FORGIVERS
Jed Winokur: Lead vocals/Guitar (The Ratchets)
Alex Rosamilia: Guitar/Vocals (The Gaslight Anthem, Dead Swords)
Alex Levine: Bass/Vocals (The Gaslight Anthem)
Trevor Reddell: Drums/Vocals (Let Me Run, D’Arcy, Dead Swords)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti had it right. The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind the ‘ifs’ – all the bad and sad things that can happen to you while you’re alive. They can be global or personal, trivial or life-changing, but, just like the good stuff, even the most insignificant things can alter your perception, your mood, your attitude. And let’s face it – after a year like 2020, it’s hard to not feel downtrodden and let the swirl of negative thoughts and emotions overwhelm you. The four members of Forgivers have always struggled slightly with that stuff anyway, but with this band they’re fighting it with what they call ‘gothic optimism’. That’s the term they use to describe both their attitude and their music, and it’s at the core of everything they do. Given that the New Jersey-based outfit’s first band practice was on New Year’s Day 2020, it’s fitting. “We had that first practice and we felt so positive,” says guitarist Alex Rosamilia. “We were like, ‘We’re going to make 2020 our year.’”

That didn’t happen, for obvious reasons. But beyond and despite that, there’s been an undeniable synchronicity to Forgivers from the beginning. If you believed in fate, you might even say it was meant to be. It all came about when Rosamilia started talking to bassist Alex Levine about writing music together again, after the decade-plus they’d spent in The Gaslight Anthem. When that band briefly broke its hiatus to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The ’59 Sound , the two Alexes realized how much they’d missed playing together, something Rosamilia told Ed Auletta, longtime guitar tech for My Chemical Romance and the owner of North End Recording, the studio Rosamilia has always used for his Dead Swords project. The two were catching up at bar in Jersey City – back when you could still catch up at bars – and Ed suggested that Jed Winokur, who had fronted New Jersey punks The Ratchets, would be an ideal frontman. Neither had seen Winokur for a while, but minutes after his name was mentioned, he happened to walk past the pair in the street. Once he was told about the project, he was in. Rounding out the four-piece is drummer (and recording engineer) Trevor Reddell, who played in Let Me Run, D’Arcy and Dead Swords. It’s in Reddell’s garage – dubbed Forgivers Lodge – that the four-piece eventually started a socially distant rehearsal once a week, carefully shaping the sound and aesthetic of the band.

The result is better than any of them could have imagined. Mixing (mainly British) influences such as The Cure, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Clash and Oasis, but infusing it with their own unique and distinctive dynamic, Forgivers have struck gold with their sound. They write songs that feel like they’ve always been there – at once recognizable and familiar, but also fresh and exciting. In other words, it’s easy to hear how well all the pieces, which came together at the right time, just fell naturally into place.

“It was actually kind of easy,” remarks Winokur, “because we all knew each other. It just hadn’t occurred to us to do it. But a lot of that is time. Music expresses itself through linear time – you bring it into your present when you put a song on, and with bands the timing needs to be right which there’s really no control over. For whatever reason, we were all looking for a new project. I think that if we went about it even a few months later, it wouldn’t have been possible.”

“When we started doing this,” adds Rosamilia, “I got that feeling again. It was almost like lightning in a bottle.”

“We had unbelievable chemistry from day one,” agrees Levine. “It just feels so natural. We walked in with a bunch of different covers – Joy Division, INXS – and it felt instantly familiar. And then COVID happened and put this weird pause on everything, including the band, obviously.”

The breakout of a global pandemic may have put the brakes on most fledgling bands because it’s hard enough as it is. But the four members of Forgivers knew they’d unearthed something special, and so they spent that initial quarantine period sending ideas back and forth digitally between themselves, taking the time they’d inadvertently been gifted to really make sure they got it right. They did that for a few months, really nailing down the essence of the band from afar before reconvening in Forgivers Lodge when they were finally able to do so again.

“We were really able to figure out what direction we were going in,” says Levine. “Then, in early summer we got into our practice space and got to work, and things started really gelling. We truly had a full vision for what Forgivers is. This is not just going to be a project we’re going to have fun with – it’s something that’s very real.”

The band’s first offering will be a double A-side single consisting of the first two songs they wrote – “Flowerseeds” and “Some Future”. Both overflow with the magic the band know they’ve managed to capture, though each represent what Jed calls the “bookends” of Forgivers’ majestic, magnificent sound. Both shimmer with the dark magic of their gothic optimism, but also demonstrate the different levels on which this band can operate. “Flowerseeds” is more vulnerable and tender – “open and positive and innocent and poetic,” says the singer – while it’s in “Some Future”’s almost psychedelic swagger that those echoes of Oasis can be heard. It manifests itself, however, as artistic ambition, rather than arrogance.

“Our approach,” explains Winokur, “is to just write a really good song each time. Write the best song you’ve ever written. Be a great band. Be confident with it but also be humble – it’s all for the song, and what’s best for the song.”

Since recording those two bookends, Forgivers have been filling the middle between them, building up a catalogue of songs that are as timeless as they are thrilling, and which all four members are visibly, infectiously excited about. They’re buoyed not only by the fact they’re writing music together that feels so right, but the hope that the chemistry they have together can fill a void in the world of rock music – namely intelligent, emotive rock ’n’ roll that’s inspired by the pain and pleasure and the paradoxes of life.

“We want this to be a little more thoughtful than what’s out there,” says Winokur. “Sensible yet senseless. We’re just going to put things together that create tension, and see what comes of it. And if they come out sounding classic and happy and sad at the same time, then that’s kind of the goal!”

To that end, Forgivers’ songs – like the best rock ’n’ roll music – can fulfill whatever role you want them to. If you want them to make you think, they can do that. If you want to just feel their force on a more emotional level, that’s equally fine. Either way, or in between, what’s undeniable is the visceral sensation that flows through your blood when you listen to Forgivers. It’s primal, like love – and just as wonderful and broken-hearted – and it’s also as exciting, fully of the folly of youth, albeit with the added wisdom that comes from being a bit older. What makes it all of that even more remarkable is the fact all four of them, to varying degrees of success, have been down this path before, and all four of them are acutely aware that this is the beginning of something very special indeed. Doing this has reignited a fire, reminded them again why they all started making music in the first place.

“I’m trying to get back to what I could have been doing this entire time,” says Rosamilia, “but was too blind to see it. Music is fun again. I have practice today and I’m really looking forward to going into the garage. I feel like I’m getting to do this all over again with the knowledge that I have, and I want to make sure that I do it right.”

“And the four of us have done this so many times with other people,” adds Levine, “that we know when it feels right and when it really feels right. And this really, really feels right.”