By Matt Conner
The guys in Family Force 5 are hot. No, seriously. Speaking to us from the “Vans Warped Tour,” both Soul Glow Activator and Chap Stique mention several times how sweaty, smelly and hot they are along with everything around them. Then again, the word “hot” could definitely describe both their music and success.
This is FF5’s third “Warped Tour,” a strong sign of the early success the quintet has enjoyed. Television appearances such as “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” an early mainstream deal with Maverick Records and multiple CCM Readers’ Choice Awards only serve to strengthen that position. Yet the band still seeks to take it to another level—even if that means adding extraterrestrial equipment.
“We've got a brand-new piece of equipment we have on this tour that we bought from aliens in outer space,” explains Soul Glow Activator (SGA). “It's called the ‘Family Force Five Thousand.’ It's a six foot drum machine.”
“It's the only one in the universe,” adds Chap Stique. “Basically, Nadaddy plays it by elbowing it, head-butting it, kicking it; and it rules. It's the only one in existence. It has 16 pads on it that you play, and they light up when you play them like Simon.”
It seems impossible to be able to add more energy to the live experience for which the band is known. Yet, FF5 has proven time and again its willingness to up its game for the sake of the fan’s experience. This also means taking things to a new level on the band’s newest studio recording, Dance or Die.
“It's definitely more of a pure sounding album,” says SGA. “We definitely thought a lot more about the lyrics this time out instead of spouting out what we wanted to spout out in our teenage years and our young 20s. We actually wanted to say something this time. The whole record has a sci-fi concept, but it's very spiritual. There are a couple figures in this whole story, where it happens in the really far-off future. There are three characters in the story, and there's a very Christ-like figure who dies for someone. It ends up being this Fifth Element or Matrix kind of person. They end up obliterating the enemy at the end through radiation.”
“Soul Glow here is really incredible with the beats,” explains Chap Stique. “So he'll come up with some amazing, ridiculous hip-hop beat or electronic vibe; and we'll throw it in the speakers and everybody will start humming and singing until we find melodies. We'll go, 'That's not it. That's not it. Yes, yes! That's it!' Once you come up with hooks that way, then it takes us eight billion years for the five of us to write lyrics, but that's because we want them to be the right lyrics. We're slow, but we're very, very pleased with what we came out with. It says a lot of what we wanted to say.”
But for all the self-imposed pressure to deliver with their music, the guys in Family Force 5—which also includes Crouton, Nadaddy, Xanadu and Fatty—are ultimately committed to come through where it really counts: at home.
“Being on the road makes you say, 'Hey, if we have to be on the road, let's make this show worth it. Let's make it worth the money for the crowd and bust our butts to get back home as quick as we can,’” admits SGA. “Sometimes we can fly family members out, and other times, they can travel with us. But other times it's really, really hard, and there's a big phone bill at the end of the month with a lot of tears. We're all close friends with 1-800-FLOWERS by now. It's really tough to be honest. It's the nature of the beast, sadly. So we're trying to get to the point where we can invest in our families and slow down when we need to.
“I definitely do. I'm a father now,” he continues. “A few of us are married, so that'll add some more years to you, but we still put on a show and still party and have a good time on stage. We're still Family Force 5 when it comes down to it.”
Check out familyforce5.com for more info.
