More than a decade after its founding, The Funeral Portrait’s time has arrived. Known for its emotionally charged anthems, theatrical live shows and elaborate music videos, the band has cracked the top 10 of Billboard’s Active Rock chart with the single “Suffocate City” (featuring Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills). The song comes from the new record “Greetings from Suffocate City” (get it here), The Funeral Portrait’s second full-length and first for Better Noise Music. A summer arena tour opening for Five Finger Death Punch, Marilyn Manson and Slaughter to Prevail no doubt contributed to the rise in the band’s profile, and a full touring schedule for the remainder of 2024 should keep the momentum going. Frontman Lee Jennings took a break from celebrating his birthday at Epcot at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, to talk with Live Metal’s Greg Maki about the new album and more.
LIVE METAL: I’m a day late, but happy birthday.
LEE JENNINGS: Thank you. Yes, that’s why I’m here at wonderful Epcot.
I saw your post about your weight loss journey and getting healthier. Now that the band is starting to become successful and you’re getting a bit of a platform, do you think it’s important to share your story?
Yeah. It’s something that I’ve been pretty vocal about for a long time. Almost every year, around my birthday or on my birthday, I share some sort of story about my weight loss or my struggles with depression—whatever it may be. It gets people’s attention the most. People are already going to comment on something saying, “Happy birthday,” so why not give them a story that might help them, as well. Maybe they’ll find their own voice in a message. So every year, I do a little storytime post. This year was definitely the biggest. I think you said it right. We’re having this weird—to me, it’s weird—pop of excitement, I guess I should say—popularity, excitement. So it’s cool to now have such a wide net to cast.
One other thing before we get into the fun stuff of the music and the tours: I know you and the band are from Georgia. How’s everything going at home after the big storm that came through?
We were fine, really. We had a lot of rain, but thank god, we were fine where we were. We’re up in the Atlanta area. I do know some people in south Georgia got hit hard. I know a lot of people in North Carolina got it really hard, so it’s been pretty rough up that way.
You’ve been on tour, and you’ve got a lot more shows coming up. A lot of different kinds of shows—festivals, headline shows, shows with Twiztid, The Hu. Is it a challenge when you have all those different kinds of shows, different length sets, different levels of production and things like that?
Yeah. I think what it does is it kind of keeps us on our toes. On this last tour that we just did with Five Finger, we were doing about 20 minutes every day. And then Manson, he did headlining shows and we were on those—those were 30 minutes, and that was probably once or twice a week we were doing those. That made things not feel, quote, “stale,” I guess. It helped us keep our chops up, and I think that’s what this is gonna do. During the Hu shows, we get 45 minutes, and then we’re gonna do headline shows and we’re gonna play like an hour—which is gonna be insane. The idea of playing an hour, that’s so long for us. Even last year, when we did some headlining shows, we played like 30 minutes and then we got offstage. So doubling that length for headlining sets is gonna be kind of crazy. And then even the festivals, I think Louder Than Life, we just got 30 minutes, but Aftershock we only get 25 minutes. So it’s coming down to what do you want to cut? What do we do to still have our show be our show and kind of give them the best thing possible?
You mentioned the tour that you just finished, with Five Finger Death Punch, Manson and Slaughter to Prevail. I’m sure that’s the biggest tour of your life to this point.
Oh, it’s been insane. That was absolutely insane.
Those other acts on the bill, they all have very devoted fan bases. Did you see that as a challenge to go on before them?
Yes and no. I think our type of music, our branding, our band works extremely well with really devoted fan bases. I think a lot of our fans are super into our band. They come and see us and maybe us only. Those are the fans that I love to challenge because those are the fans that I also want. I want to turn those super fans into a super fan of my band. We’re kind of lucky that I think our music kind of breeds that. I really think we gained a lot of fans from that tour.
Just a couple weeks ago, I was up at Silver Scream Con (the horror convention presented by Ice Nine Kills), so I saw you guys there and met you very briefly. You were talking about how a year earlier, Silver Scream Con 2023, was one of the key moments for your band. Can you talk a little bit about what happened there and why that was so important?
Yeah, it was wild. Like a year ago, we got invited to go play Silver Scream Con, be the opening band of their show, and that was kind of it. We did have a signing. We kind of promoted it—whatever. But then we show up and do the signing, and it was like two hours long. We were like, “What? People actually care?” Then it was like, “OK, let’s go do the show.” The show was insane. We sold a lot of merch, and we were hanging out with everybody. It was nonstop. The next day, we went and hung out in the lobby and took photos with everybody that was walking by. That was another insane thing. I think for us, it was about taking that opportunity and really grabbing it and taking full advantage of it.
Spencer and Ice Nine were nothing but extremely nice to us. They kind of were like, “It worked then. Let’s bring you back.” So we were supposed to originally play again, full band, this year. It just didn’t pan out. So we were like, “What else can we do?” And we came up with the idea of what if we played the VIP party, the RIP party? They were like, “That would be sick.” And I was like, “But it would have to be acoustic.” Because (guitarist) Cody (Weissinger) had a wedding, and he had to go to it—it was his mom’s wedding. So he was gonna miss anything we did that weekend. It was also the weekend we released our record. We did a signing, we had our own booth, and it was insane. The line was like five hours long. It was nonstop. Then we go over, play the acoustic set, and people were singing along. It was weird. It was really cool to see, because singing along to an electric set, having fun at a full band electric set—OK, that makes sense. But singing along, having that much fun at an acoustic event—it was so great. It was just insane. What a wonderful weekend.
How did it go from playing Silver Scream Con to having Spencer on the song “Suffocate City?”
So last year, after we played Silver Scream Con, we kind of stayed in touch. I kind of was like, “Yo, so I have this song. I think it would be really cool if you’re on it.” So I sent it to him, and he listened to it, and he was like, “I have to be involved.” He was like, “What do you want? What do we have to do to make this happen?” I was like, “Well, what about that second verse?” And he was like, “Yeah, did you write that for me already?” And I was like, “No. It just fits, right?” It was one of those things that just worked. We didn’t have to overthink it. It just worked. I think those are the best accidents. I think those are the best things that ever happen, when it just works.
The song is “Suffocate City,” and the new album is “Greetings from Suffocate City.” What exactly is Suffocate City? What does that represent and mean to you?
It’s supposed to be almost an afterlife where everybody belongs. It’s basically a safe place for anybody and everyone. There’s no bullying. Anything that you’re dealing with in your everyday life, you go there and you don’t have to deal with it ever again. It’s a place to go and have a relaxing time with your friends—finally. It’s meant to be nirvana, as I would say. This place of pure bliss. The idea of Suffocate City and what Suffocate City is are kind of two different things. In the song, it’s saying being suffocated to death and all that kind of stuff. But the actual place, Suffocate City, is actually a really good place that everybody wants to be in—quote, “the lore of the band.”
How did this lore of the band develop? Most bands don’t have that kind of thing around them. I love bands that do that, that have a little more, a little something extra to get people involved.
Well, that’s huge, and that’s important to us. That’s why we have these icons. We’ve created this whole thing. When we wrote this record, there was no lore. There was nothing. It wasn’t purposefully done to have the songs be like this. We made it because it was like this is what I want—I don’t want to say our legacy—I want people to have that place and be a part of something, and it’s cool because it’s kind of working, I guess. It’s a weird situation. We’ll see what happens next. We’ve kind of left it off in such a weird spot. This is one is like—I don’t want to say a test drive for what’s to come, but it kind of was. I think what we’re gonna do next is amp it up a few notches.
This album took several years to come together. What was that process like?
There’s two reasons. One, we basically had a record completely done at the end of 2019, and we thought, “Oh, this record’s awesome. We love it.” Well, we then signed to a label at the end of 2019, and that label was like, “Yo, these songs are cool, but don’t you want to go write and record a real record with a huge producer and all this stuff?” And I was like, “I guess that would be fun.” We kept about five of those songs from 2019—made it onto the record—and we did the rest of them basically from 2020 to the end of last year. We really wanted to hone in and change things and make this be the record—or at least the record that’s the ground floor for The Funeral Portrait. Yeah, we have music before this, but it’s not what I ever wanted it to be. It was a learning process releasing the old music. This is now The Funeral Portrait. This is now what I’ve always wanted it to be, and it’s starting with this record, “Greetings from Suffocate City.”
I see a lot, when I’m reading about the band, the “emo” label. Are you comfortable with that? Do you care about labels at all?
I don’t care about labels. The emo thing—we are emotional, and we kind of fit that vibe of what happened in 2004 to 2008. All that kind of music was super popular then. I don’t know. I don’t really care. It’s fun. We’re an emotional band. We write emotional music. Being emo isn’t a bad thing.
We talked about the Spencer feature, but you have three others on the album. How did they come together? When you’re writing, are you like, “I hear another voice on this song,” or did the opportunity just come up and you took advantage of it?
Really, opportunity kind of came. We had Bert (McCracken) from The Used on “You’re So Ugly When You Cry.” That song, we thought it would be really cool to keep it old school, like Taking Back Sunday or something like that where it’s two vocalists. Half the song is me, half the song is Bert. We really wanted something like that. Did I think that Bert was gonna fall for it? No. But he did. It was crazy. Our A&R is really close with his manager, and she was like, “I’m gonna send him the song.” Sent his manager the song—literally, the next day, I get a call from her saying that Bert loves the song and he’s gonna record it tomorrow. Literally, within three days, we had the finished mix ready to go, and we were working on a music video that weekend. It was literally one thing after the next.
I think what I really want to do on the next record is—I’m sure we’ll have some features because I think it’s fun and it helps tell the story a little bit—I think I want to purposely write music for that feature or have that feature artist come and be a part of it, as well, instead of just sending them the song and being like, “Here you go.”
It’s clear you guys put a lot of time, energy and thought into the videos. How important is that visual side, the presentation of the band?
That is almost more important sometimes. Bands release songs every day now. Bands release albums once a year—music comes out all the time. But to me, the visual aspect will be there forever. Yeah, a song technically, I guess, is there forever, too, but when you have a million songs, people will skip them. But when you have even a photo shoot, that can turn someone off instantly. A song, you can be like, “Oh, that’s not for me.” But the way that someone looks in a photo shoot or the video, that’s so important. So for us, we try really hard to dedicate a lot of time to the music videos. We have all these other little lore aspects. We’ve got this fake TV series called “Beyond the Abyss.” There’s these things that slowly start coming out more and more. The record’s out now, but there’s still so much more to learn and evolve with, with this record.
Kind of along the same lines, I’ve always loved band merch, especially if there’s something other than a black T-shirt—not that I have anything against black T-shirts. I’ve got my eye on the Night Terror plushie. He’s in the “Generation Psycho” video. What’s the story behind that character and the icons in general?
The icons are supposed to represent each song. Each song’s supposed to have their own little guy—the icon. Night Terror was this creature that we made, and it was wild because I wanted something a little darker, and the Night Terror, we drew him up and made him. He was our first one where I looked back and was like, “Oh lord, yes.” He turned out exactly how we wanted him to. We got really lucky with everything with that. I’m excited to evolve these icons, too, because that’s something that I really want to do. Over time, I want them to evolve more. I don’t think every song could have an icon, because I don’t think my brain could make that work. But maybe. We’ll see what happens.
Are there more plushies on the way?
Definitely. I want to make plushies for every one of them. I’m a huge plushie collector.
You’ve been at this for a long time. Were there times when you thought maybe you wouldn’t get to here?
Oh, I thought I was gonna quit basically a year ago. February of last year, I was getting ready to call it quits and probably move to Orlando and work at Disney World. Then literally, a few months later, everything changed.
The band has come a long way in the past year or so. What goals do you have moving forward?
I think, for me, it’s more of the longevity train. I think it’s all in the steps. I really hope we don’t take giant leaps. We did take a giant leap doing a big tour the way that we did, but I don’t want that giant here to here. I think that is not how you build this core, lovable fan base that I know that we have, that we are gaining. Literally, the other day at Louder Than Life, I hopped off the stage as soon as we were done and went out to the crowd while it was raining and talked to everyone and shook everybody’s hands and took photos. I never want to lose that, and I’m not planning on losing that. I hope that we can keep growing, but I hope it’s more steady. I don’t want it to be a gigantic jump. I want to keep doing what we’re doing and have it evolve with everyone. I don’t want to leave anyone out.
LINKS:
www.thefuneralportraitmerch.com
www.tfpcoffincrew.com
www.facebook.com/thefuneralportrait
www.instagram.com/tfp_devotion
www.x.com/tfp_devotion
www.tiktok.com/@tfp_devotion
www.silverscreamcon.com
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