Feels Like Forever

"Feels Like Forever" is the third single and second track on Restoring Force, the third full-length studio album by American metalcore band Of Mice & Men. The album sat at the number 4 spot on the Billboard top charts. Mike Shinoda helped the band structure the song, but did not receive credits on it.

Background

After lineup shifts, with the incorporation of Aaron Pauley, Of Mice & Men headed to House of Loud Studios in New Jersey to record the follow-up to The Flood with producer David Bendeth at the start of June 2013. Austin Carlile and Aaron flew out to the studio for about two and a half weeks before the rest of the band and started working on preproduction and writing some skeletons of songs together before David Bendeth suggested they should work separately and see what they could come up with. Aaron then returned with this chorus and verse he said he'd had in his head forever. Vocalist Austin Carlile said, "It was the first time we had every actually recorded together. He's our brother, and he's an incredible vocalist. I remember one night we were doing pre-production early on, and Aaron had some reservations. He was down on himself, and he didn't know if he was cut out for it. I told him, 'You're the person who delivers that final punch and emotion. You're the one who sends it home for us. Trust yourself'. The next day, he showed me 'Feels Like Forever'."

"Feels Like Forever" was the very first song they demoed but ended up being the last song finished for the album. While taking a break from recording back in California, Austin, a big Linkin Park fan since he was 14 years old, ran into Mike Shinoda, who helped bringing the song to its final form. "We got to talking and had lunch together. I’d mentioned I was working on a new record and he seemed interested, so we went to his car and we listened to these super rough demos. I was doing vocals, even though I felt pretty silly. I had idolised this guy, now I’m singing to him in his car. Suddenly he looked at me and said, ‘You would be an idiot not to let me help you with this. I love it.’ He helped bring that song to life and it was that day in the car that started our friendship with Linkin Park."

On May 18, 2020, Mike had the Linkin Park fans "raid" the Of Mice & Men Twitch stream. They talked about this song, saying, "Mike actually helped us write an Of Mice & Men song, well a couple of them. He helped me structure the end of "Feels Like Forever", that's entirely Mike, that whole last chorus/triple repeat at the end. It's funny because when I invented that, and then I showed it to Mike, and then he showed it to you, it was like insane. Do you remember how he did it too? He was on like a plane to Japan. It was so sick. He was like "I'm going to be on a plane, so I'll listen to your jams and maybe I'll have some ideas" and then he got off the plane and he sent us the ideas. And he was like "what if you do this at the end?" and I was like "OH! DUH!" He also gave us one time an essay he that wrote for UCLA he wrote which was about how he broke down a song which was really, really insightful and cool to see his mind in his early 20s how he looked at a song. He's a legend. And it's awesome because he's got such a unique perspective when it comes to songwriting and storytelling, and you can see it on his streams, but he's able to explain things that make it less confusing than it needs to be."

Mike wasn't credited on the album. Guitarist Alan Ashby addressed this saying he would love to do a proper collaboration with Mike. "Mike Shinoda, he literally shaped how I grew up learning to write music I learned most of it from Linkin Park. He actually helped us write “Feels Like Forever” but I don’t think he was properly credited in the album or whatever. Would love to do a feature with him someday"

Explaining the meaning of the song (his favorite on the album), Austin said, "The song is about an internal battle and feeling like everything is crashing down on you, it's raining down on you, drowning you. It's a song that we want to empower people to know that everybody goes through storms, everybody goes through trials and tribulations. It's the focus of how to get out of it, how to better yourself from it, how to learn from it so it doesn't happen again. Then, if it does happen again, you know exactly how to handle it."

Music Video

The music video for "Feels Like Forever" was directed by Nathan William and released on October 23, 2014. The performance scenes were shot at an indoor studio set-up and the beach scenes were shot in Malibu, California, in a place the band usually go to hang out or surf. The shell in the final shot is the same shell on the cover of Restoring Force, representing a return to center and to the band's equilibrium after a trial or a tribulation.

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Studio

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Feels Like Forever	Restoring Force	3:13	2013	January 24, 2014
Feels Like Forever (Acoustic)	Restoring Force: Full Circle	3:11	Fall 2014	February 20, 2015

Live

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Feels Like Forever	Live At Brixton	3:12	March 28, 2015	May 17, 2016

Live

Of Mice & Men began performing "Feels Like Forever" at the very beginning of the tour for Restoring Force, beginning in Montreal, Canada on January 5, 2014. For a majority of the tour, "Feels Like Forever" remained in a mid-set position. For The Hunting Party European Tour in 2014, "Feels Like Forever" was moved up earlier into the setlist, appearing second after "Public Service Announcement". "Public Service Announcement" was dropped from the setlist on the following The Hunting Party North American Tour, leaving "Feels Like Forever" as the set opener for the first time. After the ill-fated tour came to a close, "Feels Like Forever" returned to a later set position for the rest of the cycle.

The band returned to touring in the summer of 2016, following the recording sessions for Cold World. No new songs were played, but "Bones Exposed" was now the set opener with "Feels Like Forever" following it on the band's European Tour, which had them playing shows at Rock am Ring and Rock im Park in Germany and the Slam Dunk Festival in England. When the band opened for Slipknot on their summer amphitheater tour, "Feels Like Forever" was dropped. The song returned when Of Mice & Men took to Cold World tour to Europe in the fall of 2016, where it returned to an early set position. It was not featured in every setlist, being dropped conservatively for a few shows, but for the most part it was a consistent part of the setlist. It was performed at Austin Carlile's last show with the band, and it is not currently known if the song will return.

Promotion

The band teamed up with USA Today for the video premiere of "Feels Like Forever", giving an in-depth interview on the meaning behind the song and the video.

Personnel

Of Mice & Men is:

• Austin Carlile – unclean vocals
• Alan Ashby – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
• Phil Manansala – lead guitar
• Aaron Pauley – bass, clean vocals
• Valentino Arteaga – drums

Production

• David Bendeth – produced and mixed
• Steve Sarkissian – assistant engineer, drum technician
• Koby Nelson – assistant, digital editing
• Connor Appleton – assistant
• Mitch Milan – digital editing, engineer, guitar technician, programming
• Brian Robbins – digital editing, engineer, mixing engineer, programming
• Ted Jensen – mastering

Lyrics

Album Version

Did you ever contemplate,
when all was lost you hesitate,
& nothing seems the same.
Have you ever hid your face,
in such disgrace, decisions made
A picture with no frame.

Can you hold on one more day?

Say you're okay,
I'm afraid that tomorrow is just too far away.
Fight the pain,
it just feels like forever is crashing down on me.

Rain will fall,
wash all the pain,
it shields the soul,
you turn the page,
to face another day.
Let me know that you will wait,
& I will pay for my mistakes,
to feel the sun again.

Can you hold on?

Say you're okay,
I'm afraid that tomorrow is just too far away.
Fight the pain,
it just feels like forever is crashing down on me.

Don't let go,
time will heal.
Just don't let go,
one day we can learn to start again.

Say you're okay,
I'm afraid that tomorrow is just too far away.
Fight the pain,
it just feels like forever,
it feels like forever is crashing down on me.

Gallery

• 

  Single

• 

  Restoring Force

• 

  Restoring Force: Full Circle

• 

  Restoring Force: Full Circle with sticker

• 

  Live At Brixton

• 

  Live At Brixton with show reviews

• 

  Austin Carlile with Mike Shinoda and friends at the Sunset Street Music Festival in 2013

External Links

Music Video

• Feels Like Forever (Official Music Video)
• Feels Like Forever (Live At Brixton)

Stream

• Feels Like Forever (Acoustic)