All language subtitles for Dont.Break.Down.A.Film.About.Jawbreaker.2017.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG_English

INTERVIEWER: So, what...
what happened?
Where did it go wrong?

I don't know.
It's really hard
to talk about, like...

the whole sellout thing.

When the band broke up,
when we, uh,
when we called it quits,

I remember the thing
that I said to, um,
to Blake and Chris was,

I was like,
"We can't stop this band.

"I have tons of shit of ours
that I have no idea
what to do with."

That was like
the first thing
that I thought of.

JESSICA HOPPER: I think I actually remember being mad.

I mean, to be fair,
I was one of those people.

ADAM PFAHLER:
That's the Jawbreaker mail.

This is the mailbag.
It was weird.

People used to take
a piece of paper, and then
they put it in this...

and then buy
from the post office,
they sell these...

then they put it in the mail,
and then you get it,
like, two days later.

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG:
I thought Jawbreaker
was gonna be huge.

I thought they were gonna
bridge the gap between
Green Day and Nirvana.

Um...

So, I used to take pictures
of these maniacs
that would come to our shows.

I wanted them to be huge,
but I also thought
they fucked up, kind of.

["BOXCAR" PLAYING]

♪ You're not punk
And I'm telling everyone

♪ Save your breath,
I never was one

♪ You don't know
What I'm all about

♪ Like killing cops
And reading Kerouac

♪ My enemies
Are all too familiar

♪ They're the ones
Who used to call me friend

♪ I'm coloring
Outside your guidelines

♪ I was passing out
When you were passing out
Your rules

♪ One, two, three, four
Who's punk?
What's the score?

♪ Got a friend
Her name is Boxcar

♪ Cigarettes and beer
In El Sob

♪ Her hair was blue
Now it's green

♪ I like her mind
She hates the scene

♪ My enemies are...

TOMMY STRANGE: There's something about being able to take those same three chords

and putting a passion
behind them that makes it
fresh and brand new.

You can see it in Blake
when he sang,

and you can see it
in Adam when he's drumming.

And it was just there.

There's very few bands

that can make you cry
and wanna dance
at the same time.

I mean, for me it's The Clash
and The Replacements
and Jawbreaker,

kind of the, uh, Holy Trinity.

♪ All alone
All alone

♪ All alone
You're on your own ♪

BLAKE SCHWARZENBACH: Hi, there.

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

[PIANO MUSIC PLAYING]

Fishermen's motto.

-INTERVIEWER:
Is that what it is?
-Yeah. Rough seas, hold fast.

SCHWARZENBACH:
When bands break up it's...

really easy to find it
kind of outrageous,

what you fought over,
and it can seem ridiculous.

You know? But,
when you're in them, I think
it feels like everything.

[TRUCK PASSING]

PFAHLER: Here we are.

Crossroads School
for the Arts and Sciences.

I didn't even go there yet
and I totally knew who they were
and that they were cute.

Yeah. I mean, there was this,
like, group of them.

I met Blake
up against this wall.

It's not there anymore.

Oh, shit,
that used to be a wall.

HADEN:
They were just dreamy.

They were just this,
kind of like The Outsiders,
you know?

Like, the Greasers,
you know?

Honestly, I don't think
I would've gotten out
of high school

had I not come here.

'Cause I was like...
I was on the fast track...

SCHWARZENBACH: You were.
You were dangerous.

Adam was a very wild little boy.

He was feral.

He was feral,
to say the least.

F-E-R-R-A-L.

Feral.

My mom and dad
would roll up on people.

You know, they'd roll up
on people at the supermarket
and be like,

"So, who do you think
is better, you know, Nirvana,
Peral Jam, or Jawbreaker?"

Total strangers.

And, like, "What the hell
are you talking about?"

KEMBRA: I tried to
throw him out the window

when he was,
like, three months old.

And allegedly, my mother
told me that that was
a very normal thing to do.

This building,
this two-story structure here,

is where I took French.
Where I flunked
French, actually.

SCHWARZENBACH: I was
encouraged, really, from the
beginning to be creative.

So I did a lot of drawing
when I was a kid,

and wrote stories,
and really liked monsters.

And kind of tried to write
stories about monsters
and draw them as well.

This is the smoking area.

I have a great... Actually,
I have a great picture
of Red Harvest, our first band,

sitting right there.

WARONKER: Crossroads School
embraced the freak.

Had they maybe been
in different schools,

they probably
would've been beaten up.

And I was sitting
in the back row one day,

and I'd always wondered
about this little closet.

And I opened the door
and there was
a guitar case in there.

So I waited till after class
and I spirited this guitar
case down the stairs.

I fucking stole it.
I'll tell you now.

[PUNK MUSIC PLAYING]

SCHWARZENBACH: I'd recently moved to LA and went to, like, one of these punkathons

at Hollywood Palladium.

And it was really violent, you know, it was really scary.

And we thought
we could be abducted,

or made to do drugs,
or, like, you know?

[CHUCKLES]
Defiled in some way,
or killed.

And I liked it.

Punk rock was all about, like,
you know, you don't
have to be a great player,

you could do it, you know?

It was like punks
knew how to do things

ethically, but also
kind of dangerously.

Joe Strummer and
D. Boon told me directly
to start a band.

It was kind of surf,
kind of noise.

-And kinda goth.
-Yeah.

ANTHONY NEWMAN:
I remember Blake
had bleached his hair out

and it was super
white and spiky,
and Adam was on drums.

And they were really good.
They were...

I mean, back when we were
like 15 years old

and stoned at house parties,
it sounded really good.

This big building down here,

that was our first show.
We played three songs at lunch.
You don't remember that?

Everything was in E,
all of it was in E.

SCHWARZENBACH:
When I really felt
like punk was dead,

then I realized
it was a good time
to be a part of it.

You know, when I
first met these guys,

I was mostly like a
"hardcore or else" kinda guy.

I had dreadlocks and wore
a painted leather jacket.

We'd see him around,
and we'd be like,
"Who the fuck is that guy?"

You know?

The slime guy made
all those clones
of Cap'n Crunch,

and I was really worried.

Like, which one
is the real Cap'n Crunch?
How will I know?

Chris had put up
this amazing ad

that cited
all these influences
and had fangs on it,

and it was this really,
like, punk rock flier,
"Looking to form group."

So I called,
and I got off the phone...

You know, and Adam
and I were rooming together.
So I was like,

"Chris is a girl!"

Yeah, this is, this is
my dirty little secret.

This is the bass,
the second Antigua.

The first one got stolen
out of the back of a...

out of the back
of the van, but...

The bass I played
all through Jawbreaker.

I can do intonation, I can do...
I can repair the inside
of bass electronics.

Um, what else can I do?

Uh... Complain bitterly
about all sorts of things?

Yeah, that's many of my skills.

I grew up in rural Connecticut.

I grew up with not a lot.
I didn't grow up
in a neighborhood.

And I had very few friends,

just because I had
very few people
in my immediate environment.

My little sister
was actually a lot more
socially adept than I was.

She bought me
the Sex Pistols record for my...
Christmas, when I was 17.

So we thought, "This is great."
You know, we'll be,
like, the coolest band,

'cause we'll have,
we'll be a mixed gender group.

We answer the ad,
make a date with Chris
and we go to his door,

he opens it up
and it's that guy.

Crazy pumpkin-headed,
dreadlocked punk boy.

There's like 19 layers of paint
on this thing. They thought
I was too punk rock.

I think we kinda thought
he was a poser a little bit.

[PUNK MUSIC PLAYING]

PFAHLER: The first show
we actually ever played
was for my sister.

We did a performance
at La MaMa Annex.

KEMBRA: My guitar player
had asked if they would
help him score a rock opera,

which was called
Under the Bad Star.

PFAHLER: And so the music
that we were playing,

it was different than
what Blake and I played
in high school, definitely.

We were getting
a little bit better,
you know, with our instruments.

["INCOMPLETE" PLAYING]

♪ We hear your
One hand clapping
It's music to our ears

♪ You don't like
The way we sound

♪ We don't like
The way you hear ♪

BAUERMEISTER: The first couple of years we were together, we spent a lot of time sort of

coming to terms
with one another's
musical tastes.

They were really into a lot
of that later SST kind of stuff
when I first met them,

which, complex time changes
and stuff that I actually,
to this day, drives me nuts.

Chris's whole philosophy,
as he'd told us,

and this was a word
that Adam and I used to
throw around at each other,

was, uh, "contrapuntal."

Chris was interested
in contrapuntal melody.

I used to think I needed
an eight string bass
or something

to have double strings,
but you really only need
the strings you have on a bass.

And you can play...

[PLAYING BASS CHORDS]

SCHWARZENBACH: He was always
trying to find a counterpoint

and a kind of tension through,
you know, melody or bass chords
against guitar chords.

He'd throw his thumb over
the top of the thing and play
with his pinky way up here

and be strumming his bass.
It was great. He had
a lot of good ideas.

And that clash of tones

was where we found our sound.

MARK KATES:
I just want them
to get their due.

And I feel like if they played,
it would happen.

I don't know that...
It's not like it would be
like the Pixies,

but I think it would be
bigger than people realize.

And I think that it's been
put to them enough times,

formally, that I think
they know what it means.

Adam's always
real enthusiastic about it.

And then we both realize
the reality of the situation
is it's never gonna happen

because not everybody's onboard.

I just wish there was
something I could do,
but I don't think there is.

But I'm gonna keep trying.
And if you guys have any ideas,
I'd love to hear them.

-[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]
-[MAN LAUGHS]

Exactly.

-PFAHLER: It's been like,
what, 11 years?
-BAUERMEISTER: Yeah.

-PFAHLER: 12 years?
-BAUERMEISTER: Yeah, easily.

BAUERMEISTER: Oh, my God!
How are you?

-I didn't mean to barge in.
-Oh, please. Come on in.

-Did you get taller?
-What's up, man?

BAUERMEISTER:
Blake and I, you know,
there are weird things.

I haven't really talked to him in a long time.

We got married in 2001
and Lucy wanted Jawbreaker
to play at the wedding.

Adam and I were
perfectly willing,
but Blake...

But... I don't think
he even said, "No."

He just sort of vanished.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

...listen to some stuff?
Do you wanna
play individually...

some stuff?
Do you wanna...

We could explain our sound.

Even though we don't have
our own equipment.

[CHUCKLES]

-Why don't we go in there?
-Yes.

-Why don't we go in there...
-And do something.

-Just show us
your intro to Parabola.
-Okay.

[MAN SPEAKING]

Are we, like, you know...
I didn't think
I was gonna play here.

I thought we were just gonna
go through parts and stuff.

This is coercion.

-It is. You're forcing us
to do a Jawbreaker reunion.
-What you've done is coercion.

MAN: No, you guys...

You wanna
fucking kill the mystery.

-That's what
you're talking about.
-MAN: Exactly.

["BETTER HALF" PLAYING]

PFAHLER: We made
our first demo here.

it cost, like... I don't know. What do you think it cost?

Like a couple hundred
bucks or something.

Yeah, I don't remember
anything about that.
Not that session.

♪ There was a sun once

♪ It lit the whole damn sky
It kept everything

♪ Everything alive

♪ And there was a man once

♪ He looked it
Straight in the eye
He saw everything

♪ Everything
He went blind ♪

SCHWARZENBACH:
This was the house
I think where we had to decide,

in fact I know
we had the definitive
decision on Jawbreaker

in a meeting here.
And we had
all our names in a hat.

That's right. Went through
a couple of different, uh,
you know, name changes.

Um, Rise.
There was already a Rise.

Semicoil, for some reason.

We called the New York band,
just the three of us,

we were called Terminal Island.

Black Dahlia.

Jesus Chrysler.

No one remembers
writing on the scraps
that went in the hat.

It got pulled out, "Jawbreaker."
It was like someone had slipped
that in as a secret ballot.

So we thought,
"Oh, that should be the name."

'Cause then none of us
will have thought of it.

["BUSY" PLAYING]

BAUERMEISTER: In '89, '90

was when we wrote
a lot of the Unfunstuff.

I remember
we finished that record
and we were like, whew.

Like, that was great.

Unfunis something that...

I don't really like
to talk about

the experience
of putting it out.

Because it was the first time
I put out an album
and everything went wrong.

"What do you think?"
"Terrible."

[LAUGHS] That was always
his reaction to stuff.

-No, his quote,
and I wrote it down...
-"This is a disaster."

"Not a great record.
It's not a great record."

[PLAYING "BUSY"]

When we started
Jawbreaker proper it was over,
LA was over.

I remember these shows
where there was
literally, like, four people.

It's, like, the girlfriends
of the guys in the band,
and their buddies.

SCHWARZENBACH:
And there was nowhere to play

and that's when all
the pay-to-play bullshit
started happening.

BAUERMEISTER: Finally, we had
been working our way up,
this was a Friday night gig,

and this was, like,
the big thing, you know?

Even though
we had to pay to play.

And they tried to get us
to foot the bill
for all three bands.

["DRIVEN" PLAYING]

PFAHLER: I know that
Chris really hated it here.

He really disliked
Los Angeles as a city.

I think that probably had
something to do with the fact

that it was always
fucking sunny.

I mean, eventually I got
to the point I wouldn't
even open my shades.

Like, "It's another sunny day.
Oh, yeah."

It divided us a bit,
if we weren't already divided
because of the...

Because he sort of came in
as the last member of the group
or whatever.

CHRISTY COLCORD: Adam and Blake had, you know, been together since high school

and were, like ,the cool
punk kids at school, you know?

And Chris, you know,
came in later.
He was like the new guy.

It stayed that way throughout
the history of Jawbreaker.

I sort of always felt like
some sort of weird fifth wheel.

-I'm having an asthma attack.
-PFAHLER: Inhale, dude.

Chris is a character.
I think he kinda played
to that a little bit too.

It was like, "Hey, I'm the,
like, high-voiced nerd."
[CHUCKLES]

Okay. This is
called a flash.

These used to be,
like, a tie thing

that went around
and they would hang down.

This is from when before
socks had elastics in them
to hold them up.

I had these problems,
like, you know,
trying to fit in,

or not wanting to fit in,
and sometimes
doing it on purpose.

And so I think
I sort of drew the line,

"Well, I'm from the East Coast,
and you're from the West Coast."

SCHWARZENBACH:
We had to get out of LA.

-I mean, that was clear.
-PFAHLER: We did.

SCHWARZENBACH: The people
who responded to us
were in the East Bay.

-It's true.
-We couldn't meet anybody in LA.

We were, like,
taken in up there, you know?

It was like
our home away from home.

♪ Used to let rumors
Do my work

♪ They got around real well

♪ Now they only hurt

♪ It's a liar's quirk

♪ This time
I gotta say it straight

♪ I mean to do some good

ARMSTRONG: Now, there's
something about that chorus
where it was like...

♪ I, I, I
I want you ♪

♪ I, I, I
I want you ♪

♪ I, I, I
I want you ♪

♪ I, I, I
I want you ♪

That's the kind of love song
that I like. You can get married
to that shit, you know?

["WANT" PLAYING]

We played wherever we could.
We never turned down a show.

-No.
-Wherever.

BAUERMEISTER: I remember a lot of Covered Wagon shows.

I remember a lot of
Chameleon shows.

Gilman shows.

Yeah, we played
everywhere and anywhere.

JAMES OLIVER CURRY:
When you'd go to shows,
it'd be the same people,

there was a sense of community.

And San Francisco
in particular had a reputation
for DIY-ness, you know?

Do it yourself-ness.

♪ I'm gonna cut my strings
and kill the puppeteer now ♪

Kind of the
Maximum-Gilman network

and the people, bands,
growing up around that scene.

Gilman Street was,
er, is a nonprofit,
do it yourself collective.

It wasn't just like
you were playing, it was
also like you were working.

You know, bands had to
clean the toilets,
work security,

work the door.

And if you were in
a punk band in the late '80s,

Gilman was your Mecca
and you would, you know,
book your whole tour

around a date at Gilman Street.

BEN SIZEMORE: I was in
this band, Econochrist,
and we had a show at Gilman

and it was
Christ on Parade
headlining,

and then us, and this band,
Jawbreaker, opening up.

Adam and Blake looked, you know,
just kinda like college rock,

they just kinda looked
like regular dudes.

But then we saw Chris
had some tattoos and shit.

So we were like, "All right,
they're a little bit punk.
It's cool." [CHUCKLES]

BAUERMEISTER: Gilman
was getting a lot of buzz

and, I mean, eventually, that was where we ended up playing all the time.

[PLAYING "CHESTERFIELD KING"]

HIRSCH: I think
when they came to Gilman

and everyone already knew
the lyrics to the songs
that they had

it was... I think they got
a big charge out of that.

Oh, yeah. I think it made
all of us intensely devoted
to what we did.

'Cause, yeah, we basically
gave up everything
and moved to San Francisco

and said we're gonna
work on the band.

PFAHLER: That's true.

The first day we moved
into Sycamore, as we're carrying
our stuff up the stairway...

sharpened screwdriver
on the sidewalk...

used condom, hypodermic needle.

♪ It gets loneliest at night

♪ Down at the liquor store

♪ Beneath the neon sky
My moonlight

♪ 6:00 a.m.
The floor comes alive
with lice ♪

SCHWARZENBACH:
So we were working
in that environment,

and I think it really kind of
colored the music in a way.

A lot of those songs on Bivouac
are all obsessed with identity.

And that record is about
location and identity.

BAUERMEISTER: I mean,
a lot of it is about
that change, like,

"Where the hell are we,
what are we doing?"

-The song's called Bivouac.
-[MAN COMPLAINING]

You'll like it.
Just take it easy.
Jesus Christ, man.

The document of those months
where we were just
toiling in the Tenderloin.

["BIVOUAC" PLAYING]

SCHWARZENBACH: That was the only year we were really local, I think.

BAUERMEISTER: Right.
Yeah. We were pretty much
playing constantly.

It was exciting, 'cause we'd
go and write a song and we'd
debut it in the neighborhood.

♪ I dug my fingers
In the earth

♪ I drew you pictures
Of my pain ♪

That was... I felt like that
was a very significant moment
for me in our band.

'Cause I remember us
playing it and I was
watching the song float.

And I was like,
"Oh, you know,
it's actually...

"This is gonna work."

I was kinda seeing it
go out and not dive.

It was getting kinda transcendent and being...

It was... I'll say it,
it was fucking emo.

♪ Let it touch you everywhere

♪ Boat of my father

SCHWARZENBACH:
You know what,
it's catharsis.

It's the overturning
that we speak of
in the dramatic arts.

Yeah, we're educated.
[LAUGHING]

-That was the problem,
we always were.
-Yeah.

We started out...
We started into
this business with BAs.

BAUERMEISTER: That's right.

♪ Now this is home

You couldn't just do it,
you know?

Those were
pretty primitive conditions.

Like, I mean,
tape marks on a board.
Like, kinda crazy.

But, uh, that's how
it was done back then.
We didn't know...

I think we all did
interesting things in the studio

just because we were
always pressed for time.

'Cause it was
a time and a money thing.

Anything you've ever heard
that we did,

is in its entirety,
that's the performance.

It's not like we took
this little piece...

In the time between recording
our first record and Bivouac

we had, you know,
gotten interested in a lot of
new, different kind of music.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[DRUM ROLL PLAYING]

[IMITATING DRUM ROLL]

[BAUERMEISTER LAUGHING]

BAUERMEISTER: Parabola
is our homage
to Jesus Lizard.

You know,
it's a Jesus Lizard song
done by us.

You know, so it doesn't
quite sound like Jesus Lizard

'cause we can't play
exactly like them.

I'm definitely
no David Sims on bass.

["PARABOLA" PLAYING]

NEWMAN: I think when you listen to the difference betweenUnfun andBivouac,

it's like you really, really
are aware of a band
trying to spread their wings.

♪ Some broken glass

-[BACKING INSTRUMENTALS STOP]
-♪ And a bleeding hand

♪ The mirror's down

♪ But I'm still standing

♪ Stand
Stand ♪

[ALL CHUCKLING]

Just for you.
Just for you, buddy.

Blake's voice
is what we call raspy.
Throaty, scabrous.

He's kind of up there
with Tony Bennett, to me,
with his phrasing.

You know?

["PARABOLA" PLAYING]

SCHWARZENBACH: There was
this ultra-brutality here

that was, you know,
became part of our sound.

We had these pop songs
and then we had these
punishing fucking moments.

-You know? Which is why
we're schizo, right?
-BAUERMEISTER: Right.

It's weird, it's a weird record.
It's certainly not
a hardcore record.

It's also the first...

time that Blake, I think,
really starting to settle
into his, uh...

his, like, storytelling.

[MAN SPEAKING]

We collaborate
on lyrics, mostly.

BAUERMEISTER:
It was both of us writing.

Sleepis mine
and New York Is Burning
is mine.

They're the ones
that are really blunt.

You know, they really
lack a certain degree
of the poetic ambiguity.

[MAN SPEAKING]

MAN: He is.

No, I'm not. I never...

What Blake did as a songwriter
was to take intellectual

and emotional sophistication

and infuse it into music
that was truly, like, gritty,
gut-level punk.

It was great.
Because everybody
was so sick of being dumb.

It's just, it got old,
being the dumb punk.

The whole of rock and roll,
for the last 63 years,

is basically men singing
about loving and losing women.

Any band
that was humanizing women
in a way that felt real,

that you could identify with,
you just felt valued.

You didn't feel
made small by their music.

♪ In this ocean
I'm a bag of tea

♪ I make some clouds

♪ But they're minor league

♪ Hack at the base
Of the largest tree ♪

As Blake got better on guitar,
as Blake got better on vocals,

and as Blake got better
as a songwriter,

you know, his compositions
were more predetermined.

So the vocals and the guitar
had the prominent spaces

and then, if you were lucky
enough to fit in a fill
here and there, or whatever.

[PFAHLER DRUMMING]

BAUERMEISTER:
So, do we wanna do, um...

try to do parts of Bivouac?

Out there?

-SCHWARZENBACH: No.
I don't know.
-No?

Okay. Yeah.

I think you're right.

SCHWARZENBACH:
Yeah, but you
should get Billy to...

If we're not gonna play it,
don't worry about it.

SCHWARZENBACH:
Fine. Yeah, I don't know.

-I'm just
a passive agent in this.
-I know. Exactly.

If people ask me,
"Why do you think
your band is referenced,"

and why people
still seem to care about it,

I would probably say
that it has everything
to do with the words.

With... Blake's words.

["CHESTERFIELD KING" PLAYING]

PFAHLER: It was another
sort of leap of faith

where we gave up our apartment,
put everything into storage,

and went off to Europe
to go on tour.

No, no, you didn't
put it in storage,
we put it in my bedroom.

-Storage.
-Storage.

That's one of the stupidest
things we ever did.

Because we didn't have money,
we toured to New York
and then flew to Europe.

Which for a little band,
is weird, right?

'Cause you're, like, already
across the country and then
you're going to Europe.

It makes me scared
just thinking about it.

SCOTT BRADLEY: I didn't realize how silly they were, you know?

'Cause the band is so serious,
and like kinda dark,
and emo, or whatever.

and for it to all be, like,
crazy inside jokes
and stupid road games...

[IN SQUEAKY VOICE]
Wow, man, that was some herb.

Come in here
and lay down a bit.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

They thought we were ogres.

You know, they were like,
"Don't talk to them,
they're aggressive,

"they're cagey."

Every rest stop
and gas station we stopped in,
Adam would be like,

"All right, here's what
we're gonna do.

"You go in and, like, try on
the mirrored sunglasses
or the BluBlockers

"and, like, put on
the worst cap
that you can find,

"walk around, drop down
in the middle of the store
and do 20 pushups."

Certain tours
are a little bit bigger
and they were better

that, you know, more people
were kinda hearing about it.

SCHWARZENBACH: I remember
having the experience
of listening to our band

and there happened to be
a lot of people there being
into it, it was very... cool.

[LAUGHS] That's the only way
I can put it, really.

Can you hear everything?
Yeah, cut it.

I'm losing my voice
so, sorry about that.

COLCORD: We got through
the first couple
of weeks of tour

and Blake sounded like
he was gargling glass, you know?

It sounded
really, really, gnarly.

[SINGING OFF-KEY]

SCHWARZENBACH: So,
by the middle of the country
I couldn't sing any more.

And we still had two months
of Europe ahead of us.

[AUDIENCE CHEERING]

♪ Dreams die today
Do you call this living
Really? ♪

Because we didn't
ever think, one time,

did we ever think,
"Why don't we just
cancel the tour?"

BAUERMEISTER: No.

COLCORD: When we played
the first show in Belfast

he coughed up a clot,

a blood clot
that was the size of my fist.

It was really, really bad.

Luckily, we called my roommate
and asked if he could talk to,

see if he could find a doctor
who could do the surgery.

SCHWARZENBACH:
We were really
up against it in a way.

It was like, you know,
we quit our jobs
and gave up our apartments

when we went on this tour,

so, you know,
it was pretty intense
to be over there

and, uh...

going under the knife.

But at the same time
it was kinda like
there's nothing left to lose.

♪ A little voice
That's not quite your own

♪ Count backwards from ten

♪ Yellow jelly
Shot hard in vein

♪ I want to talk to you again

When your main instrument
is in jeopardy of never
being able to sing again,

that's one of the scariest
things. Oh, my God.

To think that
he could be possibly
losing his voice forever.

♪ Suddenly hear
So clearly again ♪

COLCORD:
There was at least a week
he wasn't allowed to talk.

So we had to cancel
the entire British leg
of the tour,

which was a really big bummer.

Because we would have made money
and people would have
really been into it, so...

I don't think
I really understood
how crazy that was,

and how intense it was.

-[ANDERSON SPEAKING]
-[BAUERMEISTER LAUGHS]

-ANDERSON: What's "New Song"?
-BAUERMEISTER: It's New Song.

-ANDERSON: What is "New Song"?
-BAUERMEISTER: "New Song"
is Condition Oakland.

Okay. It was called
New Songback then.

It says, "End fade by..."

In the early 1950s,

the nation recognized in its midst a social movement called the Beat Generation.

That's just the room tracks.
That's everybody playing live
in the same room.

That's so cool.

...the sense of coming night,
that engine calling
our mountains.

[ANDERSON SPEAKING]

[JAZZ PIANO PLAYING]

And Steve Allen, we should add.

'Cause, I mean,
he's half the beat on that.

JACK KEROUAC:
...end of the land sadness,
end of the world gladness.

All you San Franciscos will have to fall eventually...

EGAN: I thoughtBivouac was,
I thought it was
a really good record

but I still think Blake was...
He hadn't really
mastered the conciseness,

lyrically.

My first was in NYU.

We went down to Film Forum
and saw this
beatnik film festival

BAUERMEISTER: Oh, right, right.
I remember that, yeah.

-And they showed
Robert Frank's Pull My Daisy.
- Pull My Daisy.Yeah.

And so,
when I became a librarian,

we had the Jack Kerouac
recordings in a lock case.

It hadn't been
checked out in months.

So I spirited the Jack Kerouac
recordings out from the library.

And I used to like to listen
to the tapes in the morning
when I cooked breakfast.

You know, have the kind of
sweet spoken word
going on in the house.

KEROUAC: Look at
all those cars out there.

There's nothing out there
but a million screaming

90-year-old men being run
over by gasoline trucks.

So throw the match on it.

SCHWARZENBACH: The language,
the cadence of the language

in the reading.
I'd never heard
their words before.

All of that. I had a complete
epiphany that night
and I came home,

uh, with my girlfriend,
and I said, "I know
what I'm gonna do now.

"I'm gonna write,
and I'm gonna write like that."

[LAUGHS]

["THE BOAT DREAMS
FROM THE HILL" PLAYING]

PFAHLER: It's time to record
our next record,
our third record,

and we decided
to do it with Steve Albini.

And, uh, you know,
we had admired his work,

Big Black, and Surfer Rosa,
the Pixies record that he did.

I called him up
and I was kinda starstruck,
I was freaked out actually,

to talk to him.
It was like,

he's the guy, you know?

ALBINI: I had a studio
in my house.

Essentially, I would
just answer the phone,

and whoever was
on the other end of the phone
would book time in the studio.

And we kinda had that
inferiority complex of, like,
we're this little punk band

and you're this monster,
electronic-crushing
super genius.

I'm fairly certain
that I mistook them
for the band Jawbox.

I know that I had
this amp and this cabinet

at the time
of that Jawbreaker session.

I was talking to Albini
about guitar sounds, you know?

"This is like a big chorus, man.
You know what I mean?

"I mean, it's gotta have,
like, this big,
descending melody."

As I recall...

-We're talking about Jawbreaker
and not Jawbox, right?
-INTERVIEWER: Correct.

As I recall,
Jawbreaker had Marshalls.

So I wanted him to, like,
break out the big guns,
you know?

And he busted out this little, like, RadioShack amp.

He's like, "What if
we do it like this?"

[STRUMMING GUITAR
WITH AMPLIFIER FUZZ]

Uh, I'm sorry, I don't know
any Jawbreaker songs.

♪ So right, so wrong
Another winter... ♪

[ONLY GUITAR PLAYING]

-That's it, huh?
-Yeah.

SCHWARZENBACH:
And then it was quick.
I mean, he works fast.

And we had,
I don't know how many days,
I think it was three days,

but it was, like,
really quickly.

["THE BOAT DREAMS
FROM THE HILL" PLAYING]

HOPPER: I do remember, like,
exactly where I was sitting

in my high school,
like, how the sun was,

like, everything, the first time
I heard that album.

I think 24is just
one perfectly written
song after another.

CHEPLOWITZ:
I would go to a show
and they would perform a song

and I would, you know,
go up to somebody and say,

"What's this new song?"
And they would say,
"Oh, that's Indictment."

Well, this is
just getting ridiculous.

Every show they had
a song of that caliber.

-[SCHWARZENBACH SPEAKING]
-BAUERMEISTER: Yeah.

I felt like I have...
I know who I'm in love with,
I know I live here.

This is our town.

♪ Seems it never had a chance

-[BACKING INSTRUMENTALS STOP]
-♪ I wanna be a boat

♪ I wanna learn to swim

BAUERMEISTER: Blake didn't like the way the vocals had come out.

And, um, yeah. 'Cause Albini
doesn't... He's not vocal heavy.

I mean, he's more
into the instruments.

Which is, of course,
why I like the recordings.

You know, as a bass player,
as a part of an ensemble,

of course I'm gonna say
music should be recognized

as being a production
of an ensemble,

as opposed to a single,
you know, singer/songwriter.

ANDERSON: I do remember
feeling at the time

like we weren't
doing justice to the things
you played on bass.

Like, you play a lot of notes,

and I remember
being sort of flummoxed
as to how to get that across.

A totally ferocious
rhythm section,

like, you know,
nothing I've ever seen.

JIMMY BROUSTIS: Shit, I think
he's one of the best
12 drummers in the world.

Able to hear a song
and he pretty much
knows exactly

how it has to
and should go right away.

BAUERMEISTER:
When we first played,
I remember the early shows,

like, was it you who said,
"We all, each wanted to be
the only person in the band"?

Here's the thing,
when you first start your band,

-you're playing
way the fuck over your heads.
-BAUERMEISTER: Right.

You're like,
"I'm gonna put every trick
that I just learned...

"Quadruplet? Cool.
That's a great place
for 15 of those."

SCHWARZENBACH: When
you're three people
as neurotic as we are too,

seriously, none of us trusted
that anyone
would carry their slack.

So it's like,
"I'm gonna be responsible
for this whole song."

And then we were each
kind of like...

[WHISPERING]

-[BAUERMEISTER LAUGHING]
-Yeah. Everybody had
their own little, like...

And they killed us
for it, didn't they?

-They hated it.
-[BAUERMEISTER LAUGHING]

BAUERMEISTER:
Yeah, you used to say,
"One, two, three, four."

ANDERSON: Those were great.
That's the stuff.

♪ I'm telling everyone

♪ Save your breath
I never was one

♪ You don't know
What I'm all about

♪ Like killing cops
And reading Kerouac ♪

This was the first thing
that was in the paper
about them.

This is from Spin Magazine.

Said they played
"soft-edged hardcore with
an East Coast sensibility."

[CHUCKLING]
I always loved that.

♪ I'm coloring
Outside your guidelines

♪ I was passing out
When you were passing out
Your rules ♪

CHRIS SHIFLETT:
That was just the soundtrack
to whatever year that was.

I mean, I listened
to that record,
I wore the cassette out,

and I wore the CD out,
I just listened to that record
all the time.

♪ Got a friend
Her name is Boxcar ♪

PAM MOORE: That's when
everything exploded for them.

I would look
inFlipside Magazine
and see,

"I'm looking for a bass player,
band influences: Jawbreaker."

♪ I was passing out
When you were passing out
Your rules ♪

HOPPER: When people think
about punk rock in the '90s,

generally they think
Green Day is the band
that changed everything.

But the band
that really changed everything
was Jawbreaker.

♪ You're on your own
You're all alone

♪ You're on your own
You're all alone

♪ You're on your own
You're all alone

♪ You're on your own
You're all alone ♪

I hear there's some new band
called Nirvana
just starting out

and, like, they're
really big in Seattle.

I have a feeling
they're gonna be huge.

They... Looks good.

["ASHTRAY MONUMENT" PLAYING]

PFAHLER: 1993 was a really...
That's when we started
making money.

You know, I mean,
you could count on a show
being pretty well attended,

we were getting more popular.

We get a call about
going on tour with Nirvana.

CALI DEWITT:
I was taking care
of Kurt and Courtney's kid

and Jawbreaker was
one of my favorite bands.

And they, being much older
than me, whatever, like,
five years older than me,

or he was,

would always check out
my new records.

And Jawbreaker
was one of the ones
that stuck with him.

It was a no-brainer.
In fact we were, "Of course."

♪ You'll be lucky
If you're at ground zero ♪

BAUERMEISTER: Nirvana,
Mudhoney and us.

It was like this.
It was just like, "Wow, neato.

"Weird art
on the side of that one,
like airbrushed, you know?"

Boom. The piece of shit.

-The loading dock
was taller than our van.
-Yeah.

I remember trying
to figure out how to put the...

PFAHLER: You could
walk on top of a...

SCHWARZENBACH: We'd play like
25 minutes every night,

and I think we all agree
we were playing everything
triple time

'cause we were so stressed.

-And that started off
a little bit of a backlash.
-Right.

There were some people
that were like,
"Oh, man, I can see it.

"You know,
the writing is on the wall.

"They go out with Nirvana
and some A&R dick
is gonna see 'em

"and be like, 'Oh, dude,'"
you know.

And, you know, of course
that's exactly what happened.

[BAUERMEISTER LAUGHING]

PFAHLER: I remember people
being really disappointed

that we were going out
on tour with Nirvana.

It's like, "Are you kidding?"

Like, we get to watch Nirvana
from the side of the stage

every day for a week.
Like, what did
you do that week?

I mean, certain people
stopped talking to us.
Like, uh, Radley.

The punk underground,
it was DIY
and it was no major label.

And, uh, Nirvana was,
of course, major label

and they were playing
big stadiums and stuff.

It was a sign
that they were going to
sign to a major label

and they were gonna
sell everybody out.

It hadn't occurred to me
that that's corporate.

A sign of heresy, really.

Once they went there
they weren't really welcome
at Gilman Street.

SCHWARZENBACH: I was shocked
that someone thought
that we could be unmade

by doing that.

You know, by getting
in bed with the devil, I guess.

We didn't think
Nirvana was the devil.

BAUERMEISTER: Now that
we were on the big stage,

I don't know what happened,
but my string broke
and I had to tune it up,

and after the show,
it was like, "Don't ever
do that to me again on stage!"

I was like, "What the hell?"

["ACCIDENT PRONE" PLAYING]

We had so much tension
built up during the day,

just driving and putting up
with bureaucratic shit.

-We really gotta load.
-BAUERMEISTER:
That's a good idea.

Now. Not make movies, load.

Jawbreaker seems to be
in constant turmoil,

both, personally,
the members themselves,
as well as professionally.

EGAN: Really,
if you look at it,
they always look like

they're on the verge
of kinda falling apart.

You know? They're always
a disaster waiting to happen.

I don't wanna drive anymore,
I don't wanna read anymore,

I don't wanna stop
at any more McDonald's,
or whatever, Denny's.

Their eccentricities
were like, you know, sort of
eating away at each other.

-No, I would put on Black Flag
and you would say...
-Lose my mind.

"I fucking hate Black Flag,"
is what I'd say.

-Okay, that does not
make the picture.
-No.

It's out.

In the studio
with me, Jawbreaker.

I'm not even gonna begin
to try to pronounce
their last names,

because I can't.

Chris did not suffer
foolish interview questions.

That used to put me on edge,
I'd be like, "Chris, man,
be easy on this guy."

Like, "It's okay,
he loves your band."

-First names Blake, Chris and...
-PFAHLER: Adam.

-Adam.
-BAUERMEISTER: A, B, C,
got a mnemonic...

I usually got that to point
that after like, what,
two, three weeks on tour,

I'd slowly descend
into evil Chris.

Oh, well, when Chris or Adam
would be like, "Oh, you know,
no one wants to talk to us,

"because, you know,
we're Blake's backing band."

BAUERMEISTER: They actually
told me I was not allowed
to talk to interviewers,

'cause I said stupid things
and I'd talk about things,

and I didn't represent,
you know...

I don't know if they wanted...
You'd have to ask Blake
what he meant by it.

Please, go ahead.
Ask him what he was thinking.
I have no idea.

I think at that point,
Chris and Adam
didn't wanna do press.

And we kinda
just divided duties,

so that I would,
like, speak.

JON LIU: Yeah, tensions
were definitely apparent.

Just meltdowns

and rants

and tantrums

-and screaming.-BAUERMEISTER: Hey, old man,
there's no fucking green light!

BAUERMEISTER: I think it was
one of the reasons we, um...

made the move to try
to get signed to a major.

We decided... I don't know
if you've talked to
Blake about that.

Maybe I should... You know what?
At this point I think
I should stop talking on film.

["WEST BAY INVITATIONAL"
PLAYING]

HOPPER: A lot of people,
when they look at
punk rock in the '90s,

what we see is, you know,
the sort of, like,
nuclear moment of Green Day.

PFAHLER: It was the feeding,
it was the post Green Day
feeding frenzy.

Samiam was going through it,

Jawbox was going through it.

But the thing
that everyone really wanted
was Jawbreaker.

I found about Jawbreaker
because they went
on tour with Nirvana.

And I could act like I was,
you know, at Gilman Street
back in the day,

but I wasn't.

The only thing anyone
was talking about was,
"Is Jawbreaker gonna sign?"

Because, at the time,
they were kind of...

the last thing
that really felt like ours.

CHEPLOWITZ:
I was at a show once,

and Blake said to the audience

that there rumors
going around that they
were signing with a major.

I heard this rumor
just hit Chicago

so I'll take the opportunity
to dispel it right now.

So, he says that,
and from my perspective,
I was like,

"I'm the only person here
that has signed
a major label contract."

So I was like... Talk about
being the loneliest guy
in the room at that point.

And he said that
the rumors were not true

and that Jawbreaker
would never sign with a major.

I guess it was printed
in a couple of places that
we'd signed to a major label,

and, uh,
that's not true, actually.

I was going,
"Dude, don't say that."
Don't say, like...

Because you never know.

I think it was about
four weeks later
that they signed with a major.

We changed our mind,
that's what people do.
That's what we did.

We changed our mind.

HOST: So you guys
are on Geffen now, right?

-SCHWARZENBACH:
Well, we're not yet.
-HOST: Oh.

-SCHWARZENBACH: But probably
within a matter of days.
-HOST: Okay.

Uh, any chance you can
talk about the contract?

SCHWARZENBACH: Well,
we're getting
a shitload of money.

HOST: Okay.

SCHWARZENBACH: And...
I mean, I'll just be
upfront about that.

Because, you know, there's no way to play it off.

HOST: How much is a shitload?

-SCHWARZENBACH: Um, I don't... That I don't...-HOST: Okay.

SCHWARZENBACH: It's hard
to say that, 'cause it
wouldn't make sense.

HOST: Okay.

-SCHWARZENBACH: But
it's enough to make a record.
-HOST: Okay.

SCHWARZENBACH:
Pretty lavishly.

Was it in retrospect
we decided we were, like,

either we're gonna do this
or we're gonna break up?

That was really...
That's what we said.

-Yeah. I mean, yeah. Exactly.
-That's exactly what we said.

SCHWARZENBACH: As I recall,
I mean, the decision seemed
very kamikaze. It was like...

maybe we won't go on as a band,
or we're gonna do something
really different and...

like, sign to a major label.

Not long afterwards,
Jeff Saltzman
called me up and said,

"We're managing Jawbreaker
and they wanna talk to labels."

And I'm like,
"Can I get on a plane today?"

["SAVE YOUR GENERATION" PLAYING]

From then on it was
pretty much... Things started
happening really quickly.

And then it was, like,
months of, you know,
the process of signing.

All of that sort of...
That whole courtship thing
is pretty vivid in my mind.

They'd say shit to us like,
"Guys, you gotta sign with us.
We love your band."

It was like, the opening
paragraph was the same
at every single place.

"We really love
what you're doing."
Blah, blah, blah.

"We would make you
our number one priority."

If you were
to turn to them and say,
"What's your favorite song?"

-They'd be like, "The one.
You know, that..."
-Yeah. That one.

"That one you guys do."

I remember one guy said,
"Listen, you guys, I'm a fucking
maniac and I hate to lose."

We weren't really
that open to, like,
losing things.

We weren't open
to losing bands
to other labels.

PFAHLER: So we're just kinda
laying there, just like,

oh, man, what the fuck?
Are we really gonna do this?
Like, are we really doing this?

I mean, the thing wrote itself. You know what I mean?

It was like, "We know
how this is gonna end."

Because it happens
to everybody.

It's like, you start out
with this little tiny...
Rags to riches to rags.

It's gonna happen to us.
It's probably gonna happen.

Dear Youtakes
three months to record...

That's just the recording.
I think it actually ended up
being, like, ten weeks.

Using the Green Day formula,
which had been proven,

we got Rob Cavallo.

KATES: I didn't know
Rob Cavallo at the time,
so this is funny, but

I'm like, "Wow, he's gonna
produce them? Like,
what's up with that?"

Yeah, well, Rob Cavallo is...

uh, one of the most esteemed
record producers in the history
of rock music,

you can easily
say at this point.

["SAVE YOUR GENERATION" PLAYING]

Guitars are great.

There's only three.
There's only three guitars.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

In hindsight,
I think it's the album
I tried to forget the most.

And it's the album
I was probably, in a lot ways,
least involved in.

It seemed like five days
or something that those guys
did pretty much all their stuff.

And then there was
another month
of, like, guitars, vocals,

uh, so I was
in there a long time.

You know, at the time,
I resented the fact

that, you know, he had written
the bass line, more or less.

You know, I felt that
he'd written the bass line.

I think I had
some leeway, but, um...

PFAHLER: Obviously the
arrangements and the tempos,
and, you know, we...

Things change. It wasn't like
we didn't have our say
or something like

he was lording it over us.

-Yeah, but I mean--
-It was just different,
you know?

-It was like pouring out.
You know what I mean?
-Right. Exactly.

I remember they played me
one song and I can't remember
what song it was,

but it sounded like
an ocean of guitars.

The guitars
on this song are like...

I think they're actually
some of the best I ever did.

And I was like, "Oh, my God,
this sounds so good."

♪ A near miss
Or a close call?

♪ I keep a room
At the hospital

♪ I scratch my accidents
Into the wall ♪

What I remember most
is driving down the main
turnpike back to Boston,

blasting that record
as loud as the stereo could go,

and it honestly
wasn't loud enough for me.

PFAHLER:
I thought we had a beat.

I really did. I really thought,
I was so confident.

When we were
done with that record,

I was so confident
that we made a good record.

When we put it out,
we thought it's just gonna be
like a clutch of robins

flying out into the world,
you know? Like, "Here."

And everyone's
kinda like, "Whoa,

"this is really clean."

Or, I remember them saying,
like, "The vocals are so rich.

"This is...
something new for you."

Like, they were
a little freaked out.

I don't know if it was
the album, the production,
the songwriting,

I don't know what it was.

Something went wrong.

I hated everything
it represented, I hated
the way it sounded,

I hated the lyrics, I hated...

I didn't like
anything about it.

I remember thinking...

"Well, if you want
Green Day part two,

"maybe this is your idea
of how to...

"how to turn that into that."

["FIREMAN" PLAYING]

♪ Dreamed I was a fireman

♪ I just smoked
And watched you burn

♪ Dreamed I was an astronaut

♪ I shot you down

BAUERMEISTER: God, we tried.

What, we had the same
agent as Green Day,

we had the same
video producer as Green Day,

we had the same, you know,
audio producer as Green Day.

We tried... Whatever.

I think it was
a stupid move, but...

HIRSCH: This guy played me
the new Jawbreaker record

and I said, "What's that?"
And he goes...

He goes, "It's Jawbreaker."
I'm like, "What happened?"

It sucks, man. When you
do your band... You got to
take a picture of your band.

We ended up using,
you know, us hanging out
on Blake's couch.

Like, I can see that.
We probably had hung out
on Blake's couch before.

But, you know, did we
ever stand up on top
on an abandoned bus?

You know, at sunset,
looking tough?

Probably didn't happen.

And yet there we are,
doing just that.

JEFF SALTZMAN:
The band had a great video,
a great single at radio...

some huge tours...

and it didn't sell that well.

Some of us have
never really recovered from
the disappointment of that.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

Well, you know, um...

Lou Reed's Transformer
didn't sell very well...

either.

PFAHLER: No one bought it.

Huge backlash
in the punk rock world.

I have a really great flyer here
that's like, how Jawbreaker
is like Walmart.

"Just how much
does Jawbreaker really care?"

You can go to the hardware store
on your block
or you can go to Home Depot.

COLCORD:
"Currently in the punk scene,
trust is being attacked

"and destroyed
by the actions of bands
like Jawbreaker."

So people would be...
Go through like a vogue,

where you'd be really popular
for a while and suddenly
you would be a pariah

and you had done something bad.

It was like the equivalent
of the Bob Dylan
thing when he went electric.

You know, it was like
our generation's
version of that.

COLCORD: "But so what, they lied
to their audience? That's
nothing new for a band, right?

"Well, let me
ask you a question:
why did they have to lie at all?

KATES: At the Roxy,
kids showed up

and literally, like, sat
with their backs to the stage

when songs fromDear You
were performed.

People who had paid.

"In short,
they sold our trust out."

You don't own me.

There's no rings
on these fingers.

For kids to have their backs
to the stage at a show
that they bought tickets to...

I mean, that's
a pretty intense thing.

The crowds were just sort of...

had paid the price of admission
in order to express
their disappointment

with the band.

BROUSTIS: All these people
who had loved them

and dedicated practically their life to them

were like, "They're the worst
thing in the world."

It's like, "Wait a minute,
they're the same people,
you know?"

You trusted these guys,
listened to their music
for ages, like,

why don't you listen to
what they're saying, you know?

["FRIENDLY FIRE" PLAYING]

There is this whole degree
of who paid off who

and who's getting
radio airplay
and, you know,

which company
has decided to promote
which person's band.

Plus all of this, you know,
bullshit that you
have to go through,

that I had no idea
until I did it,

where, you know, Live 105
will play Jawbreaker's record

if, you know,
Green Day will give us,
you know,

some single five seconds
before somebody else.

I mean, we were pursuing it,
we were trying
to make the big time.

You know, and we did.

They were like heroes,
I think, at the record company

until, like, three days
after it came out.

It hadn't sold a million copies
and then they were
just, like, ghosts.

They put a couple...
They gave a couple
of singles to radio

and it didn't work,
so they just basically
gave up on it.

Dear You
and the subsequent tour
was probably the...

the last stage
in me becoming
really disengaged.

You know, I don't know
what kind of...
What was the reaction to.

-We were losing Chris.
-Yeah.

I was, you know,
I was doing other things.

I was realizing, you know,
I didn't wanna do this forever.

There was a really
notorious night in Providence
where we flew Lewis Largent in,

because we thought maybe
if he saw the band play

we would do better at MTV.

It was, like, a disaster

in every way imaginable.
It was not a good show.

Okay, hi. Thanks a lot
for waiting
and enduring the heat

and everything.
We're Jawbreaker.

Last night was definitely
the worst show
of our career, ever.

I remember when
they played those shows
on the Jawbox tour

and it was just...
It was uncomfortable.

There was kind of this
weird unspoken feeling

that it was all
kind of wrapping up.

["JET BLACK" PLAYING]

PFAHLER: I think we were tired. Tired of, you know, just the grind.

I don't know, kinda like...

we were getting
to our wits' end, I think.

-PFAHLER: That's all it is.
-BAUERMEISTER: It's all right.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

The descending,
you were talking about
the descending...

Yeah, I'm not doing that one.

Let's just cut that.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. Okay.

[STRUMMING]

Like, I don't
even know what it is.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

Um... No.

Hmm.

[BOTH CHUCKLING]

You can say no.
I'm just asking.

No, I don't actually.
I don't.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

-Was there any stuff...
-I'll tell you, you know,

I'll tell you
why this is hard for me.

Let me tell you, honestly.

This is what Newton
did to the rainbow,

and the Romantics
talk about this.

That Newton tried to isolate
the colors of the rainbow

and name the colors,

thereby...
crucifying the mystery.

See what I'm saying?

Separating out
the colors of the rainbow.

And I think Jawbreaker
is actually this kind of
aggregate of energy.

And when you pull away the parts
they become less interesting.

I think at that point,
quite honestly, Blake
had kind of moved on.

Like, I think he...

realized that he wanted to grow
as a singer and a songwriter,

and as an artist,
outside of the confines
of the band.

I think
that would give me pause.

Like, that's sad to me.

You know?
Because you have to be...

always, like, moving to the new.

HOST: Since the band formed
has it been pretty smooth?

SCHWARZENBACH: No,
it's been war, all the time.

HOST: In, like, what sense?
Any stories?

SCHWARZENBACH: Well, yeah.
I mean, there's a lot.
I don't know.

We would, like,
fight like crazy and...

and then, uh, we had
some pretty brutal tours.

SCHWARZENBACH: So I guess
you want me to tell the story

of the end of the band
in front of the cemetery?

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

Well, in my... defense,

I would say,
I was really drunk.

[CHUCKLES] And I know
that's a poor defense.

BAUERMEISTER: It was the Foo Fighters tour, uh, '96.

Spring of '96.

It started off pretty good.

And then, I don't know,
something went wrong.

BRADLEY: Blake was being
a kind of a jerk.

I remember he was never
a big fan of Chris's driving.

And Chris was driving the van.

And then Blake
spit gum in my hair.

I was kind of like, "Oh, no."
[CHUCKLING]

I was like, "You know what,
I've had it.

"I'm sick and tired of being
a servant to your primadonna,
you know, ego."

I'm told that I screamed,
"You've been ruining my life
since I met you."

[CHUCKLING]

And I don't remember that,
but I do remember the sentiment.

And I threw the car into park,
and I went for him.

Chris pulled over
and just kinda jumped at Blake.

You know, went full on,
just like... You know,
like, with choke hands.

We tumbled out
of the van to go fight.
To, like, have it out.

Anthony was, like, pulling
Blake and Chris
back into the van.

And they were both kind of
swinging wildly and, like,
you know, hitting me instead.

It's kinda like
the dam just broke.

PFAHLER: Anthony called me
and told me that
they had this big blowout.

And I was like, "Is that it?
Like, should we even play
the rest of these shows?

"Did we break up?
Is it over?" You know?

SCHWARZENBACH: I remember
walking from my house on 22nd

in San Jose,
and we were
having a meeting.

I said, "I can't.
Just can't do this anymore."

And, uh...

it was almost like...

a Quaker wedding,
where you just sit there

and there was like
a lot of weight in the room.

And I was kinda like,
"Are you sure?"

Like, do we owe it
to ourselves to, like,
maybe take a break,

and, like, kinda owe it
to ourselves to do this band?

I remember Blake saying,
"Dude, I think
we owe it to ourselves

"to stop this band right now,
before it gets any worse."

'Cause, yeah,
we weren't friends by the end.

We weren't... I mean,
we hung out sometimes,
but, you know, it wasn't...

It was mostly for music.

And so, it was...
you know, it was
a really honest moment.

But also it was... painful.

COLCORD: So, at the end,
those kind of personalities,

that became
the excuse, you know?

It's like, "We can't get along, You know, everybody wants to do something different."

And all of those things
that had just been kind of
novelties and quirks,

you know, the whole way through,
like, became the reason

to not go on.

KATES: They had
their own principles,

they had their own way
of doing things.

And probably
the ultimate demise
of the band

was that they couldn't...
They weren't happy.

And they couldn't do it,
as most bands do,

for many, many,
many, many years

after they decide
they don't like each other.

I miss them as a band.
I miss the energy,
that crowd energy

where they had
everyone convinced that

they could actually
do it themselves.

Yeah, so, I, whenever
I get anxious I make a sticker.

Because...

I don't have any other way
to express myself right now.

Well, this is my new one.
It's real small, though.

"I miss the truth."

I'll just do it spontaneously in the early morning or in the middle of the night.

You know, if something
needs to be said.

And then I take 'em
out on the subway

and, um, kinda put 'em up
and track their progress.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

Uh... "Fuck you."

[DRUMMING]

PFAHLER: Play with both hands.

This is how my kids
know about Jawbreaker.

I'm not... I don't
force feed them my band.

But this is... Um, this is
what this one, what Mimi
used to sleep with

when she was a little baby.

And she loved it
because of this
silky stuff here.

But it's basically made out
of tour T-shirts and...

PFAHLER: I basically,
like, slept it off.

I just kind of like hibernated.

Hibernated for, like,
probably, like, two solid months

before I kinda
climbed out and was like,

"Okay, let's start
this next chapter
of my life."

The question is, uh, "What do I
know about Jawbreaker?"

And I hadn't heard of them
until Adam started working here
at the video store.

Not a fan. Apparently not a fan.
So maybe we should
take the microphone off.

So Christy, Dave Hawkins
and I got together
and were like...

"Uh, how about a video store?
Maybe we could
do a video store?"

Is this okay?
Here, that's good.

Jawbreaker,
not a fan, right?

Well, now I am.
Because I have to be.

[CHUCKLES]
Otherwise I'll get fired.

-[BAUERMEISTER SPEAKING]
-[ANDERSON SPEAKING]

Olympia, Washington.
I've been married...

We met at Blake's,
a Thanksgiving party

at Blake's, 14 years ago
this November.

And, uh, I'm a homemaker.

I take care of a 16-year-old cat
and try to keep the house clean

and I cook
and do the shopping.

Good man. Good man.

BAUERMEISTER: I think part of
the reason I started
getting pissed off

was I came to the realization
that I had peaked.

And just watching, you know,
you take off as an artist,

was, in some ways,
I think it inspired envy

and... some degree of malice,

and I think that's what
sort of fucked up
our relationship.

Sorry, I don't mean
to bum you out.

No, no. I mean,
I don't have any...

-See, that's what I'm saying.
-I don't have any
bitter animosity, really.

Exactly. See, that's what...
[STAMMERING]

I realized that
when I actually talked to you.

Yeah. I just want
to apologize.

Yeah, well, we did the job.

[CHUCKLES]
We did the band.

[CHUCKLING]

That's true.

♪ I have a present

♪ It is the present

♪ You have to
To learn to
Find it within you ♪

DEWITT: And then
the next time
I heard anyone

talking aboutDear You,
it was this lost classic.

It wasn't long after
they broke up that people
were, like,

trying to get copies for, like,
you know, $100 or whatever.

It's like everybody wanted
to buy the album on eBay
after it was gone, you know?

♪ Flattered that you

♪ Think I warrant ugliness

CAVALLO: It was just a record
that was a little bit
ahead of its time.

It probably would have
fit better in '98 or 2000.

It was like five years ahead.

PFAHLER: I went through
a long process
of hunting down the masters

and trying to get through
to people. It took me years
to get that record back,

but I finally
got the record back.

So now it's back in print
and back on vinyl and stuff.

People wanted...
People wanted
to hear it.

♪ You have to learn
To learn from your mistakes ♪

It was my second tattoo.
This moment in time
needs to be documented

and this band saved my life.

SHIFLETT: People look at it
and go, "What does that say?
'A-che'?"

No, it's a fucking
Jawbreaker song, man.

KATES: We are now,
whatever, 16 years on?

Of all the records
I've worked on in my life,

it's the one
I listen to the most.

I've come to really like
the record. I think
it's a good record.

It's a great record.
[CHUCKLES] You know,
what can you say?

♪ If you could save yourself

♪ You could save us all

The way the three instruments
interacted, it had
a very unique sound to it.

That uniqueness is part of
why they're still remembered
so fondly today.

I mean, there are still
so many Jawbreaker fans

that can paraphrase
every single
Jawbreaker lyric.

♪ Never goes out of style

ANDERSON: One of
those sessions, really.

I mean, it was
what it was, man.

Like, it was a good time,
we're all the same age, roughly,

more or less. It was a good time
for being 23, 24, 25 years old.

Pretty legendary music,
you know? I think.

I mean, I hear a lot of bands
now that are influenced
by Jawbreaker.

There's, like, hundreds of bands
that obviously grew up
listening to you guys.

But who was
thinking about that?

-PFAHLER: See what we have
and see if you fit in there.
-BAUERMEISTER: Sure. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So, like,
do you guys still get upset?

PFAHLER: We kinda grew up
musically together.

- So, and it's all documented.
-BAUERMEISTER: Yup.

Those like are our,
literally, our family albums.

Right.

[INTERVIEWER SPEAKING]

[LAUGHING]

-Right here, right now.
-PFAHLER: Yeah.

["CONDITION OAKLAND" PLAYING]

♪ I rode down to the tracks

♪ Thinking they might
Sing to me

♪ But they just stared back

♪ Broken, trainless
And black as night

♪ Climbed out onto my roof

♪ So I'd be a poet
In the night

♪ Beat the walls off my room

♪ I saw the big room
That is this life

♪ This is my condition

♪ Naked and hysterical

♪ Reaching to grab a hand
That I just slapped back at

♪ This is my condition

♪ Desperate, alone
Without an excuse

♪ I try to explain
Christ, what's the use? ♪

SCHWARZENBACH:
Not being in a band
makes me believe in bands.

And so I miss that. A lot.

PFAHLER: The narrative
should end with that
and not the...

The rags to riches to rags,

"punk band sells out,
shame on you," you know?

Okay?

["BOXCAR" PLAYING]

♪ You're not punk
I'm telling everyone

♪ Save your breath
I never was one

♪ You don't know
What I'm all about

♪ Killing cops
And reading Kerouac

♪ Enemies
Are all too familiar

♪ They're the ones
Who used to call me friend

♪ I'm coloring
Outside your guidelines

♪ I was passing out
When you were passing out
Your rules

♪ One, two, three, four
Who's punk?
What's the score? ♪

♪ Boat on a hill

♪ Never going to sea

♪ Anchored
To a fixer upper's dream

♪ This boat is beat
Never gonna be a boat now

♪ Thirsty sees the sea
From high on the ice plant ♪

♪ It gets loneliest at night

♪ Down by the liquor store

♪ Beneath the neon sky

♪ Our moonlight

♪ 6:00 a.m.
The floor comes alive
with lice

♪ The pan's dried up so tight

♪ With hardened beans
We're hungry ♪

♪ A near miss
Or a close call?

♪ I keep a room
At the hospital

♪ I scratch my accidents
Into the wall

♪ I couldn't wait
To breathe your breath

♪ I cut in line
I bled to death

♪ I got to you
There was nothing left

♪ I got to you
There was nothing left

♪ I got to you
There was nothing left ♪

JULIEN BAKER: Thank you.

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

♪ I wanna be a boat

♪ I wanna learn to swim

♪ Then I'll learn to float

♪ Then begin again

♪ I wanna be a boat

♪ I wanna learn to swim

♪ Then I'll learn to float

♪ Then begin again

♪ Begin again

♪ Boat remembers
the carpenter's sure hand

♪ Missing fishy flutter
On its rudder

♪ Sold at an auction
On a dolly ever since

♪ Sometimes rainy days
Drop boyish wonder

♪ He keeps patching it
And painting

♪ Thinking about
His pension plan

♪ But the boat
Is out to pasture

♪ Seems it never had a chance

♪ I wanna be a boat

♪ I wanna learn to swim

♪ Then I'll learn to float

♪ Then begin again

♪ I wanna be a boat

♪ I wanna learn to swim

♪ I wanna learn to swim

♪ Then begin again

♪ Begin again