Earlier this year, Polyvinyl Record Co. and emo veterans Braid released the 25th anniversary edition of the inimitable Frame & Canvas. Entirely remixed and remastered from producer J. Robbins’ original tapes, the somewhat renovated Frame & Canvas continues to stand as an immovable benchmark of inspiration, as it has since it arrived more than two decades ago.
Originally released in April of 1998, Braid’s third studio album and first full-length with Polyvinyl wasn’t their first nor last output, but its influence affected a profound shift in growing circles of Midwestern emo of the late-‘90s, and frankly, continues to feel innovative and impactful.
Guitarist/vocalists Chris Broach and Bob Nanna, bassist Todd Bell and drummer Damon Atkinson will also embark on Summer U.S. dates spanning July with some additional festival appearances in September and October.
New Noise was fortunate to catch up with Broach to discuss the band’s experiences around the initial release of Frame & Canvas, initial break up, and preparing to hit the road with these songs again.
It must be an interesting dichotomy for you to have to talk about 1997 and 1998 constantly, but to be living in 2023 where you are in the midst of a parenting journey. When you go out this Summer I suspect you’ll go out and see people who followed you in the ’90s showing up with their adult or almost adult kids…
Honestly, I was talking to a best friend from high school and he was saying that he was going to come to one of the shows and bring his 15 year old daughter who is really into old school emo. He said she really wanted to see the show and I was like, “Holy cow!” What’s interesting is that it still speaks to people. I couldn’t have told you back in 1998 that that would happen. It was just another record that we were doing. And then all the stuff that came after that; we broke up, got back together, put out three releases post-humus, and all that time Frame & Canvas keeps making “the lists.”
You had to have sort of seen the growth at the time though, right? I remember seeing you at Speak in Tongues with Ethel Meserve and The Get Up Kids, who had just put Woodson out, and it wasn’t four or five months later that you guys were playing festivals and people were going bonkers…
At that time, the growth was exponential for a reason. We were touring non-stop. Any time we could tour, we toured. In 1998, when that record came out, I was on the road eight or nine months. Here’s the thing though, we were playing festivals, we were playing 300-cap places that were sold out, but we’d still play sometimes to an almost empty room in the middle of nowhere. That was a tough time. We were right on the cusp of this thing and we didn’t know we were on the cusp of this type of music blowing up.
And, there was still a shyness, or aversion, to using the term emo. At the time we were trying to shy away from the title too, telling people we were more of an indie band, or more of this or that. We were also kind of creating our own genre.
Yeah, and taking the multi-million dollar deal or “selling out” was kind of the death knell to punk credibility at the time too. There were punk politics that didn’t necessarily make sense going on at the time.
True. I remember thinking, “this band just signed to a major label, time to write them off.” From Jawbreaker to Jawbox to any of those bands that did that. I liked those bands, and continued to like them, and I got why they did it, but also thought, “why did you do it?” Those were the thoughts everyone had, rather than be happy for them. In any case, I don’t really know what was happening at the time. It was a very anti-corporate message, but why wouldn’t you want the bands that you loved to go make money? They were ours I think we thought.
We were coming out of the Reagan years. Now, coming out of eight years of a Republican presidency and a pandemic, you sort of want bands to do things that are lucrative so that can stay on the road.
It is different now. And that’s great. I remember when we were touring with Jimmy Eat World and us thinking, “Oh man, they’re on Capitol. That’s weird.” And those guys were great, they were fun, we knew them well. It was just an interesting time.
Those were the years when you could throw a quarter and hit a band you knew playing somewhere else across town in places like Columbus or D.C. or New York. The Midwest at the time, Columbus, Milwaukee, Detroit, Minneapolis…those were some of the best. I always loved the Grog Shop in Cleveland. They were always great to us.
There was a time when all this was going on where you had to make a decision to pursue this lifestyle or continue your education, right? That had to be a source of personal chaos for you…
Yeah, sometimes the shows were excellent and sometimes we played to an empty room. I remember thinking at the time, “When is this going to get better? Is this going to get better?” It felt like this is the pinnacle, and if this is the pinnacle, I can’t live like this. I remember thinking, I can’t wait to go on tour because at least I’ll have a per diem to eat and might be able to pay my rent. The alternative was being at home, waiting tables, and I was sick of waiting tables., and I was sick of making $5 a day to $20 a day per diems too. I lived in a college town, which was fine, but if I wanted to live, I had to go wait tables. We’d come back from a three month tour with maybe $500 to $1,000 in our pockets? We didn’t have a manager, we didn’t have a budget, we didn’t have a sound guy, but we were paying off our merch, maybe got a hotel room here or there, had our van break down…and it was all us.
Even when we were on Polyvinyl, the label wasn’t the powerhouse that it is today, it was just starting. Matt and Polyvinyl became a tour de force on their own because they’re real music fans and great collaborators with artists…just to give them their due. But, we didn’t have a lot of support, and didn’t have a manager until the very end when Kim Coletta from Jawbox managed us for a little while. But, back to your point, I remember thinking at the time that if it was always going to be like that I needed to go back to school, finish my degree, and get a real job.
Bob and I talked about this recently. Not only that, but we went to Japan. We heard it was going to be awesome and we lost our asses. Then we did some shows in Hawaii on the way back and got paid like $20. It was fun, we had fun playing, but the rest of it was not fun. Any money we made touring up to that point was spent in Hawaii.
So, we got back, recorded what was going to be the next album, and there was a lot of tension in the studio. It didn’t bubble to the surface until we finished the mix on the final song. Then we had a band meeting. We sat outside Coney Island studios and decided that was it, we were done, and those were our last songs.
I was 22 or 23 at the time, so I went back to school. Then I dropped out a year later when The Firebird Band signed to Cargo/Headhunter and started touring with them, successfully for a time, and then Cargo/Headhunter went under. So then I started a label, which went OK for a while, and then that went under. By 2007 or 2008 I remember thinking, “why did I ever get involved in the music industry or punk rock?” You could make a living if you had good bands, which we did, but then streaming happened. I’m not decrying the rise of streaming and all that, but then I really did have to go back to school and get a degree.
If we rewind back to 1999, things just didn’t feel like they were working out. There was no one around to tell us that things were going well and we just needed to take a breather and reconvene. Eventually we did. And, if I look back on it too hard, sometimes I regret it. But, I think we made a good album, it influenced some people, and that is the reason we’re talking today. I’m very proud of what we did, and proud of what we’re all still doing.
As you’re preparing to head out this Summer are you finding it challenging to get that muscle memory back or is it hard coded in your DNA?
Playing the songs is the easy part. But, we have to make sure we’re in shape so we can play that 60 to 75 minute set. So, to be honest, I’m hitting the gym so we can get up there and do a show without phoning it in. Let’s be honest, we aren’t doing it the same way we did it in our twenties. We’ve learned how to take it easy. Our bodies want exercise, so I’m getting back into that to a large degree. It’s not easy, and especially after being sick with cancer for a couple of years and having chemo mess up my body and heart. I want to tour and put this whole bullshit sickness behind me. I’m not going to be sick anymore.
We’re going to leave it all on stage. That’s what we’ve always done. I can’t play those songs without moving with the music. We all do. We can’t get up there without being in it 100 percent. We just can’t.
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Photo by Shawn Scallen
