| About
Us |
Success in the music business requires a magical combination of talent,
perseverance and opportunity. The six young rockers in Dallas, Texas
band Forever the Sickest Kids easily possess all this and more. They're
unquestionably gifted, ambitious and hard working, and in the eight
months since they formed, they've repeatedly created their own
opportunities - sometimes accidentally.
Five days after their official formation, singer Jonathan Cook was
flipping through the Pure Volume web site when, with a click of his
mouse, he inadvertently spent $350 the band didn't have on a front page
song placement. Worse still, Forever the Sickest Kids didn't have any
songs written yet. So, over the next two days, the band members got
together and banged out a track called "Hey Brittany," then recorded it
with their friend/producer Jeff Rockwell.
"Buying that Pure Volume spot was an amazingly great mistake,"
laughs guitarist Caleb Turman, noting how "Hey Brittney" quickly
becoming the band's first big break. "The song just took off and after
that everyone was suddenly interested in us."
It's easy to see why. "Hey Brittany" is a confectionary gem that
combines elements of power pop, pop-punk, electro-pop and '80s radio
rock into an unforgettable sing-along that resonates with the energy
and vitality of youth. Since it was first posted, "Hey Brittany" has
garnered over 2.5 million Internet plays and triggered a bidding war
between eight major labels. Motown emerged victorious, and recently
released the band's EP Television Off, Party On, which features five
fizzy, electric songs that should whet listener's appetites until the
band's full-length debut comes out in Spring 2008.
Like "Hey Brittany" Forever The Sickest Kids' other songs tap into
a place where boundless exuberance meets romantic disillusionment, and
while the music is hardly a downer, it echoes with some bittersweet
life lessons. "Believe Me I'm Lying," starts acoustic and builds with
syncopated electronic beats, then busts into an exuberant,
guitar-blaring pop song with yearning lyrics ("Go ahead and cry
yourself to sleep and think how you hate me so bad). The sugar rush of
"She's a Lady" is even more biting, as Cook sings, "I'm in love with a
critic and a skeptic/ a traitor, I'd trade her in a second" over a bed
of fist-in-air guitars and slithery synth lines.
"Our songs are about real stuff that's happened to us because
that's what kids want to hear about," guitarist Marc Stewart says.
"They want to listen to stories about things that could happen to them
as well, or that already have happened to them."
While some of those stories, like "She's a Lady" and "Becky Starz"
are about girls that have hurt the guys' feelings, Forever the Sickest
Kids aren't entirely innocent of emotional button pushing. "Believe Me,
I'm Lying," for example is about an occasion when Turman was caught red
handed, leaving his girlfriend in tears.
"I was hanging out with some other girls, but I told my girlfriend
that I was going out by myself," he explains. "So, the girls and I
decided to get some coffee, and as we're walking to the car, my
girlfriend pulled up and her headlights were right there in my face. I
was totally busted."
Although Forever the Sickest Kids have been around less than a
year, their roots date back to the members' childhood. Guitarist Marc
Stewart and drummer Kyle Burns are stepbrothers and shared many musical
discoveries in their early lives. Around the same time, guitarist Caleb
Turman and bassist Austin Bello became friends and started writing
songs. Years later, Stewart met keyboardist Kent Garrison in high
school. Then, when Garrison went to college, he hooked up with singer
Jonathan Cook and Bellows. For a while, Turman and Bellows played
together in the Dallas band Ben Bradley and everyone else from Forever
the Sickest Kids rocked with The Flipside. But in late 2006, both of
those groups reached a creative standstill, and the Sickest Kids were
born.
"We all had the same idea and vision of where we wanted to go and
how important the music was to us," says Stewart. "This was something
that we all really wanted."
Immediately after writing "Hey Brittney," Forever the Sickest Kids
continued working on other ideas, and by the end of their first week,
they had finished three songs. "The chemistry that we have together is
awesome," Turman says. "Whenever we g
|
| Band Members |
Jonathan Cook – vocals
Caleb Turman – guitar, vocals
Marc Stewart – guitar
Austin Bello – bass guitar, vocals
Kent Garrison – keyboard
Kyle Burns – drums |
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Audio Player |
No Audio Player Yet
|
|
| |
| RECENT COMMENTS |
Can only comment on
friends |
|
|
|
