Brand New
is an American alternative rock band from Levittown, New York. Formed in 2000, the band currently consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Jesse Lacey, guitarist Vincent Accardi, guitarist and keyboardist Derrick Sherman, bassist Garrett Tierney and drummer Brian Lane. [1]
In the late 1990s, Jesse Lacey, Garrett Tierney, Brian Lane were all members of the band The Rookie Lot. They eventually split off from the other members of the group, and in 2000 formed Brand New in Merrick, New York.
Brand New moved to Interscope Records and released The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
in 2006. "Jesus" became their highest charting single in the US, peaking at number 30 on the Alternative Songs chart. In March 2008, the band started their own record label, named Procrastinate! Music Traitors. Their fourth album will be titled Daisy
and is set to be released on September 22, 2009. [3]
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BRAND NEW TICKETS
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History
Formation and early releases (2000–2001)
Prior to Brand New's official formation, in the late 1990s
Jesse Lacey, Garrett Tierney, Brian Lane were all members of the
post-hardcore band The Rookie Lot, along with
Brandon Reilly.
[4] After the band's split and not playing together for a while, Lacey, Lane and Tierney started to rehearse again. They then recruited guitarist Vincent Accardi, who had been playing in a band called One Last Goodbye, since Reilly had joined
The Movielife.
All four members had backgrounds linking into their local
Long Island independent and
hardcore music scenes, but with influences from an array of artists ranging from
Buddy Rich to the
Archers of Loaf. They eventually formed Brand New in 2000, in a basement in
Merrick, New York. Their initial intention was always to "move outside of whatever notions they felt inclined to when they were making music as younger people."
The band gained exposure in the local scene through playing shows with
pop punk contemporaries
Midtown and
post-hardcore bands like
Glassjaw, whilst also self-releasing a four-song demo.
They signed to
Triple Crown Records after just their second-ever show.
[5]
Debut album: Your Favorite Weapon
(2001–2002)
Brand New's debut
studio album Your Favorite Weapon
was produced by friend and practical fifth member of the band
Mike Sapone.
The album has been described as being "bitter about ex-girlfriends", with an excessive concentration on "post-breakup angst", receiving relatively positive reviews, with
Allmusic awarding it three out of five and
Popmatters also being favourable.
[6] [7] It became a moderate success, selling over 50,000 copies.
[8] [9] The record deal gave Brand New the opportunity to tour, playing alongside the likes of
Taking Back Sunday and touring the UK in support of
Finch, to a "great response" from the crowds.
[10] [11]
The only single released from
Your Favorite Weapon
was "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad". The song has been described by
Allmusic as a "semi-hit",
after it received airplay on both
MTV2 and
Fuse.
Deja Entendu
and acclaim (2003–2004)
thumb, November 2006.
Brand New's second studio album was written in "the year and-a-half or two years" that they were touring the material off of
Your Favorite Weapon
. According to drummer Brian Lane, "Jesse [Lacey] wrote a lot of the lyrics about different things than 'I just broke up with my girlfriend' for the new record,"
[12] as Lacey had written the songs on an
acoustic guitar in his bedroom.
Lane also explained that the band was now influenced by a range of different artists, "All of us got exposed to a lot of different music that all of us were listening to. For the first [album] we weren't in such close quarters for 24 hours a day. I think that has a lot to do with it." Unlike their first album, it was said that a lot of time and concentration went into making the album.
The band released
Deja Entendu
through
Razor & Tie/
Triple Crown Records in June 2003, with it being issued in Europe and Australia in October 2003.
The album's title,
Deja Entendu
, is
French for "already heard." It was explained as "very tongue-in-cheek," by singer Lacey. Elaborating on the title's meaning, he told
MTV, "No matter who you are or what your band is about, you can't put a record out without people saying it's derivative of something else. So by saying the record's already been heard, it's kind of like saying, 'Yeah, you're right. We're doing something that's already been done before.'" Also reinforcing, "We're not trying to break new ground in music. We're just trying to make good music."
[13] The album was described as a "stylistic leap" from
Your Favorite Weapon
, with a "decidedly matured" sound.
In an interview with
Billboard
, Lacey said that although
Deja Entendu
does offer a different sound, the album "doesn't seem like we're departing from anything, really. I think we always knew that we had a lot of potential and there's a lot of different stuff we were able to do, and a lot of different sounds we wanted to make. Not too long after we recorded the first record, we were already wondering where we were going to go from there."
[14]
Deja Entendu
debuted at number 63 on the
Billboard 200.
After just seven weeks, the album's sales were at more than 51,000 copies, already closing in on the total figure of its predecessor,
Your Favorite Weapon
.
In May 2007, four years after its release, it was certified
gold for surpassing 500,000 sales in the United States, by the
Recording Industry Association of America.
[15]
''Deja Entendu
s first single, "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows", impacted radio airplay in July 2003, a month after the album's release. The song was said to be about regret, or "How there can be problems in a relationship and they get ignored. And how that often ends up as a broken home or some kind of bad situation down the road. It's kind of something that if it wasn't overlooked in the first place, you can kind of get through it." The song's music video chronicles the moments after a severe car accident, where a mortally wounded Lacey cannot depart for the next world until he knows that his girlfriend, also injured in the crash, is safe in this one. He says it "is about death or losing someone and it's those moments that you kind of look back on your life and realize all the regrets that you had, and all the things you wish you could change".
Your Favorite Weapon
went "virtually unnoticed", with the videos finding "constant" airplay on MTV and the band making its live television debut on
The Jimmy Kimmel Show''.
Furthermore, both singles entered the top 40 on the
UK Singles Chart,
whilst "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" peaked at number 37 on the
Alternative Songs chart.
Three shows of the band's 24-date headlining US tour with
Moneen,
Senses Fail, and
The Beautiful Mistake had sold out prior to even having released a single, with much of the buzz surrounding the band being produced by just
word of mouth, touring and Internet
message boards.
s success also earned them tours alongside
New Found Glory,
Good Charlotte,
Dashboard Confessional, and
Blink-182.
The band went on to headline
The Bamboozle festival with
My Chemical Romance,
Alkaline Trio,
Thrice,
The Starting Line,
Fall Out Boy,
The Bouncing Souls,
Straylight Run and
Flogging Molly.
[18] They also made their second trip to the UK in 2004, their first as the headline act, the tour completely sold out.
After being pegged as an act to watch in ''
Rolling Stones annual "Hot Issue",
Deja Entendu'',
[19] with it also becoming a "landmark album of so-called 'emo-punk' (even though it's nothing of the sort),"
[20] and the band's notable underground following; Brand New found itself in the middle of a bidding war from record labels.
At the time, Lane protested the label of "bidding war", but conceded, "There's a few labels that are definitely interested. We've been talking to a lot of people for a while and we're narrowing it down."
The band eventually signed with
DreamWorks Records, which was then taken over by
Interscope Records.
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
(2005–2008)
Following their signing to Interscope, Brand New stopped touring to work on their third album and major label debut. In this time, little to no interviews or updates came from the band.
In 2004, Jesse Lacey told
Chart
magazine that he had written a "few songs" for the next album, commenting that "the other guys love it already". He made mention of the pressure he felt with the "loads of anticipation building up on my shoulders," saying that he even felt
depressed because of this; "I'm getting depressed with all of the anxiety about the album and they say I write my best stuff when I'm in that state. Great, I'll spend the next six months all depressed and the rest of band will be excited, so that some good (material) might come out. And then I have to contend with how it's received." Lacey also said that the album would "move into new territory for Brand New".
In late 2005, Brand New started recording their highly-anticipated third album in
Oxford,
Mississippi with producer
Dennis Herring, but later dropped him in favor of
Mike Sapone with whom they had worked on their first album.
In January 2006, nine untitled demos recorded for the album were leaked to the Internet. In response to the leak, Garrett Tierney stated "I would say it did it in a good way 'cause so many people were curious to hear what we have been doing--and for the most part, the record tracks don't sound anything like the leaked demos." However, Lacey was not so upbeat when asked, saying, "For me it was different. It had me pretty down for a while. No one likes to show their creation in mid-process, and those songs weren't done. They were like blueprints. Just the plan, right? It put me in a state where I was under the impression that those songs had been wasted or something—that we had to go and write new things because those had been heard. Now, in retrospect, I want those songs to be on the album and many of them aren't, and I'm probably more to blame for that than anyone. This record already feels incomplete to me without those tracks and probably will forever."
[22]
thumb in June 2006.
In the following months, with Brand New doing their first tour dates in over 18 months, a few songs from the demos were performed with a full band, some were fleshed out and had new lyrics. New songs had their debut as well during the summer tour dates. Brand New began their first tour in years on June 20, 2006 at New Jersey's famous
Starland Ballroom, where Lacey stated that the album had been completed the previous day.
Alternative Press
published a preliminary date of October 10, 2006, as the album's release date, this was later corrected on the band's official website, when it was announced that the new album would be released on November 21, 2006 in
North America, and the day before in Europe. Soon after, a track listing and cover art were revealed, as well as new information regarding the release of the first single - "
Sowing Season". Having previously been leaked as a demo, the completed song began airing on radio on October 19, 2006, and appeared on their
MySpace page a day later. According to Lacey in a radio interview from the UK (
BBC Radio 1 with
Zane Lowe), the title
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
is taken from a conversation he had with his friend about the musician
Daniel Johnston, who has
bipolar disorder.
[23]
In late December 2006, an unusual video was released for the instrumental track "Untitled", also known as "-", which mainly consists of a man
spray painting a wall with "evil and good are raging Inside me" and correcting it to give the album title. On January 16, 2007, "
Jesus Christ" was announced as being the official first single from the album. On January 19, the band performed the song on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
. They performed it again on February 26 on the
Late Show with David Letterman
.
[24]
From January to June 2007, the band toured the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia, including a headline slot on the UK's
Give It A Name festival and playing the main stage at
The Bamboozle festival. Despite the band's reluctance towards the press around the time of the release of the album, they were featured in
Alternative Press
, a cover story for
Rock Sound
,
Kerrang!
, and
NME
. The band went on tour for the fall of 2007, with openers
Thrice and
MewithoutYou. In early 2008, Brand New toured Australia and New Zealand on the
Big Day Out festival.
[25]
In October 2007, the band announced via their official website that a new song, entitled "
(Fork and Knife)", would be released online on October 23, 2007. "(Fork and Knife)", a rerecorded version of the track formerly known as "Untitled 7" from the leaked demos, was released as a non-album
digital download.
In March 2008, Brand New started their own record label, named
Procrastinate! Music Traitors. The first act signed to the new label was longtime friend
Kevin Devine.
[26] The first release from the label was a reissue of the 2006 Kevin Devine album,
Put Your Ghost to Rest
,
[27] in April 2008.
Daisy
(2008–present)
In October 2008, it was stated that Brand New was in the studio winding down their new record and were currently recording vocals.
[28] Then in December, an update on Brand New's website announced that they had been in and out of the studio since about March, with roughly fifteen tracks to choose from.
[29] The album was recorded over a 12 month period from March 2008,
with the band announcing in April 2009 that they had commenced mixing with
Dave Sardy and that they hoped to release their fourth studio album in the summer of 2009,
with potentially, a summer tour to follow.
[30] The release date was then delayed to October 2009. Which was announced during a live performance at the 2009
Glastonbury Festival, where Brand New played two new songs, tentatively titled "Bride" and "Gasoline".
[31] The band played on the main stage at
Reading and Leeds Festivals in August 2009, both performances at Reading Festival and Glastonbury Festival were filmed by the
BBC however Brand New declined the BBC rights to broadcast either performance on television, or on the BBC website.
[32] [33]
In June 2009, UK music magazine
Rock Sound
, claimed on their website that they had received a copy of the upcoming album, though it was, according to an image later posted by the editor, "incomplete".
[34] The site published a "tentative" track listing and reported the incomplete version that they had received to be roughly 30 minutes long.
[35]
In an interview with
Kerrang!
, Jesse Lacey commented on the upcoming album's content, "It's a pretty exhausting record. It's quite dense and I think some of the decisions we made don't always go in the most obvious direction. We were thinking a lot more about what we'd want to play when we were up onstage rather than actually what you'd want to hear on a record." He then questioned the future of the band, saying, "I think a lot of the record is about us trying to make decisions about how long the band should go on. When I listened back to it, I realized how many songs are about something coming to a close, or knowing when it's time to put something away and move on."
[36]
On July 7, it was announced that the album would be titled
And One Head Can Never Die
(to be typeset
and one head can never die
) and would be released through
Interscope Records on September 22, 2009.
[37] However, on July 9 it was announced on the band's website and
AbsolutePunk.net that the album title had been changed to
Daisy
, still being released on the same day.
The album's first single, "
At the Bottom", was released through digital outlets on 11 August 2009.
[38]
Brand New announced they will be bringing along
Manchester Orchestra,
Thrice,
Glassjaw,
Sybris,
The Builders and the Butchers, and
Crime In Stereo on selected/rotating dates of their headlining Fall North American tour.
Brand New have announced they are to play London's Wembley Arena next January. The gig, which takes place on January 23,
Personnel
- Jesse Lacey – Lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2000–present)
- Vincent Accardi – Lead guitar, backing vocals (2000–present)
- Garrett Tierney – Bass (2000–present)
- Brian Lane – Drums, Percussion (2000–present)
- Derrick Sherman – Rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (2005–present)
Discography
Studio albums
| Year
| Album details
| Peak chart positions
| Certifications
(sales thresholds)
|
US
[39]
| UK
[40]
|
| 2001
| Your Favorite Weapon
- Released: October 9, 2001
- Label: Triple Crown
| —
| —
|
|
| 2003
| Deja Entendu
- Released: June 17, 2003
- Label: Triple Crown
| 63
| 105
| US: Gold [41]
|
| 2006
| The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
- Released: November 20, 2006
- Label: Interscope
| 31
| 77
|
|
| 2009
| Daisy
- Released: September 22, 2009
- Label: Interscope
|
|
|
|
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory.
|
Extended plays
| Year
| Album details
|
| 2002
| Brand New / Safety in Numbers
- Released: 2002
- Label: Triple Crown
- Format: Split EP
- Other band: Safety in Numbers
|
| 2003
| The Holiday EP
- Released: December 15, 2003
- Label: Self-released
|
Singles
| Year
| Single
| Peak chart positions
| Album
|
US
[A
| US Alt.
[42]
| UK
|
| 2002
| "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad"
| —
| —
| 108
| Your Favorite Weapon
|
| 2003
| "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows"
| —
| 37
| 39
| Deja Entendu
|
| 2004
| "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades"
| —
| —
| 37
|
| 2006
| "Sowing Season"
| —
| —
| —
| The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
|
| 2007
| "Jesus"
| —
| 30
| 134
|
| "(Fork and Knife)"
| 124
| —
| 152
| Non-album single
|
| 2009
| "At the Bottom"
|
|
|
| Daisy
|
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory.
|
Notes
- A
^
The single "(Fork and Knife)" peaked outside of the top 100 in the Billboard Hot 100, therefore it was listed on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. [43]
Music videos
| Year
| Title
| Director
|
| 2002
| "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad"
|
|
| 2004
| "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows"
| Kurt St. Thomas/Mike Gioscia [44]
|
| 2004
| "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades"
| Marc Webb [45]
|
Other appearances
| Year
| Song contributed
| Release title
|
| 2003
| "Flying at Tree Level (Version 1.0)"
| Beer: The Movie
[46]
|
References
- Brand New Biography
- Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
- Brand New Album Title
- Brand New interview - 08.14.03
- Long Island Sounds
- Your Favorite Weapon
- Brand New - Your Favorite Weapon
- Are Brand New Becoming A Prog-Rock Band?
- Brand New Singer Goes Long, Fears Turning Into Soccer Star Maradona
- Brand New: Biography
- Brand New interview
- Brand New
- Already Heard Of Underground Upstarts Brand New? Consider Yourself Lucky
- Billboard Bits: Brand New, Vida Blue, Kristofferson
- &artist=Brand%20New&format=&debutLP=&category=&sex=&releaseDate=&requestNo=&type=&level=&label=&company=&certificationDate=&awardDescription=&catalogNo=&aSex=&rec_id=&charField=&gold=&platinum=&multiPlat=&level2=&certDate=&album=&id=&after=&before=&startMonth=1&endMonth=1&startYear=1958&endYear=2009&sort=Artist&perPage=25
- Brand New
- Brand New Eschew Rocking For Voodoo
- My Chemical Romance, Brand New, Thrice To Headline Bamboozle Fest On Jersey Shore
- Brand New — The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
- Earth Day Albums: 10 Overlooked LPs That Deserve Recycling
- Raging without the bull
- Brand New Interview
- Zane Lowe interview with Jesse Lacey
- Monday, February 26, 2007, Show #2713 Recap
- Big Day Out 08 Second Announcement
- Brand New Start Record Label, Sign Kevin Devine
- Brand New Starts A Record Label - Signs Kevin Devine - What a Great Choice
- AP: Features - Web Exclusive: A conversation with Crime In Stereo's Alex Dunne
- News
- Potential Brand New Summer
- Brand New preview all-new material at Glastonbury
- BBC Reading & Leeds 2009 Line-up: Brand New bbc.co.uk Reading & Leeds microsite, September 2 2009
- Leeds 2009 Festival: Line up
- Brand New - TBC
- Brand New Tracklisting?
- Brand New talks new album, future of the band
- Brand New announce title, release date of new album
- http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=1208612
- Brand New Albums & Song Chart History - Billboard 200
- Chart Log UK: Brand New
- &artist=Brand%20New&format=&debutLP=&category=&sex=&releaseDate=&requestNo=&type=&level=&label=&company=&certificationDate=&awardDescription=&catalogNo=&aSex=&rec_id=&charField=&gold=&platinum=&multiPlat=&level2=&certDate=&album=&id=&after=&before=&startMonth=1&endMonth=1&startYear=1958&endYear=2009&sort=Artist&perPage=25
- Brand New Albums & Song Chart History - Alternative Songs
- Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles - (Fork and Knife)
- Brand New - "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows"
- Brand New Eschew Rocking For Voodoo - Frontman exhibits supernatural powers in new video.
- Various - Beer: The Movie