Before Banquets Say Goodbye, Hear a Swan Song from Their Final Record

Sometimes, a band is formed by people who need that sort of creative outlet in order to feel that they’re living a meaningful life. People who make the band their whole lives; responsibilities or expectations be damned, they get in the van, tour the country for a couple of months, and deal with whatever’s waiting for them back home when the tour is finished.

Other times, however, a band is just a band. Banquets are that band.

Formed in 2009 by friends who had all spent their youths playing in that first kind of band, the Banquets origin story is one of the most nonchalant I’ve ever heard. “Honestly, it’s the dumbest thing,” guitarist Dave Frenson (who also runs the Jersey City-based label Black Numbers) tells me. “This band started because I needed a place to store my equipment.”

Banquets’ first drummer, Pete Murphy, had such a space, and the two started playing music— “just to make some noise,” Murphy would say—together with Frenson’s new coworker, bassist Chris Larsen. They started writing together and recorded a demo with the idea that Frenson would sing, but quickly realized that they needed a singer.

Around the same time, Frenson’s old bandmate Travis Omilian, then playing in Let Me Run, quit that band in the middle of a tour—in Florida, no less—and came back to New Jersey. “For a second I thought he might be done,” Frenson admits. But after a few weeks, he started playing with Frenson, Larsen, and Murphy, and the rest is history.

Six years, two full-lengths, and a new drummer (Brian Maguire, added after the release of Top Button, Bottom Shelf) later, the band that started by accident has reached the end of the road. After releasing several records, splits, and EPs, Banquets have played all over the US and did four shows in Europe in 2012 (including a slot at the famed Groezrock Festival in Belgium), all while starting and continuing careers with very little time to put aside for touring, Banquets are calling it quits.

Before they do so, however, they’re releasing their third and final record, and the best one they’ve ever made: Spit at the Sun, ten songs that see the band reaching new creative heights while still maintaining the technical, anthemic punk sound that has made Banquets a hit at The Fest year after year.

Opening with the ominously titled “Forecaster,” which features the honest lyrics the band has become known for (“Crossing off daylights with medicine and chemicals / there’s fear of leaving / there’s fear of staying gone”), the record never really lets up with the exception of one song—the excellent “Lucky Lighter,” which is arguably the most unique track the band has ever written in its whole discography.

One of the highlights is an up-tempo jam that Omilian describes to me as partly being inspired by the movie Yes Man. “‘Hell, Hello’ was based loosely on the moments of my life where I was attempting to fill up the calendar with any type of event,” he explains. At the song’s climax, he finally tells the unnamed antagonist, “I’m worse for the wear, I fucking told you so.”

The record is a standout in their discography, which makes it a little surprising to learn that they nearly ended the band without it. “We almost didn’t do anything,” Frenson admits. “We only had two songs, ‘Hell Hello’ and ‘Backwash,’ and we were kicking around the idea of doing an EP. But when you think about the effort that goes into writing and recording an EP, it just seemed silly not to make it a full length. It’s a difference of four songs.”

“If you’re liking what you’re writing,” he continues, “you might as well keep writing it.”

Despite the band’s solid fanbase around the country when they play big shows such as aforementioned Fest and Death to False Hope Fest in North Carolina, the band has never had a large built-in crowd, even in their home state of New Jersey. Part of that is due to the fact that band never had the time to tour extensively due to jobs and other responsibilities. Thus, Banquets weren’t ever able to build the sort of momentum that other bands, ones more willing and able to drop out of life on a whim for months at a time, have been able to do.

It’s not like the opportunity didn’t ever present itself, though. “We were offered pretty large tours in both Europe and in the US with established bands,” he tells me. “We had to turn a full US tour down because it was two days shy of Travis (a special education teacher) going on summer vacation,” he says.

This record, as well, wasn’t without regrets. “We wanted Christine from Save Ends to sing on the record,” he says. “But our schedules suck and she has a full time job, so getting her to come down and sing on one song was a stretch.” “And there was another thing, too,” he added jokingly, “Me and Chris were driving to his bachelor party last weekend and listening to the Weakerthans, and trumpets kicked in on a song and he went, ‘Aw, we fucked up. There’s no trumpets on this record!’”

Although neither Frenson or Omilian admit it, I suspect that those little disappointments added up over time. Eventually, they decided the band couldn’t reach a higher level without a full-time commitment. “We’ve hit a plateau where we’d need to throw our lives away and ground it out for a couple of years on tour,” Frenson says. “There’s no way to get any bigger without doing that.” Omilian agrees. “It’s like asking for nacho cheese on a hot dog with two bites left,” he jokes. “Come on, dude. Eat that garbage and go home.”

The band is planning a couple of final shows over the last half of the year, including their record release in October and their last appearance at The Fest in Gainesville before hanging it up. And on playing again in the future, Frenson is forthcoming. “I’ll say right now, I’ll play a show whenever,” he tells me. “If there’s demand for it, we’re available, and people want us to do it, I’m down.”

Although Frenson has been refreshingly frank about his band in this exit interview, he talks about the end with a sense of humility that’s common among punk bands on their way out. “It’s not because we’re like, tired of it,” he concludes. “We amounted to ten or 20 times more than we ever intended with this band. I never thought we would play anything more than shitty basement shows. So…it’s been a good run.”

Listen to “Hell, Hello” below. Spit at the Sun is out October 9 on Black Numbers; you can pre-order it here.