• What: Forever the Sickest Kids, opening for Good Charlotte.
• When: 8 p.m. March 21.
• Where: Roseland Theater, 8 N.W. Sixth Ave., Portland.
• Cost: $25 through TicketsWest, 800-992-8499 or http://ticketswest.com.
• Information: 503-224-2038 or http://roselandpdx.com.
If ever a band could be accused of not having paid its dues before arriving on the national scene, it would be Forever the Sickest Kids.
The group from suburban Fort Worth, Texas, might hold the land speed record for being discovered by record companies: It had inquiries from several major labels just a week or so after becoming a band.
But don’t hate the guys in Forever the Sickest Kids. This wasn’t the result of some calculated plan for world domination. In fact, there wasn’t much of a plan to anything that happened.
• What: Forever the Sickest Kids, opening for Good Charlotte.
• When: 8 p.m. March 21.
• Where: Roseland Theater, 8 N.W. Sixth Ave., Portland.
• Cost: $25 through TicketsWest, 800-992-8499 or <a href="http://ticketswest.com">http://ticketswest.com</a>.
• Information: 503-224-2038 or <a href="http://roselandpdx.com">http://roselandpdx.com</a>.
The band’s big break came by accident, just days after the band members — Jonathan Cook (vocals), Marc Stewart (guitar), Caleb Turman (guitar), Austin Bello (bass), Kyle Burns (drums) and Kent Garrison (keyboards) — had decided to form Forever the Sickest Kids.
While researching ideas to promote the just-formed band, Cook took a visit to PureVolume.com, where a fateful slip of the finger on a computer mouse changed everything for the group.
Cook was already logged on to the music-oriented site, and wanted to see how much it would cost to advertise the band there. When he clicked the wrong spot and accidentally ordered a $350 ad, the site charged his credit card, which it had on file.
That would have been no problem except for one thing. The band had yet to write even one song, and now it had committed to a front-page placement on PureVolume for a song that didn’t even exist.
A panicked call went out to a producer the band knew, Geoff Rockwell.
“We were like, ‘Hey, we have to record a song right now. You have to drop all of this other, whatever you’re doing,’” Stewart said.
Fortunately, Rockwell was able to free up some time. Even more fortunate, the band managed to knock out a song to its liking.
Within days, “Hey Brittany” was on PureVolume and generating scads of plays. In very short order, major labels were contacting Forever the Sickest Kids wanting to come see the band in concert.
The band, obviously, couldn’t do a concert. But it wrote a second song and played for labels, and that apparently was enough to sustain interest. After a bit of a bidding war, Forever the Sickest Kids signed to Universal Motown Records.
It’s been five years since “Hey Brittany” made its PureVolume debut. And on March 1, the group (now minus Garrison, who left the group this year) released its second full-length album, a self-titled effort. (The group also released four EPs between 2007 and 2009 — “Television Off, Party On,” “The Sickest Warped Tour EP,” “Hot Party Jamz” and “The Weekend: Friday.”) Add in plenty of touring, and Forever the Sickest Kids now stands as one of modern rock’s most notable emerging bands.
When the group set up shop with producer David Bendeth in early 2010 to record new material, the plan was to make the second of two sequel EPs to “The Weekend: Friday” EP. That plan changed as the performers realized how much they had grown musically.
“To get in there and hear the five songs we did with him (Bendeth), we were so passionate about it,” Stewart said. “We were like, ‘There’s no way this can be an EP. We need to make this into a full-length.’”
In between tour stops in the next year, the group recorded with producers Shep Goodman, Aaron Accetta, Mark Jackson and Ian Scott. They ended up with 11 songs for the self-titled “Forever the Sickest Kids” CD.
The group might have developed musically, but the new album isn’t a major departure from previous Forever the Sickest Kids releases.
The group rocks a bit harder, but bright, poppy hooks and danceable beats are still at the center of songs such as “Same Dub Excuse (Nothing to Lose) and “Life of the Party.”
The group also continues to develop its sonic mix of old-school instruments (guitar, bass and drums) and electronic rhythms and other synthetic elements.
The band believes the self-titled CD includes its best work yet, so it’s no surprise that new material is figuring prominently into its current sets opening for Good Charlotte. This tour will be followed by a month of headlining dates beginning March 30.
Just under half of the sounds on the Good Charlotte tour are new, Stewart said.
“And once we get to our headliner, we’ll try to add in another song. And as the year goes on and our sets get longer and longer, we’re just going to try to squeeze in as many new songs as we can. We’re excited to get them in the set and see how kids respond to them.”
