Funeral For A Friend (formed 2002.)
Funeral For A Friend is a Welsh band, playing post-hardcore music. Originally signed to Ferret Music, FFF later joined Atlantic Records and went on to set up their own label, Join Us. The most recent line up of the band is Kris Coombs-Roberts, Gavin Burrough, Darran Smith, Ryan Richards and Matthew Davies-Kreye.
Formation: Funeral For A Friend started out as the band January Thirst. When the singer, Michael Davies, left in December 2002, Matt Davies was invited to join the band. With the line-up as Matt Davies, Matthew Evans and Johnny Phillips, the band named themselves Funeral For A Friend after a song by Planes Mistaken For Stars. Darran Smith, formerly of Tripcage, joined the band on second guitar. They recorded four tracks at Mighty Atom Studios and the studio's owners offered the band a deal on their own label, Mighty Atom Records.
The band's debut EP Between Order & Model was released in 2002.
Breakthrough: The band's second EP was released in 2003, entitled Four Ways To Scream Your Name and later that year, the band won the 'Best UK Newcomer' award at the Kerrang! Magazine awards.
Funeral For A Friend was the opening act on that year's Concrete Jungle stage at the Reading & Leeds Festivals.
In 2003, the band released their debut album. Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation was well received in the UK, though it was not released in the United States until almost a year later. Three singles released from the album reached the UK Top 20, including 'Juneau', 'Escape Artists Never Die' and 'She Drove Me To Daytime Television.' One of the band's many tours to support the album was as the opening act for Iron Maiden.
In 2005, Funeral For A Friend released Hours, on Atlantic Records. Following the release of the album, the band won 'Best British Band' at the Kerrang! Awards. That year, they also played on the Vans Warped Tour, alongside Hawthorne Heights, Thrice, Saosin and Atreyu. In 1996, they played with Deftones on the Taste of Chaos tour. The support tour for Hours culminated with a slot at the Download Festival, which also featured Guns N Roses.
Tales Don't Tell Themselves was released in 2007. The album was leaked onto the internet four days before the official release date. Tales Don't Tell Themselves reached number three in the UK album chart - their highest chart slot at that point in their career, despite being their lowest selling album, in terms of units sold.
Memory and Humanity was originally intended as an EP release but as they ended up with more material than they set out to write, the band changed their minds and decided to release a full-length album. Scheduled for release in October 2008, Ryan had previously announced on the band's website that this would contain more screaming and harsher vocals than their more recent albums. The song 'Kicking and Screaming' was released as the lead single for the album.
Gareth Davies left the band in September 2004 and was replaced by Gavin Burrough.
Biography by Contactmusic.com
