Says It All

[Jason Tate]

LA Weekly (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/30/reverb-mcdonald.php) has an article on Say Anything, you can find that in the replies.

[Jason Tate]

When 20-year-old Max Bemis set out to record his first full-length album for Doghouse Records, he wanted to make an “awkwardly autobiographical” rock opera complete with dialogue. It was “going to be like Adaptation in that it was about a kid making an album for an independent label who develops a disorder in that every time he feels something strongly he breaks into song.”

Bemis set out to be the Charlie Kaufman of the rock world.

“Woody Allen is also an influence,” he says in an Indian restaurant, dressed in brown cords and an old T. “The self-depreciation, the neurosis. I have a huge issue with self-confidence, a huge self-loathing and a fear of death.”

In fact, the cinema has always influenced Bemis. His father designs movie posters and featured Bemis’ diapered bottom on the international 1987 Raising Arizona poster. He named his band after Cameron Crowe’s classic teen-love story starring John Cusack and Ione Skye, and he made shorts and wrote screenplays during high school.

When record producer Tim O’Hare heard Bemis wanted to make a rock opera, he brought in friend Stephen Trask, who wrote and produced all the songs for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, to co-produce. Six months later they had an album.

“It took a long-ass time,” says Bemis of the recording process, which went over budget. “In the middle I had a full psychotic breakdown. I was wandering the streets of Brooklyn, bloody ’cause I got punched in the face by a guy I thought was my friend in makeup. It was that classic case of thinking you’re being filmed. [The doctors said] exhaustion and stress were the main reasons, and paranoia. I don’t know, at the time there was so much pressure on me making the album. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough. I didn’t know how people thought of me personally. I was pushing myself all the time. And it got warped, I thought I was in my album basically, it was weird.”

“I was in the hospital for two to three weeks,” recalls Bemis, who played almost all of the instruments on his album except for drums. “I wasn’t crazy that whole time, just the first few days, but they kept me there anyway. I was dying not being able to finish my album.”

Since then, he has recovered completely from the breakdown that also had him believing that the people around him were cannibals hired to eat him. His band is presently touring with Dashboard Confessional. His album, Say Anything Is a Real Boy, recorded partially in Brooklyn, partially at Trask’s house in Connecticut and partially in L.A. after the breakdown, will be released this August.

Bemis includes Nirvana, Queen, Fugazi, the Beatles, Weezer, Oasis, Archers of Loaf, Radiohead, Green Day and Pavement as some of his favorites and explains that coming to terms with some of the less appealing aspects of the music business may have played a role in his breakdown.

“The concept behind the album was being in a band, like mine, on an independent label at this time when all the majors are buying up the smaller labels. The independents preach against capitalism and conformity but then go to these majors. Part of that hypocrisy is being an artist and trying to rebel and be away from the mainstream, and you’re really just a tool. There is so much bullshit involved. I just went crazy. I had to come to terms with it to become sane again. You have to just love it, like, ‘This is life.’”

He has been navigating his way through the music business since Drive-Thru Records tried to sign him back when he was in eighth grade. His stay-at-home mom was adamant that he wait until he graduated high school. Bemis, who had always played with a band, was also put off when they asked to sign him solo.

After that, Say Anything continued to play as a band and record and sell self released CD-Rs. The labels kept making offers. The band started to build a grassroots following. The front rows were always made up of cute private-school girls, complete with pointy shoes, expensive bags and miniskirts.

Bemis, who went to Sarah Lawrence to study poetry for a semester while waiting for his drummer to graduate high school, says he’s not sure if he has been in love, but knows he had his heart broken. In fact, his first song, “Sappy,” which started all the buzz, was written for her.

His manager says he is a “ladies man.” He says he is “shy.” His mom calls him “a romantic.”

Since returning from the hospital in January, Bemis is back living at his parents’ house, a few blocks from the Grove, where he wakes up late and walks the family’s two dogs for money.

[Brand New Shoe]

Wow, i had no idea about this. good article. Say Anything are great. im glad he's feeling better now.

[trinket]

poor max.

seriously. im glad hes okay now. i cant believe he came out with the psyche ward thing. scary times.

[poppa Q]

wow, thats pretty rad that drive thru tried to sign him when he was 8th grade..

[takingbackSVR]

marc loves say anything <33333

we just filmed say anything, it should be on our website soon: www.adamovideos.com