Further Seems Forever Band • Page 2

It's perfect and timeless

 

I listened to this podcast interview with Jason Gleason from 2021 today and thought it was so insightful and awfully heartbreaking when it came to Jason’s discussion about where his head was at back in the HTSAF days. He’s so full of regret over it now and it sounds like he and the rest of the Further guys really patched things up when they regrouped to tour together over the last few years. Jason said he just always felt like all he ever was to anybody was Chris’s replacement and it caused him to have mental breakdowns and lash out in ways he wishes he could go back and change. He also said a few things I thought were really interesting:

1.) As is well known now, he left the band when they were in the midst of production on Hide Nothing. Jason says here that, while his version of “Bleed” (his was infamously titled “There Now I’ve Said It” and was written as a “fuck you” to the band that he also says in the interview is one of the worst things he’s ever done and that he listens to it now and thinks “you’re such an asshole”) was released, he actually has all of the stems of his demo recordings for his version of every song off of Hide Nothing. Out of respect for Jon and the work he did, he will never let anyone hear them. Said it was occasionally very difficult to perform Jon’s songs while touring because he still has his old melodies kicking around in his head so he has to correct himself on stage.

2.) At one point before Jon’s death, Jason and Chris were hanging out (he said he loves Chris and turns to him often for advice and a listening ear) and were very seriously discussing the idea of doing a FSF supergroup album with all three singers performing together. Jon was apparently on board with the idea and Jason viewed him as the “elder statesman” or the “glue that would hold us all together” because he was such a gentle soul. His passing obviously closed the door on that idea and he said it still breaks his heart to think about Jon because he too had just gotten a chance to start to get to know him. He says that Hide Nothing was hard for him to listen to for a number of years for obvious reasons, and when he finally did he was shocked at the product because Jason’s version was going to be a “hardcore” album and that he was going to be screaming on the album as well. So Jon’s style surprised him, but he ultimately felt that Jon took it and turned it into something beautiful and that he thinks Hide Nothing is their best record because Jon turned it into the first FSF album that feels like a whole piece with a singular statement.

3.) 48 hours before he was about to go into the studio to record his vocals for HTSAF he had a mental breakdown on the beach with his wife next to him. She took him back to their place where he explained to her that none of what he’d written for the record was “him” and that he was just putting on his best Chris impression and he was so scared of being stuck this way. So she sat down with him and helped him rewrite the entire thing so that it would be his work. Pretty neat to know those lyrics came out of that just a couple days before they recorded.

Overall it was just so nice to listen to him speak so openly about it all and to hear it in his voice that he’s so clearly in a much better headspace these days and that he and the band are on such good terms now. He also said they’ve talked frequently about recording new music together and this was a couple years ago now so who knows.

‎The Peer Pleasure Podcast: Jason Gleason (Further Seems Forever) on Apple Podcasts

 

It makes sense that he'd keep those demos private, but oh man do I want to hear those demos.

 

Really interesting. As someone who can never finish a podcast, thanks for summarizing.

 

Yeah greatly appreciate you sharing that. One of my favorite albums and that context just adds to it.

 

No problem! It’s one of my favorite albums of all time and I was really interested to hear what he had to say. HTSAF really got me through a tough period of life and I’ve got so many fond memories associated with it. I remember going to The Shelter in Detroit to see Anberlin play as the opening act for FSF and Jason’s performance bowled me over that night. Became a lifelong fan after that. That was the album that really started expanding my musical library and I wore out the CD so badly that I had to get a new copy. I listened to another podcast with him from a few years earlier and you could tell in that one that he hadn’t done a lot musically on a professional level in a while and that he very clearly missed it so it was nice to hear this change in his voice in the 2021 podcast. He did mention in that older podcast that he’s got a hardcore band that’s not meant to be taken seriously at all. Apparently he and a group of friends got snowed in one night and decided to go down to the basement, jam out, and write a whole album. They get together once a year and perform and they do so under pseudonyms while wearing costumes so no one knows who they are. It’s called Mouth Breath:

 

Oh! He also said that the title of How To Start a Fire (I don’t think I knew this story) came from his audition for the band. He said that right before he started singing, the group gathered around with him to pray that God would “start a fire” through Jason so that he could deliver what they’d all been looking for.

He also talked at length in the 2017 podcast about his childhood upbringing and religious roots. He never knew his real father and his parents raised him very loosely as Lutheran. He said they were the Christmas and Easter church goers and that was pretty much it. His mother never had him baptized because she always told him that she wanted that to be a decision of his own making, which he always respected her for. He never fit in within the church because he was the kind of kid who was always asking intellectual questions and challenging authority figures by poking holes in their arguments. His brother is gay so he was constantly asking them why they were so hateful toward the LGBTQ community if they proclaimed to be full of God’s love. So he was a real one from a young age. His position in a “Christian, but not really” band was an uncomfortable one at times because he was expected to be something he wasn’t. I remember an interview he had around the time of ActionReaction where he called Brandon Ebel, the president of Tooth and Nail, “the devil” so that’s some…interesting connective tissue lol.

 

IT'S HAPPENING

 

Absolutely insane that we’re getting another Gleason record

 

Maybe a tour too?! Still on my bucket list to see them live

 

Wild.

 

Hope they don't make the same mistake as Penny Black.

 

Can't wait for this! Gleason's record was my childhood.

 

stoked for new stuff. cherish this band.

 

I’M LIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

 

Do we definitely know it's with Gleason? I know they're touring with him and it makes sense...

This is just insanely good news.