Boundary Waters Find a New Way on ‘Longlost’

Boundary Waters’ Andy Brommel discusses how pairing down led to his band’s expansive new EP, ‘Longlost.’

Stream: ‘Longlost’ – Boundary Waters

Depending on where you draw the line, emo turns 30 this year.

After another decade under the influence, the genre is arguably more entrenched in our cultural imagination than ever. But those of us who’ve been around circle pits long enough to remember the first revival are just now discovering what it takes to move forward into the next scene of our lives.

“Your world can get so small,” Andy Brommel observes about entering middle age. Towering even on a Zoom call, yet instantly approachable and sporting one of his many thoroughly-creased baseball caps, Brommel is the vocalist, guitarist and all-around nice guy at the head of Boundary Waters, whose new EP comes out today. They continue to split off the beaten path, but by trusting their internal compass, on Longlost, he and the band’s expanded lineup find that it’s never too late to start again.

Longlost - Boundary Waters — Longlost – Boundary Waters

While they stem from Chicago’s DIY basin, Boundary Waters have always extended beyond the familiar signposts for Midwest emo. Mathy, finger-crunching arpeggios play a factor on Longlost, but keys, synth and a mini string ensemble are now all part of the equation. “First Son” sets off with twinkling post-rock aspirations, only to spike the melodrama by daring to imagine if “Tonight, Tonight” was composed by Dimmu Borgir. “As much as this is an emo project, I use that tag for lack of an easier handle,” Brommel explains. “What I really feel drawn to is big, widescreen, cinematic writing.”

Boundary Waters still pack enough layers of gleaming guitar tones to give returning mixing and mastering engineer Brok Mende a run for his money. But instead of doubling back to where they left off, Longlost follows the simple rule of addition by subtraction. If the band’s previous LP was a feral flowering forest, then this EP is more like a manicured garden. Each blooming bass fill, every sprightly drum pattern gets its moment in the sun before moving further down the path. “I love Atalanta and wouldn’t change anything about it,” Brommel reflects before adding, “but listening back to that album made me wonder why I can’t write a song that isn’t five fucking minutes.” His pen doesn’t go light on the details, but lead single “Last Seen” cuts right to the chase. Thick splashes of melody whisk by at the whim of bold, streaking rhythms as its character study disappears out the barroom door.

“I wanted to keep the same number of ornaments on the tree while also cutting things down,” he continues. “What ended up getting edited out was any sense of repetition. Everything happens once. If you want to hear a certain part again, then you have to start the song over.”

As rewarding as that process is for Boundary Waters, Longlost came together during a prolonged, often joyous, but surprisingly painful period for Brommel. “Smoke Signals” opens the EP at a snowy remove, with his voice appearing softly but clearly, like how breath steams in the cold.

They don’t tell you how
All the rest plays out
How your friends all furrow
out from where you are
And we all just burrow
down within ourselves

Whereas Atalanta marked the end of a 13-year relationship, each of these five songs are individually addressed to old friends that Brommel lost touch with along the way. “I woke up in my mid-30s, freshly out of the relationship that had defined my adult life, and was looking around to see who was left,” he remembers. “A lot of those relationships had withered. I hadn’t been maintaining them. So this is me checking back in to see where we all are now.”

At first, Longlost appears to wind up right back where it started. “Burrow down / Where you belong,” Brommel repeats, drifting beneath electronic murmurs, as the EP’s finale crests to a close. “As you get older, it feels harder to make new friends. You work. You come home. You watch your shows on Netflix,” he says. Still, in the end, Boundary Waters are defined by a longing for connection. “There’s also a comfort in knowing you can share that space with someone.” Anchored by a warm and sturdy piano melody and any echo on “Dream of Whales” is cast in a more inviting light.

“I wanted to begin and end with songs that leave more space, because I think that’s the next challenge for us,” Brommel concludes. After all is said and done, Longlost will join with another, forthcoming EP to form both sides of Boundary Waters’ next full-length.

Andy Brommel kindly stepped away from a weekend retreat amongst the lakes of Wisconsin to discuss the beginning of Boundary Waters, the band’s new approach on Longlost, their evil alter ego, Smashing Pumpkins, getting older and where they go from here.

Boundary Waters will play an EP release show at Chicago’s Beat Kitchen on Thursday, July 3rd. Find tickets and more information here, and read our full conversation below!

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:: stream/purchase Longlost here ::

:: connect with Boundary Waters here ::

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A CONVERSATION WITH BOUNDARY WATERS

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Atwood Magazine: I want to start by going all the way back to the beginning. What led you to start Boundary Waters?

Andy Brommel: I’ve been writing music since my parents plunked me down in front of the piano in second grade. I always wanted to write my own songs, but even though I played in bands during high school and college, I never had my own project where I was the primary songwriter.

It was around 2010 that I decided if I wanted to do anything with the songs I’d been writing, then no one else was going to do it for me. I wasn’t in a place in life where I could be practicing and playing shows, so I started Boundary Waters as a home studio project. But I had friends who would tap in and collaborate.

You've said that at its heart, Boundary Waters is about longing for connection. I think that comes through in how the band plays together. It sounds like you're all having fun, but I can also feel the appreciation that you have for each other. How did you all meet?

Andy Brommel: Jon was first. We went to the same college but didn’t know each other until after we graduated, when we met through mutual friends. He’s so quiet and unassuming, but he plays a million instruments. On our first EP, he played drums, then he played bass on Atalanta. Now he’s doing keys and synth. He just goes wherever and does whatever the song needs and nothing more. He’s the most talented person I’ve ever met but doesn’t showboat at all.

Clint was next. I met him while the two of us were taking classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I’ve always loved drums. To me, the drums define the energy of a band. When I met Clint, I thought, “This is the drummer that I’ve been looking for.” He plays with such intelligence and force.

Tim had his own band that I was just the biggest fan of. He’s an insane singer and plays guitar in a way that’s totally self-taught and untouched by classic rock bullshit. It’s like he learned in the woods. I was talking to him one night after a show about how we needed to find a new guitarist. He offered to take a shot at it. That felt very lucky to me. I was like, “What? Really?”

Duncan is one of my best friends. We used to work together. I didn’t want to mix my job with Boundary Waters, but when he left the company, I was like, “All right, now we can be in a band together.” He’s a crazy guitarist in his own right but was looking to do something different, so he jumped in on bass, which allowed Jon to move over to keys.

Longlost finds Boundary Waters literally expanding. And yet, the songs on this EP are also shorter and tighter than Atalanta. Why did you want to move in that direction?

Andy Brommel: With Atalanta, I got really comfortable with developing ideas in a band context. I was in love with everyone’s parts and wanted each one to get its moment. As a result, every song is six minutes long.

But when we played live, I noticed that some of the songs felt a little ponderous. For Longlost, I wanted to find a way to cover the same amount of ground while editing down. It’s an element of craft that I wanted to challenge myself with.

On top of all that, Longlost is the first Boundary Waters album to feature keyboard and synth. How did you manage to add those layers while sticking to this more streamlined approach?

Andy Brommel: This is why Jon is so valuable. I would send him demos without any direction and he would find not only the right keyboard or synth texture, but also the right place to either add support or something hookier. It’s his superpower.

You tested the waters with the acoustic version of “Sour Patch,” but Longlost doubles down on the string arrangements. My favorite moment on the whole EP is when the violin, viola and cello come bursting in on “First Son.” That part kicks ass.

Andy Brommel: It’s one of my favorites, too. I wanted there to be one moment at the center of the EP that’s big and broad and epic, where we just use all the firepower that we have. I’m drawn to music that swings big from an arrangement standpoint. Growing up, Smashing Pumpkins was a formative band for me.

I didn't spot that influence, but now that you've pointed it out, I can see how Boundary Waters can hold the high drama of a song like “Tonight, Tonight” or “1979.”

Andy Brommel: I also feel like we share a similar dynamic. With Smashing Pumpkins, the writing orbits around Billy [Corgan] being an insufferable mastermind and then Jimmy Chamberlin being maybe the best drummer of the last few decades. When I have an idea for a song, the first place I go is into the practice space with Clint.

Clint loves Jimmy Chamberlin. They have a similar ethos. Every one of Clint’s drum parts has to be distinct and intentional. He never repeats himself.

I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me, please, but is Clint a metal guy?

Andy Brommel: Actually, we have an evil alter ego that is a deranged, omnivorous, classic metal band. It’s called Glorybringer. I play bass. Tim plays seven-string and does the screaming and the writing.

That's awesome. I suspected Clint of liking metal from the way he drums. When you're writing songs for Boundary Waters, do they start with you or is he the one laying down the foundation?

Andy Brommel: Like any creative person, I worry about repeating myself and running out of ideas. If everything starts with me, then we’re limited to the bag of tricks that I have as a guitarist. So more songs are starting with Clint now.

“Smoke Signals” was like that. Clint was messing around with this weird 7/4 drum beat. He was going to use it for another project, but I convinced him to let me steal it for the opening. As long as we start from somewhere interesting, then I know we can turn it into a Boundary Waters song. By the time we’re done, it’ll have my melodramatic bullshit. [laughs]

The opening lines from “Smoke Signals” really resonate with me. I just turned 35. I'm now at that age where my oldest and closest friends have either moved away or started families or become more invested in their careers. But no matter which way each of us is heading, it does feel like we're burrowing down into our own little worlds. When did you start feeling that way?

Andy Brommel: Every batch of songs that I write is a snapshot of where my life was three to five years beforehand, as that tends to be their gestation process.

Atalanta was a way for me to take stock of the end of my marriage. Longlost came after that. I was reconnecting with people from my past. It was a very florid and social time for me. I was out at shows again and making new friends.

And then, just as I was completely overfilling my life with people again, COVID happened. Suddenly, all these relationships that I had come to treasure were put on pause. So these songs came when I was sitting alone in our practice space and reflecting on how I had just gotten all these people back in my life, only for them to disappear again.

How did that change in perspective affect your lyrics? The songs on Longlost strike me as less abstract than the ones on Atalanta. There's more concrete imagery that ties them to a specific time and place.

Andy Brommel: Atalanta is a story about two people. It unthreads the mythology of a life-sized relationship. Longlost is a collection of character studies and snippets from other relationships.

Some of that shift was caused by me feeling like I’m no longer an interesting person. [laughs] I’m happy. My life is great. I love all the people around me. So that led me to look elsewhere.

Encoding lyrics is a bit of an escape hatch for me. It’s easy for me to mythologize things in a way that puts up a veil. Like, Billy’s lyrics are so poetic. You can pattern them onto anything in your life. But you can also be like, “Well, he’s not saying anything, really.” So I wanted these songs to commit more to specifics, like country music, where people tell one specific story and let that be universal.

The character in “Last Seen” is sketched with such fine detail. I might not recognize them from my life, but I know the feeling that you're describing. There are plenty of people who I was close with at some point in time who I've since lost track of. I have no idea where they are now or what they're doing.
For me, there's something very sad about that. It feels unsatisfying, like that relationship was left unfinished. There's a line in this song that captures that feeling, though it could fly as the banner statement for the whole EP. “We can start again.” When did you land on that phrase and why is it important to you?

Andy Brommel: I had dozens of verses for “Last Seen.” It was easy and fun to come up with different variations on the theme. I was walking around my neighborhood, just turning those lyrics over in my head, trying to fit the different pieces together, when I landed on that line.

At first, I had this emotional reaction to it. I kind of choked up. Then I thought, “Well, okay, that’s not a lyric.” It was too direct, too corny. And it is corny, but I am so committed to it. I figured if that line could trigger such an emotional response from me, then I had to commit to it completely.

“Dream of Whales” closes the EP by calling back to its opening lines. Do we “start again” back in our own little burrow? Or are we returning with a new perspective?

Andy Brommel: There’s a song on the first Boundary Waters EP that also mentions burrowing down. There’s something there that I just feel drawn to.

For me, “Dream of Whales” is an invitation. The song has a little more room. It has this dreamy feeling. Even though it’s so easy to burrow down into yourself, you can share that space with someone. Maybe that’s the journey of these songs.

At the same time, Longlost is just the beginning. Did you always plan for these songs to lead into the next album or did that idea come to you later on?

Andy Brommel: I’m always thinking about tracklists and sequencing. Before we started recording, we had ideas in the works for eight to 10 songs. And I could already imagine how they would all flow together, but it felt like too much to bite off at once.

The way we work, these are 500 hour projects. Every part is handcrafted. We record everything ourselves. I do all the engineering and editing. Five songs just felt like the right amount of writing and production and craft that we could do really intentionally within a year.

Have you already started on the next EP?

Andy Brommel: I’d say we’ve written about three-quarters of it. We have our release show for Longlost on July 3, then I want to jump right into finishing the next batch of songs.

Realistically, the next EP will take us at least six months and that’s if we go the fastest we’ve ever gone. But I’m trying resist my inner Billy Corgan and not be such a ceaseless perfectionist. I want to be more serendipitous and leave more space so that things can happen more on their own. Instead of feeling like I need to have everything bolted down before we record the first note, I want to trust that the ideas will come together. I can give the guys in the band a pretty loose framework and they’ll come up with beautiful things that I never would’ve thought of.

And I don’t have to think of them, either. Boundary Waters has always sort of been the name for my lifelong writing project. It’ll continue to evolve, but I have people around me who are now part of it forever.

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