Before Daisy was released, [vocalist and guitarist] Jesse Lacey said in an interview that in a lot of ways the album was about the band’s future. Do you guys see the album that way too?
Lane: Yeah.
Accardi: Definitely. I think it’s trying to sum up what the last 10 years have meant to us, how it makes us feel now and how it makes us feel about going ahead as these four members, as Brand New, and what that means to us and what that will be for us. The more I listen to the record or the more we play it every night, the more that that becomes apparent to me. I don’t think that we really realized actually how obvious it was while we were writing it. You’re working so closely to it that you don’t really get the opportunity to figure out what’s actually going on or the things that you’re saying, how they might be being perceived or being taken by people. You’re one of them because you don’t really have the chance to—until the record’s been out for a little while—give yourself time to understand what it is.
But like I said, the more that we play it, the times that I’ve listened to it on this tour, the more it definitely seems like it’s summing up the question of, ‘What now, what’s next?’ I think recording this record, we were a bit lost about what we were doing. Now being out on the road, we’re a bit confused about what we’re doing. It all just seems to be explaining itself and revealing that certain things that were written for the record may be more of a truth than we had even thought earlier. That’s not a confession of any kind.
Then have you guys talked about the future of Brand New and how long you plan to stay together?
Accardi: I don’t think it’s a matter of us breaking up because right now I can say personally, I’d like to go home and I’d like to continue to record not as a side project and not anything else—I’d like to go home and record more songs as Brand New. How they’ll be released, when they’ll be released, if we’ll play them, if we’ll tour again—those things are all sort of up in the air right now.
We all know how much we enjoy this and we all are very grateful for our position in the industry that we’re in. I think it’s more of a question of just figuring out how to comfortably continue our careers, exist in the world of music somehow and basically not drive this thing into the ground and hate it—that’s tricky. The more involved you are with this, the more confusing it gets. At this point it’s such a huge part of all of our lives, it’s not an easy thing to say, ‘Ok, we’ll walk away from this and maybe in a few years we’ll talk about it.’ You’re not allowed to just put this aside that way, you have a greater responsibility at this point.
The more that we continue to be Brand New in whatever way, shape, or form it might be, the more we might have to evaluate everything down to what we’ll write in the future, who we’ll work with in the future. That’s all just got to come down to us making ourselves happy first and making sure that we’re not just a bunch of jaded old men who don’t want to write music anymore. The tricky part is figuring out how to get all that in a row, all your ducks in a row and just get all that stuff in the right place before we decide to just say, ‘Yeah, hey, we’re still out here, we’re just going to go on another tour.’ Following protocol is not making us as happy as it used to. There just needs to be a new plan and we just need to finally figure out what it is.
Has that confusion and those questions made this tour less enjoyable or added something lurking in the back of your head all the time?
Accardi: Yeah, well, there’s always a cloud above our heads sort of [laughs].
Lane: No matter what, it’s cloudy.
Accardi: Yeah, it’s definitely had some effect on it. There are some days personally if I’m homesick, if I don’t have a great night on stage or just on those days when you’re down, you’re reminded of the parts that are difficult about touring. But at the same time I think a big reason that we’ve chosen the bands to be on this tour that we have is because we don’t know when the next time we’re going to do a big U.S. tour is and we wanted to make sure we were around good people. If this was going to be the last U.S. tour for a while, we wanted it to be around people, we wanted to have people involved in it who have helped us become who we’ve become and who are people whom we enjoy, we enjoy their music. It’s definitely a unique tour in that way because any other tour we’ve been on or starting a record cycle, you know that there’s a solid eight to 16 months of work in your future and that’s not on the horizon for us right now. This is shaping up to be—or at this point it is—a special tour in terms of keeping it close to you and trying to enjoy every minute of it.
The conversation has turned very dark. I feel like I’m going to hang up the phone with you, catch a plane home and that’s going to be it.
[Laughs] I’m sorry, I’ll lighten the mood now.
Accardi: Ask me what my favorite ice cream is or something.
What is your favorite ice cream?
Accardi: Probably mint chocolate chip, while we’re on it. [Laughs]
Lane: Mine is Haagen-Dazs’ dulce de leche.
Accardi: Dulce de leche is a good one. Cookie dough, pistachio.
Lane: Pistachio?
Accardi: Red bean.
Lane: Red bean ice, who makes a good red bean ice?
Accardi: I don’t know.
What are your plans for after touring? Are you guys going to take a break?
Lane: We’re doing Wembley Arena in January, we have a few make-up dates from this tour and then we’re going to go to Australia. Then after that, we have no plans. As Vin said before, me personally also, I would be very happy with going home, recording and seeing what comes back before we worry about needing to tour for another three or four months. There are no real plans past maybe March as of right now.
Brand New will perform at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY, on Nov. 28. For more info, check out myspace.com/brandnew.
