For the Forsaken
Family by blood and by bond, fighting demons – internal and external, and being not only inspired by frontman Dan’s daughter but being saved by her… You don’t sound like this band without seeing and living life at its worst – and then becoming your best. Dan (also on bass), Stu (guitar) Jack (guitar) and Chev (drums) are bloody hilarious and lovely to talk to, so catching up with them before their recent set at the B2 in Norwich was always gonna be a laugh. But the honesty with which Dan speaks about his addictions, and how he battles them with his band of brothers, is what elevates For The Forsaken to being a band you don’t just want to hear – they’re one you need to hear.
A good place to start then, would be their debut album ‘Hole in my Soul’ – released on September 19 last year. ‘A lot of hard work went into it,’ says Chev. ‘Yeah!’ adds Dan, ‘twenty years of drug abuse!’ And that, right there, is one of the many reasons to love this band, which is based around Dan’s substance abuse and subsequent recovery. Because if you can’t laugh, what can you do?
‘Once we’d recorded it we wanted it out there, but the thing to do these days is to drip feed it and release singles,’ adds Jack, who’s Dan’s son. ‘I wanted to be in a band because of my dad,’ Jack tells us, ‘so it’s really cool.’
Dan explains, ‘He used to come to my gigs when he was young – when I was in other bands. It’s a blessing to be together.’
‘It’s nice to see the connection on stage and when we’re writing songs, because they bounce off each other,' says Stu. ‘And I feel like we’re very open to each other’s opinions, which is a positive way more then a negative. We’ve seen so many bands fail from bottling stuff up.’
‘This band is all open and honest. We discuss everything,’ adds Chev.
‘Sometimes we might hurt each other’s feelings but it gets dealt with quickly,’ continues Dan. ‘I can be quite fiery and say things in the spur of the moment, but the difference is that now I look at myself and I’ll say sorry to the guys for blowing up.’
The road to Dan’s recovery from addictions is documented throughout many of the band’s songs. Are you happy to tell us a bit more about it please Dan? ‘I now look at addiction differently to when I was in it,’ Dan obliges. ‘I can now see that as much as I was addicted to different drugs, alcohol and gambling, I was addicted to changing how I felt, because I didn’t like being me. And the only way I could face life was to numb myself from it. I didn’t feel like I fitted in with anything or anyone.’
Dan adds, ‘There is another way to live life without numbing yourself from it. It doesn’t feel like it, but there is. Not only have I gone through it and lived it myself, I’ve helped other people going through the same thing. Seeing the light come back in their eyes, and seeing them starting to believe in life again is amazing.’
The story behind Dan’s recovery is as heart-warming as it is heart-breaking. He tell us, ‘My daughter being born, and what she went through, was kind of my rock bottom. She was only given a few days to live and she fought through it. And I stared feeling sorry for myself - because I was a drug addict. But then I thought ‘if she can fight through that and she's not experienced anything in life, I must be able to find the strength to be there for her’. It made me realise I needed to be there for all my kids.’
Daisy, now seven, was born three months premature. Dan tells us, ‘She had a punctured bowel and had to be operated on when she was first born – almost straight away. She had heart surgery when she was still in an incubator, she has septo-optic dysplasia, she’s got affected hearing. But she’s the happiest human being I’ve ever known.’
During the boys’ live shows Dan always mentions a little about his past, but he never preaches. For The Forsaken let their loud guitars, gritty growl and soul-scouring lyrics lead the audience into their (self-proclaimed) fucked up family. Their music is heavy, their drums get beaten harder than Spurs on a Sunday, and despite the serious stories their songs are telling, Chev, Stu, Dan and Jack are smiling and look like they’re having the time of their lives up there.
That’s probably why there’s something about For the Forsaken’s live performances that keep you coming back for more. It feels fair to describe them as addictive. It’s maybe a bit tasteless to describe them like this, given all that Dan’s been through. But it’s true. The band even got voted through to play Lincolnshire’s Call of the Wild festival this year after winning over the crowd at battle of the bands/two days of brilliant music event, Trailblazer.
Seeing these boys is thought-provoking and face-melting at the same time. And while For The Forsaken’s music may be loud enough to kill off a couple of braincells, it’ll make you a better person.
Mind.org.uk offers loads of resources for those battling addictions. And there’s a hug right here too xxx
