Forget Me In Vegas – The Highwire Daze Legacy Interviews

Forget Me In Vegas – The Highwire Daze Legacy Interviews

Original publication date: March 18, 2013

Press Notes: Forget Me In Vegas self-released their debut EP Coulda Shoulda in 2012 – a soaring, fast-paced effort in the vein of pop contemporaries Forever the Sickest Kids and The Ready Set, produced by Christian Medice. The band will be releasing their Streaker Records debut during summer of 2013.

Editor’s Note:  Vocalist Christopher Sal passed away November 2016.

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Forget Me In Vegas, and how long the band has been together.
Hi I’m Chris and I sing in Forget Me In Vegas. Hi I’m Jamie and I play guitar in Forget Me In Vegas. Hey I’m Joe and I play drums in Forget Me In Vegas.

Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
We are based out of Rochester, NY. The music scene here is super tight knit, it consists mostly of heavy bands, but everyone works together, which is awesome we love it! Our local favorites would have to be Like Vintage, Ice Nine Kills, Dividing The Skyline, and Sirens and Sailors.

Where did you get the name of your band and what made you decide to use that moniker?
We got our name from a band name generator and thought it’d be really cool to make up a different story every time we were asked that question in an interview before we took ourselves somewhat seriously, haha. We made up a list of names that we liked the sound of and felt that Forget Me In Vegas best fit our sound and lifestyles at the time.

How did you wind up signing to Streaker Records?
Streaker stumbled upon our music and followed our progress for a bit. They reached out to us and we met with them about our goals over the next year or so and they matched up.

Select any two Forget Me In Vegas songs and what inspired the lyrics.
I never wrote Where Are You Now with the intention of releasing it. A few years ago, right around Christmas, my whole family was going through some difficult times. My grandmother was being taken away from us (she had a very serious form of dementia) and my mother did everything in the world to make sure her last few months with us were as best as they could be. We renovated our house to add on a guest apartment for my grandmother to stay in, so that my mother could be there for her whenever she needed her. Her delusions worsened and my mom spent the better part of the year as her full time caretaker. My mother is a saint for how much time and effort she put in to making her mother comfortable and peaceful before she passed on. Throughout all this, my mother’s older brothers (my uncles) never missed a chance to express how much they resented the way my mother cared for my grandmother. My uncles fully believed that my grandmother should be placed in a senior living center, but spending time with her had made it clear to my family and I that she needed to hold on to the only thing she had left in this world, and it was us, her family. My uncles couldn’t see all of the sacrifices my mother was making to improve my grandmother’s final years, and because of that, they resented my mother. So I was going through a period of my life where my home life was unpredictable with the way my grandma was, and my extended family had cut us out of their lives entirely. It was already halfway through December and none of us had even received a phone call from our extended family. I feel that the message behind Where Are You Now is pretty transparent. I wrote it with the sole intention of sending it to the family that had been neglecting me and my siblings for something we weren’t even involved in, to the family that ostracized my mother for giving her own mother the best care anyone could have given her. I wrote it for my mother, to let her know that I understood what she was going through, and how fucking difficult it was for all of us. I wrote it hoping it would open the eyes of my uncles during a time when we needed their support the most. A year later, my grandmother passed, and though the stubborn lack of communication has mostly subsided, things just aren’t the same, and I don’t think they ever will be, and that’s what that song means to me.

Could’ve* Should’ve* was another song I wrote during a time where I just didn’t know where the hell I was headed. I was going to community college, I had just ended a three year relationship that I chalked up to a total failure, and I had no idea how I got there or what the next step was. At the time, Forget Me In Vegas was falling apart, we were going through member changes, and I felt like I spent the last two years chasing a dream that was exactly that: just a dream. Also during that time, there was this girl I was completely head over heels for, some girl next door kind of shit, and I made every play in the book to get this girl interested in me and she ended up dating some random younger dude she knew from high school. That bummed me out a lot. We had good vibes and that shit’s hard to find. Throughout these tragedies, I was unemployed and living on ramen noodles. I worked a few part time lifeguarding jobs but eventually those drove me insane, and I decided that I’m either going to make money making music, or I’m going to detach from society and disappear into some faraway place where I don’t have to maintain contact with any human being whatsoever. Fingers crossed I make it in music, right?

What could one expect from a live Forget Me In Vegas show?
Upbeat happy go lucky feeling jams. A lot of jumping around, a lot of sweating and as of recently some pretty sweet lights we invested in for our performances.

Has Forget Me In Vegas ever played in the Los Angeles area or plan to do so in the future?
We have yet to have the pleasure of playing in Los Angeles, we’re working really hard to get there though! We would LOVE to play Los Angeles every day of the week but it’s expensive to get over there. Ideally, we would love to move the band there eventually but as of now we’re pretty broke!

Any strange or unusual happenings while out on the road or at a live show?
On our last tour our old manager somehow got trapped in the van with a wasp and ended up hopping around the van and jumping out the drivers side window. He shattered his iPhone. Needless to say, we didn’t let him live it down the rest of the tour.

Has Forget Me In Vegas ever played Warped Tour and if so, what was the experience like?
We’ve performed at Warped Tour the past two years in a row as a part of the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands contest. It’s been an amazing time both years and definitely a huge dream come true. It’s surreal being there surrounded by so many bands that you look up to and have grown up listening to. It’s amazing and words really don’t do the feeling justice.

While at a show, some drunk guy offers you $100 cash to play What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction in your set. He is obviously serious and wants to hear the song. What do you do?
We’d totally take that offer and rock it. Our band’s usually always hurting for cash and we’re not too far off the One Direction realm of the music world. It’d be rad but we’d definitely have to add the most brutal breakdown at the end just for flare.

If the music of Forget Me In Vegas was a donut, what kind would it be and why?
We would definitely be a bacon flavored Oreo donut with chocolate frosting and ‘merica sprinkles!

What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
Just the feeling that it gave them. If it makes them feel good or even if it pisses them off, any feeling that they might feel after listening to our music at least in my opinion is really awesome. We just like to make people feel good and if we can’t do that we settle with making them feel anything at all.

Any final words of wisdom?
Don’t drink the water. We love everyone that is giving us a shot and taking the time to read this! Please come by our Facebook or twitter and drop us a message we answer everyone!

(Interview by Ken Morton)

Forget Me In Vegas on Facebook
Forget Me In Vegas on Bandcamp