Jawbreaker (band)
Encyclopedia
Jawbreaker was an American punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 band active from 1986 to 1996 and considered one of the most influential acts of the early-1990s emo
Emo
Emo is a style of rock music and its associated subcultureEmo may also refer to:- Businesses :* Emo , an Irish oil company and filling station chain* Emo Speedway, a racetrack in Emo, Ontario...

 movement. Lead vocalist and guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach
Blake Schwarzenbach
Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach is an American musician. He was the singer and left-handed guitarist of Jawbreaker , Jets to Brazil , The Thorns of Life , and forgetters -Education:...

, bassist Chris Bauermeister, and drummer Adam Pfahler formed the band while students at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, later relocating to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 where they released their debut album Unfun
Unfun
Unfun is the first album by the American punk rock band Jawbreaker, released on Shredder Records in 1990. The album was remastered by Jawbreaker drummer Adam Pfahler in 2008, and was reissued March 30th, 2010, adding the 7" mix of "Busy".-Track listing:...

(1990) through independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

 Shredder Records. Relocating again to San Francisco the following year, they released 1992's Bivouac
Bivouac (album)
Bivouac is the second album by American punk band Jawbreaker, released on Tupelo/Communion Records in 1992.- LP tracks :# "Shield Your Eyes" - 3:10# "Big" - 5:06# "Sleep" - 4:06# "Donatello" - 3:03# "P.S...

through the Tupelo Recording Company and The Communion Label. Schwarzenbach's charisma and personal, frustrated lyrics helped to establish him as a cult idol
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...

, even as he underwent surgery to remove painful and voice-threatening polyp
Polyp (medicine)
A polyp is an abnormal growth of tissue projecting from a mucous membrane. If it is attached to the surface by a narrow elongated stalk, it is said to be pedunculated. If no stalk is present, it is said to be sessile. Polyps are commonly found in the colon, stomach, nose, sinus, urinary bladder...

s from his throat. Jawbreaker toured with Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

 in 1993 and released 24 Hour Revenge Therapy in 1994, attracting the attention of major labels. They signed a $1 million contract with DGC Records
DGC Records
DGC Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and currently operates as an auxiliary label of Interscope Records.-Company history:...

 and released 1995's Dear You
Dear You
Dear You is Jawbreaker's only major label album. Released on September 12, 1995 through DGC Records, it is their fourth and final full-length studio album....

, but the album's polished production and smooth vocals resulted in a significant backlash from the band's core audience. Internal tensions led to Jawbreaker's dissolution in 1996.

Following the breakup, the members of Jawbreaker were active in other projects including Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil was an American rock band formed in 1997. It was founded by Blake Schwarzenbach, former frontman of Jawbreaker. When Schwarzenbach relocated to Brooklyn, New York, after Jawbreaker had disbanded, he reunited with friend Jeremy Chatelain and the two began working on four-track...

 and Whysall Lane
Whysall Lane
Whysall Lane was an American indie rock band based in San Francisco whose music combines elements of 1990s indie rock and classic rock with lyrics inspired by romantic obsession...

. Pfahler continued to issue previously-recorded Jawbreaker material through his Blackball Records
Blackball Records
Blackball Records is an independent record label based in San Francisco. It was founded in 1989 by Adam Pfahler, who was the drummer for Jawbreaker at the time...

 label, and public interest in the band continued due in part to nationally-charting pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...

 and emo acts openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound. In 2004 Pfahler licensed the out-of-print Dear You from DGC's parent company Geffen Records
Geffen Records
Geffen Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operated as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-Beginnings:...

 and re-released it to positive response. He has since issued a remastered
Audio mastering
Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...

 version of Unfun, and plans to remaster the rest of the band's catalog. In 2007 Jawbreaker briefly reunited in the studio during the recording of a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about the band, but rumors of a full reunion have repeatedly been dispelled by the members and the film has no projected release date.

1986–1990: Formation and Unfun

Prior to forming Jawbreaker, Blake Schwarzenbach
Blake Schwarzenbach
Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach is an American musician. He was the singer and left-handed guitarist of Jawbreaker , Jets to Brazil , The Thorns of Life , and forgetters -Education:...

 and Adam Pfahler were childhood friends in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

 and classmates at Crossroads High School. In 1986 they moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to attend New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 and decided to start a band. Seeking a bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

, they responded to a flyer
Flyer (pamphlet)
__notoc__A flyer or flier, also called a circular, handbill or leaflet, is a form of paper advertisement intended for wide distribution and typically posted or distributed in public place....

 posted on campus by Chris Bauermeister. "It wasn't just this Xeroxed thing", Pfahler later recalled, "It was something he had drawn, like a poster. It was all colored and it named all the right bands." The trio began practicing together at Giant Studios on Sixth Avenue
Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)
Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...

, with Schwarzenbach on guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and Pfahler on drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

. "It was just us, trying to figure each other out in that hourly room for a while", recalls Schwarzenbach, "We went through a lot of incarnations before we sounded anything like the band we became. I am glad we didn't play live [very much then], because I had to go through my hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...

 phase." They practiced with several singers and went through several names during this time, eventually settling on the name Rise.

In the fall of 1987 Schwarzenbach, Pfahler, and Bauermeister took time off from college and moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 to pursue Rise, adding Bauermeister's childhood friend Jon Liu on lead vocals. This changed, however, when Schwarzenbach wrote and sang "Shield Your Eyes" for the band's demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...

. It was the first recording on which he sang, and he later noted that it "kind of defined where we would go as a band". According to Liu, "That was the song where everything worked. The vocal arrangements. The lyrics. It was a perfect piece. But to my detriment, I kind of bristled against it. I was like, 'This is amazing, and I dont' think I can do anything like this. The band soon changed their name to Jawbreaker and Schwarzenbach, Pfahler, and Bauermeister decided to continue as a trio with Schwarzenbach on vocals. Bauermeister was given the task of informing Liu that he was no longer in the band, which proved awkward as the two were roommates. "I am cool with it now," reflected Liu in 2010, "It was to everybody's benefit. But at the time, there was some bitterness."

"Shield Your Eyes" was the first Jawbreaker song to be released, on the 7" vinyl compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 The World's in Shreds Volume Two on independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

 Shredder Records. This was followed by a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 for "Busy" and the Whack & Blite E.P. in 1989. In total Jawbreaker wrote almost 20 songs in 1988 and 1989, many of which appeared on compilations and split singles
Split album
A split album is a music album which includes tracks by two or more separate artists. There have been singles and EPs released in the same nature, which can be referred to as split singles and split EPs respectively...

 over the next two years. The band played their first show March 16, 1989 at Club 88 in Los Angeles and recorded their debut album, Unfun
Unfun
Unfun is the first album by the American punk rock band Jawbreaker, released on Shredder Records in 1990. The album was remastered by Jawbreaker drummer Adam Pfahler in 2008, and was reissued March 30th, 2010, adding the 7" mix of "Busy".-Track listing:...

, in two days in Venice in January 1990. Released through Shredder, its pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...

 sound was distinguished by Schwarzenbach's lyrical and vocal intensity.
In the summer of 1990 Jawbreaker embarked on the "Fuck 90" tour with Econochrist
Econochrist
Econochrist was a political hardcore punk band active in the late eighties and early nineties. They moved from Arkansas to the San Francisco Bay Area to become part of the punk music scene there...

, which proved to be a grueling experience that briefly broke up the band. "It was roughly two months, in the summer, for a totally unknown band", according to Schwarzenbach. "Of that tour, we probably had six rad shows. Then there were maybe 25 utterly forgettable metal-club-in-Florida-type shows." Bauermeister stopped speaking to Pfahler and Schwarzenbach when the tour reached Canada, with several weeks still to go. By the conclusion of the tour, tensions between the members had risen to the point where they announced the band's breakup. Schwarzenbach and Bauermeister returned to New York University to finish their degrees, and rarely spoke to each other.

1991–1992: Relocation and Bivouac

Pfahler quickly regretted the breakup, while Schwarzenbach and Bauermeister eventually reconciled in New York. The trio decided to continue with Jawbreaker and relocate to San Francisco, where they had already earned the acceptance of local acts Econochrist and Samiam
Samiam
-Biography:Samiam was formed in late 1988 after the breakup of the Gilman club mainstay Isocracy. Their first show was in January 1989 with Christ on Parade. They released records through New Red Archives and Hopeless Records in the US and Burning Heart Records in Europe. In the mid-'90s, the band...

. In 1991 they moved into an apartment complex in the Mission District; Pfahler and Schwarzenbach shared an apartment across the hall from Bauermeister and J Church
J Church (band)
J Church was an American punk rock band formed by guitarist and vocalist Lance Hahn and bassist Gardner Maxam in 1992 in San Francisco, California after the demise of Hahn and Maxam's former band, Cringer...

's Lance Hahn. They recorded their second album, Bivouac
Bivouac (album)
Bivouac is the second album by American punk band Jawbreaker, released on Tupelo/Communion Records in 1992.- LP tracks :# "Shield Your Eyes" - 3:10# "Big" - 5:06# "Sleep" - 4:06# "Donatello" - 3:03# "P.S...

, with recording engineer Billy Anderson
Billy Anderson (music)
Billy Anderson is a record producer, engineer and musician. He has worked with hundreds of bands over the past 20 years, including Cormorant, Eyehategod, Mr. Bungle, Red House Painters, Fantômas and Sleep...

, and it was released in 1992 through the local labels Tupelo Recording Company and The Communion Label. Pfahler has described the album as "varied and ambitious", noting that it "took ages to finish" and that "I think we were trying to prove something with that record. We were definitely stretching out."
Many of Bivouac's lyrics were rooted in Schwarzenbach's specific concerns, and were often lifted directly from his journal. This focus on personal, immediate matters, coupled with descriptive imagery and word choices, attracted listeners to Schwarzenbach and made him a cult idol in emo
Emo
Emo is a style of rock music and its associated subcultureEmo may also refer to:- Businesses :* Emo , an Irish oil company and filling station chain* Emo Speedway, a racetrack in Emo, Ontario...

 circles. "The attraction then was to the songwriter," writes music journalist Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald
Andy Greenwald is a writer of social commentary, specifically about popular music. He is currently a senior contributing writer at Spin Magazine, and has also written for such publications as The Washington Post, Blender, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, MTV Magazine, Complex, and Magnet...

 in Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, "it wasn't the song that the listeners related to, it was the singer." Jawbreaker's tour manager Christy Colcord recalls that "Most of [the fans at that point] hovered around Blake because he was, like, this poet to them. It was all these people who really wanted their heartbreak validated by someone who could understand—or wanted to drink whiskey with them." The idolzation of Schwarzenbach came to be described as the Cult of Blake. According to rock critic Chris Ryan, "In terms of contemporary music, the Cult of Blake is probably matched only by the Cult of Morrissey
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...

".
Before Bivouac's release, Jawbreaker recorded the song "Kiss the Bottle" for a Mission District-themed compilation of vinyl singles titled 17 Reasons: The Mission District. Greenwald cites the track as "one of [Jawbreaker's] seminal and best-loved songs", calling it "sludgy and churning, a working-class anthem with a steady, proletarian heart". With lyrics profiling a pair of drunks outside a Mission District liquor store, Kiss the Bottle,' more than any other song, captures the sensitive boy machismo that drew (and continues to draw) male listeners to the altar of Schwarzenbach. With its fictional scrim, 'Kiss the Bottle' functions like a country song: the emotional impact is heightened by the specificity, not lessened. 'Kiss the Bottle' is Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

; it's Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...

. It's the allure of giving into despair, to doing the wrong thing and at least succeeding at that." The song has been cited as a favorite and an influence by Jim Ward
Jim Ward (musician)
James David Ward is an American musician. A self-taught guitarist and pianist, he was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the band Sparta; he was also the co-founder of the seminal post-hardcore band At the Drive-In.-At the Drive-In:While in At the Drive-In, Ward played rhythm guitar and...

 of At the Drive-In
At the Drive-In
At the Drive-In was an American rock band from El Paso, Texas, considered part of the post-hardcore genre and active from 1993 to 2001. They were known for their extremely energetic stage shows which hearkened back to the 1980s hardcore scene...

 and Sparta
Sparta (band)
Sparta is an American band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2001. Founding members Jim Ward and Tony Hajjar are former members of post-hardcore group At the Drive-In...

 (who cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

ed it on the Jawbreaker tribute album Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault
Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault: Jawbreaker Tribute
Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault is a tribute album to the band Jawbreaker, released in 2003 by Dying Wish Records. It includes bands of the post-hardcore, punk rock, pop punk, and emo genres covering Jawbreaker songs...

) and by Ron Richards, editor of the successful zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....

 Muddle.

Schwarzenbach's vocals on "Kiss the Bottle" are mottled and choked due to a polyp
Polyp (medicine)
A polyp is an abnormal growth of tissue projecting from a mucous membrane. If it is attached to the surface by a narrow elongated stalk, it is said to be pedunculated. If no stalk is present, it is said to be sessile. Polyps are commonly found in the colon, stomach, nose, sinus, urinary bladder...

 he had developed on his throat, which had been causing him to lose his voice onstage. As the band drove across the United States to fly from New York City to begin a European tour, he began to suffer serious vocal problems. Though the condition caused him great pain while singing, threatened his voice, and was potentially fatal should the polyp burst or lodge in his throat, the band decided to do the European tour anyway. "That period seemed really arduous for me because I was so physically challenged by singing", recalls Schwarzenbach, "Every day was full of dread, having to stand up there and see what would happen. But it was too late. We had to play or else we would have bankrupted our friends." By the time the band reached Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, Schwarzenbach's condition had worsened and the tour was put on hold while he had surgery to remove the polyp. The tour resumed a week later.

1993–1994: 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and signing to DGC

Upon returning to San Francisco, Pfahler and Schwarzenbach were homeless and slept in the band's touring van for a brief period. They soon found new residences, with Schwarzenbach moving to nearby Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 where he began writing lyrics for the band's third album, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Jawbreaker travelled to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in May 1993 and recorded the bulk of the album with engineer Steve Albini
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...

. They recorded three additional tracks with Billy Anderson in San Francisco that August, and the album was released in early 1994 through Tupelo/Communion. Both Greenwald and Alternative Press' Trevor Kelley cite it as the album most beloved by the band's fans. "24 Hour Revenge Therapy is arguably Jawbreaker's best album," writes Greenwald, "but it is also far and away its most loved, the best example of Schwarzenbach's innate ability to marry the boozy, bluesy regretfulness of the Replacements with the loose, seat-of-the-pants attitude of Gilman Street
924 Gilman Street
924 Gilman Street is an all-ages, not for profit, collectively organized music club usually referred to by its fans simply as "The Gilman." It is located in the West Berkeley area of Berkeley, California about a mile and a half west of the North Berkeley BART station and a quarter-mile west of San...

 punk." As dubbed
Dubbing (music)
In sound recording, dubbing is the transfer or copying of previously recorded audio material from one medium to another of the same or a different type. It may be done with a machine designed for this purpose, or by connecting two different machines: one to play back and one to record the signal...

 copies of the album began to circulate in late summer 1993, the band began to earn a devoted fanbase.

In October 1993, prior to 24 Hour Revenge Therapy's release, Jawbreaker were asked to open for Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

 on six dates of their In Utero tour. Fans bristled against this, wary that it would result in Jawbreaker—a beloved independent band—signing to major label DGC Records
DGC Records
DGC Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and currently operates as an auxiliary label of Interscope Records.-Company history:...

, whom Nirvana were contracted to. "I think we were fortunate [with 24 Hour Revenge Therapy]", recalls Schwarzenbach, "But we still got some flack. Even at that point, there were people who didn't think we were especially punk-rock, as some people practiced it. I don't think there was any major pushback, though, until we did the Nirvana tour. That's officially when it started." According to Pfahler: "People really came down on us for going on tour with Nirvana. They really saw it as, 'Okay, here we go. This is the first step. The next thing that happens is that someone from the label sees them and they get snapped up.' Which is kind of what happened."

Following the release of 24 Hour Revenge Therapy in February 1994, Jawbreaker received contract offers from major record labels. Though they had already decided to break up following the album's supporting tours due to tiredness and frustration, the band decided to consider the offers, partly due to the major label successes of their peers Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...

 and Jawbox
Jawbox
Jawbox was an alternative rock band from Washington, D.C., U.S.. Its original members were J. Robbins , Kim Coletta and Adam Wade...

. They met with a number of labels over the course of the year, narrowing their options to Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

, Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

, and DGC. They signed to DGC in a $1 million deal, due in part to the relationship they had developed with A&R representative Mark Kates who they had met on the Nirvana tour. Fans and key figures in the punk rock community were quick to denounce the band for the move. In an interview for Ben Weasel
Ben Weasel
Ben Weasel is a punk rock musician, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of bands Screeching Weasel and The Riverdales...

's Panic Button zine following the Nirvana tour, Schwarzenbach had stated flatly that Jawbreaker was not interested in signing to a major record label. In response to the signing, Weasel took the band to task in a column for Maximumrocknroll accompanied by a photo depicting him eating his own hat, which he had promised to do if the band ever signed to a major.

1995–1996: Dear You and breakup

Jawbreaker began recording their major-label debut, Dear You
Dear You
Dear You is Jawbreaker's only major label album. Released on September 12, 1995 through DGC Records, it is their fourth and final full-length studio album....

, in February 1995 at Fantasy Studios
Fantasy Studios
Fantasy Studios is a recording studio in Berkeley, California at the Zaentz Media Center, known for its recording of award-winning albums such as Journey's Escape and Green Day's Dookie. Built as a private recording studio for artists on the Fantasy Records label in 1971, it was opened to the...

 in Berkely, California with Rob Cavallo
Rob Cavallo
Rob Cavallo is a record producer and A&R, most famous for signing and producing Green Day. He is currently Chairman of Warner Bros. Records.- History :...

, who had produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 Green Day's breakthrough album Dookie
Dookie
Dookie is the third studio album by the American punk rock band Green Day. It was released on February 1, 1994 through Reprise Records. It was the band's first collaboration with producer Rob Cavallo and its major record label debut. Dookie became a worldwide commercial success, peaking at number...

the previous year. Recording sessions lasted two months and resulted in disenchantment and tension within the band, particularly between Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach. After a week of recording drums and bass guitar, Bauermeister and Pfahler were largely absent from the rest of the sessions while Schwarzenbach continued to work on the album with Cavallo. "I didn't even go", recalled Bauermeister in 2010, "I just hung out at home with my wife. I was already trying to separate myself from the band, while Blake became more of the major force." With a large recording budget at their disposal, Schwarzenbach and Cavallo spent much of their time polishing the record's production value, making the vocals and guitar clear and bringing them to the forefront of the mix
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...

. According to Cavallo, "Blake really wanted to be heard. I think he wanted his voice to be heard for the first time. He also decided to sing differently. Then, to me, I thought those songs could benefit from some precision."
In the months leading up to the album's release, a number of music publications positioned Jawbreaker as the next stars of the Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

 punk scene, sometimes referring to them as "the thinking man's Green Day". When Dear You was released in September 1995, however, its polished production and clear vocals strongly divided the band's fanbase. Ben Weasel was so displeased with the album, particularly the sound of Schwarzenbach's singing, that he he wrote Pfahler a letter detailing his complaints with it. Despite a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 in rotation to support the single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 "Fireman", sales of Dear You were poor.

As the band toured in support of the album, audience reaction towards the new material was either lukewarm or outright negative. "I have never seen anything like that—before or since", said Kates, "There was a point where they were headlining the Roxy and there were kids sitting on the floor, with their backs to the stage, when they were playing songs from Dear You. I'm not making that up. If you were to try [to] explain that to somebody now, it would make no sense." Jawbreaker continued touring in 1996, opening for the Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...

 that spring, but audience reception did not improve. Samiam's Sergie Loobkoff cites a show at The Warfield
The Warfield
The Warfield, also known as The Warfield Theater, is a 2,300 seat music venue located at 982 Market Street, San Francisco, California. It was built as a vaudeville theater, and opened as the Loews Warfield on May 13, 1922.-History:...

 in San Francisco as a turning point: "That is when I knew they were definitely going to break up. It was their hometown; they had put out the big major-label record. But then you're looking around and it was like no one cared."

Attitudes between the band members continued to sour, particularly between Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach, who took to traveling in separate vans. Tensions came to a head in Salem, Oregon
Salem, Oregon
Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...

, culminating in a fistfight between the two which spilled out of the van and onto the sidewalk. "I remember just calling Blake a 'fucking prima donna
Prima donna
Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...

' and a 'stupid son of a bitch who thinks it's all about him.' Just letting it all out", says Bauermeister, "It definitely put a wedge between us." On returning to San Francisco, the band called a meeting and decided to break up, though Pfahler was resistant to the idea.

1997–2006: Post-Jawbreaker projects

Following the band's breakup, Schwarzenbach moved to Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 where he DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

'd and wrote freelance video game reviews for websites. He formed and fronted Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil was an American rock band formed in 1997. It was founded by Blake Schwarzenbach, former frontman of Jawbreaker. When Schwarzenbach relocated to Brooklyn, New York, after Jawbreaker had disbanded, he reunited with friend Jeremy Chatelain and the two began working on four-track...

 from 1997 to 2003, combining Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...

 influences, piano ballad
Piano ballad
Piano ballad is a term often used to refer to a piece for solo piano in the 19th century, during the romantic era. It was a term used to refer to a piece written in a "narrative" style, and was often lyrical in nature. This type of work made its premiere with Chopin's first romantic ballad, the...

s, and stark lyrics. Fans and critics, however, still associated him primarily with Jawbreaker and did not warm to his new project: "Schwarzenbach was so adored for what he had done that few were willing to allow him to gracefully move on", writes Greenwald, "Jets to Brazil, though popular, has received unspeakably scathing reviews, boiling with the bitterness usually reserved for a cheating lover."

Bauermeister, meanwhile, returned to his job at the toy store he had worked at before Jawbreaker had begun touring. "I had been on tour, playing in front of thousands of people", he later remarked, "And here I was, working as a toy shop clerk. I was devastated." He eventually returned to music, joining the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 pop punk
Pop punk
Pop punk is a fusion music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees. Allmusic describes the genre as a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars...

 band Horace Pinker
Horace Pinker
Horace Pinker is an American punk rock band formed in 1991 in Tempe, Arizona and currently based in Chicago, Illinois. They play an energetic, melodic form of pop-punk, filled with catchy hooks and political lyrics, and are staunch supporters of independent music...

 from 1999 to 2001, performing on their 2000 EP Copper Regret.

Pfahler remained in San Francisco's Mission District, where he opened the Lost Weekend Video store with Jawbreaker's tour manager Christy Colcord. He played in J Church
J Church (band)
J Church was an American punk rock band formed by guitarist and vocalist Lance Hahn and bassist Gardner Maxam in 1992 in San Francisco, California after the demise of Hahn and Maxam's former band, Cringer...

 with Bauermeister's old roommate Lance Hahn from 1998 to 2002, then in Whysall Lane
Whysall Lane
Whysall Lane was an American indie rock band based in San Francisco whose music combines elements of 1990s indie rock and classic rock with lyrics inspired by romantic obsession...

 until 2006. He continued to release Jawbreaker material through his Blackball Records
Blackball Records
Blackball Records is an independent record label based in San Francisco. It was founded in 1989 by Adam Pfahler, who was the drummer for Jawbreaker at the time...

 label, issuing the live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...

 Live 4/30/96
Live 4/30/96
Live 4/30/96 is a live album by San Francisco punk band Jawbreaker. It contains three songs that were never released as studio recordings.-Track listing:# "Intro" - 0:10# "Jinx Removing" - 3:18# "Save Your Generation" - 3:53...

in 1999 and the compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 Etc.
Etc. (album)
Etc. is a collection of b-sides and rarities by San Francisco punk band Jawbreaker.-Track listing:# "Shield Your Eyes" - 3:41# "Equalized" - 3:19# "Caroline" - 2:42# "Better Half" - 4:57# "Split" - 4:21# "Gutless" - 3:07...

in 2002.

Public interest in Jawbreaker increased in the years following their breakup, due in part to chart-toppings acts such as Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy is an American rock band from Wilmette, Illinois, formed in 2001. The band consists of vocalist, guitarist and composer Patrick Stump, bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz, guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurley. The band released five studio albums from 2003–2008...

 and My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance is an American alternative rock band from New Jersey, formed in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way and have a diverse sound incorporating elements of punk, emo, glam metal, and progressive rock...

 publicly citing Jawbreaker as an influence. In 2003 Dying Wish Records released the tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...

 Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault: Jawbreaker Tribute
Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault: Jawbreaker Tribute
Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault is a tribute album to the band Jawbreaker, released in 2003 by Dying Wish Records. It includes bands of the post-hardcore, punk rock, pop punk, and emo genres covering Jawbreaker songs...

, featuring 18 acts including Fall Out Boy, Bayside
Bayside (band)
Bayside is an American punk rock band from Queens which formed in the winter of 2000. The band has released five full length albums since signing to Victory Records...

, Face to Face
Face to Face (punk band)
Face to Face is an American pop punk band from Victorville, California formed in 1991 by frontman Trever Keith. Originally known as "Zero Tolerance", Keith had been the only constant member of the band during their years of touring and recording albums. The group was initially signed by Dr. Strange...

, and Sparta
Sparta (band)
Sparta is an American band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2001. Founding members Jim Ward and Tony Hajjar are former members of post-hardcore group At the Drive-In...

 performing cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s of Jawbreaker songs. Meanwhile, Dear You had become an out-of-print collector's item, often selling for more than twice its retail price on online auction sites. In 2004 Pfahler licensed the publishing rights to the album from DGC's parent company Geffen Records
Geffen Records
Geffen Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operated as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-Beginnings:...

, and re-released it to positive critical response.

2007–present: Recent activity

In August 2007 filmmakers Keith Schieron and Tim Irwin began work on a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 about Jawbreaker, having previously made the 2005 Minutemen
Minutemen (band)
Minutemen were an American hardcore punk band formed in San Pedro, California in 1980. Composed of guitarist D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley, Minutemen recorded four albums and eight EPs before Boon's death in an automobile accident in December 1985...

 documentary We Jam Econo
We Jam Econo
We Jam Econo - The Story of the Minutemen, is a full-length documentary about the influential 1980s punk rock band Minutemen, created by director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron in association with Rocket Fuel Films...

. All three band members were convinced to take part in the film and met at a San Francisco studio, the first time they had all met together in eleven years. "A couple years ago, I began to have a really nice time with the memory of Jawbreaker," said Schwarzenbach, "I just thought, 'That's good, people finally get it.' It was nice. So I was happy with the idea. I wanted to do it." Bauermeister was unsure about seeing Schwarzenbach again, but stated that "there was a moment when I realized that my resentment was not so much through Blake, but what he had come to represent in my mind. So I told him." The filmmakers had the necessary instruments and equipment set up in the studio and invited the band to play, which they did, performing "Bivouac", "Condition Oakland", and "Parabola". The performance was photographed, and an audio recording was made through the sound board, but the band chose not to film the session "out of both respect for the sanctity of the moment and fear that we'd suck." In February 2011 Schieron and Irwin shot footage in Los Angeles, including interviews with Jon Liu and the band's former tour manager Anthony "Nino" Newman. There have been talks of reuniting the band with Dear You producer Rob Cavallo, but this has not taken place; The documentary currently has no set release date or distributor, and Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach have not spoken since the filming in San Francisco.

Schwarzenbach spent time teaching English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...

 at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

 in New York City and briefly fronted The Thorns of Life
The Thorns of Life
The Thorns of Life were a punk rock band from Brooklyn, New York. In October 2008, Blake Schwarzenbach, formerly of Jets to Brazil and Jawbreaker, revealed that he had started writing music for a then "as-yet-unnamed group" with drummer Aaron Cometbus and bassist Daniela Sea, formerly of the Gr'ups...

 from 2008 to 2009. He currently plays in the band Forgetters
Forgetters
forgetters is a punk rock band from Brooklyn, New York. In August 2009 shortly after the breakup of The Thorns of Life, Blake Schwarzenbach announced his involvement in a new band, Forgetters...

. Bauermeister lives in Olympia, Washington
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...

 and performs in the Mutoid Men. Pfahler still resides in San Francisco, where he continues to run Lost Weekend Video and to reissue Jawbreaker material through Blackball Records: In 2010 he released a remastered
Audio mastering
Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...

 version of Unfun, and plans to remaster and re-release Bivouac and 24 Hour Revenge Therapy over the next few years.
Rumors persist of a Jawbreaker reunion, but they have been continually dispelled by the band members. Pfahler has said that he "would do it in a heartbeat", while Bauermeister has agreed that "Adam and I would do it at the drop of a hat. But I don't think Blake is anywhere near [ready]." For his part, Schwarzenbach has expressed that he does not feel physically capable of singing the songs and doing them justice: "If I felt I was in a good enough place, I think we could have a really fun and successful tour. We could also pay a lot of bills, which would be profoundly helpful. But it's always the same story. Something is fucking broken in me so that when it's like, 'A lot of people want to hear you,' I just think, 'Well, I don't want to do that.

Band members

  • Blake Schwarzenbach
    Blake Schwarzenbach
    Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach is an American musician. He was the singer and left-handed guitarist of Jawbreaker , Jets to Brazil , The Thorns of Life , and forgetters -Education:...

     — lead vocals, guitar
    Guitar
    The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

  • Chris Bauermeister — bass guitar
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

    , backing vocals
  • Adam Pfahler – drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....


Discography

Studio albums
  • Unfun
    Unfun
    Unfun is the first album by the American punk rock band Jawbreaker, released on Shredder Records in 1990. The album was remastered by Jawbreaker drummer Adam Pfahler in 2008, and was reissued March 30th, 2010, adding the 7" mix of "Busy".-Track listing:...

    (1990)
  • Bivouac
    Bivouac (album)
    Bivouac is the second album by American punk band Jawbreaker, released on Tupelo/Communion Records in 1992.- LP tracks :# "Shield Your Eyes" - 3:10# "Big" - 5:06# "Sleep" - 4:06# "Donatello" - 3:03# "P.S...

    (1992)
  • 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1994)
  • Dear You
    Dear You
    Dear You is Jawbreaker's only major label album. Released on September 12, 1995 through DGC Records, it is their fourth and final full-length studio album....

    (1995)
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