When Forrest Kline started what would go on to become Hellogoodbye, his main goal was entertaining his friends. With the help of Jesse Kurvink who went to school with Kline the two created several pop inspired synthesized recordings that soon took on a life of their own. Before they knew it, they were signing to Drive-Thru Records who helped them release their first full length album "Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!" in 2006.
Since then, the band (Forrest Kline on vocals, guitar, Jesse Kurvink on keyboards and backing vocals, Marcus Cole on bass and Chris Profeta and drums) has been touring endlessly bringing their brand of fun to their people. They are currently out on the MySpace music tour. Frontman and band founder Forrest Kline took some time before one of their recent shows to talk to TWRY staffer Ellen about the band, Halloween, and life on the road.
Interviewed by: Ellen Leonard | November 2007
We put it on the Internet. You could download it. I guess it was Drive Thru’s idea. We were kind of supposed to just do that, and then really quickly do a full length after. It was supposed to be like a teaser for the full length, but then we just ended up touring on it forever.
Yeah! I mean, it was great. It was when we hadn’t really toured much at all and nobody knew who we were. We put it out for free and I think we were sort of one of the first bands to put out a free EP. A few bands I think were doing it but I think in the beginning, some people had downloaded it just because. But now a lot of people are doing it, so people might not bother downloading it just because it’s free. But maybe for some people it was their first time hearing and since it was free they downloaded it just because.
Yeah, all the time! *laughs* It’s cool, and its a lot of fun, I’ve been trying to enjoy it, but we all just want to go home.
On this tour I’ve been kind of just enjoying going outside, getting off the bus and just seeing whatever’s out there, going and walking around and getting some fresh air.
Basically just not being home and having the comfort of just being able to do whatever you want at any time. Being able to eat things that you like, and having the comfort of being at the place that you consider to be home. When you’re on tour, there’s just kind of this lack of freedom. Noone’s making you do anything, its just that you don’t have a lot of options so its kind of like *sigh*.
This is a tricky question, because a lot of the people that we would pick would be a terrible show for us to actually play because it wouldn’t fit very well.
It’s been cool! I’ve been liking playing with these bands, they’re cool.
They have these MySpace terminals where kids can go on their MySpaces at the show… if you can’t wait 3 hours… or your hip top isn’t good enough.
Yes! We dressed up as “Are You Afraid Of The Dark”. I had candy at the merch table, but a girl walked up and grabbed one of the plastic pumpkins and puked in it!
We went home for, like, 3 months… kind of. The only thing is that we toured in the middle of it. We went home for a month and worked on it, and then we went out on tour, and then we came back for another month. The first month was basically writing, and then the second month was recording it. It would have been nice to not to have broken it up like that. After this tour we’re supposed to go home, and just hang out at home for six months. We just have a big block.
You get home and you haven’t been able to do anything for so long that you kind of back step, but there’s a certain time when you have to make that happen, so its harder. I haven’t really sat down and done it so I don’t really know. When we went home, I had ideas layed out so it wasn’t hard.
Yeah, usually it’s me and a computer.
I don’t know! If we’re in a good mood I guess.
When I look at a bands website, and their newspage is just like “news” I don’t like it. Its like, stupid? I don’t know. I kind of hate news. I hate when you just read and its like “oh yeah, we did this. August 12th, this and that. Seventeen dollars.” Its like, who cares?
There’s like probably seventeen or eighteen comments on the last blog. So, I guess its going pretty good.
No, there’s no plan. The first thing we want to do is just write music. But I have thought about it. I’d like to do another DVD, but just more organized. I hate it when bands have the DVDs that are just like “ohh, tour footage! Sweet!” with some random tour videos. Again, its like who cares? I want to make a script.
We get olive oil and vinegar with baguettes on our rider!
We are doing this tour, then we’re going to England, and then we’re gonna go write some songs.
I can’t marry you. Its not you, it’s me.
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