40 Fun Facts About Brand New

Brand New's "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" takes its title from which family film sequel?

Home Alone 2 supplied the line, one of several film nods among the song titles on the album Deja Entendu. Billboard later ranked the track among the best non-single deep cuts of 2003.

Before forming Brand New, Jesse Lacey was the founding bassist of which other Long Island band?

Taking Back Sunday lost Lacey after a falling-out with a bandmate, and the two groups went on to trade barbs in songs and on rival T-shirts.

Which Brand New album, surprise-released in 2017 after eight years away, became the band's first US number one?

Science Fiction first reached fans as an untitled, numbered CD holding the whole album as a single long track. A week after topping the chart it sank to No. 97, then the steepest drop from the top spot on record.

Brand New's second album Deja Entendu, a wry comment on originality, has a French title that translates as what?

Already heard was a tongue-in-cheek shrug at critics: Lacey reasoned that every record gets called derivative, so the title simply agrees in advance.

Jesse Lacey taped a greeting to his guitar for Brand New's 2003 live television debut, saluting which singer?

Morrissey, nicknamed Moz, fronted The Smiths, a band Lacey said he was obsessed with while making Deja Entendu. The taped greeting, "Hi Moz", came on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in October 2003.

After Brand New's third album in 2006, critics began calling the group an American version of which English band?

Radiohead became the standard comparison once Brand New turned experimental and press-shy, though Lacey called the tag unfair to the English band and a source of pressure.

Which English actor is named in the title of the only single from Brand New's debut album Your Favorite Weapon?

Jude Law shares the title with a semester abroad because Lacey wrote the song about an ex-girlfriend who got him into the actor and all things English.

Which wild animal stares into the camera on the cover of Brand New's 2009 album Daisy, shot at a wedding party?

A fox stopped and looked straight down photographer Peter Sutherland's lens in a friend's garden. Lacey said the picture suited a theme of darkness and nature that had crept into the songs.

Brand New sold a T-shirt for charity in 2015 after which notorious businessman was pictured wearing it?

Martin Shkreli, infamous for hiking the price of a medicine, turned up online in the shirt, so the band put it on sale and gave every cent to a health center specializing in HIV/AIDS care.

Which pop singer sampled a leaked Brand New demo on a 2020 album and credits Jesse Lacey for her detailed writing?

Halsey built "Alanis' Interlude" on the demo of "(Fork and Knife)", which earned the whole of Brand New a songwriting credit on her album Manic.

Brand New supported which pop-punk band, one Jesse Lacey avoided hearing while recording, on a 2004 tour of Australia?

Blink-182 were kept off Lacey's stereo during the sessions for fear his own group would end up sounding like them. Two months after Australia, Brand New toured Britain's big halls with Incubus.

Brand New played its first-ever show at what kind of venue in Garden City, New York?

A bowling alley hosted the debut, with Brand New opening for local hardcore heroes Silent Majority. A label signed the group just after its second show.

In 2015 Brand New officially released its bootlegged 2006 demos, first on which retro format in limited-edition red?

Cassette tape was the first official format for Leaked Demos 2006, nearly ten years after the unfinished songs escaped online and pushed the band to write a different album.

Brand New's The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me asked fans to mail the band what for its lyrics?

One dollar bought a lyric booklet, but the band took nine years to deliver: the booklets, titled Pogolith 000, finally went out to fans in 2015.

Which Brand New song, performed on both Conan and Letterman in 2007, became the band's biggest alternative radio hit?

"Jesus Christ" is a conversation about doubt and the afterlife, shaped by Lacey's religious upbringing. Those two late-night spots were the only promotional appearances the band made for the album.

What lone figure appears on the cover of Brand New's Deja Entendu, designed by two members of the band Demon Hunter?

An astronaut is the only figure on the sleeve, which NME took as a statement of isolation. Designer Don Clark later called his own light and shadow work clunky, though the image became iconic.

Brand New's single "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" borrows its title from a line in which school-set comedy film?

Rushmore gives the line to its teenage hero Max Fischer, who is trimming a Latin phrase about worldly glory passing. Director Marc Webb is credited with the song's video idea, Lacey as a human voodoo doll.

Which Brand New member took on a far larger share of the lyric writing for the 2009 album Daisy?

Vincent Accardi, the lead guitarist, also wrote most of the music on Daisy, and later penned "Same Logic/Teeth", which Lacey has named as his favorite Brand New song.

Critic Steven Hyden called Brand New's 2017 farewell-styled album the emo equivalent of which Beatles record?

Abbey Road was the last album the Beatles recorded, and Brand New's fifth arrived amid the band's own hints that it would split in 2018.

Brand New's "Sowing Season" takes its title from a story written by a character in a book by which author?

Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden features a writer whose short story shares the song's name. The lyrics also adapt a Rudyard Kipling poem that hung on the wall of Lacey's father's house.

Brand New's Jesse Lacey fell out with which childhood friend and guitarist, inspiring bitter songs by both men's bands?

John Nolan had known Lacey since fourth grade and taught him guitar in high school. He later wrote an apology song with his new project Straylight Run, and the pair made peace.

Which singer-songwriter was the first act signed to Brand New's own label and joined the band's 2017 tour on guitar?

Kevin Devine saw his album Put Your Ghost to Rest reissued as the first release on Procrastinate! Music Traitors in 2008. Lacey later returned the favor by producing Devine's album Bubblegum.

Which producer, a friend of Brand New, made the debut Your Favorite Weapon and returned for three later albums?

Mike Sapone was, in Lacey's words, more like a fifth or sixth bandmember. The group began its third album with Dennis Herring in Mississippi before retreating to Sapone's studio near their houses.

Brand New co-headlined a 2016 tour that reached Madison Square Garden with which indie rock band and longtime influence?

Modest Mouse were an influence from early on: Alternative Press recalled the lead guitarist playing their song "3rd Planet" before an August 2001 show, before Brand New had even released an album.

The title of Brand New's The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me came from a conversation about which outsider musician?

Daniel Johnston, a cult songwriter who lived with bipolar disorder, was the subject of a chat between Lacey and a friend that produced the phrase. Lacey told the story to Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1.

Brand New's Deja Entendu opens with "Tautou", a song named after the star of which French film?

Amélie starred Audrey Tautou as its lead, and it is one of several movie references tucked into the album's song titles.

Which Brand New song about a feud between former friends appeared on the debut album Your Favorite Weapon?

"Seventy Times 7" points to the Gospel of Matthew, where that is how often a person should forgive. The rival band answered with a song of its own that quotes the lyrics in reply.

Which Brand New song retells the 1951 wreck of a fishing boat off Montauk Point that killed 45 people?

"Play Crack the Sky" recounts the sinking of the FV Pelican within a mile of the lighthouse. Lacey, a keen surfer and sailor, said it touches parts of his life he rarely talks about.

Which independent label signed Brand New just after the band's second-ever show and released its first two albums?

Triple Crown got the band only because Warner Bros. passed, even after Lacey wrote a would-be single on the spot at the major's office to win a deal.

Brand New signed with DreamWorks Records after a bidding war, before DreamWorks was absorbed into which major label?

Interscope ended up releasing two Brand New albums, and Lacey said of the second that it seemed more interesting to put a very uncommercial record out on a very commercial label.

Before Brand New, Jesse Lacey, Garrett Tierney and Brian Lane played together in which Levittown post-hardcore band?

The Rookie Lot also featured Brandon Reilly, who came up with the name Brand New with the drummer and went on to join The Movielife.

In January 2010 Brand New headlined its biggest UK show yet, supported by Glassjaw and Thrice, at which London venue?

Wembley Arena held 12,500 people that night, a long way from the band's 2003 British tour as the support act for Finch.

Which emo rapper sampled Brand New's "The No Seatbelt Song" for his own track "Crybaby"?

Lil Peep borrowed a ballad that Lacey had written in the style of The Smiths, to show that his pop-punk group had some musical taste.

Brand New's fifth album was the first independent release to top the Billboard 200 since which artist's 2016 album?

Frank Ocean's Blonde had been the last self-released chart-topper. The 14 years between Brand New's first charting album and first chart-topper was then the longest such wait since David Bowie's.

Which song did Brand New give away as a free download in 2015, ending a six-year wait for new music?

"Mene" was older than it looked: the song was first written around the time of the band's third album, almost a decade earlier.

Early CD copies of Brand New's fifth album held one 61-minute track titled with the coordinates of which US landmark?

Devils Tower in Wyoming is the setting of the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Only 500 of the numbered discs were sent out, to fans who had pre-ordered the vinyl.

Brand New was officially formed in 2000 in a basement in which Long Island hamlet?

Merrick was a short trip for everyone involved: the four founding members all lived within ten minutes of each other.

Which Brand New song did Jesse Lacey write about his grandfather's struggle with cancer while away recording an album?

"Guernica", named after the Picasso painting, grew out of Lacey's guilt that recording commitments kept him from returning to be at his grandfather's side.

Brand New's song "137", which pictures nuclear war, takes its number from a radioactive isotope of which element?

Cesium-137 gives the song its title, and the lyrics point to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in the Second World War.

Which touring musician, who played on every track of Brand New's third album, became an official member in 2009?

Derrick Sherman was first hired to fill out the live sound, and he later shot the new cover photo for the tenth-anniversary reissue of the debut album.