PropertyOfZack had the pleasure of interviewing Jonathan Cook of Forever The Sickest Kids before the band hopped on a plane to Hawaii. Jonathan and I discussed the band’s summer touring, their new album, as well as their future touring plans. It’s a good one, so read up!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Forever The Sickest Kids?
My name is Jonathan Cook and I am the lead singer of Forever The Sickest Kids.

Just a few days ago the band released the final version of “Keep On Bringing Me Down.” How was the reception been?
It’s been amazing. We immediately had a response from our fans that they loved the song and a lot of the fans were saying that this is the best song we’ve put out yet and that they can’t wait for the new album if it’s gonna be like this. We haven’t gotten any hate from this song and it seems to be really well received, so it’s super exciting to get on iTunes and read some of the reviews and see all of what the kids think because we write the music for our fans. And whenever they can attach to the new music that we’ve written it’s really rewarding.

I mention that it was the final version of the song because a rough version obviously leaked back in June. Is that what pushed the band to release this track first?
This was gonna be the next song we released. It just happened to get leaked and kids got a hold of it early. I don’t think that’s necessarily a band thing because it seems like a lot of the kids re-bought it whenever it came out the day before yesterday. The mastered version is a little bit different anyways, but the leak of it just so happened to be coincidental because it was going to be the next song we released anyway.

Forever The Sickest Kids spent some of the summer out on the Bamboozle Roadshow. How did that go?
Man that was great. We got to hang out with a lot of our friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time like Boys Like Girls and we really bonded with the guys in Good Charlotte. So many good bands out there like All Time Low. It made it super fun for us. We’re used to being on the Warped Tour at that time of year, so to go out on a different tour and actually get to up into Canada and be out with some of our good friends was so much more fun. The crowds every night were so responsive and so much fun to play for. That would probably go down in my book as probably the most fun tour we’ve done so far.

How would you compare and contrast Warped to Roadshow?
There’s a lot of comparing since it’s very similar. There’s less bands, but the bands that were on it were all pretty much the same style of music, so I guess it was similar in that way as well. It felt like Bamboozle Roadshow was being set up to someday be a Vans Warped Tour. It’s easier to organize eight or ten bands then it would be to do a hundred.

After some Roadshow dates the band headlined a tour with The Ready Set and The Scene Aesthetic. How great was it to do a summer headliner?
That was great. It was at a time when July 4^th was coming up, so we got to do fireworks a lot of the nights with the bands on the tour. Then on July 4^th we actually did a huge firework show in the parking lot of one of the venues. It was fun to go from amphitheatre down to clubs. We played some clubs that were falling apart. You never knew what to expect on that tour. We got to make friends with a band we had never met before, The Ready Set, and we actually got to play with them yesterday in Seattle again. That tour was a whole different style being back in small venues, but it was good to get back in a suburban and drive across the country kind of like a road trip with your six best friends.

The Weekend: Friday was released back in November of 2009. Are you guys happy with the reception it’s gotten now that it’s been out a year in total?
We’re gonna continue to feed off the reception of that album and put out a new album in the next couple months. I think it’s scheduled to come out right at the first of the year, this next full-length album. It was gonna come out with September/October as an EP, but instead we wrote five or six more songs and it’s gonna be a nine, ten, or eleven song full-length album. It is gonna be delayed a little bit and come out at the first of the year, but that means it’s gonna have a lot more songs than initially anticipated. We’re stoked on the response of Friday and we’re super stoked on putting out our next full-length album.

Was there any talk about releasing the additional songs on the Sunday portion of the series?
When we finished The Weekend: Saturday we said that it wasn’t enough and that the songs were too good to come out on an EP. We think that this is the best material we’ve ever put out so we wanted to make sure we added to it to make it a full-length album rather than make it and just put the songs out as an EP. I think working with our producer was kind of the eye opening experience.

Is the record completely finished?
We’re really close. Two of the songs were sent off to be mastered last week. We wrote one more song in New York this week and I think we’re less than two songs away from having the album done.
POZ: So we should definitely expect a January or February release?
Jonathan: Yeah, I would say right now it’s looking like last week of January or the first week of February.

Since this was pushed up to an album instead of an EP is the Sunday portion still in the books as an EP or is there a possibility that that might be turned into a full-length as well?
I guess that all kind of depends on the future and it’s really hard to see the future right now. So much is changing for Forever The Sickest Kids in a good way and so many opportunities have opened up for us. Our main focus right now is just the task at hand, which is just getting the next full-length album totally finished and getting it shipped out to the fans.

Do you like having the ability to release material to close together?
Our generation was raised on things that just move and it’s made us have sort of A.D.D tendencies and we’re constantly needing a change. I think this feeding our fans at a pace that is kind of up to date with technology is at the current speed of life for all of us.

Within the next week you guys are heading out to Hawaii and Indonesia. How stoked is the band for that? I can’t even imagine.
Yeah, we actually leave in about an hour for Hawaii. I guess this is the last American phone call I’ll take stateside and then we’ll head to Hawaii, which kind of feels like a whole different country. I think three of the band members have never been to Hawaii before and the ones of us that have didn’t get to experience it with the band members, so Indonesia and Hawaii are going to be so much fun and I think it’ll probably be the most memorable two shows in our history.
POZ: Is it always fun to get out to new crowds and even cultures in this case?
Jonathan: Yeah, I think that shows diversity, especially if you compare, for example, how fans react to “Hey Brittany” in Japan, in Indonesia, in Hawaii, and in Brazil and in America and interpret the songs differently. That’s an experience I wish every band or musician got to experience at least one time in their life. When you can go to another culture and see them react to the same exact song in a totally different way, I think that’s probably the coolest thing about being a songwriter and a musician.
POZ: Is it a totally surreal feeling to know your song is being played in six different counties?
Jonathan: Yeah, I’d say that when we all went to Japan for the first time and played our music in Japan and they were not saying the words correctly, but basically singing sounds back to us and it was really close to what they were hearing…that was just such an eye opening experience and it took our band to a whole other level at that point. I think we garnered a new love for international fans.

In early October you’ll be heading to Europe with Bowling For Soup. How did that tour come together?
We’ve been fans of those guys for about as long as I can remember. We grew up going to their shows and one of our previous bands played a show with them at home, so we kind of got to know their guitar tech and then them being from Dallas like we are we have a bunch of mutual friends and we work with a lot of the same companies and things like that and so it was actually something that was real organic. It was like, “Hey, we’d love to go out and kind of put a Texas tour together and take it overseas.” It was initially Jaret’s idea of Bowling For Soup. He invited us to be a part of it and it was just such an honor because them and The Dollyrots were bands that really helped structure and help give a strong foundation to the Dallas music scene. Getting to go aboard with bands that are so huge is just going to be so much fun. I think that the UK really responds well to The Dollyrots and Bowling For Soup and that’s a place where we go and get a great response as well. We have a lot of super fun stuff coming up in the next month and a half.

So after this tour finishes up there’s nothing on the books. Will these be the last Forever The Sickest Kids dates of 2010?
No, we have things in the works right now, we just haven’t released details on them and I can honestly say they’re going to be as equally exciting as what we have booked right now and they will be stateside.
POZ: Headline or support?
Jonathan: They’ll both be co-headliners. I think that’s how it’s going to be. It’ll be with bands that were super big fans of as well.

Should we expect anything else from the Forever The Sickest Kids’ camp besides that tour announcement and album details in the next few months?
We have a lot that we haven’t released as far as announcements and things. So I would say just stay tuned to the band’s official Twitter and look for some exciting news coming up.

Thanks so much for your time!
Thanks for having me on and thanks for your support of our band.