WITH SO MANY preconceived notions about his band’s music, Adam Bravin of She Wants Revenge knows the feeling of being boxed in. But not literally, as some listeners have assumed.
“A lot of people had the misconception after the first and second records that we’re these two Goth guys who sleep in coffins and listen to Bauhaus,” says Bravin, the multi-instrumentalist who formed the group with vocalist-guitarist Justin Warfield in 2003.
Indeed, the dark beat of the group’s 2006 self-titled debut did plenty to cement that image. A horror-movie-inspired video for the Top 10 alt-rock hit “Tear You Apart,” directed by Joaquin Phoenix, added to the vibe (the other video, for “These Things,” had Shirley Manson of Garbage cleaning blood off a bathroom floor).
But what fans heard on that album and the 2007 follow-up, This Is Forever, is only one side of the band, Bravin insists.
“The second record was really kind of an extension of the first record. We sometimes say the first record can be considered the night before, the second record can be considered the morning after. They’re definitely companion pieces, they go together,” he says.
Some indication of that can be heard on the two EPs that She Wants Revenge have released since then, especially the funk-driven Up and Down.
“The truth is, we’re hip-hop heads,” says Bravin. “We grew up listening to everything from Prince to Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest, Run-D.M.C., Funkadelic and Parliament, all that stuff.”
But when they started work on their soon-to-be-released third album, Valley Heart, they wanted to defy expectations even more.
“What we decided to do on this record was to make a real serious point about not repeating anything that we’ve done musically. We’d be in there playing something and be like ‘No, man, that sounds like this song or that idea we already did. Let’s scrap it and start over.’ We really tried our best to shed all the influences.”
Those influences, Bravin admits, were worn on their sleeves for several years. Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, they heard bands like Depeche Mode, New Order and the Cure on KROQ, and channeled them directly into their early songs.
“The first two records, we were never shy talking about our influences,” he says. “There were a lot of influences on the first record. Some people got ’em right, a lot of people got ’em wrong, but they’re there.”
The most ironic part is that She Wants Revenge is compared to Joy Division more than any other band, but that apparently has more to do with Warfield’s deep voice, since Bravin says Ian Curtis was never really an influence.
“We make music based on the music that we grew up listening to. When we were listening to KROQ as kids, no one was playing Joy Division,” he says. “You might catch ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ on a weekend on some specialty show. But we were New Order fans, we listened to ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Perfect Kiss.'”
Bravin hasn’t yet come up with a way to describe how their music has changed on Valley Heart. But the two singles already released offer some clues. “Take the World” is more atmospheric than previous She Wants Revenge songs, evidence that the duo have indulged their love of soundtracks for ’80s films like Blade Runner. (The video, directed by Bravin, even opens with a quote from Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult favorite). While still dark and danceable, the song borrows more from the Smiths (including a near-quote of “How Soon Is Now?”) than anything that could be classified as goth.
Likely to be more controversial with fans is the most recent single, “Must Be the One,” an upbeat, almost U2-like anthem. Bravin has heard a lot of different reactions from fans to the song on this tour, including disbelief that She Wants Revenge could write a “real” love song.
“Justin chose to write about a different side of love,” he acknowledges. “But that’s not to say the whole album is that way.”
Indeed, he’s already preparing himself for the next box people will try to put them in: “People, I think, are quick to assume just because they hear one song that’s not so dark, suddenly we’re these two guys who are going to start wearing fluorescent colors. That’s not going to happen.”
Still, Bravin and Warfield are both happy to let fans see a new side of the band.
“I think a lot of people will be surprised by the single, but I think when the album finally comes out and they hear it in its entirety, they’ll realize that it’s always us,” he says. “We’ve made a lot of music together, we’ve made a lot of music separately, and I think we can both agree on the fact that this is the best music we’ve ever made.”
SHE WANTS REVENGE
Sunday, 9pm; $20
