Just a few days after launching a Kickstarter campaign to help cover the costs of its debut release, Office of Future Plans reached the $2,500 project goal. Which means the band should have no trouble having its 7-inch ready for its show with The Dismemberment Plan at the 9:30 Club on Jan. 23.

Before OFP’s forthcoming release got the funding it needed, Arts Desk asked the band a couple questions about going the Kickstarter route, and why they decided to cover the Stranglers.

“As for the choice of Kickstarter, there were a few determinants,” wrote OFPcellist Gordon Withers. “First of all, we wanted to put out the 7-inch ourselves—-it just felt like the right thing to do for our first release. (I expect we’ll look for a label for the upcoming full-length.) Second, the costs of doing a nice 7-inch—-including special mastering for vinyl, printing color sleeves, etc.—-were more than we anticipated. We can’t wait for months and months to recoup—-it needs to be a soon as possible.”

Withers isn’t new to Kickstarter: He used the site to fund the vinyl version of his second solo album back in 2009.

“I was able to convince the other guys that it was a tenable prospect, and the response so far has been much greater than we ever anticipated,” Withers wrote. “We all think it’s wonderful that in 2011, there are all these great tools (Kickstarter, BandCamp, Etsy, and similar sites) that enable such great punk-rock/DIY-style methods of funding and distribution.”

The single’s B-side is a cover of the Stranglers’ “Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead.” OFP frontman and unabashed Stranglers fan J. Robbins had quite a bit to say about OFP’s cover selection.

“The Stranglers are a greatly under-appreciated band, and one of my all-time favorites,” wrote Robbins. “‘Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead’ is on the album La Folie, which was the midpoint of the transition from their early, highly idiosyncratic and abrasive sound to their later, much smoother and less immediately arresting (but more commercially successful) pop sound. The song is really anthemic, totally the kind of song I’ve always wanted to be able to write but have always been too self-conscious to pull off.”

Though Robbins has a lot of love for the band and the song, he felt OFP had something to bring to the tune.

“The original version has this really weird, ambivalent energy that has a certain charm but in the end is kind of underwhelming,” Robbins wrote. “It’s a song where I thought we could do a considerably different version from the original, and bring the kind of energy to it that as a Stranglers super-fan I always wished the song had in the first place. We have a lot of recorded material and we considered a few different songs for the 7-inch, but B-sides are a good place for obscure cover tunes, and thematically and energetically, ‘Everybody’ makes a nice pair with ‘Harden Your Heart.'”

Even though the band has reached their Kickstarter goal, there’s still plenty of time to pledge and pre-order their debut single. And no one’s pledged the $1,000 for an OFP cover: That means there’s still time to get another Stranglers cover out of OFP.