FURTHER SEEMS FOREVER play The Roxy Mar. 18 and Self Help Festival Mar. 19 FSF press photo
The history of alt-rock band Further Seems Forever is like looking at a contorted family tree. Lead singer Chris Carrabba left the band to start Dashboard Confessional, then 19-year old Jason Gleason stepped in for one album before leaving with a bad taste in his mouth. Sense Field vocalist Jon Bunch took over until 2006 when the band broke up. Then Carrabba came back for an album and now Gleason is back for a set of reunion shows including The Roxy Mar. 18 and The Self Help Festival Mar. 19.
Confused? That’s understandable. Here’s the need-to-know information. Gleason’s time in the band was short, but the album it yielded, 2003’s How To Start A Fire, is widely considered the band’s best. Also, Gleason left the band on less than favorable terms, blaming the split on “completely irrational behavior on a daily basis. Mistrust. Fights. Anger. Jealousy. A very unhealthy relationship” in a post-breakup interview. In other words, his return after over a decade is not only something fans have been hoping for, but a welcome surprise.
So what changed from the time Gleason spoke those bitter words to now?
“We got older,” Gleason admitted. “Nobody really wants to sit around with all that frustration and anger forever. We took a long break from each other, which I think was good, and started burying the hatchet, and became friendly and close on a personal level again. It takes two to tango, in our case it took five. I think it was a lot to do with how much we were working, which happens with a lot of bands. You spend that much time with people in very close proximity, that kind of stuff is bound to come up. We’re older, we’re wiser, we’re back together, bygones are bygones.”
The band will be playing How To Start A Fire in its entirety, but also songs from The Moon Is Down and Hide Nothing. Gleason, who has continued with various projects in his time away from the band is confident they can deliver.
“I would assume people are expecting it to be as good as it was back in the day, and I think we’re definitely prepared to do that” Gleason said. “It’s just like riding a bike. It was funny, we went down for rehearsals in January, and actually, it was kind of like the audition back when I was 19 years old. Everything kind of clicked, and we’re ready to roll. It’s almost like we just picked up again after the last tour.”
“Time waits for no one,” Gleason warns on How To Start A Fire’s “The Deep”, an eternal truth that probably strikes an even greater chord with him now than when he was a teenager writing and singing those same words. After all this time does the album still resonate with him?
“The core issues I was writing about I still think about and deal with as a human,” Gleason said. “I think really with any music, whether it’s my own music or music that I love from other artists, things change over time and you get to listen to lyrics in different ways at different points.
“Last night on my drive home from work I listened to Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, which is one of my favorite jazz albums. “I just sat in my car for, I don’t know, 25 minutes when I got home, just listening to “John McLaughlin.” There’s this interplay between the snare and the guitar that’s going on the whole tune that I never realized before. That’s kind of the beauty of music. It can constantly be changing and it’s different for anybody that listens to it.”
There was one dark cloud for Further Seems Forever in light of this reunion, the unexpected passing of former frontman Jon Bunch. An event that made Gleason’s reconciliation with the band all the more poignant.
“It was a devastating hit, nobody expected it,” Gleason said. “We had planned, obviously, to have Jon up on stage and sing some songs when we came to L.A. I definitely feel a sense of duty now to convey his legacy and how he saw the songs. Singing Jon’s songs, there’s definitely a pressure there to keep it real. I always remember thinking Jon was just like this larger-than-life rock God thing. He was a really great guy, he’s sorely missed, and we’re very happy he’s part of the Forever legacy, and he’ll still be able to live through his records.”
As far as Gleason’s own legacy in the band, the future is uncertain. When asked about continuing on with Further Seems Forever after these reunion shows, Gleason is hesitant.
“I guess I’ll answer that by saying, did anybody think that we were gonna ever play these shows in the first place? We’re all older, we have our lives and jobs and families. I can’t foresee the band getting back together and going out on tour full time again. But, I can totally see us writing another jam or two and recording it, maybe playing some one-off shows here and there.
“What we’re most likely going to be doing is some more dates in the summer, hit some of the rest of the spots in the country that we’re not hitting. That’s pretty open-ended right? [laughs] We’ll leave it there.”