Forever and Oz

Band:

Forever and Oz

Members: Seth Godfrey, guitar and vocals; Liam Farrell, guitar

Who we talked to: Farrell, 14

How did you guys get together? A year or two ago, me and Seth were at a concert at Central (York) High School. We were just like, "Wow. I want to do that." But then, the idea just kind of died. Then, on the first day of summer, we were together at this party, and we had a guitar and then we were, like, "hey, do you remember when said we wanted to be in a band?" We just started writing music.

Had you guys known each other for a while? I've known Seth for a while, but I hadn't started being really good friends with him until this summer. Over the summer, we became best friends. We pretty much do the same thing, like, every weekend, which is just write some music, and then, just hang out with out with friends.

You guys played at the New Year's Revolution. How did you get picked for that? I was at the one last year, just watching some of the other bands and that got me interested. When I started seeing flyers around for it (this year), we just sent them our information. Apparently, there weren't too many entries, but still . . . it's a nice thing to hear back from that.

How was that show? It was a really good experience. There weren't too many people there, but it was still a lot of fun just being there with (our) friends and everything (and) hearing other bands play, too. One of the bands we played with was Luminaire Divided, and we're really good friends with them because I go to school with them (at York Catholic High School). The other band was 180 Out, and I haven't really heard too much about them or anything . . . so it was pretty cool.

Who are your influences? I think that the big influences on us would have to be Jack Johnson and Dave Matthews Band and then just a lot of local bands around here like Kingsfoil and Autumn's Rising and Scott Sauter. I really love (hearing) other bands play concerts.

If you could choose one larger act to see, what would it be? I would probably either see Jack Johnson or Ben Folds. Jack Johnson's really inspirational to me and Ben Folds, his concerts are said to be amazing.

Are you hoping to team up with some local bands? We have done some shows with some other bands around here. We played (Capitol Bandstand) at the Strand-Capitol (Performing Arts Center), and then we played at the Martin Library. We've played at an AIDS benefit concert last October at a church.

How did the bandstand go? The band that ended up winning was Luminaire Divided. There was also Daniel Black Daniel which was, like, a hardcore band. They really stress the whole anti-drug, above the influence kind of thing, so that's really cool.

What's coming up for you guys? We're talking to people in RLH guitars because they have a studio down there. I, personally, am not too good at writing lyrics at all. (Laughs) Seth . . . is actually really good. I'm not too sure where he gets all of his ideas from. I write a lot of the guitar parts. I guess you could classify us as acoustic rock/indie. There (are) songs that that the audience can really get into and then there (are) also songs that you can relax and have a nice cup of coffee to it. We want to make it interesting and make good first impressions.

You seem to go to a lot of shows, so what do you think about York's music scene? There's a lot of places around here that have bands play just about every week like Sparky & Clark's and RLH Guitars. There (are) also places like the (York) JCC that has their annual battle of the bands that we're playing. That is on Feb. 7.

- ERIN McCRACKEN, FLIPSIDE STAFF

If you go

For details, visit www.myspace.com/foreverandoz. To listen to the interview, visit www.flipsidepa.com.