Page 10 - Black Velvet Rock Magazine Issue 111

BV111 pg 10-13 The Funeral Portrait Interview.qxp_BV111 pg 10 04/11/2024 22:46 Page 1

BlackVelvetMagazine.Com - 10

A Voice For

riday the 13th may be unlucky for some, but not for The Funeral Portrait,
Fa theatrical emo rock band signed to Better Noise Music (home to Five Fin-
ger Death Punch, Nothing More, Bad Wolves and more), who released their soph-
omore album, and debut on Better Noise, on Friday 13th September, 2024. The
release, ‘Greetings From Suffocate City’, is everything we could have wished for
from Lee Jennings (vocals), Cody Weissinger (guitar), Caleb Freihaut
(guitar/auxiliary), Robert Weston (bass), Homer Umbanhower (drums). It is
the album you didn’t know you needed, until you heard it. Bridging the gap from
My Chemical Romance to Shinedown, it is packed full of anthems for outcasts,
alternatives, those feeling left out, bypassed, broken or voiceless.

rontman and founder, Lee Jennings, has to finally get along and enjoy everything that city, but close enough to where you could still go
Fsaid that ‘Suffocate City’, of which the they enjoy in life for the rest of eternity.” to shows or experience the culture of a major
band have a song of the same name, is a place Lee himself grew up near Marietta, GA. “I city. Or close enough to so many other suburbs
where everyone can belong. He tells Black Vel- grew up in a city that’s close to a major city,” he that have great food and great places that you
vet that the idea of ‘Suffocate City’ was that “we says. “I’m close to a place called Marietta, GA. can go to do unique things that maybe you
get to do things our way. I wanna have a space It’s about 25-30 minutes outside of Atlanta, GA. wouldn’t experience in a small town.”
for everyone, and it’s kinda almost like a purga- So we were in a suburb of Atlanta. It has the Lee discovered the local rock scene around
tory, for life after death and a place for everyone feeling that you’re far enough away from a major the age of 14. “I remember, I was on the inter-

THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT