Say Anything discusses new LP, retiring (sort of), sexuality + shares new song
Say Anything’s Max Bemis has posted a long open letter revealing the title and much more info about the band’s next album, OLIVER APPROPRIATE, and revealing that he’s retiring Say Anything, sort of. “Our plans as a collective are to, kind of sort of, end Say Anything. Or ‘the first era of Say Anything.’ Whatever you want to call it, it’s that thing. I don’t buy that shit when other bands do it, but whatever the fuck works as terminology. I need a break. We’ll return one day to play festivals and scoff at our career. But I want to say goodbye. There will be no full U.S. tour to support the record or in the near future. I am done being a touring musician as my main profession. Say Anything is retiring in the sense that JAY-Z did. It’s not an indefinite hiatus or a breakup because that’s impossible. But we’ll get to that.” “I’m not claiming this is our actual last record, but it may be. Who knows. That’s up to me and my family,” he later says.
As mentioned earlier this year, the album was produced by Will Yip. Max also now revealed that it features contributions and songwriting by Karl Kuehn, singer of Museum Mouth (who are signed to Max’s Equal Vision imprint Rory Records).
Max calls the new album “my first truly inclusive Say Anything record.” He adds that it’s “a record with lyrics that can be sung by girls, boys and anyone under the sun without correcting the endlessly pervasive dude pronouns.” He then explains how his breakthrough album …Is A Real Boy was written as a character (“people thought that character WAS me”). Max then goes on to discuss his sexuality (“I have always been bi-ish or queer or a straight guy who can also like boys”).
“So why should you care?” he asks. “Because this all applies to OLIVER APPROPRIATE. Years of being ‘that guy’ led to exhaustion with explaining myself to everyone. So I chose to write a full length about a self-loathing, slightly homophobic misogynist; essentially my opposite as a semi-actually-kinda-gay neurotic moralist who has been married to the female love of my life for ten years.”
You can read the full, very lengthy letter (and a shorter one from his wife Sherri DuPress-Bemis) HERE. Stay tuned for OLIVER APPROPRIATE.
Say Anything also released the album’s first single, “Daze,” which they debuted live at the BrooklynVegan/Dine Alone/Buzz Records SXSW showcase earlier this year. Max said on stage at that show that the new songs sound “kind of like the demos [he] made between Baseball and …Is A Real Boy,” and “Daze” definitely has that feel. It’s good stuff. Listen:
