Forever Came Calling Interview

Last month, Forever Came Calling headed across the Atlantic to play a handful of shows with Light You Up, Hit the Lights and Four Year Strong on the Pure Noise Records Tour in the UK. After their astonishing first album Contender, last October the guys released their second album, What Matters Most, an album which was comprised of fast-paced, melodic pop punk anthems. We sat down with vocalist Joe Candelaria to talk about their first time in the UK, What Matters Most, and Joe's favourite albums of all time...   

HOW HAS THE TOUR BEEN GOING SO FAR?

Joe: It’s been awesome, really cool.

PPUK:  HOW HAVE YOU BEEN FINDING YOUR FIRST TIME IN THE UK?

Joe: It’s been awesome. We slept last night for the first time since we’ve been here so that was good but we were kind of like running ourselves, just like go, go, go and then finally last night we got a Travelodge in Manchester and it was super nice to sleep. So everyone woke up and was like ‘I love this country’. At the beginning yesterday everyone was like ‘Oh my god, I just want to sleep’. We’ve been here for four days, we got off the flight, jumped into our van, drove to pick up the gear and drove three or four hours to Leeds, played the show, partied, which was not smart, slept at a friend’s house, got up, went to the next show, did the same thing, partied – not a good idea – then we all kind of slept. There’s nine of us in our van, so we slept in a room that was like two metres by two metres big, you know what I mean? (laughs). It was the tiniest room we were just sleeping with no blankets. It’s been an experience, it’s been fun though.

PPUK: HAVE YOU HAD A NANDOS YET?

Joe: We’ve been in Australia but we haven’t been here.

PPUK: IN YOUR AUSTRALIAN VIDEO DIARIES YOU WERE ASKING PEOPLE ABOUT NANDOS, WE HAD NO IDEA THEY HAD NANDOS IN AUSTRALIA?

Joe: We’ve heard it’s better here. That’s mine and John’s (Swaba, Bass) favourite place to eat in the world. It’s very rare that there’s fast food you eat and you don’t feel like shit. You’re just like ‘I don’t feel terrible’.  

PPUK: HAVE YOU NOTICED ANY WEIRD DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE UK AND THE US? FOR EXAMPLE, IN THE US THE GAPS BETWEEN THE TOILET DOOR AND THE CUBICLE ARE REALLY WIDE...

Joe: Actually yeah, what’s really weird about that is that my fiancé, who’s selling merch for us, that’s the first thing she noticed. She was like ‘they’re doing it right here, I close the door and it shuts. You can’t see in’. Because in the states, there’s literally like a good half inch that you can see in to, you can make eye contact with someone.

I think the big one, for me, is driving on the roads here. It’s essentially set up for three cars and the passing line is for both sides and I’ve never seen that. We were going head on with someone, I was like ‘we’re gonna die’ and then that guy just went to the side and I was like ‘okay, that’s how you guys do it’. That’s been a cool difference, everyone is trying to look out for each other and get somewhere, that’s cool.

PPUK: THIS WILL BE THE FIRST TIME PEOPLE IN THE UK HAVE HEARD YOU PLAY THE SONGS FROM 'WHAT MATTERS MOST', HOW HAVE PEOPLE BEEN REACTING?

Joe: It’s been really good. Last night we played ‘Rather Be Dead Than Cool’ for the first time ever and that was awesome. It had a great reaction, so it’s been really cool actually. I’m excited.

PPUK: YOU GOT THE ALBUM TITLE FROM A CHARLES BUKOWSKI QUOTE?

Joe: Yes, ‘what matters most is how well you walk through the fire’. It’s just like the basic concept of you can’t change what the world throws at you but you can change how you deal with it. You’re never going to be able to handle the variables or predict them, but you can react in the best way to those variables. You decide what affects you.  

PPUK: IF YOU COULD PLAY A SHOW ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHERE WOULD IT BE?

Joe: Me and Alissa, my fiancé were talking and honestly, if it wasn't for fear of life, Istanbul. Just because there's so much history there, you know? Like, that's essentially where the world started; that whole area, that region. That's one of the main reasons we're are so stoked to be here because America is still a relatively young country. The oldest building you can find is maybe four hundred years, but here you can almost go back a thousand years. Like Stonehenge, we don't even know when that was put up and that's just something in our country that you can't see. So, Istanbul, somewhere like that. That's probably the wild card stuff.

PPUK: WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE SHOW TO PLAY EVER? 

Joe: Chicago on the Pure Noise Records Tour last fall. It was just really cool, we've always just had a fun time in Chicago. It was just like a week before the record came out and the reaction was insane. It was one of those moments were I think 'We're a real band now, this is cool'.

PPUK: WHY DO ALL AMERICANS HAVE REALLY NICE WHITE TEETH?  

Joe: Have you seen the south? Those people have all kind of fucked-up teeth, like Alabama? For me, I just have good genes (laughs).

PPUK: WHAT TOOTHPASTE ARE YOU USING?

Joe: Ah fuck, I don't know I forget to brush most days. I use crest, but braces...People use braces all the time in the States. Our guitar player, Isaac, if he would have stayed and finished high school, he would have had braces for three years, didn't do it, didn't get to keep the braces. 

PPUK: HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF ENTERTAINED ON THE ROAD?  

Joe: Think of really dumb stuff to ask people in the van. I ask our guitar player, Tom, to tell me the amount of money I'd have to pay him to do something stupid and then I just try and make him go less than he asked for. It's good, it's a good game. 

PPUK: WHAT ARE YOUR TOP FIVE FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF ALL TIME?

Joe: It changes but I'm going to have to say, probably the album that most affected me is Where You Want To Be by Taking Back Sunday. The second one would have to be Born in the USA, Bruce Springsteen. The third one would have to be Macklemore - The Heist. Four would have to be Cindy Lauper - The Body Acoustic which is an acoustic rendition of all of her hit songs, it's amazing. Adam Lazzara from Taking Back Sunday is actually on the album. Number five, I'm going to have to go with Blink self-titled.  

Listen to What Matters Most below:

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