Six years after the release of their full length album “III”, Warsaw grunge and post hardcore infused rockers BROOKS WAS HERE are back with a new series of singles, two of which has recently landed online and are available for streaming below. Recorded in May 2020 by Michał Ścibior at Studio Wieloślad and mixed and mastered by Haldor Grunberg of Satanic Audio, the new jams will be followed by two double singles releases in the coming weeks. The band have already played their first show in 6 years at Peleton Fest, an awesome event their label had set up on September 1th in Warsaw, and now the band is ready to power through their new releases andget you hooked!
“After the release of our last album “III”, Mikołaj – our drummer at that time – decided to leave the band.” – says vocalist and bassist Mateusz. “All in all we played only a handful of shows together with that material. Afterwards we tried to push things forward with two other drummers, but in the end that didn’t work well. The rest of us, me (vocals), Maciek (bass) and Majkel (guitars), we focused on playing in other bands: Wild Books (Maciek), Hanako (Mateusz) and Native Lungs (Majkel). I also recorded one EP with Majkel in a short-lived band called Sklepy Cynamonowe.
In the end, in 2020 and in the middle of the Covid lockdown, Majkel went to Piotr Siwicki’s (Last Penance) home studio to record some ideas he had for what would become the new Brooks Was Here album.
“We asked our good friend Paweł Kowalewicz (drummer in Hanako and Native Lungs) to join the band.” – continues Mateusz. “We knew the direction we wanted to go, so writing music with this line up was very fast and exciting. After recording a very complicated album like III we wanted to focus on something as simple as possible. All in all we played around 10 rehearsals before going into the studio.”
“A lot has changed since the release of our last album in 2016.”, adds Majkel (guitar). “Each of us has changed, the world has changed, the music we play has changed. We matured, and have a slightly different perspective on the world compared to when we last played 5 years ago or 10 years ago when we first started playing.”
It seems that it was very natural for the band to go back to playing music together.
“We waited for the right moment.” – admits Majkel. “I had a lot of spare time during lockdown, and it coincided with me recovering from an elbow injury that held me back from playing the guitar. Most of the music for the album was written in a couple of weeks, when I was locked at home.”
It was a pretty rough time. I called Mateusz and Maciek, and we decided to record it and bring BWH back to life with a new line-up, with Paweł as the drummer. Quite coincidentally, it turns out that in 2021 it will be 10 years since Brooks Was Here first started. We always knew we were going to come back to making music and playing shows.”
Track by track commentary:
“Pomniki papieża”
(Mateusz): If you live outside of Poland you may not know this, but here the only “correct” meaning of the word “pope” is “our pope” – Karol Wojtyła, John Paul II. We’ve got around 230 monuments dedicated to him (some of them have been listed here). It could get pretty terrifying when you realize this was a person who covered-up pedophilia in the Catholic Church. On the other hand, most of those monuments are ridiculously funny. And this fits very well with this song’s heavy verses and soft, pop-punk, choruses. I’ve always liked bands that have a hools kind of attitude, like Bad Breeding, Eagulls or Holograms, as well as more pop-punk, emo oriented stuff, so I enjoyed the idea of joining both styles. This song’s lyrics illustrate the fact that really awful stuff (not only connected with Catholic Church) is beginning to be treated as nothing out of ordinary, as well as people and events which harm others (not only Pope).
“Żółć”
(Matesz): The first track we wrote after meeting again. This one is a metaphorical story about relationships with people who built their own stories around conflicts and prefer to worship their hard emotions instead of processing them.
BILE (ŻÓŁĆ) lyrics:
Once again we meet where all dreams wither away
I drop my eyes, there’s nothing beneath me
I have nothing left you can take off
I’ve never been more exposed
I have nothing left you can take home
Get out, hit the road
Why do you take your gun again
To where everyone has already surrendered
And no matter where you aim it at
In this war there are no sides
Missed shots, like in Battleships
Enjoy yourself like its a carnival
Your wishes, your burdens,
Your battles, enough is enough
Small doses for a long time
Cups full of bile
I don’t know who with whom, what deals have been made
I do know how you suffer, so go to sleep already
I can see how you’re putting the world’s flaws on a pedestal, you start beating it
I can see how much nothing changes, you want to stop the reel
I can see how badly you want to see blood, but there’s no blood here
There isn’t any because there’s no one left here
You are seeing yourself where all dreams wither, you drop your eyes
There is nothing beside you, nothing beneath you, nothing left you can take off
Nothing more you can take off
MONUMENTS TO THE POPE (POMNIKI PAPIEŻA) lyrics:
Warsaw is burning
Caught under the magnifying glass of claim traders
Crushed by the boot of slobs
Disgusted with homelessness
All of this is becoming as dull as
The monuments to the pope
The clergy has a great fast during Lent
While others fast all year long
The guilty raise their glasses to
A pile full of the innocents
All of this is becoming as dull as
The monuments to the pope
