Forrest Kline was born in Ashland, Oregon, on November 7, 1983. As a teenager in Southern California, the future Hellogoodbye frontman learned to record vocals quietly enough that his parents could sleep upstairs. A computer could supply all the drums and synthesizers he wanted without waking anybody. By 2006, he’d found a particularly good use for that combination on “Here (In Your Arms),” a love song that starts like a private confession and opens into a chorus built for a crowded dance floor.
Kline started recording in tenth grade. He told LA Weekly that part of the appeal was being able to give someone a mixtape with a hand-drawn cover and a song of his own on it. By his senior year, he had started Hellogoodbye. He could plug a guitar straight into the computer, program the other parts and sing over them. Myspace gave him somewhere to put the finished songs. Playing them for people face to face took a little more organizing, so he rounded up friends for shows around Orange County.
One of the first songs Kline put together with his multitrack software was “Touchdown Turnaround.” When Drive-Thru Records wanted a lead single from Hellogoodbye’s debut album, Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!, that was the label’s pick. Kline remembered it as a piece of high school wordplay. He liked the nerve of it, but he had another song he felt much closer to. As he told NYLON, “They didn’t see it as a single.” Drive-Thru let him follow his instincts. “Here (In Your Arms)” reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2007.
Making that album also changed what Kline wanted to do with an afternoon in the studio. At home, being able to audition a whole collection of kick drums had felt like a luxury. Once he was working with producer Matt Mahaffey, scrolling through samples became the part he dreaded. He liked the sessions best when somebody picked up an instrument and played. For Hellogoodbye’s second album, Would It Kill You?, he built a studio, collected microphones and learned how to record the things he’d once had to draw note by note on a screen. When an arrangement called for strings or horns, he could invite players in to perform it.
Mahaffey returned to co-produce the 2010 record. Kline also found a writing partner of sorts in the ukulele. He told Beat Magazine that something he’d lose interest in playing on guitar could catch his ear again on the smaller instrument. On “When We First Met,” its bright strum accompanies one of his most specific love songs. Kline keeps track of a relationship by remembering the couple’s haircuts. By the time the hair they cut short has grown long again, you know how much life they’ve spent together.
The bedroom recordings still had a place onstage. When Hellogoodbye played Capital City Music Hall in Harrisburg on February 28, 2026, the set reached back to “Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn” alongside debut-album songs “All of Your Love” and “Here (In Your Arms).” Rock Documented’s Matt Christine heard the crowd singing along through the closing chords.
