INTERVIEW: MATTIE MONTGOMERY of For Today, July 2014

The 20^th annual Vans Warped Tour is in full gear, and we had the opportunity to sit down with Mattie Montgomery, For Today’s vocalist, to talked our his experiences on Warped Tour and his band’s music in general.

Mike: So again thanks Mattie for meeting with me. I know it’s been pretty crazy.  This is your second time on warped tour?

Mattie: Yes.

Mike: 2012, a couple of years ago, but first time on the main stage?

Mattie: Right.

Mike: Pretty cool!  So how did that come about?

Mattie: Honestly, I try to stay out of all that kind of stuff.  We have a booking agent and a manager who try to schmooze everybody and convince people that we deserve to be on main stage at Warped Tour and apparently they are good at what they do.

Mike: All right, outstanding!

Mattie: We’re just trying to play music and apparently people are playing attention.

Mike: I caught you a couple of years ago, I think on the Monster stage, and there was quite a crowd there.  It will be cool to see the huge crowd at the main stage for you.  How has the experience been being on the main stage?

Mattie: It’s pretty much the same, just a little bigger.  About what you would expect.  You know it’s nice being on a bigger stage, it’s nice to have more room and stuff like that.  I don’t mean to pat myself on the back but I can mark main stage at Warped Tour off my bucket list, but it’s not too much different.

Mike: Ok, so one of the cool things for fans going to Warped Tour is discovering a lot of new bands, just walking by a stage and listening.  With you here this year any new bands you’ve discovered or gotten interested in or caught your eye?

Mattie: Yes, we’ve become friends with the guys in the band Bad Rabbits who are totally different from us.

Mike: Completely!

Mattie: But it’s kind of refreshing, it’s cool.  Also Icon For Hire is a band we’ve become friends with, and the guys in Falling In Reverse.  I had never really given them much of a chance before this summer so it’s been cool getting to meet and listen to bands that are different from us musically on a tour that’s as diverse as Warped Tour.  It’s been cool getting to discover some new music.

Mike: Do you get a chance to catch a lot of sets or like with your experience coming over here you probably get mobbed?

Mattie: It’s pretty crazy all the time so if I can catch a band besides us every day it’s been a good day.

Mike: Other than those bands you mentioned, have you tried to really make a point to see?

Mattie: I’m always trying to see friend’s sets, like Stray From The Path, The Word Alive, Motionless In White, Chelsea Grin, bands like that.  We’ve been friends with The Ghost Inside for years.  If we have any free time we’ll stop by and see them.  We love to do that.  Again free time is kind of hard to come by.

Mike: One of the things you see a lot in Warped Tour too is people doing guest performances with other bands.  I saw a video online where K The Female Screamer did a show with you.  Any other performers join you guys on stage?

Mattie: We have Ryan the singer from Fit For A King, who is a cool up and coming really good band, and he’s coming out and doing guest vocals with us today actually.

Mike: Have you had a chance, or any of the guys in For Today had a chance to sing with any other bands or play with any other bands?

Mattie: No, not yet.  I gotta ask somebody!

Mike: There you go, cool!  Alright, one of the things I’ve heard is that in the little bit of downtime you have you’ve been leading some Bible studies.  So how has that been going?

Mattie: It’s awesome!  It’s a cool way to meet people and sort of find out where people came from.  We’ve had a number of members from other bands come out and people that are on the tour from some of the non-profits.  People like that, people working for the tour, so it’s kind of a diverse group of people that get together and fellowship and spend some time encouraging each other a few times a week.  It’s cool!

Mike: That’s one way to really start to connect to make some new friends.  Very cool!  I know one of the things I think you try to do is again connecting with the fans.  Is that something you’ve been able to do a lot?

Mattie: We do a signing every day, usually when we get done with our set.  We go over to our merch table and hang out there for as long as it takes.  Give people hugs and take pictures, sign autographs and pray with people, whatever they need.

Mike: Moving along, let’s talk about your latest record, Fight The Silence.  My daughter’s Father’s Day gift to me was a Fight The Silence t-shirt.

Mattie: Sweet!

Mike: She was mad at me because I wore it earlier in the week.  “You gotta wear it on Friday!”  I’ll wear something different from a band that’s not here today, so I have a Chariot shirt on, but anyways, one of the songs on there is Fatherless, a very personal song for you.  Is that an experience you’ve used connecting with kids?

Mattie: Yes, it’s pretty crazy, the amount of kids in our generation, the amount of kids at any given Warped Tour who are growing up without a dad.  It’s pretty nuts, for one reason or another.  My father died.  A lot of people, because of a divorce or whatever, that doesn’t have a dad in their life. People whose dad was maybe in the house but not invested in them.

Mike: Or was maybe never part of the family.

Mattie: Right.  We see a lot of that.  It’s cool to see the way that song is resonating with kids in a real way, and sort of meeting them and confronting some real issues that are facing our generation.

Mike: It’s gotta be tough using some of your own personal pain to help others.

Mattie: That’s what it’s for.  If i can’t use pain to help others who are going through it now, it’s all been a waste.

Mike: It’s really interesting looking at the history of the band.  If you listen to your albums back to back you see a real linear progression of the band getting tighter, and maybe a little less death metal or deathcore from some of the early stuff.  Has it been a conscious decision to progress the band that way, or is it something that really just happened naturally for you?

Mattie: Yes and no.  We have been aware that we’re doing it, but really I think it’s just the kind of music that we listen to, the kind of the music that’s coming out of us as we’re writing music as a band.  It’s just sort of progressing in certain ways and flowing in certain ways.

Mike: You don’t consciously sit down and…

Mattie: We don’t sit down with a goal like here’s what our first album is going to sound like and five albums from now we’d like to be here.  It’s just kind of like every time we sit down and write a new album it sounds a little bit different than the last one.  You know, I think we’re on the journey with everyone else, trying to find out where For Today is going to go next.

Mike: Very cool.  Last year you guys released the Prevailer EP, and to me one of the really cool things about it was the acoustic version of Fearless.  I published a review of it, and one of my comments was it seems like something I could see being sung as a praise chorus in church.  It was a shock to me to hear that song in that mode.  Have you thought about doing any other similar acoustic versions?

Mattie: We’ve thrown around the idea.  If we do acoustic stuff I will just kind of sit at home and let the rest of the guys do it.  That’s our guitar player, Ryan.  He does all the singing.  That was like his baby.  I didn’t do anything on that track, I wrote the lyrics.

Mike: Well that’s a pretty important part!

Mattie: He does that, so if we do acoustic remixes or anything like that it would be his baby.  We’ve tossed around the idea here and there.

Mike: Obviously the music is pretty intense and pretty hard, but there’s a lot of beauty in those words, if you just change the style of the music behind it.  I’ve seen some other interviews you’ve been doing on Warped Tour where you are kind of joking around that what’s next for you is maybe a tour with a band with the word “romans” in it.  Sounds like it’s out now, there are signs around here with We Came As Romans and The Color Morale, who are of course here on Warped Tour.

Mattie: And us.

Mike: And you of course.

Mattie: That’s actually one of the things that hung me up (Mattie was a few minutes late for the interview) was that Andy Glass, the bass player for We Came As Romans was like ‘yo man what’s going on!’  So I talked to him for a minute, and he wanted to find the rest of my guys so I took him over to the bus.  They are here in Michigan.

Mike: They are local.  I am here with my daughter and a bunch of her friends, and one of her friends went to high school with the guys.

Mattie: Oh cool!

Mike: Here in Troy, not too far away.  It’s been seven months or so since Fight The Silence came out.  Any thoughts of getting back to the studio or just kind of heads down touring right now?

Mattie: Heads down touring right now.  Ever since we’ve been on tour this summer interviewers keep asking me if we’re going to record new stuff.  We’re now sort of now starting thinking about it.  I guess it’s probably time we start thinking about that.  That’s a good point, we probably should be thinking about that.  At this point we’re just getting through Warped Tour and we’ll see what happens next.

Mike: You’ve been pretty heads down touring, and you have the fall tour coming up.  Again really appreciate the time.  You have a lot going on.  My pleasure interviewing you!  Take care and I look forward to catching your set later this afternoon!

Mattie: Thanks, see you there!

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Category: Interviews