In being a band that’s well acquainted with defeated ends and hopeful new beginnings, Walter Etc.’s latest single ahead of their forthcoming LP (named, perhaps, after one such defeated end) When the Band Breaks Up Again is something of a first-person account of hitting rock bottom. “Sylvie’s a Mess,” the down-and-out skate-punk ripper from the Ventura-based group’s fifth album since reteaming after calling it quits under the more folk-punk moniker Walter Mitty and His Makeshift Orchestra, is a lighthearted plea to keep the band together (“Please don't go and delete your Bandcamp,” vocalist Dustin Hayes sings at one point) when things seem hopeless.
“On tour in Philly I met an old friend who was quitting music,” Hayes recalls of the song’s inspiration. “I wrote this Screeching Weasel worship song for her to encourage her not to stop. Since I often think about abandoning music too, ultimately writing this song for her was just as much talking to myself, or anyone who wants to give up on something.”
Bordering on the type of power-pop earworm the Ramones perfected, the near-two-minute ditty comes to life in its music video wherein the song’s titular Sylvie (we can only assume) threatens suicide by Pop-Tarts before things—spoiler alert—level out in the end. Check it out below, and pre-order When the Band Breaks Up Again here before it arrives September 8 via SideOneDummy.
