Words and interview By Geoff Burns
It’s the early afternoon on the last day of the Touring Dead Tour, which happens to be in Joliet, Illinois. Famous Last Words’ vocalist Jeremy Tollas is on the phone talking about the tour, which also featured co-headliner Tear Out The Heart and supporting act For All I Am.
“The tour has been awesome,” Tollas says. “There have been a lot of kids at every single show singing along going crazy. It’s just been a great tour.”
But, just pause for a second. The post-hardcore/metal band, from Petoskey, Michigan, have recently had a busy schedule. Not only were they on the road for close to a month for the Touring Dead Tour, they also managed to fit in an appearance at the South By So What Music Festival, recruited Evan Foley as another guitarist and released their first short film, A Two-Faced Charade, named after their debut album.
The band has become known for creating concept albums. Some people might even consider them to be more of an art project than a band, as they incorporate stories into their lyrical content. For example, Famous Last Words’ debut album, Two-Faced Charade, details a story through 12 songs about a psychopath who goes insane over the idea of love.
“On really long drives pretty much every time, I’m just always constantly thinking about really crazy random shit,” Tollas says with a brief laugh. “On tour, I’ll come up with a crazy concept idea and most of them I’ll throw away, but some of them I’ll keep and some of them I’ll use parts of.”
Tollas explains how their song “The Show Must Go On” from their debut album was where the idea to make a 30-minute short film originated. He wanted to be able to explain the album’s story in full originated from.
Director Charlie Anderson filmed the music video for “The Show Must Go On,” and it has since made it to almost 6 million views on YouTube.
“When we did that video I was like, ‘Hey Charlie! If this hits a 1 million views, we have to make a short film for this,’” Tollas remembers with another brief laugh. “At first, I was kind of joking and half serious, and then it hit 1 million views. Then he texted me and said, ‘Ok, we should probably do this.’”
And so Tollas’ half joke became a reality. The band officially released their first short film at the end of March, and it has since had more than 28,000 views on YouTube.
Famous Last Words released their second album, Council of The Dead, last year. It is another concept album that consists of eight narratives based off of one major concept.
Tollas said the process of creating a concept album is difficult because he wants to make sure every listener enjoys the piece of art.
“With a concept album, you can’t have it be too complicated because there’s going to be those kids that don’t realize it’s a concept album and you need to make the album interesting for them too,” Tollas says. “You can never be too specific, but you have to find that middle ground between vague and specific within the story so kids who don’t understand that it’s a concept album will still enjoy the songs.”
While the Touring Dead Tour recently came to an end, Famous Last Words have announced another co-headling tour with Farewell, My Love, and supporting bands Sycamour and It Lives It Breathes. Although nothing has been finalized as of yet, Tollas also is currently writing a script for a possible short film for Council Of The Dead.
“When I started doing music, I wrote music as a therapeutic outlet for myself,” Tollas says. “I never thought thousands of kids would join me and all of these emotions and listening to the music and have it help them because it helps me so much. That’s why I do it. We’re very focused on how fucked up the world is, but there’s always that little bit of light even in the darkest places.”
