*Interview with Forever Changed lead guitarist Ben O'Rear.

Tell me more about Forever Changed- how and when did the band start?

We started the band 5 years ago under a different name- we've been under the name Forever Changed for two years now. I've known the guys for quite a while- our bass player is relatively new, he's been here for about a year and a half. The rest of us all met together in High School in Florida. We really couldn't play our instruments but we got together and kinda grew together as a band.

How did you guys come up with the name Forever Changed?

We are all born again Christians. Our lives have been forever changed through our salvation.

About new album?

Our first album The Need To Feel Alive came out on March 8th, we've spent like 3 weeks in the making of it... The theme is basically "the need to feel alive," the need to accomplish something in our lives as a person. We felt that that was such a powerful thing. Because being alive, there are a lot of things that come to play- life and love...

About the music video "Encounter" how did you guys think of inputting E.T in there?

Actually we really didn't plan on doing a video... we were just talking about how we wanted to do a video. Some of our buddies make videos for bands. So the guys in the band came up with the idea of ET- we all watched the movie and realized it was one of our favorite movies, and we thought "how funny would it be if we put ET in there?"
Instead of making a "rock-star" video, we wanted to be funny... we just wanted to be more like ourselves.

How's touring?

We just got off a four week tour...We've been everywhere- the GMA week, the Ichtus festival... We've done a lot of touring- for about 8 months now. The first couple of months we started doing this, we were tired and worn out. Now it's our everyday routine... we've just gotten used to it. It's getting better and better. We love what we do, we love meeting people and playing out there, it's been a blessing... we just love touring.

What inspires you?

Being able to meet kids new in their relationship with Christ, being able to meet those kind of people is just amazing. They feel like they can come to us and say what's in their hearts, like "can you pray for us," "can u pray with me." That stuff is always amazing and always a blessing. It's extremely inspirational for us.


Future plans?

We have a lot of touring ahead of us on the new album [Need To Feel Alive]. We'll be touring with Kids in the Way in July. Also we'll be writing for our new album which is due next year.

;)