Web Exclusive: A conversation with Four Year Strong's Josh Lyford

While there’s a lot going on now with Four Year Strong-what with a spot on this year’s Rockstar Taste Of Chao and a co-headling gig alongside Set Your Goals-the pop-punks have decided to turn the clocks back a decade. Their latest release, Explains It All, is a tribute to memorable songs from the ‘90s featuring throwbacks to No Doubt, Alanis Morrisette and Third Eye Blind, among others. Synth player JOSH LYFORD recently spoke with LUCY ALBERS about where this nostalgia is coming from.



The obvious question: Why a ’90s cover album?

Well, it was something we had always joked around about. It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek sort of thing, but we were all actually serious about it. We just wanted to do some cheesy pop stuff. We had a little time off, but not quite enough to record a full-length, so we went into the studio and this is what came of it.


Are there stories behind the songs you chose?
Sure, a little bit. I mean, there are songs that remind you of your childhood and you think, “Oh, I remember being a kid and listening to this song in 7th grade and there was this girl I liked and I bought her a flower on Valentines Day and she broke it in half’ and we would listen to whatever song and laugh about it.” Or there are songs that you half- liked and listened to more and loved later. Some of the songs are from the most influential bands that we listened to back when.


Do you have any personal favorites?

[Tal Bachman’s] “She’s So High” and [Third Eye Blind’s] “Semi-Charmed Life” are good. [Sugar Ray’s] “Fly” was fun to do with Travis [McCoy] from Gym Class Heroes. We had no idea what it would end up sounding like, but I think it turned out really well.

Are there any songs that you guys wanted to do but didn’t make the cut?

Our list was originally like 50 or 60 songs. We basically wanted any cheesy song that we grew up with. We really could have recorded all day long for weeks. Who knows, next time we could do, like, the raging ’20s or raging whatever.


Maybe a boy band covers album?

[Laughs.] Absolutely! That would actually be really fun!

Was it hard to transform these songs into Four Year Strong songs?
Actually, the weird thing about that is that for the most part, everyone in the band had been sort of jamming around with these songs for years. So when we got into the studio to do it, it all just kind of came together. It wasn’t necessarily a really though-out process, it just kind of happened that way. We wanted to make it as fast and as heavy as we could. Since we were doing covers, we could kind of do whatever we wanted with them. I mean, with covers, you’re kind of more open to do different things as opposed to doing a full-on Four Year Strong album. We just wanted to have fun with it.


Are you planning a full-on Four Year Strong album anytime soon?

We’ve been doing a little already, actually. After this tour, we’ll go into the studio a little more and see where we can go from there. We don’t want to go too long without having another full-length out. I can’t really say too much. Sometimes we like to keep things under wraps, you know? We have some ideas for who we might record with. So far we don’t have a set date or anything. We want to have like 20 or 25 songs to choose from, though. Like I said, we’ll be going in after tour and we’ll have some overseas stuff later this year. We’re definitely going to be busy.

Categories: