FORIS is a brand-new band comprised of Nathan Tipton (Junior Astronaut) and Johnny Glover (Audley)! While they traveled in the same circles, it was a chance meeting in Chicago that brought the two together for this venture. We sat down with FORIS in anticipation of the debut record, BREACH!
Listen to BREACH now!
CincyMusic: Tell us about the formation of FORIS….
Johnny: The alignment of it all is pretty special to be honest. Nathan (Junior Astronaut) and I (Audley) are actually both from Dayton, Ohio - and have worked with a few of the same artists (Grandace, Isicle) before meeting each other. But we did not cross paths until we both anchored in Chicago.
I was posting verses online, and mentioned being late for the Red Line and Nathan DM’ed me asking if I lived in Chicago. We linked on the Merchandise Mart roof downtown and started sharing our inspirations.
At that time I was really deep into ARCA’s discography and was obsessing over meticulously crafted sound design.
Nathan: I had been on a quest for a while to find a sound in-between the softness of singer/songwriter music, the maximalism and sound design of experimental electronic music, and the polyrhythmic technicality of metalcore. Meeting up and creating with Johnny felt like a great outlet to make this happen.
After we linked on the roof that day in late August 2021, we scheduled a writing session at my home studio. Our first track, which later turned into JUCKS, came together very organically for never having hung out before. We didn’t know one another very well, but the music offered a space for the social anxieties of hanging out with someone for the first time to melt away a bit. I looped a few chords on guitar, we added some sparse instrumentation, and then I just made dinner while Johnny started writing lyrics.
CM: BREACH is quite the delight for the ears, what went into the recording of the debut album?
Johnny: Thirty Billion Sounds lol
Nathan: HAHA, not quite, but maybe I didn’t count lol. It was a fun process though. At the time Johnny lived south of the Chicago, and I lived just north. Living 30 miles apart in southwest Ohio isn’t a big deal, but 30 miles apart in Chicago is like 1.5 hours by car 2 hours by train. As a result, a lot of the recording came during long weekends of Johnny crashing at my place. Slow mornings drinking coffee, taking long walks by the lake, talking about our lives, our mental health, and doing a ton of improvised bits with each other for hours.
A lot of the recording was with a pretty minimal setup, just guitar, a mic, a couple drums, and an audio interface. We went in HEAVY on the post production though.
Johnny: I refer to this phase of the process as the BEEFing phase. Nathan was big boy BEEFin these tracks up to be as big, wide, loud, bright and dynamic as possible. Nathan from the beginning had a vision of how all of these movements would come together. A few sessions in, it felt like each song was 5 different songs in one - and over time Nathan found a way to elegantly smooth them all together which I think gives the record its visceral sense of constant forward motion.
A lot of meetings in person. A lot of zoom calls. I think we had around 5 versions of production and composition play before we made final decisions. We sat down, listened to each track individually from the genesis session to the last and made notes about where to land. It took us about a year and a half to make these 4 songs and it’s been a beautiful blossoming of who we are and where we want to take FORIS as a whole. Exciting times.
CM: What is next for FORIS?
Johnny: Gigs gigs gigs, and more tunes! We have a few shows coming up actually :). Friday, January 27th at Madison Live (Covington, KY). Tuesday, February 28th at Golden Dagger (Chicago, IL). And a loud reckless noise show in a basement somewhere end of March (Chicago, IL).
We also have big plans for the next release which is going to lean very hard into world building… All I’m gonna say is Bradley Cooper has been hiding a secret village of Pilsbury Dough People in LA and we are exposing the truth.
Nathan: Hahahaha, yes I’m so stoked for where we are heading. We both have different skillsets that have been super helpful for creating and executing with the band. I have the technical and creative skillset for recording our sonic ideas into the computer, so the process for creating this record leaned a little more into my skillset. However, after we bounced the final masters Johnny’s digital marketing and business skillset have definitely been exercised. Reaching out to booking agents, doing photoshoots, and having a content calendar are all new to me, but it’s super exciting to see the momentum and know we are doing all we can to push these sounds out into the world.
We got a solid chunk of our next project recorded this past fall. We have really enjoyed both making songs that are deeply meaningful to us, occasionally make us cry, mixed with a very healthy dose of not taking ourselves too seriously. (For instance, BREACH has a layer of Johnny singing like Kermit the frog with heavy effects mixed softly into the background of almost every song, haha). I’m stoked to play these songs live, and hopefully get our next project out before the end of the year!
