Ryan Richards: New Funeral For A Friend EP coming

Rhythm recently caught up with Funeral For A Friend drummer Ryan Richards, and he gave us the lowdown on the departure of guitarist Darran Smith, re-learning old tracks and a brand spanking new album.

Why have you decided to play Casually Dressed and Deep In Conversation in its entirety live later this month?

"We're playing it all the way through because we wanted to do something special for our last shows with our guitarist Darran. We haven't played some of them since 2003, so it's pretty special."

How have you found going back to those older tracks?

"It's taken some re-listening. But, there's quite a few songs that have remained mainstays in the set up to now. But there's definitely a few we had to dust off a little bit. It's been really interesting to play those again, it's been really fun."

Have you played around with the beats at all?

"I've stayed pretty faithful to the originals. But after almost eight years I think my style has changed a little bit so I'm just naturally playing them a little bit differently."

When can we expect a new album?

"When we dusted some of the older songs off they sounded great and I think they've given us a spark for recording our next album. We're doing four tracks for an EP that will be out in September/October and then we'll go back in to record the full album in September. That should be out at the beginning of 2011. We're probably not doing too much in the UK until then, but we're touring Europe with Bullet For My Valentine in November, which should be fun and it'll be a great way to introduce everyone to our new line up."