Friends For Heroes Interview PREV / 1 of 2 / NEXT Friends for Heroes duo Brendan Bosworth and Josh Ottum recently sent us their soft electro-pop debut Years in a Costume and we prompty requested an interview. With a whole nation between us, email was the interview medium of choice. I had their CD on repeat while scavenging the Friends for Heroes website for fun details to ask about. Finally I tossed off some questions to Brendan and Josh who replied separately. Where does the name "Friends For Heroes" come from? Josh: We thought of it at a sales training seminar. What inspired you to slice up your sounds? How does your live performance compare to your studio work? Brendan We grew up playing in band-bands, not e-bands. Everytime someone stopped wanting to be in a band with us, we became more of an e-band. So chopping up sounds started out of necessity and quickly became lots of fun. The live show is a lot different than our CD, and our next CD will sound more like the live show. We tried playing live with fake beats, and it seems to sound better to actually be beating things on stage. So now the live show has fake beats and real beating. Josh: We're pretty current on electronic music and like those sounds. So Josh makes demos and Brendan makes them sound broken and better. Our live performance is Brendan on drums and iPod control. Josh is singing and playing loud guitar. Recording is a whole different deal. We're both playing a bunch of instruments and programming and freaking out then e-mailing what we've done to each other. Was the repetition of certain imagery--such as four-leaf clovers, birds, memories as reason, and god/heaven/angels/wings--intentionally repeated, or is it just coincidence? Josh: The album is sort of dealing with some sort of sorted concept about trying your luck and trying your hope and seeing which one brings more success. The answer must be in there somewhere. Brendan: I didn't write or sing any of the lyrics, but I'm pretty sure Josh repeats words instead of writing new ones. What's the significance of the untitled "Don't Shoot Me" track? Josh: Just a reprise of the original track. The don't shoot me thing sort of deals with feeling weird about girls or something...like they all hate you. Brendan: It's just a remix. We figure if we include remixes on the CD beside the original track, eventually we'll get good enough to put out remix CDs before the actual CDs, or at least learn how to write remixes instead of songs. It is obvious to us that remix CDs are more adventurous and urban than actual CDs, so why put out the CD when you can just put out the remix CD? Who is Grandpa Melvin Bernasconi?? Brendan: A great Californian poet. Josh: He's my grandpa. He's the one reading at the end of the album. He's a poet, Artist and lives in a town c PREV / 1 of 2 / NEXT