A chaotic minefield of nervous rhythms re-opened! As reported, THE BLOOD BROTHERS have decided to reunite for a couple of shows this year. The band sat down with Noisey magazine to discuss the grand happening and their newest plans.
Let’s get this out of the way so people can skip the rest of the interview…Why the reunion? (At first Jordan said, “I wasn’t expecting that question!” After I made fun of him for a few hours about not expecting the most obvious and softball question imaginable, and he compared himself to a child continuously whiffing at t-ball, he answered…)
For me personally, it’s the opportunity to reconnect with the guys in the band and play those songs again. The guys were a huge part of my life. We grew up together. I’ve known Johnny since I was twelve and the opportunity to be in the same room with them all again was something I’ve looked forward to. And playing live has always been my favorite part of being in the band. So when the opportunity was presented to us, personally the decision was easy. The two questions were “would this be fun” and “do people want to see this” The first question was a no brainer; like I said, playing live has always been my favorite part. The second question is a bit more of a gamble. I obviously hope people want to see us, but we’ll see.I also didn’t want to wait too long as I wanted to be able physically to do it. I don’t know that I’ll be able to flop around on stage like I’m having seizure at forty-five.
Who instigated it? Was it Fuck Yeah Fest?
It was Sean reaching out to do Fuck Yeah. It was centered on that. He’d reached out last year but the timing didn’t match up. But that gave us a year to tinker with the idea. So we took a more serious look at it and the window worked out. We had a lot of internal conversations whether it was the right thing to do.Do you have an ideological issue with reunions? Is someone going to dig up some old interview where you talk shit on them?
No. It’s funny…the idea of being anti-reunion as a general stance always seemed a bit silly to me. It seemed a very odd thing to stick a flag into the mountain over. It seemed like something Andy Rooney would go on about “what’s with these bands getting back together? Why can’t I get good fruit at the green grocer?” It just seems like there’s more pressing things to be spending your time rallying against.I know people are a bit cynical, even friends, and everyone is reaching reunion fatigue. But I’ve seen a couple reunions that were absolutely inspiring/mind blowing. Seeing the Locust last year at FYF it made me feel like I was 17 again. They absolutely slayed. And Pulp was everything I imagines it would be. If any show validated reunions it was Pulp. They walked that fine line of being tongue in cheek and not taking it too seriously, but still respecting people’s expectations.
I think it’s a perfectly valid experience if you can make people happy, why not?
Are you planning more shows?
We didn’t want to be too presumptuous and book a huge US or world tour. Scheduling is a Rubik’s cube for us. And we absolutely can’t do something super expensive so we’re going to this and see how it goes and see if more people want to see this thing. We need to be cognizant of wearing out our welcome. So one show at a time…Are you planning on writing new music?
We are NOT doing that. <Laughs> No one wants that.I mean, by the end, we all just felt we’d done as much with it as we could possibly do. It became harder to find that middle ground where we were all inspired. We’d been a band for ten years, we started when we were 16 and the years between 16-26, it’s ridiculous the changes you can go through. By the time were done with it trying to come up with new material…we were all feeling pretty wracked with age. It was time to call it a day.
To address that more directly: you would have to feel absolutely right and there’s no way to predict that. There’s one thing to revisit something in a live context and just have fun playing old songs it’s another to try to get in that creative headspace again.
