RSS
Help
Cart
Brand New Biography
Brand New's bio? It's really not Rocket Science: 1) Band forms with limited skills and vast desires. 2) Band records first album, then loses the hard drive containing it, then re-records their charming yet fumbling debut (Your Favorite Weapon, just so you don't have to look it up). 3) Band gets in a van and doesn't come home for 14 months, somehow learning to play their instruments and matching skills to said desires, hitting tours with everyone from Finch to Dashboard Confessional to Taking Back Sunday. 4) Band ends YFW with a New York show to over 5,000 kids and proceeds to procrastinate writing new songs until… 5) Band enters studio with producer Steven Haigler (Pixies, Quicksand, Local H) who is not amused, causing tension heretofore unseen in the history of recording. 6) Bassist Garrett Tierney’s car is stolen in day two of recording. Seriously. 7) Band creates stellar yet still fumbling sophomore album, much to the amusement of their management team, who had thought them just plain mad at this point. 8) Band ignores music industry, puts head down and goes out on tour again.
Deja Entendu (Triple Crown/Razor & Tie) is the sound of Brand New painting itself out of a corner. Their first album hit hard with 50,000 buyers who took the time to learn the words, then later scream them back at the band on a nightly basis. The difficulty came as BN grew beyond those seven chords and hoped that their listeners would too. "We wanted to change the things about the last record that we were unhappy with.” says singer Jesse Lacey. “We are growing, and we respect our fans enough to know that they are going to grow also. We would be cheating them to give them the same record again." Writing more than the anticipated pop-punk album saw Lacey often chewing down styrofoam cups and writing song lyrics just seconds before he sang them in the studio. When he sings "I hope this song starts a craze, the kind of song that ignites the airwaves", he means it. He doesn't really know - he can only hope.
Really, Brand New had no choice but to evolve from YFW. Guitarist Vin Accardi was only 17 at the time of that album’s recording, and has proven to be able to play those songs not only in his sleep, but also hanging from rafters and spinning in circles. Brian Lane (drums) offers, “The first record we basically wrote within our whole teenage years. Some songs were written two or three years before the record came out. With the new one we put our ass on the line and delved out into a new thing, where we had no clue what would happen.”
The songs on Deja show definitive growth in songwriting, without overshooting the minds of kids who don’t know Abbey Road from Penny Lane. “Guernica” emerged after Lacey’s grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, prompting lines like “If I could I would shrink myself and sink through your skin to your blood cells and remove whatever makes you hurt but I am too weak to be your cure”. Just when you think this is an album about distortion, songs like “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot” come along to slap you acoustically. Not to be forgotten is the newly jaded side of Brand New, which explores when managers, labels, agents and lawyers get their claws on the prize money (“Concede to do the work for free. We prey as wolves among the sheep and slit the necks of soldiers while they sleep”, from the pleasantly titled “Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die”).
Deja Entendu (Triple Crown/Razor & Tie) is the sound of Brand New painting itself out of a corner. Their first album hit hard with 50,000 buyers who took the time to learn the words, then later scream them back at the band on a nightly basis. The difficulty came as BN grew beyond those seven chords and hoped that their listeners would too. "We wanted to change the things about the last record that we were unhappy with.” says singer Jesse Lacey. “We are growing, and we respect our fans enough to know that they are going to grow also. We would be cheating them to give them the same record again." Writing more than the anticipated pop-punk album saw Lacey often chewing down styrofoam cups and writing song lyrics just seconds before he sang them in the studio. When he sings "I hope this song starts a craze, the kind of song that ignites the airwaves", he means it. He doesn't really know - he can only hope.
Really, Brand New had no choice but to evolve from YFW. Guitarist Vin Accardi was only 17 at the time of that album’s recording, and has proven to be able to play those songs not only in his sleep, but also hanging from rafters and spinning in circles. Brian Lane (drums) offers, “The first record we basically wrote within our whole teenage years. Some songs were written two or three years before the record came out. With the new one we put our ass on the line and delved out into a new thing, where we had no clue what would happen.”
The songs on Deja show definitive growth in songwriting, without overshooting the minds of kids who don’t know Abbey Road from Penny Lane. “Guernica” emerged after Lacey’s grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, prompting lines like “If I could I would shrink myself and sink through your skin to your blood cells and remove whatever makes you hurt but I am too weak to be your cure”. Just when you think this is an album about distortion, songs like “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot” come along to slap you acoustically. Not to be forgotten is the newly jaded side of Brand New, which explores when managers, labels, agents and lawyers get their claws on the prize money (“Concede to do the work for free. We prey as wolves among the sheep and slit the necks of soldiers while they sleep”, from the pleasantly titled “Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die”).
Brand New All Music Guide Biography
Formed on Long Island, NY, Brand New appeared on the punk-pop scene in 2000. Consisting of drummer Brian Lane, vocalist/guitarist Jesse Lacey, bassist Garrett Tierney, and guitarist Vin Accardi, the band began making a name for itself on the local scene with a self-released four-song demo and shows with bands like Midtown and Glassjaw. In 2001, they issued their first record, Your Favorite Weapon, on Triple Crown, produced by friend Mike Sapone. Lacey's clever and cutting lyrics sprinkled the album, which produced the semi-hit "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad," and more touring with Taking Back Sunday and Finch followed. Proving to be more than just another punk-pop band, the group made something of a stylistic leap with Deja Entendu, a decidedly matured follow-up, recorded with Steve Haigler (Pixies, Blake Babies) and released in summer 2003 to rave reviews from critics and fans alike. Music videos for "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" and "Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades" found constant airplay on MTV, while earning Brand New slots with New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Dashboard Confessional, and blink-182. By fall, as the band's notable underground following continued to grow in strides, they inked a deal with Dreamworks, which later led to them finding a home on Interscope following the former label's buyout. Touring eventually slowed to a halt as Brand New holed themselves up to work on their third full-length and major-label debut. After an extended quiet spell -- little to no interviews or updates came from the band's camp for quite some time -- Brand New finally emerged in summer 2006 for U.S. headlining dates, their first nationwide tour in three years. The highly anticipated The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me appeared in November 2006. Though significantly darker and less immediate than past efforts, the album was praised for its depth and maturity, and the band supported it on a soldout spring 2007 tour. ~ Kenyon Hopkin, All Music Guide
Buy
Log In