God Forbid recently announced their first show in nine years to take place at the 2022 Blue Ridge Rock Festival. And like any band who reunites, there are two main questions everyone has – how long will this last and will there be new material? According to vocalist Byron Davis in a video posted to God Forbid's Facebook page, the answer to the latter is a firm "who knows right now."
"Who knows," said Davis. "We'll have to see how that plays out. We do have a reissue [of Gone Forever available here] though, coming out. So you can get a little bit of that old God Forbid flavor until you get some of that new God Forbid flavor, but you know – only time will tell as far as new material." He later added "It's unknown right now at this point."
Davis also discussed the band's mystery second guitarist, saying "I wanna tell you but I can't. You gotta wait. It's good! You're gonna be like, 'damn. I don't believe it.'" Outside founding guitarist Doc Coyle, God Forbid has had two second guitarists throughout their career – Dallas Coyle and Matt Wicklund. Our best guess right now is that it's ex-Monuments guitarist Olly Steele, given he and Doc Coyle had spoken about it a little (possibly jokingly) on The Ex-Man With Doc Coyle.
Doc Coyle said in a recent interview that he has some potential God Forbid-type riffs in the back of his head but isn't in any rush to jump into new material. Coyle added that it's important for him to also make sure the band is on board with doing material, as he points out that he feels "God Forbid was one of those bands where the sum was better than the parts."
"I mean, a little bit. Because, you know, I was kind of the main kind of riff writer [and] songwriter for the band for a good portion of those last few records. So me as a writer, there's always stuff [I'm working on that] I'm like 'that sounds like a God Forbid thing,' right? So there's always stuff that I'll just kind of put to the side or kind of [have] in the back of my [head] that theoretically could be that. So there's definitely some material that definitely could exist, but I am very much taking it one step at a time.
"I have a tendency to have a lot of big ideas and go [down] a lot of rabbit holes [in] my head but unfortunately – not even unfortunately – you want to make sure everyone's a part of that, not just it's my little kind of… sometimes I get all hyped up in my head but it's like, it takes a village and everyone has to be on board. It's important to make sure everyone is excited about anything you're doing – that's just very, very important to me.
"I really enjoy the band dynamic and having everyone be involved and be excited about stuff because I really believe in the synergy of that. I think God Forbid was one of those bands where the sum was better than the parts, that everyone together made something that outpaced our actual talent and ability, you know, because of the chemistry."
