FROM UNDERNEATH > intro
Alternative Press #191
June 2004"Bouncing Back"
Blackboard Letters speaks out about anorexia, Mixtape, and (oh yeah) hitting the Vans Warped Tour again for the first time in almost three years.
"There's no reason I should even be talking to you," guitarist Trevor Sansing says wistfully, gazing out at the landscape of Orange, California - the hometown and headquarters of his band, a little outfit known as Blackboard Letters. "We never expected to be able to do any of this; to go this far."Far, indeed. Nobody saw them coming. Sneaking quietly onto the L.A. scene back in 2000, Blackboard Letters went from being an unsigned band Trevor started in high school with his twin sister, lead singer and guitarist Abeni Sansing, to landing a deal with a legendary punk label. Two acclaimed albums and an E.P. later, the reign of Blackboard Letters showed no sign of slowing down.
FADE IN: June 2002. Two days before the band was to embark on their first time ever playing the entire length of the Vans Warped Tour. The days in Southern California were hot and sticky, and Trevor had been spending the time before the band was to leave going surfing with bassist Jake Renzi and drummer Zarek "Rex" Boyd (fondly referred to by Blackboard Letters fans as "King Rex"). Seemingly out of the blue, a notice went up on the Warped Tour website: Blackboard Letters would not be playing the tour. Fans went into an outrage. Rumors flew that the band was breaking up.
"That announcement was totally unexpected to everyone, and we expected people to be upset with the decision," shrugs Trevor. "We knew, however, that once we clarified things our fans would understand."
When Blackboard Letters finally put up an official announcement of their temporary hiatus on their website, it was the first time the world learned of the driving force behind the band's decision: Abeni, beloved by thousands of fans, was struggling with anorexia. "She wanted to go on the tour," Trevor says softly, shaking his head in almost a bemused manner. "The fact of the manner is that Rex, Jake and I came together at that point in time and decided that for the sake of the band, we had to pull off the tour. It wasn't a difficult decision to make, but it was hard to do at the same time, if that makes sense.
"I didn't realize Abeni had a problem until probably two months before we bowed out of Warped. She'd been struggling with her illness for probably about six months or so before I took notice. She was extremely good at hiding it. I didn't realize anything was going on until a fan came up to me after a show and just made this casual remark - "Wow, Abeni looks really thin. What's her secret?" Everything clicked after that. If that person hadn't of mentioned it, Abeni would probably be dead right now.
"See, you gotta understand, Abeni's stubborn as hell. She put up a brave front - I think for a while she was just in denial about her illness. She wouldn't talk to anyone about it. She's my twin sister, my best friend, but she wouldn't even talk about the situation with me. It wasn't until we started picking songs for the new record, that we saw pieces of what she'd been going through surface through the songs she'd written. She was very lonely and anxious. She felt extremely empty inside. Everyone I would talk to saw her as competent and fun to be with, just [being] normal Abeni - but underneath all of that, she was hurting. She drank a lot, and took part in a lot of risk-taking behavior. She tended to act with little consideration of the consequences. It wasn't until I realized what was going on and really started watching her when she ate that she had started to develop these compulsive rituals and strange eating habits.
"She would divide food into 'good/safe' and 'bad/dangerous' categories. She would avoid having to eat around us [the rest of the band] as much as possible, but when she had to she had a weird way of going about it - like first eating the top half of the bun on her veggie burger, then the tomato, then two fries. Then she would sit back and say, "I'm full." And I remember not being able to believe she could look us in the eye and say that, you know? The month before we pulled out of Warped, her illness started to get worse. Food was just the enemy to her. At the time she would deny it completely, but she hated the look of food, the smell of it even. If anybody talked about it while she was in earshot, she would leave the room."
Trevor shakes his head. "It finally got to the point where it was about a week before Warped, and Abeni and I were at home - we share a house with Rex. Abeni had been taking a shower, and she called me into the bathroom, and I found her there wrapped in a towel, skinny as a kid from those commercials you see of starving children in Africa, grasping this massive clump of her hair in her hands. And she just looked at me and said, "I have a problem." That was it, right then and there. She was terrified and knew she wouldn't be able to stop herself from harming her body the way she had been, so I took her to the hospital that very night. She didn't leave that place for four months."
While Abeni underwent initial treatment, the rest of the band wandered in circles. "We weren't sure what to do," pipes in Jake. "While Abeni was in the hospital, some days the three of us would just sit at home and stare at each other and go, "Well, what now, guys?" Nobody ever really said it, but I definitely think the thought was in the back of our minds that the end of the band was drawing near."
Fortunately for everyone, that end is nowhere in sight. "Since she was discharged from the hospital, Abeni has been undergoing intensive therapy. She's had a few fallbacks, but things are so much better than how they used to be. She's so much happier now. Just the other day, she practically dragged me out with her to get onion rings - that was a great feeling. Anorexia is something you struggle with forever," says Trevor. "While she's not 100% recovered, Abeni does know what it'll take for her to get better."
CUT TO: September 2003. With over a year having passed, Blackboard Letters finally approach the studio again - this time armed with many songs and a newfound purpose. "At first we just started by cutting demos, to see if we could even do this again, and things gradually progressed from there. It became pretty obvious sort of quickly that we had to put out a new album - we had just grown so much since the E.P. had been released, we had so much more to say," says Jake. "Plus the fact that, of course with time you grow as musicians, so obviously we wanted to show that as well. We consider ourselves lucky that we got to make another record in the first place. We went into recording expecting nothing to come out of it, and look what we got."
What they got was Mixtape, an action-packed collection of songs that is arguably Blackboard Letters at its best. "We compare it a lot to the soundtrack of a movie," remarks Trevor. "You've got your theoretical car chases, your love scenes, songs that make you wanna break a bottle over a fire hydrant and jaywalk. It's all right there."
And he is not far from the truth. Throughout the entire record there is a sense of desperation and panic, as if with every song we are teetering closer and closer to the edge of destruction and all hell breaking loose. The band has certainly matured as musicians since the release of their E.P. in early 2002, and the Sansing twins, who split songwriting duties, have grown leaps and bounds lyrically. Dropping some of the dissonant chaos found on their previous offerings, but still full of delay and vintage tone, new Blackboard Letters songs like "Stockholm", "Aimless" and "Always Something" seem destined to become classics. Even when the band brings in close friends Ryan and Sean of Yellowcard to guest on "Revolutionaries" and "TV Land", it makes for one of the most memorable guest appearances in a while. Abeni's voice is as raw and emotional as ever, at her best on songs such as "One and Lonely", "Exodus" and possibly the album's best track, "Diary of a Skeleton" - a song that approaches Abeni's struggle with anorexia from her point of view. "It's still the same Blackboard Letters," points out Trevor. "We don't like putting labels on what our music is exactly called, but I don't think we're ever not going to be considered punk-pop, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. And we're okay with that. For all we know, we might only get that label because compared to some other female-fronted bands, Abeni can actually sing. The music's still catchy, just a bit harder is all. A lot more rock to it, really."
So many bands come across that one album or song they consider to be the most important they've ever done. With the release of Mixtape this month, such statements may not be far off the map at all. "The four of us have been through a lot the past few years. So much has changed in our lives," Jake shakes his head, as if amazed. "We can honestly say that this record is a direct snapshot of who this band is today, and I wouldn't have that any other way."
Blackboard Letters will have a chance to show off that newfound sense of direction when they make their way onto the Mainstage at all 48 dates of the Vans Warped Tour this summer - their first time back at the "punk rock summer camp" in almost three years. "Obviously Warped this summer has special meaning for us," remarks Jake, "The whole deal back in 2002 was unfortunate - it would have been our first full-length stint at Warped. But we get that chance this year, and we're so grateful. I'm just really excited to get out there and see old friends again, man. Hanging out with fans and friends. That's what Warped's all about."
Perhaps Trevor sums it up best. "If you would have told us a year ago that we'd still be playing onstage and getting to do what we love for a living, we would have told you to get the fuck out. We're just lucky. That's all it comes down to, really. Luck." [AP]
