Hot Gig Alert (02.28): The Funeral Portrait hits The Middle East in Cambridge (Interview in Post!)
(photo credit: Aaron Marsh)
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Tomorrow is a hotbed of music in Boston. While it will be hard to choose with Make Them Suffer also in town tomorrow night with a familiar face to NES with Windwaker, I think you can never go wrong with a Middle East Downstairs show, and lucky for you, Atlanta’s The Funeral Portrait will be making their way there tomorrow night! In town on a very sold-out tour with Catch Your Breath, it’s surely a no-miss performance. The band’s latest, incredibly cinematic offering, “Greetings From Suffocate City,” is sure to be a wild ride in one of my favorite rooms over the years! Doors are at 5:30 for this one, definitely on the early side, but with a four-band bill, it’s sure to be a great music bill and one where you’ll want to catch each act!
I recently had the chance to chat with The Funeral Portrait’s frontman, Lee Jennings. We talked about everything from the tour to their latest album to who would be his dream collaborator. Jennings was a pleasure to chat with! That interview can be found below to hold you over in the meantime! Last but not least, see you in the pit tomorrow. Let’s be honest. I’ll be pit-adjacent, but I hope to see you there!
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New England Sounds: So maybe to get into it, you’ve been out on tour for about two weeks now with Catch Your Breath. This is to preview your show in Cambridge this Friday. I know it’s sold out, which will be great. Maybe how have these shows been going so far for you? You’ve been so steadily touring, but how have these shows, in particular, been going for The Funeral Portrait?
Lee Jennings: Oh, they’ve been insane. I think almost every show is sold out, so far, and I think from the looks of it, the next two weeks, each show is sold out. So, it’s a crazy time, let’s put it that way.
NES: Then this isn’t the first tour off this latest album. I know it was several years between albums, but with Greetings from Suffocate City, you had your headlining run before this. Are there certain songs you feel are clicking with your fans in particular, now that they’ve been out in the public for a while?
Lee: Oh, for sure! I think “Hearse for Two” is one of them that really has clicked. I think another one would be “Blood Mother.” Songs that are a bit weird or songs that maybe we didn’t expect to click, but kind of did, yeah.
NES: Speaking of “Hearse for Two,” I know that’s with Lillith Czar, also known as Juliette Simms. Was that recorded simultaneously, or was it something more recent?
Lee: That was an extremely recent thing. So basically, well before we released the song on the record, we were trying to find a really cool female feature, and nothing ever really worked. I was like, we really need someone, we really need someone, especially thinking of when we’ll need songs for the deluxe edition of the record that will be coming out later this year. We were like, what are we going to do? Like, what can we do? She was basically on the top of my list of someone to reach out to. So our A&R reached out to her manager, and apparently Lillith, or Juliette, knew of our band and knew the song already. She was like, “Oh, it would be an honor.” She literally did it like, two days later. Which was wild, and she did it, and she was filming all the stuff for the music video like a week later. So it was really, really fast. Then, the new version came out with the music video a week later.
NES: That’s wild. Is that typically how things go for you, or was that an outlander?
Lee: Oh, that’s kind of how things go for us. Things are very fast-paced, almost last-minute for us. I think so much is changing for us so fast as well. And we’re trying to stay with keeping music coming out, and moving, and evolving. I think a lot of it kind of does happen fast with us.
NES: And then this album, I know Lillith is not the only heavy hitter you have had on this album. Some big heavy hitters with Danny Worsnop (Asking Alexandria), Bert McCracken (The Used), Spencer Charnas (Ice Nine Kills). You talked about how Lillith was high on the list. Is there still someone for you on your bucket list when it comes to collaborations?
Lee: Yeah, of course, I’ve got some crazy ones. You know, like someone like Gerard Way, but really Danny Elfman, I think he’s the number one that we have circled, and maybe hopefully for this next record we can at least talk to him or maybe write a song with him on this record. Maybe don’t even have him as a feature, but just being in the same room and getting to bounce ideas off of each other would be really cool.
NES: That would be wild. Then I know I’ve read, you’ve been doing this band for so long, but I know it wasn’t always something you were fully sure you would do. Right before the pandemic, you coined this phase as “TFP 2.0”. What was the pivotal moment when you realized you would pursue this full time? That this was something you really wanted to go all in on.
Lee: So yeah, that’s wild. You know we’ve been doing this for ten years. I’ve been trying to do it full-time the whole time, right? But I think the real moment was when we finally were just ourselves for the first time. So, like post-pandemic, when we started playing shows and started really taking our sound in this way and releasing the songs off this album. Like with “Voodoo Doll,” that was the first one we released from this record. Eventually, other songs started coming out, and then our first big feature song was “You’re So Ugly When You Cry”; with Bert from The Used. And I think that was a big turning point for us. It just showed a lot of people that, oh, this band hits, and Bert signed off on this, and he wants to be involved. Another big moment was working with Spencer from Ice Nine Kills. Him having us at his horror convention two years ago was a big moment. And that changed a lot. It’s just been one thing after the next with these insane changes.
NES: Then speaking of all these artists, and you’ve been doing it for ten years yourself, Spencer being originally from the New England area, he’s played many a day show at the Middle East, and definitely put in the time. Asking Alexandria has been a touring act for years, as has The Used. Maybe something you would have told yourself back when you first started? They did not all have easy rides to it; they’ve all put in the time just like you have.
Lee: Yes, exactly. And also, I think that’s partially it. My favorite bands were not overnight successes. I don’t think a lot of people’s favorite bands are. The bands that do the most heavy lifting, or the ones that grind it out in a van for many years, I think all of my favorite bands did that. Yeah, maybe not as long as ten years, but still, I know Ice Nine did. Spencer, forever he did. I think it’s really when Spencer found his true self. With the first Silver Scream, it was like Oh, okay, now we have Ice Nine Kills.
NES: No, that’s very true. I know there were about eight years between the full-length and “Suffocate City”. But when did you start curating that album? When did it really start coming together for you?
Lee: So yeah, we have had songs, like our song, “Holy Water.” That came out in 2019. But we wrote it in 2018. So that was technically the first song we had done for the record, even though it was a quote “re-release”. And that’s really when we started writing for this record, but the first kind of song that we kept from that era was “Holy Water.” Then, early 2020, right when lockdown happened, we wrote “Suffocate City” via Zoom, which is super funny. That was really the first song that stuck.
NES: That’s wild. I remember, I’ve been doing this for like over ten years, and definitely have spent some time talking with Asking Alexandria. I know they released the music video for “A House on Fire,” which they made over Zoom when they released Like A House on Fire in the early days.
Lee: It was just such a weird time in music. I think a lot of those records didn’t get the time that they deserved. Because you couldn’t tour off of it. Rock music especially, it’s a huge important part to play those songs live. Rock fans, more than any, love to go see their bands multiple times. It could be that ticket prices aren’t as much as going to see Taylor Swift, but it still is one of those things. It just feels important to play those songs live.
NES: Exactly, and then to wrap it up. Obviously, we know your next few months, you have this tour, festival dates announced, huge festivals. But we’re still so early in this year. Maybe hopes or goals for you as an artist? I can’t believe it’s almost March.
Lee: It’s crazy because for us, we are playing so many of the festivals, a lot of tours that aren’t announced yet that we’re kind of slowly locking in and getting together. I think this year is really focused on touring and performing. I think those festivals will be very important to show what this band’s made of. We’re a live performance band. That’s what we do. We have a show, and it’s more than just playing the songs live. It’s so funny, so many people on this tour have come up to us on this tour and been like, “Oh, you guys are so much better live than you are on recording.” And I’m like, okay? Cool, it’s odd to hear that, but it’s like hey, whatever gets you to come out. That’s what we are, but I get that for a lot of bands. I think of Ice Nine Kills, right? They’re so heavy at their shows. I do like the music, and it’s fun, but I would much rather see them live than listen to them on record.
NES: Exactly. They always put so much effort into it, and it’s a theatrical production. I feel like that’s why people were so into Black Veil Brides and Motionless in White from early on because they were so theatrical right from the start.
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2/28 (Tomorrow!): Catch Your Breath, Archers, The Funeral Portrait, If Not For Me/Middle East Downstairs, Cambrige, MA
Doors at 5:30!
