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Despite numerous lineup changes—including the departure of vocalist Sonny Moore earlier this year—and a label shift, punk/hardcore act From First to Last (FFTL) remain staunchly positive and productive. On November 1st they kick off their new tour, Rather Be Slayin' Noobz, with Bless the Fall, Vanna and A Skylit Drive, and they have a new record due out in early 2008 on Suretone Records.

We caught up with band member Matt Manning to talk about what to expect from the new album, the group's obsession with Halo 3 and what happened with Sonny.

Can you talk about what direction you guys took on the new album, given the changes within the band?

The direction we took was to write a record that no one ever heard before. Basically we tried to [create a] mix from the Heroine and the Dear Diary... records, and find a nice median—heavy, catchy and interesting at the same time. And to do something we can pull off live.

What was the process like? Who's doing the songwriting these days?

We all sit down and pretty much write it all together. Matt Good will come to the table with a guitar riff or a chorus idea or whatever and construct a song out of it pretty much. And then we'll write the music and sit down and pretty much do the same with the lyrics. Get and idea of what we want to say in the song and make it happen.

Your music has been called screamo, post-hardcore, etc—how would you describe your sound and how it's evolving?

It's weird because everyone we let hear it can't really pinpoint what it sounds like. So we're actually really interested to see how we get classified with this record because it's not a screamo record, it's not like a hardcore record. Anyway, we kind of wanted to break out of that and write a record that everybody can love and attach to. [Something that] doesn't really fit in this little scene or this scene or that scene, you know? We just wanted to write a rock record basically.

What were you listening to, or what was inspiring you, when you were recording the new album?

Honestly, we try not to listen to a lot of music when we write because you end up writing a guitar riff or something that kind of sounds like what your listening to. So it's easier to not listen to like Rage Against the Machine or Refused and stuff like that, and try not to carry too much over to writing, so you don't end up writing something that sounds like another band.

Is the title of your new tour, "Rather Be Slayin' Noobz," based on a particular videogame? Are you really into gaming?

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