Say Anything: The Band, The Man, The Drama

With Say Anything's new album, Anarchy, My Dear, leaking so incredibly early and with them embarking on an amazing tour that is coming nowhere near Las Vegas (seriously, Say Anything with the openers being Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band and Fake Problems?  Wow.), I figured it was time to do a recap of Say Anything, their drama and how they got to this point.

I'll preface this by saying that I like Say Anything.  I'm not shy about it - though I've never really cared for lead singer Max Bemis with all of his religious shtick, bipolar publicity and his now all-too-publicized marriage to Sherri Dupree.  Let's recap, shall we?

2001: The band releases their first full length entitled Baseball. It achieves virtually no success and is quietly forgotten about.  Say Anything won't begin playing any songs off of this album again until their Summer 2010 Tour, when they dust off "Colorblind".  They've just now begun talking about re-issuing the album, now that they've secured the rights to their past albums via Equal Vision Records.

2004: The band's critically acclaimed Doghouse Records debut, ...Is A Real Boy, is released.  It's awesome but it doesn't gain a ton of traction yet.  Critical acclaim starts growing as Max Bemis' health deteriorates.  He battles his bipolar disorder and drug addictions, which almost destroys the band as five of his bandmates leave in 2005.  My first introduction to the band was reading all of these articles about them and learning about nothing except for Bemis' mental issues.

2006: ...Is A Real Boy is re-issued with the bonus EP ...Was A Real Boy, an equally impressive collection of songs.  Chris Carrabba (of Dashboard Confessional) incorporates Say Anything lyrics from the song "Woe" into his live performances of the song "Remember To Breathe".  A ton of people (including myself) finally catch on to the music.  ...Is A Real Boy is an amazing collection of energetic and cathartic pop punk tunes.

2007: The band releases the two disc, 27 song album In Defense Of The Genre.  It features a ton of guest vocalists from most of the major bands in the scene, including Taking Back Sunday, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Saves The Day and Dashboard Confessional.  The album has some amazing songs and about an album's worth of crap I haven't listened to since.

2009: The band gears up for the release of their eponymous album.  Initially, Max says that the album will be "about God and how we relate to Him."  Up to this point, Max is a very blatant Jew, who has included songs and lyrics about his Judaism.  Eventually, the focus of the album is shifted and they release a stellar album that is my album of the year.

But 2009 also saw some of the more torrid details of the personal life of Max Bemis.  It was in 2009 that Max announced that he had married Sherri Dupree.  I'm going to break from this journalistic narrative only to say this: I don't like the Dupree Sisters.  I don't like their band, Eisley.  I think they are crazy fascist Christian bitches who are ugly, untalented, way too skinny, and were fucking their way around the scene until they found some modicum of success.  If you want the hilarious Star Wars themed video of what I'm about to summarize, go here.

Of the Dupree sisters, Chauntelle ends up engaged to Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara.  She can't really accept him for who he is because, like all of the Dupree siblings, she is very religious and Christian.  So the two split up, the engagement is called off and Adam writes the absolutely stellar "Everything Must Go" featuring the lyrics "You quote the good book / when it's convenient / but you don't have the sense / no, you don't have the sense / to tie your tangled tongue / instead you slash it through the mud."

One of the other Dupree sisters, Sherri Dupree, steals the spotlight as the worst offender of scene-whoring.  She began her attempt to conquer the scene by going out with Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey.  He fell head over heels for her and actually proposed.  She turned him down, not wanting to move too fast.  Rumor has it that cheating was involved in the split that followed - they both seem like horrible people personally, judging by their actions, so I'd be willing to bet they both cheated.  Shortly thereafter Sherri decided to move on to Chad Gilbert, the guitarist in New Found Glory.  Chad Gilbert actually provided guest vocals for one of the tracks on Say Anything's In Defense Of The Genre, as did Paramore's singer, Hayley Williams (which will become relevant in a moment).  After being married for a mere 11 months, Chad and Sherri were divorced.  Chad moved on to Hayley Williams, seven years his junior.

In the wake of their divorce, Sherri's mom Kim took to the Eisley message board to post the following:

"So, now that you guys have word from Sherri, we will lock any thread
that tries to pry into this very sensitive and heart breaking matter.

As you read, Sherri does not have the power to change a heart... and
this has hit our family hard. Our family's belief - to marry and grow old
together. Obviously, not everyone in this equation had the same grasp.

We appreciate your thoughts, prayers and sensitivity at this time."

It should be noted that Chad Gilbert is also a devoutly religious man.

And Sherri?  She kept on truckin' along until she found Max Bemis.  Suddenly, Max was no longer Jewish.  Yes, that's right.  The man who had written such Say Anything songs as "Shiksa (Girlfriend)" and "Died A Jew" and lyrics such "I forgot all the rules my rabbi taught me in the old 'schul'" is now unabashedly Christian.  Nothing like changing for love.  Max even included the lyric "Condemn my race to genocide if it meant that I could lay with you" on the new album.

Around this time, Chad Gilbert decided to post some of the solo songs that he had been working on up on his web-site.  One of the songs, "Thinkin' Bout Her", is a song that laments how poorly he was treated in a relationship and that, in hindsight, he's happy that it's over.  Leave it to Sherri to assume that the song was about her (Ok, it probably was. Either way, it was Chad's right to be able to write whatever he wants.  He's a musician, for fuck's sake.)  Sherri's new husband, Max Bemis, did not take too kindly to the song.  He lashed out on twitter "today i heard the worst new music i've heard since vanilla ice attempted to make rock music. don't quit your day job, dude."  He then followed it with a way-too-long-to-read (hey! I know how to write stuff like that too!) response that apologized to fans but not to Chad.

Max also managed to start a feud with Tim Kinsella (of Cap'n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Owls, a million other Chicago bands) regarding an opinion piece that Tim published in Alternative Press.  Tim is the brother of Mike Kinsella (of Cap'n Jazz, Owls, American Football, Owen, a million other Chicago bands) and it was his opinion that terrible bands should do the world a favor and all just break up.  Max took it personally and blah blah blah.  More drama that I'm not getting into here.  Despite all of this and how wrong Max was during every incident, I still really like Say Anything.

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2009: This year also saw the release of Max Bemis' side project with Chris Conley, the lead singer of Saves The Day. The project, entitled Two Tongues, actually produced an enjoyable full length.  I'd never been much of a Saves The Day fan but their voices worked well together.

2010: Max Bemis embarks on several solo tours.  He decides to start recording the songs that he's writing on his own.  He doesn't want it to be an official project but more of a "low-key sort of release" to get the songs out there.  He calls this side effort Max Bemis and the Painful Splits.  For the most part, there is a very obvious reason why none of these songs are on Say Anything's actual albums.  They are beyond repetitive and the chords are reused to extinction.

2011: The band signs to Equal Vision Records and posts an entry on their website detailing how thrilled they are to be working with a record label that is giving them total artistic freedom.  They feel like this will be the most true record they can write and record.

2012: The album leaks two months early.  Strange that such a thing had never happened with their other record labels.