10 minutes with Jesse Lacey of Brand New (1-17-03)

Tonight after a long wait and after the last note had rung out hours before; I got to speak to Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey.  I was the last of throngs of fans to catch up to the amicable Long Island man who has more than enough time for his fans.  Brand New tore the roof off of the Webster tonight.  Out of the 5 bands for 5 bucks show, Brand New held true as the night’s favorites.  After all the pandemonium, I got to hang out with Jesse in the van, and talk to the rest of the band later on.  After a night of rocking out, signing autographs, and tallying merchandise figures, all they wanted to do was hit up a diner.  I kept them hungry a little longer…

I don’t know much about Brand New…what are your musical influences?  What’s in your stereo right now?

I’m listening to this band Sigur Ros right now.  Nonstop, literally.  It’s all I listen to.  Recently?  This year, the Beck record.  The last Beck record is really good.  The last Flaming Lips record is really good.  The new Bruce Springsteen record is really good.  The System of a Down record.  That’s it.  I’m always listening to The Smiths and Morrisey, The Police, Modest Mouse, Built to Spill.

You’ve got good taste!

Thanks!  Everyone in the band listens to some good and diverse stuff.  Makes for some good van rides.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in the band right now?  How old are you guys?

I’m the oldest, I’m 24.  Garrett’s 21…or 22 now.  Brian is 21 and Vin is 19 or 20.  (Vin shouts over “20”!)  I don’t know what we’d all be doing.  Vin has been in the band since high school.  I went to a little bit of college, I probably would have continued doing that…maybe gone to school for education or something.  As far as like, living at home, which I do now, I’d probably be living somewhere else.  Garrett would probably be doing something with cars, or motorcycles, he’s really into mechanics and stuff.  Brian’s always been into music; he was going to school for audio production.  He’d probably still be in the business.  Luckily, we don’t have to think about that.

I said to my friend tonight, he’s signing autographs for like 70 girls!  How is he playing guitar and singing all that stuff…?

It’s a bit much sometimes, yeah.  None of us would be here without all those people so I figure we owe them at least that.

It’s admirable how much you care!

Well thank you.

What can we expect from Brand New in 2003?

Oh, it’s 2003 now!  I’m thinking next year like, “what”?  New record for one, in June.  That will probably be a beat or two off from our old record.  It’s not not Brand New, but it’s not the old record, which I’m glad about.  I think if a band writes the same record over and over again there’s no point of the second record.

That ties into my next question, are you going to stay with Triple Crown [Records]?

We have a 2 record contract with Triple Crown, this record will conclude that contract, but we’re in no rush to leave the treat us really good.

Even I know a lot of people who are on that label.

Yeah, it’s a really small, hardcore label.  It’s weird that we’re on the same label as Death Threat.  They did some ska, um, Step Lively, us and Hot Rod Circuit, then E Town Concrete and Death Threat, 25 ta Life.  It’s a cool label to be on.  Fred’s [Feldman, founder of TCR] a stand up guy.  He knows a lot about the industry basically; we were lucky to sign with him.  We could have really been taken advantage of early in our career.  There’s some ruthless people out there.

Any major label talk?

Um, there is now, but it’s not exclusively, it’s not the goal.  Fred thinks it’s time for us to take a step up.  So, we’re going to, but it’s going to be a careful step.

Who are some of your favorite bands to play with?

Off the top of my head: Orange Island, The Reunion Show, Hot Rod Circuit, I have to say The Starting Line, Taking Back Sunday.  Bottom line is all those bands are just really good friends of ours.  The Movie Life…You can’t ask for anything better when you’re on tour.  You wake up everyday, hang out with your friends.  Then you get to go to a show.  It’s the coolest thing ever.

Which member of Taking Back Sunday did you grow up with?

That’s John, the guitar player and singer.  We’ve known each other since we were like 7, elementary school, high school.  He’s basically my best friend in the world; I don’t know anyone who I’m closer to.


I’m starting to notice a trend, with you and bands like TBS with violent lyrics…who are they about?  And yes, I love them.

People have mentioned it yeah.  We have some lyrics that are exactly the same as theirs.  Just because we did it on purpose basically.  I don’t really know who’s doing the writing for them, but the parts that I think sound like us, I’m imagining is because John is writing them. Me and John have been writing songs together for a while.  We were in our first band together.  We’ve always taken cues from each other.  It’s no surprise to me that musically we’re doing the same things.  It’s not something we’re discussing or anything.  It’s just that we’re in two different bands and we’re putting our ingredients into it and it’s coming out similar.

What is the story of “Seventy time Seven” (by Brand New) and “There’s No I in Team” (by Taking Back Sunday)?
It wasn’t as dramatic as everyone made it out to be.  It’s a good thing and a bad thing.  Despite what everyone says, as stupid as it turned out to be rumor wise, it did some good things for both our bands.  People love conflict.  The truth is something happened in both mine and John’s life and we both wrote songs about it.  From different standpoints.  They’re definitely angry songs.  I’m not going to lie about that!

It was a great live show.  The guitar flip around the neck…that’s impressive.

Oh, that’s something stupid we’ve just started doing!

(Whole entourage enters)

Shh!

I have one question from a fan.  When are you going to Southern Cali again?  Do any of you surf?

Great.  Well, we are touring the UK after the record.  And we’re probably going to be doing a headlining tour in April, so that’s when we’ll be in So Cal.  Which, incidentally, is one of my favorite places to be.  I have been surfing since I was little, but I hadn’t gotten to surf the West Coast until recently.  I was way psyched.  One of the good things about being in a band!

  That concluded my official interviewing time.  They are really such nice guys though, I stuck around for a few minutes after that, and with my advice to hit up the Olympia Diner so long as they were in Connecticut!  Brand New’s debut full-length, “Your Favorite Weapon” is out on Triple Crown Records, as well as they’re spanking new DVD.