen to it, it's great