What is the Future of Forestry?
01-26-2007
by Brenten Gilbert

You may remember Something Like Silas, the modern worship group who debuted on Sparrow Records a few years ago. After a restructuring of members and goals, the group has re-emerged as Future of Forestry, a modern rock group that merges artistry with an attitude of worship.

Recently the band released Twilight, their debut as Future of Forestry on the young label imprint, Credential Recordings and CMCentral's brenten gilbert caught up with Eric Owyoung to discuss the new album, nature vs. technology and the direction that the band expects to take in the coming days.

Below is that transcript.

Hey how's it going?

Good. How are you?

I'm doing alright

Cool

So, do you have a few days off to relax a little bit before the album comes out?

Not really. Actually, it's a very busy three weeks. We've got some gigs and a lot of stuff we need to do before the release and then we are on tour after that for like two months. So, not exactly a very restful season right now, but it's just a season.

You excited about the new album though?

Oh yeah, I couldn't be more excited. It's been recorded for a year and this is the best album that we've made, so I can't be more excited about it.

Is it an extension of the EP? I know there is some overlap on the songs. . .

There are a few overlaps, but we actually recorded the full-length first. Then, when we were done with it, the record label kind of like, re-thought things because we switched our name and kind of recreated the band as Future of Forestry instead of Something Like Silas. So after we were done with the album, instead of releasing it, the record label was like, "Hey, why don't we take a few songs from of the full-length, record a couple of more, and make it an EP." So, I produced those without Ken Andrews and then we had the EP. So it's a little different. There are few songs that are different.

That's cool. Part of the whole marketing sceme that you don't necessarily think of when you decide to change your name. . .

Yeah, and actually that decision wasn't made until we. . . I can't even remember when that decision was made, but I know that it wasn't made early on. It was made during the process of writing the songs and making the record.

Now, the inspiration for the name is based on a CS Lewis poem. . .

Right.

And combining that with the title of the album (Twilight), some people might say that you have a dismal outlook on life. . .

What would give you that impression?

Well, the poem is about the demise of the world as we know it - just being overrun by our own ambitions - and then Twilight kind of implies the coming of the night, a dark period or something like that. . . Maybe I'm way off base?

Well, the idea behind the poem. . . I guess if you are purely looking at the poem as [if it says that] all of this is hopelessness, then yeah, it's very dark. But I think the poem is actually very hopeful in that CS Lewis is pointing out - using the idea of the trees being all gone as a metaphor - [he's] kind of urging us to take a look at our lives. Urging us to take a look at what our true nature is. For example, the end of it. . . In his last quote, he says: "So shall a homeless time, though dimly / Catch from afar (for soul is watchfu) /l a sight of tree-delighted Eden." And what he's pointing at is the nature of people and the nature of this world is that all things are good. Going back to Eden. That represented that everything is good in Eden and I think that is what he is pointing to. That we need to take a look at our lives, we need to take a look at what our lives are stripped of. What part of our lives are stripped of the tree, of the beauty, of the good things, of the natural things and replaced with industrial things, sterile and progressive? How can we recapture our true nature? I think it's a positive thrust. It's an encouragement for us to stop and to take in what is good and to find ourselves.

Twilight is exactly about that. It's about finding myself. When you look at what Twilight is, it's kind of this weird stage. You can't really call it dark, but you can't call it light either. It's an in between stage. So that is the concept I wanted to bring out in the song. This transition time, this kind of strange, "Where am I?" time - a time of being in between. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. I think what determines whether it's good or bad is where you end up in that journey. Do you look at that time of twilight with hope or with despair? I think that the songs that I wrote. . . Each song has the idea of hope within it.

Alright then. But it's an uncomfortable position to be in the whole state of transition. . .

Oh yeah, definitely. And how many of us don't relate to that?

Yeah. Every day is a new transition. Would you say that this is a worship album? With Something Like Silas, it was part worship music and part rock music, but marketed as worship. Would you say that your direction is still worshipful?

Part of the reason we started Future of Forestry is so that we didn't necessarily have to call it that, call it one category. Something Like Silas was definitely marketed in the Christian industry exclusively and kind of known as [worship]. When we created Future of Forestry, in a lot of ways it was so that we could blur the lines a little bit and let music be what it is. Let it be used for whatever people want to use it for. If they want to use it in a worship service, I definitely think there are some songs that can be used in that [setting], like "Gazing", "Stay Besides Me" and "You and I". I feel that these songs are accessible in the church. Yet a song like "Sanctitatis". . . That's a song that is mostly instrumental, but it has a little Latin phrase in it. It's very worshipful, but we take that out and play it in the secular environment. We play it as a club song, so I think in a lot of ways, that's our goal - to let the music be what it is and let it be worshipful in a club setting and let it rock in a church setting.

Cool. Since we are on the topic of worship, are you still involved in the Flood fellowship?

Yes. When we are home in San Diego, we play. We play on Sunday nights at our home church, but otherwise we are out and about touring and stuff like that.

I've kind of noticed your touring schedule includes a lot of churches and colleges. Are you looking to branch out from that setting as well?

A little bit. It's pretty new for us, but we played House of Blues a few months ago and our cd release is at the Epicenter in San Diego, which is a secular club. We definitely have a passion for that.

How is the atmosphere different? Has it been a challenge for you guys to stretch out beyond just churches?

I think it's more difficult to play in a secular environment because people are evaluating you for your music and the critical masses are more out there. But that is what we like about it, you know? When you play in a secular environment, you have to play well in order to be respected. That's what music is about. If you aren't playing well and you aren't moving people with your music, if you aren't touching them with the music, then you aren't doing a whole lot. It's really challenging to do that in a secular environment, but we enjoy that challenge.

How did you guys get hooked up with Ken Andrews?

Chris York (EMI/CMG) has been wanting to work with him for a while, but Ken Andrews is pretty selective with the stuff that he produces. Especially since he's been mixing a lot lately - he mixed a lot of the Copeland, Tenacious D stuff - he's pretty busy. So he has the option of taking on the groups that he really like and Chris sent him some of our demos. He loved them, so we just went from there.

Wow. It's a pretty big honor to work with him.

It was. It was amazing to be working with him. And he's working with guys like Beck and it's like, "man, this guy is a great musician!"

So what was it like working with him? What was the atmosphere like?

The atmosphere was super fun, loose, not ridgid. The studio environment was very efficient. Our band has in the past records tended to, like. . . We've struggled with such a slow pace, that there isn't enough momentum, creative momentum. He really pushed that. He knows what he's doing. He knows how to get it to sound good with the experience that he has. We didn't sit there for hours trying to get a guitar tone or a tom to sound right. Things moved fast. It kind of helped us creatively in that aspect.

Cool.

Another thing is that he held very loosely to the project. In other words, he had a sense of freedom with us. We worked with him for about a month back in LA, but then he gave us the tracks, because he was working with Beck at the time and he needed to take a break to do that. He gave us the tracks so that we could work on them on our own, tweak a bunch of stuff and do some of the more experimental stuff that took more time. So we took the tracks back to my studio, added a bunch of stuff to them and then brought them back to him to mix, saying, "Hey, if you like it, keep it. If you don't, mute it." I think he kept pretty much everything.

Nice. What do you guys think you accomplished with this album that you might not have been able to without his help?

Well, we learned a lot in terms of how to move and how to keep the creative vibe going - that creative momentum. That was a huge lesson for us that we learned from him. He did a good job keeping the sound structure that we had while simplifying them or stepping back and kind of muting a chorus or switching things around. He directed us in that way. I think the hugest thing about this album that we've never had is working with a producer who really understands the sound we were going for and then mixing it. That was pretty cool to have someone that has a mix in mind already when he's tracking.

Looking at the cover art, you have a nautilus on the cover. What is the significance of that to you?

As we were talking about Future of Forestry, I started looking at the poem and I saw this contrast between the technical and natural. The mathematical versus the artistic I guess you could say. And my wife bought me this book called Numbers in Nature that describes all of these mathematical formulas found in nature. So I thought it was a cool concept. Here we are in this poem and we are talking about the industrial and the technical versus the natural and simplistic and then I'm reading this book that is kind of describing how these two things are found together. I don't know, it's just kind of a fun concept that I got really interested in. And the chambered nautilus is a perfect example of a Fibonacci sequence, which is a sequence of numbers found in nature. Certain flowers or pine cones or the chambered nautilus, where each chamber is the sum of the previous two chambers. So it was kind of fun and I ended up just suggesting some ideas to the graphic designer and we ended up with that on the front. On the back, it actually has some graphs and equations overlayed on the image.

It's a very fascinating thing to look at - the way numbers reveal themselves in nature and stuff. And, it's actually pretty popular with the whole DaVinci Code and. . . .

Yeah, that's true. I didn't even think about that.

Do you watch the show Lost at all?

No, but on the Credential Tour all of the band guys were into that.

There is some of that involved in that too with a certain mysterious number pattern and stuff. It's pretty cool. I was wondering where it came from in your head with the nautilus because I had known about that, the golden ratio and all of that stuff. . . How does that tie into the content on the songs, do you think?

Do you mean the shell?

Yeah, the shell and the numbers and. . .

Well, it really wasn't meant to go that deep, to be honest.

Fair enough.

There's no songs about a shell or anything like that.

(laughs)

Because Future of Forestry - we created that name from the poem and it's pretty new - we just decided to make an album cover that was a little bit of a twist on the concept of Future of Forestry.

Okay. How would you describe the album to someone who had never heard of you.

A wide variety of rock and a sentimental songwriter feel to it. I would describe it as being influenced by a lot of the indy creative scene.

that'll work

It's a tough question. To describe your own music. . .

Yeah, well, I like to try to stump you guys.

(laughs)

"Speak to Me Gently" is probably the most personal one. I guess when I feel like my biggest contribution to this world is anything that is the most honest or authentic. I don't consider myself a great teacher of great profound things or a genius of anything. So when I can find a song that really speaks of an honest journey, that's when I think I'm contributing something.

So to kind of wrap things up with maybe a lighter question. You mentioned the book about numbers in nature, what else have you been reading lately?

Honestly, I haven't been reading a whole lot lately. I have seasons in my life where I'm reading a ton and then other seasons where it's like I don't listen to a lot of music and I don't read anything. I'm anti-intelligent or something.

(laughs)

Sometimes it's just that is where I am. I need space. If I pick up a book or start playing a song, it doesn't resonate with me. I don't want it at that moment. I just want to be quiet. Lately, especially in the last year of my life, I've been spending a lot of time not having a whole lot of information come in. So I've been able to let all of the information and questions that are spinning around in my head have some room to breathe and communicate with God and communicate with myself.

Okay, so what kind of conclusions have you come to in your thoughts?

Probably the sole conclusion that I've come to is realizing that my main goal in life - the thing that I strive for - is understanding God's love.

Is that possible?

I think it is. It's a good question, because the easy answer is yes and anybody - a Christian and believer - would say yes. But we say yes and then we go on in our lives broken and doubting and not able to receive God's love. So I think that believing it means being able to receive it, because you can say [that you] believe that it's true, but to actually experience it is a different story. I'm at the point in my life where I feel like I'm pretty wearied of trying to earn God's love. And I'm wearied of trying to be what I think I should be in order to deserve that love, because I've failed on all of those counts. I'm starting to get an inkling, to use the terms on one of our albums, glimpses of the truth of God's love. I can't say that I've fully embraced that in the way that I live my life and make all of my decisions or that all of my emotions are based on that, but at least I've begun to search for that. And I believe in it in a way that I'm not giving up on it. It's my daily desire.

Sounds like you are catching a far-off glimpse of a tree delighted Eden. . .

Yeah, There you go man.

And it all comes back around like a nautilus. . .

It does and I'm glad that. . . Basically you are saying that you get it. . . the concept.

So what is next for Future of Forestry and for you personally? You've got the album coming out soon.

Yeah. We are kind of blitzing it with the tour. We have typically been a band that has toured, but has also stayed pretty based in San Diego. So we stay around a lot to play our home church and stuff. But this time, we'll be gone a lot. The next two months we'll be gone and just playing as much as we can. I think that is what it's all about right now. Just taking the album and seeing how far we can get it out there.

Very cool. So we can catch you at FutureofForestry.com

Yeah FutureofForestry.com and myspace.com/futureofforestry. The record label is called Credential Recordings and you can check out all of the other bands that are on our label. . .

Yeah, that's a nice little label.

Yeah, our A&R guy Chris George started it pretty recently, so all of the bands are relatively new. We've gotten to know them and they are just amazing bands

Sounds good. Well Eric, thanks for taking some time out to chat with me.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Find out more about Future of Forestry and Twilight at FutureofForestry.com or MySpace.com/FutureofForestry