Frank Iero talks Future Violents band name inspiration, matching tattoos

Have you ever wondered how Frank Iero came up with the name, Frank Iero and the Future Violents? Did you know the members of Iero’s solo project all have matching tattoos? Iero and the rest of the Future Violents sat down with INKED to dish out the answers to these questions and more.

Check it out below!

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FIATFV is composed of Iero, Evan Nestor on guitar, Murder By Death’s Matt Armstrong on bass, Thursday’s Tucker Rule on drums and the Mermaid’s Kayleigh Goldsworthy on piano, organ and violin.

So how did this bunch of musicians with such a wide array of backgrounds and experiences come together to create the Future Violents?

“It actually goes back 19 or 20 years,” Iero tells INKED. “With my past band, Pencey Prep, we’d hang out at parties and we’d get to see Thursday play. At the time, Thursday was really on the rise and the biggest band going. A real hometown hero kind of thing. We’d see them playing and go, ‘Oh my God, they’re so good.’ They were the tightest band that maybe I’d ever seen. Seeing Tucker and the way that he played, and the way that he wrote music–and thought about it melodically–he would write hooks on your arms. I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, I’d really like to get to play with them.’”

While Thursday was touring, Iero met Armstrong through his band Little Joe Gould, who ended up changing their name to Murder by Death.

“When I saw Matt Armstrong I thought, ‘Wow, he’s just on a different wavelength’ in the way that he thinks about constructing parts that he’s playing. It’s not just following a guitar line, he creates soundscapes and thinks about music in a different way. I thought, ‘How cool it would be to have a band with him.'”

While the friendship between these three artists goes back 20 years, Goldsworthy did not enter the picture until more recently.

“Flash forward to two years ago, I met Kayleigh Goldsworthy. She is a multi-instrumentalist; she plays piano, organ, mandolin, guitar, violin, and sings beautifully. She’s unreal. I always wanted a female component to one of my bands and I always thought it would be really great to have that timber of voice.”

So how did Iero settle on the Future Violents band name? The story may come as a surprise to most.

“I was already looking for names and on our flight from Perth to Sydney – on the fateful Australia tour where we had this horrible accident about three years ago – a steward came over and was like, ‘You guys look like you’re in a band,’ and I said, ‘Yeah we are Frank Iero and The Patience.’ He misheard and said, ‘The Future Violents, that’s a crazy name.’ And I was like, ‘No, that’s an amazing name. I’m writing that down.’”

While in Sydney, a bus accident prevented the project from continuing the tour, causing Iero to really reflect on the band’s name.

“So this project made me think about that moment, and what that collection of words meant. I thought about how life for us changed so abruptly and so violently, and how that was a real, active participant.”

The accident also impacted the creation of the band’s album, Barriers.

“I knew I had this huge elephant in the room, like this life-changing event that just seeped into my DNA. I felt like a completely different person because of this thing that happened. And now this is the first record since that occurrence, and I kept looking over my shoulder at this giant dark cloud and being like, ‘I have to address this. There’s no way I can’t address it.’ But everything I said didn’t feel powerful enough, or it didn’t encompass all of the emotions that it had inside about that event. So I put it off because I thought, ‘Maybe I don’t know how to do this anymore. Maybe this is just too big and I can’t move forward from it.’

And then we’re talking about these musicians, these people that I’ve wanted to be in a band with for 20 years telling me, ‘Hey, now’s the time you can do it.’ And I thought to myself, ‘How stupid to miss out on this opportunity because I can’t address this and deal with my shit?’ And that was my wall. That was my barrier.”

FIATFV also reveal how they all have matching barbed-wire heart tattoos which they got while they were all recording in Chicago, proof of exactly how much of a team these bandmates really are.

You can check out the full interview, here.

You can catch Iero and the Future Violents on tour now. Check out the full list of dates below and pick up your tickets here.

Dates:

06/01 – Pawtucket, RI @ The Met
06/02 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
06/04 – Harrisburg, PA @ Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center
06/05 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Rex Theater
06/06 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
06/07 – Cincinnati, OH @ Bogarts
06/08 – Louisville, KY @ Mercury Ballroom
06/10 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
06/11 – Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
06/13 – Tampa, FL @ The Crowbar

06/14 –  Orlando, FL @ The Social
06/15 – Jacksonville, FL @ 1904 Music Hall
06/16 – Columbia, SC @ The Senate
06/18 – Charlotte, NC @ Amos Southend
06/20 – VA Beach, VA @ eLEVATION 27
06/21 – Washington DC @ Union Stage
06/22 – New York, New York @ Rocks Off Cruise
09/27 – Guadalajara, Mexico @ C3 Stage
09/28 – Monterrey, Mexico @ Cafe Iguana
09/29 – Mexico City, Mexico @ Auditorio Blackberry

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