I got a chance to see Dear Forbidden a little while back when Sacred Monsters was opening for them at Warehouse 3 in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. The set was tight and full of energy, and they weren’t afraid to speak their minds about the current state of affairs in the United States. It helped, of course, that the No Kings rally had occurred earlier in the day and the stage was adorned with No Kings signage, but I imagine they’d have offered their thoughts no matter what! Anyway, I loved their set and made sure I was first in line to buy their album on vinyl at the end of the show.

Your Bandcamp bio suggests that the name Dear Forbidden might be the salutation from a letter that was never meant to be sent. Can you say a little more about that? Either the meaning behind the name or the contents of the letter? 

Gina: The band name comes from one of the lyrics in a song on our second EP – “You Say You’re Outta Your Mind” on Slow Beat. It goes, “Dear forbidden, I miss you with all of my lust.” I’ll just say that I was having impure thoughts about a friend I had at the time while I was in a relationship with someone else that eventually ended. I should also add that I started writing that song several years before we recorded and released the song in case anyone is trying to do some sleuthing by looking at my social media from over a decade ago! And that I imagine those kinds of thoughts are fairly common when a monogamous relationship isn’t going well. 

Who’s in the band, and how did it come together? 
Ryan: Gina does the singing and the guitar-ing, Steph the drumming, Kyle also does guitars and Ryan, that’s me, does the bass-ing. I’ve known Gina for more than half of my life, since high school. We’ve both known Steph for a very long time too. Kyle was in a band called Slophouse that used to play shows with DF back in the day, he also plays with me in a band called Needless Ghost, when we were looking to fill out our sound he seemed like the best choice. I joined the band in 2015, replacing the original bassist. Our original drummer left in 2016 or 2017? I don’t remember, originally Steph was just going to fill in for us for a show or two, but once we heard her playing, we asked her to join the band. It was very funny, it felt like we were asking the most popular girl in school to the prom, and she said “yes!” I’ll let Gina fill in any blanks I may have left out. 

I understand you’ve visited some fairly exotic locales over the years, including (but not limited to) Poughkeepsie, New York, and Wilmington, Delaware. Do any moments on the road stand out in your memory? 

Ryan: The reason I call out Poughkeepsie, specifically, in our bio is kind of an inside joke. We toured (in the 3 piece version of DF) in 2018, I think it was. We had a show in Poughkeepsie, and it was a very strange affair. We are pretty sure some of the people in the crowd wanted us to come back with them to their place and do meth. Everything was just a little off. They were a little too into us. When the show was over we basically did a “thank you good night!” and fled. I don’t think any band has packed up their gear quicker than we did that night. Once we were in the car we laughed and yelled “pheeewwwwwwww” for a solid hour on our way to New England. 

Speaking of exotic locales, when I saw you play at Warehouse 3 in Swarthmore a little while back, you drew a nice-sized crowd. What would you say your fan base is like? What was their role in helping your new album come to fruition? 

Ryan: I don’t know if we have a fan base, but we definitely have some very amazing and supportive friends. They were instrumental in helping the new record, as we crowdfunded its creation using Kickstarter. It wouldn’t exist as a record without them. 

This is your first full-length album after a series of EPs. What inspired you to go for the brass ring, as it were, this time around? 

Ryan: I think for me, it was the fact that these great songs we’d been playing for a while and now Kyle on guitar that really added another dimension to the music. Part of the reason for the EPs, at least for me, was to get some things down on record, to have something. I personally consider Slow Beat & Before the Night Expires (the EPs) combined as almost a record in its own right, a lot of those songs were written around the same time, I think, but the recording process was just broken up a bit. 

I love the cover art and checked out the artist, Leonardo Vargas, who also did the cover for your single “Smile Dropper” back in 2020. What’s your connection with him?

Gina: Leonardo found us on social media, I’m guessing some time after we put out our first single from that EP, “Pledge,” and told us he liked our music and offered to let us use one of his pieces for our next single art. It was a huge, unexpected honor because I love his work, and feel like the sense of eerie-ness that I get from his images very much suits that same element that I like to bring into our band’s songwriting. 

A little while back, in WXPN’s The Key, John Vetesse described Dear Forbidden as pissed-off. Was that an accurate assessment? What pisses you off? 

Ryan: There’s a funny meme about fire signs of the zodiac that’s of a person asking another person “why are you so mad?” and the fire sign replies “why are you MAKING me so mad.” For real though, I think the state of the world and our country in general makes me pretty angry. Fascism, homophobia, transphobia, unchecked capitalism, take your pick -ism. 

That said, you also have a sense of humor, though your press materials say that nobody can tell when you’re joking. Has that uncertainty gotten you into any trouble over the years? 

Ryan: I can’t think of anything specifically, but as a band we take our music and the songs seriously, but as people we are all goofs. When posting things on social media I try to be on the self-deprecating or silly side of things, but I worry people who don’t know us aren’t going to get it? It’s probably a trust issue on my part.