Alternative rock band Foreverlin showed flashes of brilliance with its debut record, Long Lost, but the truth was, the band--made up of brothers Peter and Caleb Blomberg along with Anthony Riedl and Burke Florom--hadn't yet come of age. Still very new in their roles, the music that emerged on Long Lost reflected a musical hope and optimism the band had.

Fast forward to 2015, and Foreverlin--now three years into its life as a band--has well established roles, and is hitting their stride just at the right time, as evidenced by their sophomore effort, Still After. Citing influences such as Snow Patrol, Copeland, Thrice and As Cities Burn, the band finds themselves solidly identifying with alternative rock music in an age where they have very little company. 

Peter Blomberg and I shared a chat about these subjects and more.

You guys have been around for a few years now, since 2012, but people are still getting to know you. Give us the Cliff's Notes version of how you came together and what the first three years of your band has been like.

It's gone quick. My brother Caleb and I--he's also in the band--we used to play in a band for about eight years called Another Dream and we then stopped playing and ended up just doing various projects. We had a little metal band and some other things. I did some solo stuff. He ended up wanting to put together more of an indie-type band, more of a rock band, and so he started this group with the other members, and they recorded an EP and came up with the name, toured a little bit, and got signed a record.

Right around that time they were looking for a bass player actually and I said, "Sounds kind of fun, sounds kind of laid back. I can just play bass," and low and behold we went to record and it turned out I became lead singer and started playing guitar with them. We kind of swapped some positions around and now we have Foreverlin. 

We've done a bit of touring, and now this is our second full-length album that we're releasing. It's been great.

That's exciting. Like you said, this is your second full-length album. How have you guys changed as a band since your first album, Long Lost?

We were still pretty new as a band and like I said, we had just swapped a lot of our positions around pretty much in the recording studio. We hadn't yet found our place as a band yet and so now, two years later, after playing a lot of shows and spending more time writing, we all are a lot more comfortable in our positions in the band.

The new album is called Still After. Talk about that name and what it means to you.

We sat down as a band. We emailed. We texted lots of ideas and nothing really clicked. We were actually sitting in a Barnes & Noble at a Starbucks one night and just kind of going through the lyrics I had written and I think our drummer, Burke, said "still after." It's a line from the final track of the album.

The final track just has this line that said, "there's love still after all these things and grace is more than a word just to make us smile." We kind of shortened it to "still after" so that you could approach it from the angle as we're saying there's life "still after" something, there's love "still after" hardships. So you can kind of fill in the beginning and ending of that sentence to where you're at, but we thought it kind of represented that theme of hope.

What would you say is one song from the new record that's the most personal?

There's a song called "Speak" on the album. That one, I think, is one of the most personal for me. It's kind of from a place of just feeling alone and kind of asking God to give me these words that say you are alone, but you're worth something to me. I'm really happy with how that song turned out.

Which is the most fun to play live?

There's this other song called "Sanguine," which is the final track on the album. It has a couple of slots with a weird time signature and then it just breaks down to a lone guitar and me singing, and there's this great solo at the end. Just throughout the whole song there are lots of highs and lows. It's just really fun to play.

You guys have a big sound; it's cinematic. I've read what some of your influences are. I could definitely hear the Snow Patrol in there. It just seems like you're filling this sort of musical void in Christian music as far as like the alternative rock genre goes. Would you say that's true? Do you guys sort of feel all alone out there these days?

Yeah, kind of. I'm seeing a lot of bands come forward that are creating kind of a little more epic sounding, ambient type stuff, but we're not playing with any of them, that's for sure. When we do shows, we definitely get the sense that we don't always fit in with whoever we're playing with. I appreciate you saying that. That's a neat comment.

These days the rock is kind of confined to worship music now, and then everything else is kind of like this poppy synth, or like four-on-the-floor folk, as far as Christian music goes. Your stuff kind of hearkens back in a sense, without feeling dated, to the days of like 12 Stones. They're a little harder than you guys, but like Big Dismal. What do you say to people who say rock is dead?

I don't really even know how to answer that. I've heard people say that and it's like, "What? It's here. It's still going."

What's the first Christian rock band you ever remember liking growing up?

I remember going to see Geoff Moore and the Distance. I loved it. It was awesome. Then I started listening to Newsboys and stuff about them and then pretty soon I remember hearing a MxPx song on the radio at some point and from there I just kind of went every direction.

What can people expect from the record who haven't yet listened to it?

I would just say there are a variety of sounds on the album. We have a couple that are a little more aggressive and then we have some more that really breakdown and our a little mellow, but still move quite a bit. I think lyrically -- I've heard from quite a few people that aren't really into listening to "worship" music. I like this idea of putting lyrics out there that are real, real life, because that's the perspective I write all of my lyrics from are pretty much things that I've experienced and I don't say that to say that worship music isn't because I lead worship at my church and it's great stuff. I just mean there are some words that people are looking for that they may not find in that style of music, that Foreverlin, they might connect with struggles we've gone through. Our hope is it would offer them hope.

You mentioned that you're a worship leader. Tell us about that. What church and are you on staff? Are you doing this week in/week out? What's the story there?

There's this church body here in Laramie called the Mayest Road Community Church and I came to college, they were actually just getting started, so I've been with them since the beginning, which is 12 years now I think. It's crazy. I came and just wanted to play drums and guitar and stuff and kind of a neat setting and got hooked up with some great guys who have really led me well and then when they moved on, I kind of stepped up. Officially it's a part time job, but I do that every Sunday. It's really neat. We're actually a smaller congregation, so a lot of Sundays it's more stripped down, just acoustic, stuff like that, which is fun.

Do you have any other jobs in addition to leading worship?

I actually teach elementary school.

Which grade?

Currently sixth grade, but I'm going to move to third grade next year.

That's incredible. What about the other guys in the band? What are their secret identities?

Our drummer is going to college. My brother, Caleb, is a graphic design artist for a company called Best of the West here in Wyoming. Our bass player, Anthony, he works at a coffee shop and he's actually on tour right now doing merch and other stuff for a band called Righteous Vendetta. He hangs out with them and they're another Wyoming band, which is pretty cool.

So the album came out the 19th... what's coming up next? What are you guys working on? I know you already have a music video. You have more coming. You have tours. What's next?

We have the single, "Broken Lines," that we did a music video for. That's probably going to go to radio this next week I think. We're kind of excited to see how it does and then we've got a couple of other songs we're thinking maybe later on this summer we might push to radio. We've got a couple of weeks of tour we'll be doing in June and probably doing some live videos and such as well.

What would you say has been the most exciting thing that you guys have experienced as a band in the last three years?

I'll say two exciting things. We just actually had our CD release show a few weeks ago and that was just incredible. We had 150 of our friends there for the show and it was just really fun. Also, our song from our last album, "Long Lost," made it to like No. 12 or 14 on the Christian radio charts, which is really cool to see that."

I bet now the expectations have sort of shifted for you guys, now that you've hit your stride and have come out with this new album. Wouldn't you say?

We're kind of hoping we can break into that Top 10.

What are some things that you really get excited about as a band?

We really like just relationships. It's the whole idea of we're not a band that's just on stage, but we're going to be there after the show hanging out. I love those moments where you're just hanging out with kids and you're either talking about life or God or silly stuff. It's just neat, which is weird for me because I'm a pretty quiet person. There's just something about music that once you guys start talking about music, you can talk about anything else in the world if you have that connection. It's really cool.

Is there anything that people can be praying for you guys about kind of as you're getting ready for the record to come out, family, friends, travels, stuff like that?

The big thing right now we're planning this tour and we don't know what vehicle we're taking, so it's something to figure out what to do about that. One of our guys is in college and a couple of us work full time. Right now we're just going to see what happens, and our big kind of prayer right now for God is, "What's next for us?" We don't know. Do we need to take a leap of faith and try to do this more full-time or do as we've been doing the last couple of years?