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2. Forty Feet Tall
Sounds like: Fuzzy, frenzied indie-rock you can bang your head and sing along to.
At the height of the federal occupation of Minneapolis this winter, members of Portland alt-rock outfit Forty Feet Tall texted each other, at a loss over what to do.
As musicians, they had at least one tool in their tool kit. So they got to work writing music.
“It’s a way to vent when you’re feeling pretty hopeless,” bassist Brett Marquette tells Willamette Week. “There’s only so much you can do. So we thought, let’s at least vent and make something, and maybe that will help other people vent.”
FFT is now working out material for a fourth studio album, a follow-up to 2025’s Clean the Cage, an intense 33-minute post-punk joyride celebrated by critics, fans and fellow bands.
“BICEP BICEP BICEP BICEP BICEP,” singer Cole Gann hollers in “Bicep,” a swipe at gym bros on Clean the Cage; the band has explored serious content before, but has also never been afraid to explore the ridiculous. “LEFT-RIGHT LEFT-RIGHT LEFT-RIGHT LEFT-RIGHT LEFT-RIGHT.”
Now, they’re tuning down to drop C for a heavier sound and exploring darker, more timely themes, inspired by Portland’s world-class hardcore scene and the generally dark state of the world.
“The band’s getting more political. We’re all getting more political,” Gann says. “It’s pretty fucking impossible not to.”
Their latest material rages over ICE and Palestine, and being made to contribute to a music industry that’s rigged against all but the richest acts, trapped by morally dubious platforms like Spotify and Instagram.
“It’s such a scary time, and navigating art is really interesting right now,” Gann says. “We’re trying to find a balance as a band that can self-sustain, and also we realize the platform that we now have and we feel some type of obligation to speak out.”
When the quartet spoke to WW last week, they were fresh—if that’s the word—off playing nine shows in four days at South by Southwest. And those shows were Forty Feet Tall shows: frenzied, highly fatiguing affairs, made more so by the Texas heat.
Members say they still find the energy, every show, whether at a small club or a large festival. Gann’s stage-diving antics have been escalating—literally, bandmates say. He broke an ankle on tour in Utah jumping on an audience member’s planted foot.
An eventful year kicked off last summer with a massive crowd at Pickathon. A few days later, Clean the Cage was released. Right after that, the band left for Europe to play 25 shows in 30 days. Last month was Treefort in Boise, where they rocked still more massive crowds.
Band members say they’re honored to be recognized on this list, though Forty Feet Tall is not exactly “new,” having formed around a decade ago. Technically, FFT traces to the band Gann and guitarist Jack Sehres started in high school in the early 2010s in Los Angeles. Gann went on to attend Lewis & Clark College; Sehres moved to San Francisco, where he lived for a time with bassist Marquette. In 2017, Gann convinced Sehres to re-form their old band in Portland.
Artists were getting priced out of L.A. and S.F., they said. Portland had a fertile music scene and much cheaper drinks.
Since putting down roots in Oregon, Forty Feet Tall has grown lofty among the local hardcore and punk scenes, with regular touring and explosive shows at Mississippi Studios and The Get Down.
Though they’re well seasoned at this point, the band is on an ascendant streak with a new manager in Shannon Byrne of Adult Decisions helping them chart a course for their next album. They have a new drummer in Logan Hazen, who replaced Ian Kelley (who drums on Clean the Cage) around a year ago and whom Gann credits with injecting new life into the band.
It’s not the first time Hazen has lifted the spirits of an industrious cohort. By day a mechanic with the Portland Water Bureau, he was recognized in 2021 as a Crew Member of the Year. A supervisor praised Hazen’s “infectious attitude,” saying he “influences everyone around him in a positive way.”
Hazen—who’s doing double duty on this list with his other band, The Apricots—was a fan of Forty Feet Tall for years prior to joining.
“I have this standard of how I felt when I was watching [the band] from the crowd, you know, getting stoked,” he says. “So every single time I get to play these songs, it fires me up. I feel the same every single time.”
