There’s a particularly affecting moment on the opener of Brand New’s latest record (The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me, 2006) when lead singer Jesse Lacey belts out: “I’m not your friend! I’m just a man who knows how to feel. I’m not your friend! I’m not your lover! I’m not your family! Yeah!”
At first glance the line seems melodramatic, and rightfully so if you’re unfamiliar with Brand New’s back-story. The Long Island quartet fall within the confines of contemporary “emo” (don’t groan just yet) but not in quite the same way that Fall Out Boy, Motion City Soundtrack or Dashboard Confessional (ok, groan away) do.
For starters, Lacey stopped writing about his relationship problems after the release of Deja Entendu (2003) and began writing more serious pieces about war, his fear of death and tragic accidents. Aside from a few pop-punk hooks on The Devil and God, the band’s latest release is markedly devoid of “emo” convention, especially in comparison to their earlier work.
Attend a Brand New show, though, and you wouldn’t be the wiser to the band’s maturation. Teenagers still vie unabashedly for spots closest to the stage, compete for the band’s attention and sing along like it’s karaoke night; the entire affair screams “emo.” Lacey has expressed discomfort with his fans’ behavior, and he has said that he adapts his vocal melodies to counteract the sing-along din that transpires in the live setting.
Similar issues used to plague artists like Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel, who eventually stopped touring due to the zealotry of his supporters. And part of why the Beatles ceased touring in 1966 was because they couldn’t hear themselves play on stage. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Brand New took a two-year hiatus between promoting Deja Entendu in 2004 and recording The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me in 2006; maybe the band just needed their fanbase to mature a bit in the meantime.
If you haven’t caught on yet, I used to be a big Brand New fan in high school. During their hiatus, though, I lost touch with the band’s aesthetic; there’s no shame in that. Some people cling to their favorite bands like a hometown sports team, making excuses for bland musicianship or over-produced pap. And it’s easy to fall into that trap of fanaticism, forgetting that these artists are not our friends, not our lovers, not our kin.
This illusion of commonality emerges whenever we identify with an artist’s body of work, and often spurs an unrealistic set of expectations. As Lacey puts it: “When you do an interview or meet a fan, the only reference they have of you is an album. So it’s almost that they want or expect you to be that [way] when we were really those people for four or five months.” This idea carries over into the long-term as well—we expect artists to stay the same and feel cheated when they don’t fulfill our preconceptions (insert references to Bob Dylan, Black Flag and more).
What’s especially unfortunate for a band like Brand New is that even as some of their earliest fans mature, a whole new wave of teenagers will undoubtedly discover the songs the band wrote eight years ago and will expect to hear them live. Meanwhile, Lacey turns 30 this July.
Maybe they should go acoustic. Hey, it worked for Dylan.
