This weekend, Teenage Bottlerocket announced that their beloved drummer Brandon Carlisle died after his family, including his twin brother and the band’s guitarist Ray Carlisle, took him off life support. He had been discovered unresponsive by his roommate days earlier. It’s unclear at this point if the band will continue, and if they do, it will be impossible to replace Brandon, a man who was not only lightning fast on the hi-hats, but also, as many friends and tourmates have pointed out over the past few days, an always good-spirited backbone of the band. To watch TBR on stage, you’d see the familiar sight of the bright, slightly dumbfounded Carlisle smile. And there were two of them.
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“This is the saddest day of my life,” Ray posted on Facebook following the announcement. “ I can’t stop crying.” There’s an unfathomable sadness in mourning a twin. Surviving twins often liken it to losing part of your soul. Many cite crushing guilt, the feeling of claustrophobia, and some have even found it to be so painful that they consider suicide. For two siblings who spent most of their lives touring the world, shredding alongside friends, playing music that made people happy, Ray’s grief must be unimaginable.
via FacebookThe Carlisle brothers formed Teenage Bottlerocket together in 2001. Musically, the band never broke new ground. They never tried to, really. In their 14 years together, the Laramie, Wyoming four-piece has unabashedly paid homage to the classic punk rock sound—four chords, verse-chorus-verse structure, and fast. Fast as all hell.“When we started Teenage Bottlerocket, we were just like ‘Screw that, we’re gonna wear leather jackets, we’re putting our Chuck Taylors back on and we’re writing songs that are meaningful to us and it’s gonna sound like this,’” Ray said in a recent interview when asked about avoiding the influence of the popular musical trends surrounding him.
It’s refreshing, really. In a scene where bands are constantly trying to reinvent the genre’s sound or drag it in new directions, with both positive and disastrous results, here is a band keeping it simple, proudly remaining the same while the world around them changes. As the definition of pop punk has stretched to absurd lengths in TBR’s time, to the point where hair-dyed pop groups performing on Good Morning America are being labeled ‘pop punk,’ Teenage Bottlerocket have been the constant and necessary torchbearers of the genre’s purest qualities, carrying forth the sound of bands before them like 7 Seconds, and the Ramones before them. Even to look at Brandon, you’d see him literally wearing his influences on his sleeve, with a Screeching Weasel tattoo on his shoulder and the iconic Ramones emblem inked squarely on his chest, right above a stomach tattoo reading “Carlisle.”
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via InstagramTeenage Bottlerocket’s lyrics are timeless as well, particularly because they largely avoid current or political issues and just focus on the staples—suburban boredom, girls, skateboarding. Well into their 30s, the band is an inspiration for the adult punks with perma-teenage mentalities, the same defiantly youthful resolve that led Descendents to write “I Don’t Want to Grow Up.”Even TBR’s album covers are simplistically congruous, with all six using the exact same artwork of a skull and crossbones but each in a different color scheme. One hot pink, one bright yellow, one neon green—even visually the band offers a soothing familiarity. They also sell a shirt fitting their own names into the Ramones logo. It isn’t exactly a novel idea. Numerous bands have done the same, but in TBR’s case, it felt less of a parody and more of a tribute.
via InstagramNone of this is meant to be a knock on the band or to imply that they are somehow unoriginal. Quite the opposite, in fact. To take a very bare bones musical style, one that has been carbon copied for three decades now, and be able to put just enough of a personal twist on it to stand out is a truly remarkable feat, one that countless, lesser bands have tried and failed at.In a way, Teenage Bottlerocket are like everyone else. In a way, they’re completely unique. They could’ve fit right in on a punk show in any time period—1979, 1994, 2015, and infinitely beyond. They may not have reinvented the wheel but they sure rolled it damn hard.Maybe Teenage Bottlerocket will soldier on, though they’ll have to do so without the spirit and energy of Brandon Carlisle, a drummer who kept the band’s sound right where it belonged in punk rock: fast. Fast as all hell. May he rest in peace and in power chords.Teenage Bottlerocket is accepting donations for Brandon's hospital bills via GoFundMe or Paypal at TBRpaypal@yahoo.comDan Ozzi is on Twitter - @danozzi
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via FacebookThe Carlisle brothers formed Teenage Bottlerocket together in 2001. Musically, the band never broke new ground. They never tried to, really. In their 14 years together, the Laramie, Wyoming four-piece has unabashedly paid homage to the classic punk rock sound—four chords, verse-chorus-verse structure, and fast. Fast as all hell.“When we started Teenage Bottlerocket, we were just like ‘Screw that, we’re gonna wear leather jackets, we’re putting our Chuck Taylors back on and we’re writing songs that are meaningful to us and it’s gonna sound like this,’” Ray said in a recent interview when asked about avoiding the influence of the popular musical trends surrounding him.It’s refreshing, really. In a scene where bands are constantly trying to reinvent the genre’s sound or drag it in new directions, with both positive and disastrous results, here is a band keeping it simple, proudly remaining the same while the world around them changes. As the definition of pop punk has stretched to absurd lengths in TBR’s time, to the point where hair-dyed pop groups performing on Good Morning America are being labeled ‘pop punk,’ Teenage Bottlerocket have been the constant and necessary torchbearers of the genre’s purest qualities, carrying forth the sound of bands before them like 7 Seconds, and the Ramones before them. Even to look at Brandon, you’d see him literally wearing his influences on his sleeve, with a Screeching Weasel tattoo on his shoulder and the iconic Ramones emblem inked squarely on his chest, right above a stomach tattoo reading “Carlisle.”
via InstagramNone of this is meant to be a knock on the band or to imply that they are somehow unoriginal. Quite the opposite, in fact. To take a very bare bones musical style, one that has been carbon copied for three decades now, and be able to put just enough of a personal twist on it to stand out is a truly remarkable feat, one that countless, lesser bands have tried and failed at.In a way, Teenage Bottlerocket are like everyone else. In a way, they’re completely unique. They could’ve fit right in on a punk show in any time period—1979, 1994, 2015, and infinitely beyond. They may not have reinvented the wheel but they sure rolled it damn hard.Maybe Teenage Bottlerocket will soldier on, though they’ll have to do so without the spirit and energy of Brandon Carlisle, a drummer who kept the band’s sound right where it belonged in punk rock: fast. Fast as all hell. May he rest in peace and in power chords.Teenage Bottlerocket is accepting donations for Brandon's hospital bills via GoFundMe or Paypal at TBRpaypal@yahoo.comDan Ozzi is on Twitter - @danozzi