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Future of Forestry

If you’re a Future of Forestry fan, this is going to be a good year for you. The group is planning on releasing three new EPs this year, with the first selection dropping in May. It’s several songs forthcoming from a group known for their musical prowess and ingenuity, especially on 2007’s Twilight.

We recently sat down with lead singer and songwriter Eric Owyoung to discuss his expectations for the new year, his work with other bands and how he can be his own worst enemy.

Soul-Audio: I noticed that you guys just recorded a DVD?

Eric Owyoung: Yeah, we recorded the last performance of our Christmas tour, which was in Arizona. So we recorded a live DVD of it and so we should be putting that out next December. We just put our Christmas EP out last Christmas, so this next one we will have the live DVD and the EP to offer to people.

SA: What is the band up to now?

Eric: We’re in the studio. We’re taking a break from playing until our album comes out and we’re recording over the next few months.

SA: How far into the process are you guys?

Eric: We’re about halfway done. I’m actually turning in a song next week because the label, Credential Recordings, is going to do a compilation of a lot of different artists and they wanted to put one song on there and feature it. So I have one song due next week. Then in a month, the rest of the album is due.

SA: Is everything going well so far?

Eric: Yeah, it is. Most of it, I’m recording myself. Then, T.J. is coming down from Northern California tomorrow and we’ll do a bulk of the guitars and extra instruments.

SA: I wanted to ask about the bigger picture. In terms of expectations for your own career thus far, do you ever think about that? Are you where you thought you’d be?

Eric: That’s a big question. I think in my earlier career I had a lot of ways that I was set on hoping it would be this way or that. The older that I get, I find it never works out that way. [Laughs] So if you’re asking if things turned out the way I hoped, recently I feel a lot more opening up in my life and with the situation I’m in. Of course, there are things that I want or that I’m striving for, but hopefully my approach to life and this band is just to take in what God gives me every day and just going with it. I can say that today he’s given me a lot of new material and new music and so I have to be busy with that. Sometimes I’m a little bit too busy. But I’m learning just to take what He has for me every day and enjoy it.

SA: Is Credential still a good home for you?

Eric: Yeah, they have been. I recently re-upped my contract with them. Times have changed so much that the days of record labels and artists thriving in this with tons of money just doesn’t exist anymore. Record labels have had to make changes within themselves, starting with usually firing half of the people who work for them and restructuring. So we had to do that as well. We came up with a deal that essentially makes me an independent artist that’s still on the label. They give me the freedom to make my own music and yet they are involved with it and support it and it goes under their name.

So far it’s working out. This will be the first album we do within that contract and we’re both looking forward to that. We’re both working on it together and we’re hopeful about it. I can tell you a year or two from now if it actually worked out, you know? Times are so new right now with the way music has to be done and needs to be done with the economy. Everybody is recreating the wheel together and you never know who’s going to benefit or who is not, so we’ll see.

SA: Is that more frightening or more exciting for someone else?

Eric: Obviously it’s a little bit of both. Some days I wonder, ‘Crap what did I do? This is going to turn out horrible.’ Then other days I’m so thankful for what I have and what I do. I think for the most part I lean toward the thankfulness because I really feel like it’s a decision made out of goodwill on both sides and God was a part of giving me an open door and opportunity rather than giving me something I should be afraid of.

SA: So you’re not touring now and you’re recording three EPs this year, so does this mean Future of Forestry is not touring for most of 2009?

Eric: No, we’ll be touring. Just right now we’re not playing except for one date at House of Blues with Delirious on March 18th. Then after that, we don’t have anything until the album comes out and then we’ll do some touring. That’s what I’m trying to figure out and handle what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m really enjoying producing and yet we also have to tour and record these songs. Somehow it all fits in there after I’m completely exhausted.

SA: How much are you producing?

Eric: I’m mostly focusing on one band right now, which is Urban Rescue, and I’m evaluating it all, too. It’s been such a pain to mix all my own stuff as well because I don’t have a life outside of it. They are the only ones I’m working with now. There are some other possibilities, but this is the only one for now. I really need and want to spend most of the time on my own music this next year.

SA: Can you become your own worst enemy when it comes to promising things?

Eric: Yeah that’s been the lesson of this year. I went out there with all this ambition and I am known to bite off more than I can chew. I can book all these things and make promises, but then the only way to follow through is to overwork and kill myself in that process. Usually that’s what happens because I hate being someone who says he will do something and then doesn’t. To be the person of integrity I want to be, I end up hurting myself in that process. But I am grateful for the opportunities that I have because I get to make music. I get to learn from other musicians and become better at what I do.

Photo Credit: Timm Ziegenthaler