The Devil and God are Raging for Reconciliation

I am on the mend
At least now I can say that I am trying
And I hope you will forget things I still lack

-Brand New — “Sowing Season”

Fall, 2006. It seemed like we actually had fall weather then, before the seasons somehow blended into each other and we were left with only summer and winter. It was November and the leaves barely hanging onto the trees were letting us know that winter was just a breath away. It was my time. Fall has always been my time. I was particularly feeling it this year.

Months earlier, I had unceremoniously escorted my then husband out of the house. I packed his bags for him. I bought him a train ticket back to where he came from. I drove him to the train station. He never crossed my threshold again, and the ensuing months were spent recovering from what can only be described as a years long break with reality. I was broken, but I was on the mend.

In late November, as I was healing but feeling like I needed something to push me, the world presented me with a new album from my favorite band, Brand New. I was nervous about it; their previous album, Deja Entendu, was a phenomenal record and I was afraid that The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me would not live up to it.

The record starts quietly. Jesse Lacey singing in hushed tones. I am on the mend. And I knew. I knew this album would turn me inside out. I sat quietly by myself in my little office in my house, drifting in and out of the music, the lyrics, thinking about my life over the past few years. I listened a second time and was so drawn in, I didn’t notice it had gotten dark out until the last strains of “Handcuffs” faded away. The album caught me in a way very few records have; I felt like it belonged to me. We were entwined together forever. I carried that CD with me from home to the car to work. I listened at every available moment. I wrote down lyrics and put them between the pages of my journal, like pressed flowers of poetry. I was a kid again, diving into songs that spoke to me, that sang to me, that wrapped themselves around me and clung to my heart. I needed this album then. It was the right time.

Those broken years before the ex took the long train ride home were spent dabbling in emo music, but mostly listening to nu-metal, a genre which spoke to my rage, my bitterness, and my broken mental state. After he left and I felt like I was healing, I took to more “guy and guitar” type music. It soothed my soul. I no longer felt that rage. Instead, I felt a sense of peace, as if I had been riding rocky waters for so long and the sea just decided to calm itself. On even ground again, I was able to appreciate music once more that wasn’t screaming at me. Brand New whispered to me and that was all I needed.

Devil and God brought me everything. Sadness, elation, faith, hope, despair. I needed to feel all these emotions, I needed to break the storm cloud that had been brewing over my head for what felt like an eternity. The timing was impeccable.

Take all that you have
And turn it into something you were missing
Somebody threw that brick, shattered all your plans

Suddenly it’s 2019. Brand New has released two albums since Devil and God; 2009’s Daisy and 2017’s Science Fiction. I loved both albums, but neither of them held the connection, the bond that I had with Devil and God. My love for the band was unwavering, though, and I saw them in 2016 and again in October, 2017. My twitter bio claimed I was the world’s oldest Brand New fan. I spoke of them to anyone who would listen.

And then it all fell apart. In late 2017, Jesse Lacey was accused by two women of sexual misconduct. They said that while they were underage (and he was in his 20s), he asked them for nude photos and had sexually explicit conversations with them on Skype.

I was stunned. My world was rocked. Here was this man I admired, whose songs permeated my very existence, whose words were scribbled down in my journal, and it turns out he was a predator. I was sickened and upset beyond words. And after the smoke cleared, after I read all the articles and Facebook posts and Lacey’s admission and apology, I didn’t know what to do. I was left holding years worth of Brand New fandom in my arms and I didn’t know whether to throw those years away or hold them closer, to protect them from anyone who would want to take them from me.

An immense sense of betrayal formed, and that betrayal hung in the air, permeated my very presence. I couldn’t shake from my mind the stories of young girls being preyed upon. I couldn’t stop thinking about their trauma. What other young girls have gone through this with other artists or are going through it right now, I wondered. It’s so easy to place your trust in your heroes, especially when you’re not quite mature, and when someone you admire pays attention to you, lavishes praise and presents upon you, it’s hard to push that away. Lacey took that trust and admiration and mangled them into something unrecognizable.

At that moment I could not reconcile my love of Brand New with the things Lacey did. There was a push and pull happening, and the push won out. I stopped listening to Brand New intentionally. But they kept coming up on shuffle on one of my Spotify playlists and every time Lacey’s voice would whisper at me, I would silence it.

I was angry. I was sad. Something that loomed large in my life was taken away from me, something that gave me comfort in bad times, that buoyed my good times, an integral part of my world. It would have been so easy to just forgive him and keep listening, but forgiveness is not mine to give, that act belongs to his victims.

And so I began my life post-Brand New, post-Devil and God. Time slipped away, and other artists, other albums mostly filled the void. But there was always that lingering sense of a ghost at play in my phone or on my computer while I was listening to music, a magnetic pull that sometimes veered me toward queueing up “Sowing Season,” but I was able to ignore.

It was last month when that pull became too much. Just when I thought I was over it and I’d never think of Brand New as a favorite band again, there was what started as a small itch that grew bigger and bigger until I needed to scratch it. I was yearning to listen to Devil and God. A depressive stage had taken hold of me, and my soul was crying out for the comfort that album has always afforded me. Not just comfort, but the knowing, familiar camaraderie that always came with listening to someone else’s sorrow. I longed for the whisper of “Sowing Season,” the pain of “Degausser,” the despair of “Limousine.”

I needed to reconcile my anger and sense of betrayal with my need to listen to what was essentially my comfort food of music. Would I betray the victims by listening? Would I betray myself? Does my need for musical comfort outweigh my moral obligation to dismiss Jesse Lacey from my life?

It wasn’t the album I was mad at. It wasn’t the music that disappointed me. I needed to scratch that itch.

And so it happened that one morning at work, in the throes of a sadness born of depression, I hit play on Devil and God. What happened was this: I immediately sank into the music, like an old friend had come in for a hug and I let them swallow me up in their arms. What didn’t happen was this: I did not feel guilt or remorse. I was elated to be listening again. I was once again entwined with the album, as was meant to be.

A slew of thoughts went through my head; thoughts about Jesse Lacey and his transgressions, about how he has kept quiet since then, not trying to insert himself into the music world again. I had hopes for him; hope that he had learned, grown, tried to make amends with life. Again, it is not my place to forgive him. Instead, I just accept the gift of music he has given me, without accepting any strings that were attached to that. I don’t have to admire him as a person to fully envelop myself in his songs; there are so many artists I listen to whose politics or religion or behavior do not align with my beliefs. To discard them all would be discard my own history with their music, something I am not willing to do.

Time to get the seeds into the cold ground
It takes a while to grow anything
Before it’s coming to the end, yea

I haven’t moved on, moved past what Jesse Lacey did. I’ll always feel for the victims, and while Lacey’s apology may have been passionate and contrite, contrition doesn’t erase events. I’ve learned how to separate the man from his art. There are people who say you can’t do this, that my listening to his music again is condoning what he did, but I don’t buy that. I am listening for me, I am doing what my brain and heart need. There’s always this — you can laud the accomplishments of your broken heroes without lauding them. You can admire their songs, their home runs, their movies, and take enjoyment in all that, without implying you condone everything they do. Mostly, you have to learn how to separate not just the art, but the person they are from yourself. They are just people. Flawed, fallible humans who have been raised up by their fans to a place where it is impossible to fall from without breaking apart. I don’t know Jesse Lacey as a person. I know him as a songwriter, as a singer, as a man who shares his emotions with us. I don’t know if he’s grown from this experience. But I have.

If there’s anything learned from this, it’s this: don’t have heroes. It doesn’t matter what walk of life. Actors, musicians, politicians, athletes. Don’t have heroes. Because there’s a chance that pedestal you put them on will crack and crumble and you’ll be left with a hero who has broken into a hundred jagged pieces and is trying to pull themselves together. And no matter how much they glue the pieces back, they will forever be chipped, broken, damaged. Much like your heart.

I’m happy to be listening to Devil and God again; it meant so much to me back in 2006 and I will always appreciate it for helping me to purge my emotions at the time. Perhaps I will move on to the rest of the catalog now. I miss Deja Entendu, I miss Science Fiction and Daisy. In a way, I did a sort of penance by not listening for two years. And while I’m not the one who needs to do the penance, it felt like the right thing to do. I’m at peace with my decision; having this music back in my life allows me to be at peace with myself.

I am not your friend
I am just a man who knows how to feel
I am not your friend
I’m not your lover
I’m not your family