A chat with Forever in Your Mind

We met Liam Attridge, Ricky Garcia and Emery Kelly, the three guys in the band Forever in Your Mind at Sound Cloud Studios in Manhattan recently.

How did you come up with your band name?

Emery: About three years ago, me and this goofball [Ricky] auditioned for “The X Factor,” and the day before we were put into a band. We became friends and on that day they just gave us the name Forever in Your Mind. We didn’t make up the name. “X Factor” did.

What is your all-time favorite song?

Liam: I’m going to go with — I don’t know if you know this song — but I’m sure your parents will. I’m going to go with “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban.

Ricky: “Grenade” by Bruno Mars

Emery: I think my all-time favorite song is “Story of My Life” by One Direction.

How many hours a day do you practice?

Ricky: If we have a performance, we’ll do it like all day.

Emery: We do it every day.

We heard you’re from Long Island. Where are you from, and would you go back to perform at your old school?

Emery: Me and Liam are from Long Island. I’m from Holbrook, Long Island, and Liam’s from Ronkonkoma.

Liam: Yeah, I would perform in the elementary schools and middle school, but not high school because all the people I know are there.

How did you write your songs?

Ricky: Together with another writer — so someone who writes songs all the time. Whenever we go in we usually write with them, and then we have a computer and we write down and we play a little bit of guitar, and it records on the computer and then we just build off of that.

Emery: The process of writing sometimes can go in one direction but at any moment in time, it can change. It can be one idea and then it’s a whole different idea.

How long have you known one another?

Emery: I’ve known Liam since he was born. I’ve known Ricky for about three years.

Was “The X Factor” your big break?

Emery: In a way, and [it was] a way to get out. In a way to start our professional careers for me and Ricky, yes, for Liam.

How would you describe yourself?

Liam: I am a stay-at-home kind of person. I’m in the band, I’m in home school right now. So all of my schooling is online. For any free time I have I’m either hanging out with my girlfriend or playing video games. I do pretty normal kid stuff. I don’t really like to go out. I would consider myself a homebody and nice.

Ricky: I’m on a Disney show so I have to shoot for my Disney show sometimes like every week. And then on that week off I’ll record or do a show or something band related. Other than that I like to go to the beach. There are a lot of beaches in California. I like to surf, I like to long board, I like to play video games. I’m just a normal kid. Laid back, goofy.

Emery: I would describe myself as not a daredevil, but more of an adventurous person. I like to go on adventures, I like to go hiking. I love working out. I love surfing and skiing. I play video games but not as much as Liam. I like sleep. Sleep is good. I love filming and taking pictures of everything. That’s what I do when I’m off the band and with the guys.

What has been your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

Liam: I would actually consider my biggest challenge to be when I first moved from Long Island to California. I found out a week before I left. So my biggest challenge was probably in that week saying goodbye to everyone. Pretty much moving. It was definitely hard to say goodbye to friends that quickly. My biggest challenge just because of the amount of change in a really short period of time.

Ricky: The biggest challenge is managing how tired I am. It can be hard at times. When I’m shooting my show, I’m really tired and have to go to an event with these guys. That’s something I try to really overcome.

Emery: When I used to go to school, school was really challenging for me to do because I would always hold it back. Like I would always wait to the last minute, and that was always the challenge. Don’t do that. Nowadays I would just — I don’t know — I’m just kind of sailing in a nice little boat right now.

Where do you record your music?

Liam: We have a studio where we work. It’s called the Jungle Room. And that’s where we’ll rehearse. We have our backup band that comes [to] practice with us.

How old were you when you started playing instruments or singing?

Emery: I would say like as far as I remember — me, the first time singing was probably 6.

Liam: I remember doing musical theater. I remember the first show I did was “Free to Be You and Me.”

Emery [to Liam]: We did that together!

Liam: I played guitar throughout my childhood because my dad played. When I was in elementary school when I went to Cherokee you start in third grade, You can do orchestra instruments. I played violin in third grade, and when fourth grade came you could switch to band if you wanted to. In fourth grade I switched to play alto saxophone.

Ricky: I started singing definitely not early as them because I didn’t do theater all the time. I did theater when I was like 7 or 8, but I did different shows. I like theater but just singing. Small musicals. “Seussicals” — “Cat in the Hat.” I did a couple of plays here and there, but then I just started getting into it when I was 10. I started doing YouTube videos. But then I moved out to L.A. when I was 12 and then been doing this ever since.

What is your favorite dessert?

Liam: Best question so far. Applebee’s, yes — Triple Chocolate Meltdown. I like dark chocolate so anything that’s really chocolaty and rich. I’ll do brownies and stuff like that.

Emery: What’s sad is I don’t eat dessert.

Ricky: There’s a candy kind of dessert. I like Sour Patch and Sour Straws.

Emery: I would have to agree with them on candy. Sour Patch Kids. I like the blue ones.

What are your plans as you get more famous?

Ricky: Let’s hope we can get into doing shows more.

Emery: More shows, release more music — we really don’t care about the fame. We just want to express our passion through our music to other people, but really definitely more shows over the summer and definitely release more music. That’s the main goal right now.

Liam: I think the word “fame” — obviously looking at celebrity I think that with the exposure that comes with being famous, I think that’s what’s more important to us, that exposure. We’ll be able to bring our music to more people and for us to be able to play in front of more people and just connect with more people. I think that’s more important than the fame aspect of it. I think having more people look up to you or just to be able to connect with more fans is what we’re really looking for.

Who inspired you?

Liam: My biggest inspiration would have to be my dad because he’s in a band. He’s on Long Island, and I watched him play just like smaller shows and stuff my entire childhood. I didn’t expect to be in a band and do all that. As I said, it came really fast. So he’s my inspiration just because I grew up watching that. My mom tells me I do a lot of the same things that my dad does on stage. Just like little things. So my dad is my biggest inspiration.

Ricky: Justin Timberlake. Also Bruno Mars.

Emery: Mine would have to be — there’s a couple, it depends like on my inspiration. For a guitarist John Mayer and Ed Sheeran. There’s some inspirations I have toward Justin Bieber, One Direction, 5 Seconds [of Summer], Bruno Mars, Jason Mraz.

If you could perform with any singer who would it be?

Liam: I would perform with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. He’s a legend. He’s up there with The Beatles, Rolling Stones.

Ricky: Justin Timberlake.