Jawbreaker (band)


Jawbreaker is an American punk rock band that was initially active from 1986 to 1996, and reunited in 2017. The band is considered to be extremely influential to the 1990s emo and punk genre with their "poetic take on hardcore." Their influence on the punk scene has led some critics to label Jawbreaker as the best punk rock band of the 1990s.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach, bassist Chris Bauermeister, and drummer Adam Pfahler formed the band while students at New York University, later relocating to Los Angeles where they released their debut album Unfun through independent record label Shredder Records. Relocating again to San Francisco the next year, they released 1992's Bivouac through the Tupelo Recording Company and The Communion Label.
Schwarzenbach's charismatic, frustrated, and personal lyrics helped establish him as a cult idol, even as he underwent surgery to remove painful, voice-threatening polyps from his throat. Jawbreaker toured with Nirvana in 1993 and released 24 Hour Revenge Therapy in 1994, attracting the attention of major labels. They signed a $1 million contract with DGC Records and released 1995's Dear You, but its more polished production and smooth vocals caused significant backlash from the band's core audience. Internal tensions led to Jawbreaker's dissolution in 1996 and Schwarzenbach had repeatedly stated that a reunion would never happen. However, the band announced a reunion in April 2017, and they are currently in the process of making the follow-up to Dear You.
Following the breakup, the members of Jawbreaker were active in other projects including Jets to Brazil and Whysall Lane. Pfahler continued to issue previously recorded Jawbreaker material through his Blackball Records label, and public interest in the band continued due in part to nationally charting pop-punk and emo acts openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound. In 2004, Pfahler licensed the out-of-print Dear You from DGC's parent company Geffen Records and re-released it to positive reviews. Remastered versions of the rest of the band's catalog have since been released.

History

1986–1990: Formation and ''Unfun''

Prior to forming Jawbreaker, Blake Schwarzenbach and Adam Pfahler were childhood friends in Santa Monica, California and classmates at Crossroads High School. In 1986 they moved to New York City to attend New York University and decided to start a band. Seeking a bassist, they responded to a flyer posted on campus by Chris Bauermeister. "It wasn't just this Xeroxed thing", Pfahler later recalled, "It was something he had drawn, like a poster. It was all colored and it named all the right bands." The trio began practicing together at Giant Studios on Sixth Avenue, with Schwarzenbach on guitar and Pfahler on drums. "It was just us, trying to figure each other out in that hourly room for a while", recalls Schwarzenbach, "We went through a lot of incarnations before we sounded anything like the band we became. I am glad we didn't play live , because I had to go through my hardcore phase." They practiced with several singers and went through several names during this time, eventually settling on the name Rise.
In the fall of 1987 Schwarzenbach, Pfahler, and Bauermeister took time off from college and moved to Los Angeles to pursue Rise, adding Bauermeister's childhood friend Jon Liu on lead vocals. This changed, however, when Schwarzenbach wrote and sang "Shield Your Eyes" for the band's demo. It was the first recording on which he sang, and he later noted that it "kind of defined where we would go as a band". According to Liu, "That was the song where everything worked. The vocal arrangements. The lyrics. It was a perfect piece. But to my detriment, I kind of bristled against it. I was like, 'This is amazing, and I don't think I can do anything like this. The band soon changed their name to Jawbreaker and Schwarzenbach, Pfahler, and Bauermeister decided to continue as a trio with Schwarzenbach on vocals. Bauermeister was given the task of informing Liu that he was no longer in the band, which proved awkward since the two were roommates. "I am cool with it now," reflected Liu in 2010, "It was to everybody's benefit. But at the time, there was some bitterness."
"Shield Your Eyes" was the first Jawbreaker song to be released, on the 7" vinyl compilation album The World's in Shreds Volume Two on independent record label Shredder Records. This was followed by a single for the song "Busy" and the Whack & Blite 7" E.P. in 1989. In total Jawbreaker wrote almost 20 songs in 1988 and 1989, many of which appeared on compilations and split singles over the next two years. The band played their first show March 16, 1989 at Club 88 in Los Angeles and recorded their debut album, Unfun, in two days in Venice in January 1990. Released through Shredder, its pop-punk sound was distinguished by Schwarzenbach's lyrical and vocal intensity.
In the summer of 1990 Jawbreaker embarked on the "Fuck 90" tour with Econochrist, which proved to be a grueling experience that briefly broke up the band. "It was roughly two months, in the summer, for a totally unknown band", according to Schwarzenbach. "Of that tour, we probably had six rad shows. Then there were maybe 25 utterly forgettable metal-club-in-Florida-type shows." Bauermeister stopped speaking to Pfahler and Schwarzenbach when the tour reached Canada, with several weeks still to go. By the conclusion of the tour, tensions between the members had risen to the point where they announced the band's breakup. Schwarzenbach and Bauermeister returned to New York University to finish their degrees, and rarely spoke to each other.

1991–1992: Relocation and ''Bivouac''

Pfahler quickly regretted the breakup, while Schwarzenbach and Bauermeister eventually reconciled in New York. The trio decided to continue with Jawbreaker and relocate to San Francisco, where they had already earned the recognition of local acts Econochrist and Samiam. In 1991 they moved into an apartment complex in the Mission District; Pfahler and Schwarzenbach shared an apartment across the hall from Bauermeister, J Church's Lance Hahn and roadie Raul Reyes. They recorded their second album, Bivouac, with recording engineer Billy Anderson, and it was released in 1992 through the local labels Tupelo Recording Company and The Communion Label. Pfahler has described the album as "varied and ambitious", noting that it "took ages to finish" and "I think we were trying to prove something with that record. We were definitely stretching out."
By the time of Bivouac's release Schwarzenbach had developed a polyp on his throat, causing him to lose his voice onstage. As the band drove across the United States to fly from New York City to begin a European tour, he began to suffer serious vocal problems. Though the condition caused him great pain while singing, threatened his voice, and was potentially fatal should the polyp burst or lodge in his throat, the band decided to do the European tour anyway. "That period seemed really arduous for me because I was so physically challenged by singing", recalls Schwarzenbach, "Every day was full of dread, having to stand up there and see what would happen. But it was too late. We had to play or else we would have bankrupted our friends." By the time the band reached Ireland, Schwarzenbach's condition had worsened and the tour was put on hold while he had surgery to remove the polyp. The tour resumed a week later. In August 1992, Jawbreaker was noticed by the magazine Spin when the magazine published a story called "California Screamin'", which documented the East Bay punk scene.

1993–1994: ''24 Hour Revenge Therapy'' and signing to DGC

Upon returning to San Francisco, Pfahler and Schwarzenbach were homeless and slept in the band's touring van for a brief period. They soon found new residences, with Schwarzenbach moving to nearby Oakland where he began writing lyrics for the band's third album, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Jawbreaker travelled to Chicago in May 1993 and recorded the bulk of the album with engineer Steve Albini, though the album's production is officially credited on liner notes and packaging to Fluss, Albini's cat. They recorded three additional tracks with Billy Anderson in San Francisco that August, and the album was released in early 1994 through Tupelo/Communion. Music journalist Andy Greenwald and Alternative Press' Trevor Kelley both cite it as the album most beloved by the band's fans. "24 Hour Revenge Therapy is arguably Jawbreaker's best album," writes Greenwald, "but it is also far and away its most loved, the best example of Schwarzenbach's innate ability to marry the boozy, bluesy regretfulness of the Replacements with the loose, seat-of-the-pants attitude of Gilman Street punk." As dubbed copies of the album began to circulate in late summer 1993, the band began to earn a devoted fanbase.
In October 1993, prior to 24 Hour Revenge Therapy's release, Jawbreaker were asked to open for Nirvana on six dates of their In Utero tour. Fans bristled against this, wary that it would result in Jawbreaker—a beloved independent band—signing to major label DGC Records, whom Nirvana were contracted to. "I think we were fortunate ", recalls Schwarzenbach, "But we still got some flack. Even at that point, there were people who didn't think we were especially punk-rock, as some people practiced it. I don't think there was any major pushback, though, until we did the Nirvana tour. That's officially when it started." According to Pfahler: "People really came down on us for going on tour with Nirvana. They really saw it as, 'Okay, here we go. This is the first step. The next thing that happens is that someone from the label sees them and they get snapped up.' Which is kind of what happened."
Following the release of 24 Hour Revenge Therapy in February 1994, Jawbreaker received contract offers from major record labels. Though they had already decided to break up following the album's supporting tours due to tiredness and frustration, the band decided to consider the offers, partly due to the major label successes of their peers Green Day and Jawbox. They met with a number of labels over the course of the year, narrowing their options to Warner Bros. Records, Capitol Records, and DGC. Rumors spread throughout the Bay Area suggesting Jawbreaker had signed to major label, and in a 1994 concert where Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong was among the audience, Schwarzenbach confronted the major label gossip, confirming the approaches by representatives but promised to never sell out. Nonetheless, the band signed to DGC in a one million-dollar deal, due in part to the relationship they had developed with A&R representative Mark Kates who they had met on the Nirvana tour. Fans and key figures in the punk rock community were quick to denounce the band for the move. In an interview for Ben Weasel's Panic Button zine following the Nirvana tour, Schwarzenbach had stated flatly that Jawbreaker was not interested in signing to a major record label. In response to the signing, Weasel took the band to task in a column for Maximumrocknroll accompanied by a photo depicting him eating his own hat, which he had promised to do if the band ever signed to a major.