Fight Off Your Demons

My favorite band is Brand New. Their music has always "spoken" to me. In high school, I began looking for an outlet for my teenage angst. The first song I heard was "Failure By Design" from their first album Your Favorite Weapon.
This is a lesson in procrastination.
I kill myself because I'm so frustrated.
And every single second that I put it off
Means another lonely night I got to race the clock.
What say we go and crash your car?
And every time I leave you go and lock the door.
And I walk myself picking at a chip on my shoulder.
I'm another day late and one year older.
I'm a failure by design.



Listening to this song was as if I wrote the words myself. It was exactly how my sixteen year-old brain felt towards school, my parents, and my then-boyfriend.

I don’t find Brand New to be so much as music that is advise-giving, but more empathetic.


Their tag line is “Fight Off Your Demons”. For me, this means to recognize when you are being your own worst enemy.

As I got older, I was able to appreciate their newer, more serious albums. Deja Entendu was the next album I heard. It was

a huge change from the upbeat Brand New I was used to, but it has become my favorite. I appreciate it even more that I’m taking French classes because the title translates to “Already Heard”. I think it’s a reference to the daily struggle those artists (or even composers like myself) have with trying to create something completely new and that is unlike anything else.

Daisy and The Devil and God are Raging Inside Meare the newest albums. They

both challenge religion somewhat, and are much more experimental. I cannot stand it when people get all upset because their favorite artists explore different types

of genres or styles. How are they supposed to grow as such without trying new things? When writers/composers create, they are discouraged from sticking to one thing, so why should anyone else be limited? They should be appreciated for the courage it took them to try something new. It is not easy, but I still think they came out beautifully.

Jesse Lacey, the lead singer and songwriter, is very much out of the public eye and does not do a whole lot of interviews. But, through his music, I feel that I know him and that he knows me. He plays a lot with words, and I absolutely love that. For instance in "Not the Sun" on The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, there is this verse:

Be my serene,

Tell me you know what I mean.

You have set on me

But you are not the sun.

There is much controversy over whether he says "Be my serene" or "Be my cherie".

Your tongue is a rudder.
It steers the whole ship.
Sends your words past your lips
Or keeps them safe behind your teeth.

But the wrong words will strand you.
Come off course while you sleep.
Sweep your boat out to sea
Or dashed to bits on the reef.

-Play Crack the Sky

I feel that he is not just someone who can put words together, but that he is an intellectual who ponders his thoughts about words and language through his songs. Their obsession with words mirrors my own obsession with words. Language was created to simplify life, but has also made it more complicated. The fact that we need words to define other words makes one question the functionality of language. I don’t know if this is the meaning I am to derive from the music, but having studied literature extensively, this is what it means to me. Therefore, I often find this songwriter to be brilliant.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, "The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all." I believe this is true for music as well. What makes Brand New my favorite band is that the more I listen to it, the more I love it.