Forever in a Day

Shannon ONeil

Six band members were standing around in a circle much like students in a high school hallway but in a dark parking lot with freezing weather conditions and the sounds of Atavan blearing through the bar’s doors. These boys were far past high school but clicked together like they were friends from way back when – joking around, drinking, making inappropriate jokes and bringing up each other’s ugly pasts – but unlike being just friends, they were a band, Forever In A Day.

On Saturday, Oct. 18, Forever In A Day played its second show in a month-long tour. It definitely wasn’t the biggest performance but the band’s attitude was as if it was headlining at a palace.

“It doesn’t matter if we are playing for five people or a thousand, we like to give it our all,” guitarist Alex Burrows said to Spartan Edge.

The pop-punk Michigan band has been playing shows throughout Michigan and is now touring with Atavan throughout the Midwest states. Before this personal tour they opened for bands like The Rocket Summer, Daphne Loves Derby and Chiodos. Opening for the Chiodos tour was the largest show the band has ever played.

“Playing at the State Theatre was awesome. I mean, come on, Sesame Street Live plays there!” vocalist David Henry said.

The band from the outside looks like six boys with perfectly messed up hair, scene clothes, and with just the right amount of beer in their system to get out of their comfort zone. Their story follows a path from students to artists.

“It started with a little plagiarism,” guitarist Andrew Smyth said.

Before the band was set with their members, Smyth stole the name, Forever In A Day, from one of his favorite bands, The Starting Line.

The song from which they get their name talks about life, growing, falling and finding one’s self. The band went through times of genre changes, member changes and high and low points making their name fit with what makes them a band. Forever In A Day had a long history before it was even on the scene and hopes to make bigger history in the future.

Many of the members did attend college but didn’t fit the mold of an average student. While they promote going to school and getting a degree, they hope their future lies with music, not books.

Smyth spoke for the band: “I think we all always wanted to do music. It’s a way out, a different route.”
Talking about why they each started playing music, keyboardist and vocalist Brandon Ronchetto said, “We all love music. The world would not spin without music –  it holds everything together and links people.”

With personal ties to singing since high school choir, vocalist David Henry said, “I don’t know how I got into [singing in a band], but now that I am, I am really happy with it.”  

Henry and lead guitarist Alex Burrows lived together before the band, played video games late through the night, hung out all the time and even exercised together every morning by swimming across the lake by their home.

Swimming across the lake brought them together as more than just roommates because each time they swam two swans would come over to them. No matter what they did, or how long they swam underwater the swans would always be right next to them ready to attack. They created a life bond. Bonds like Henry and Burrow’s helped create Forever In A Day’s harmonious sound.

The once spiky-haired boys who tanned and worked at places like Hollister transformed into a band that found themselves with the help of each other and their music. Originally, Forever In A Day was a hardcore band, not playing the pop-punk music it plays today. It was just another step towards learning what the band is. “I don’t really like singing for [a hardcore] band,” Henry said.

Many bands go through genre changes and get called sellouts or posers because they either changed into or came from a genre to get more fans or fame. However, when Forever In A Day kicked out their old drummer and screamer for reasons that seemed to run deeper than his beats being off, the band took its music in a different direction.  

It was a unanimous agreement that changing their pace was the best move they ever made. “Our hearts are in this type of music, not the other,” Henry said.

Forever In A Day’s music defines what the band is and who the members are as people. Just as the  melodies move and blend quickly, the guys respond quickly, wittily and jokingly with each other, which is hard to keep up with when meeting them for the first time. With jokes about being gay, who they were in the past and who they are now, Henry said, “We’re all straight edge here,” but at the same time Ronchetto had a Corona in hand.

Being a band for a while, Forever In A Day already knows how things go over and have high hopes for the future.

“Forever In A Day is going to fucking take over the world,” said Ronchetto.

With high ambitions comes either a long fall or a rise to meet the challenge. If they one day want “action figures [of themselves], so that little girls can play with them,” as Burrows said, they will need to play more shows with the energy like Mac’s.

Even with only 20 people within the broken, falling down bar, Forever In A Day came out with a big entrance and played as though the room was overcrowded. The band’s poppy sound got the crowd to move and sing along with popular songs.

Henry’s favorite song to play is an Nsync cover song because “it has a lot of energy, and the guys call us gay – I love when they call us gay because we know they secretly love it.”

Forever In A Day is a full package of personalities, history, friends and music. Starting with their group chant of “balls” before every show and ending with someone waking up in the van with Burrows staring at him, they have fun.

Drummer Drew Easton quoted band manager Brian Beeler to sum up what they, as a band, hope to do with their music: “Give people the gift of rock.”

Questions? Comments? Contact Shannan Oneil at oneilsh3@msu.edu

Who are you: 
What's Your Major: 
What would you like to say:

Thursday, November 6 at 05:44 PM:
anonymous from ballin' wrote:
"They didn't kick the drummer out. He quit. There were a lot more issues going on than just "musical differences.""

Thursday, November 6 at 04:19 PM:
Nicole Rork from awesomeness wrote:
"balls, haha. "