Photos courtesy of Britt Bender

Formed in 2014, hardcore rock band The Funeral Portrait (TFP) is one whose entire foundation is built on community.

The entirety of the band plays Magic: The Gathering, and, what's more, they all avidly play Commander. A few days ago, at the Montage Music Hall in Rochester, NY, I interviewed TFP's vocalist, Lee Jennings, on what the game of Magic means to him, both in his professional life and as a hobby. Furthermore, we spoke about how the game and his career interweave.

A huge thanks to Lee, the whole of The Funeral Portrait, and Atom Splitter PR for facilitating this interview!

The whole band plays Magic: The Gathering. What is the predominant play style for each of The Funeral Portrait’s band members?

Oh, so we only play Commander. I'm trying to think of what a lot of the guys’ decks are like. I know [drummer] Homer [Umbanhower] has a Captain America, First AvengerCaptain America, First Avenger deck, and one of us has The Wise MothmanThe Wise Mothman from Fallout. And then one of mine is Valgavoth, Harrower of SoulsValgavoth, Harrower of Souls. I can never say his name. I've edited it, not even that much, because it's just that the deck is insane. Like, I didn't have to do anything, and I was beating these guys [in the band] who spent over a thousand dollars on decks, and I'm just like, all right, I found it at Walmart. Yeah, that's me with decks. I'm not even joking, I just got lucky, because all of them really wanted that one, right, and I was the only one who found it.

The Funeral Portrait playing a game of Commander.

How often do you get to play Magic when you're on the road, and what are your favorite formats to play?

Commander. Commander, always. I think it's the easiest to play. I think it's the most fun to play, right? Growing up, I got into Magic after I got into the Pokémon TCG, because my cousin was really into Magic, and he has some pretty rare old cards that he has graded. He's just sitting on it now forever. That's your retirement fund, which is sick. I love that now, with nerd culture, we're the rich ones because we kept our old toys and hobbies.

But I think I try to play once a week. My bandmates literally play, well, they're playing right now. You know, before meet and greets. So they play almost every day. I do all these other things, but I definitely enjoy it, so, yeah, absolutely, I try to play on my phone, too. I love Arena, but it also takes up all the space on my laptop.

Have you gotten the chance to play Magic against members of other bands you've toured with, such as Eric Vanlerberghe from I Prevail, and if so, who are your favorite opponents among them?

We have not played against I Prevail yet, but the reason why is because we're day three into the tour, and everybody's still going crazy. But, we’ve already talked about - oh, my God, I love it - so, The Funeral Portrait, because basically everybody in our camp plays, we’ve talked about doing a tournament. The Funeral Portrait versus I Prevail. It's just one of these things that’s a family happening, and it's so much fun.

If The Funeral Portrait had a Secret Lair drop specifically crafted by the band, what four to five cards would it contain, and why?

So, in the band’s imagery, we have these conceptual characters called Icons, who are characters that represent songs for us. We have the Night Terror, who would be Black, my favorite, yeah. I just like evil decks. [laughs] There’s the Angel, and then you have the Alien, among others. I’d design them to have their own colors, and I know every card game kind of has that, but I think the fundamentals of it are really cool.

We've had fans make us cards, right, but they've included us. I would love to see them make our Icons. That would be really cool. I think the Angel would definitely be - oh man, could I just make her a SliverSliver? Especially for [bassist] Rob [Weston]'s deck, that's what he does. The Alien's difficult, because what are they? It's really across the board. The Alien could probably be blue. And then we have the Guide, which we would make green. Then the Twins red. Also, the Blood Mother. We also have the Priest - he’s new. We've barely ever used him, but he was in “Holy Water”. White, probably. It makes sense; he's more human, and so there you go.

Magic or otherwise, what kind of visual arts most inspire the aesthetics of your music videos?

I'm really into larger-than-life things; I grew up doing theater and stuff, but I also grew up in nerd culture. I have a massive Pokémon collection, as I said, and we all play Magic and stuff like that. I want to include fandom in everything, and I think that all of that is based around fandom. A lot of companies, like Wizards of the Coast, think about fandoms first. I know Magic's had a little bit of issue with that lately, I've heard, but they just release so much.

We went to Millennium [Games] earlier; it's probably my favorite card shop in the U.S., and we've been to a million of them. That's something big for us. We’ll all go together, we'll Uber, we'll drive there, we'll walk somewhere. I think a huge part of our band is community, right, so I love that Magic is really built around community. With video games, it’s a little bit like that, with games like Warcraft or even Diablo; you have to have a community to play them. But I think the best part about Magic, etc., is you have to physically be with someone. Yeah, you can play on Arena, but it's not the same as holding the cardboard in your hand.

You recently used Magic-inspired imagery to promote this tour. In fact, that is how I a) found out you play Magic, and b) found out you were swinging by Rochester. So what prompted this decision? Was it Magic's popularity, your personal interest in the game, or something else?

A little bit of everything, I think. For us, the game has exploded. About the time that we really all got into it, it was like the summer of 2024. I think that's really around the time it really, really became massive for us, so it's because we play. And a lot of our fans know that; a lot of fans bring us cards, or they bring us booster packs, or even bring us very expensive cards. So, you know, we're like, “okay, well, they found out what our decks are.”

We’ve played Magic with people, and we've even done contests before where we pick one winner to play with us. We literally taught a radio contest winner how to play Magic, and it was an older lady and her son. It was for charity, so the highest bidder got to do it, and so she did it for him, and it was really cool. It was for the Trevor Project, which we've worked with a million times, and for us, it was cool to have that opportunity. It's not a big deal for us to sit down and teach them how to play, so it was fun.

What is the biggest takeaway for your professional life that you have gleaned from the game of Magic?

To just have fun.

I think that's it, right? I think that's a big thing. Yes, there's World Championships, and all those things for every trading card game now, right, but at the end of the day, the idea of it is community and fun, and I think that is very important to us as a game. As we get up on stage, we have a lot of fun, and guess what, that means the audience has a good time, they have fun, so that's the biggest thing. I used to play Pokémon semi-professionally back in the old days. That was a very big thing for me growing up, and, you know, I got into Magic, I even got into like HeroClix, and I even tried Warhammer once, and I was like, 'this is too expensive.' I keep telling everybody, I said, 'When I retire, at the age of like 80, probably, I'm getting so into Warhammer,' so that's what I want in my dungeon.

I think it's peaceful, you know, and I think Magic is too; it's something big for us, as I said, it's because we go to shops, and there's something about a local shop. And GameStop, I know, started carrying them and stuff, whatever. It's way more about being in the local community. And we've even played in some tournaments. One day off, we just found a draft. I think it was for Duskmourn: House of Horror. It’s so much fun to do stuff like that, because you just meet people. It's so cool. We just have fun.

Lee Jennings, passionate as ever, performing onstage a few hours after our interview.

Sure enough, as we exited the band's green room post-interview, the rest of the band (save for Cody Weissinger, who had yet to arrive at the Montage) were locked in a three-player game of Commander. Robert was running Zhulodok, Void GorgerZhulodok, Void Gorger, while Homer was playing his Glarb, Calamity's AugurGlarb, Calamity's Augur deck. Gareth Calk, the newest member of The Funeral Portrait, was playing his Vorel of the Hull CladeVorel of the Hull Clade deck. Making the Eldrazi proud, or at least as proud as unfathomable eldritch horrors can be, Robert out-valued his bandmates and took the win soon thereafter.

A huge thank-you once again to The Funeral Portrait. This was an awesome glimpse into their professional and hobbyist lives!