The Bravery

A large collection of links to inteviews, reviews, tour diaries and other intresting stuff. Note: Not all of the press links are nice towards the band, there's not many of them though.

Album Review

Wowlyrics: The leaders of the current New York revival, The Bravery, deliver their eagerly anticipated self-titled debut album. Unleashing their unique blend of shambolic and rapturous dance-rock...

Read more HERE

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Album Review

Amazon: You cannot get these songs out of your head!! Sure, it unabashedly apes lesser bands (The Strokes, The Killers), but in doing so, the Bravery have created a glittering album of unabashedly rapturous new wave pop trash!!...

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Album Review

Metacritic: Another hot, retro-sounding band based in New York? Is there some sort of factory churning these bands out?...

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Album Review

NME: The Bravery, then: priapic quiff-rockers about to de-flower(s) the Killers-obsessed indie-nation, or calculating chancers set to self-destruct in their own tsunami of hype?
You’d have to be Ellen MacArthur not to have an opinion...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

NewYorkMetro: Sam Endicott is new enough to the game of rock stardom that he doesn’t realize he should never be seen eating pizza. Killing time in the echo-chamber hallways of a Williamsburg warehouse, the lead singer of the New York band the Bravery is reduced to wiping crumbs from his Sgt. Pepper–style military coat with a flash of jet-black fingernails and knuckles across which he’s written LIONIZED...

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Album Review

PitchForkMedia: The Bravery will tell you they don't know of any nu-rock revival. They just happen to like wearing leather jackets and having their gaunt faces photographed in elevators. Their idea to combine new wave, garage rock, and dance music just popped into their head, because, hey, what if rock bands started doing that?...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

TheBeatSurrender: Since the emergence of The Strokes in 2001, the music media has focused its intense gaze on New York City in hopes of finding the next big thing. Each corresponding year has produced at least one more great act, from Interpol to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's to The Rapture to The Walkmen to TV on the Radio, with the hypsters proclaiming that each band would launch another grand scene...

Read More HERE

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Album Review

MegaStar: Melding pop with rock and getting plenty of radio airplay but not miffing off the shoe-gazing fraternity in the process is a tough task, but with their latest single The Bravery have pulled it off...

Read More HERE

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Online Article/Interview

Filter-Mag: The HQ is on the corner of Mott and Broome, on the edge of New York’s Chinatown. Push through the graffiti-ed door, clamber up the rotten stairs, past the sweatshops and you’ll find the place. It’s where The Bravery have spent the past two years planning operations, obsessively working up their wirey garage-electronics and occasionally venturing out into the city to play the results...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

ChartAttack: After last week’s rant from The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers, New York’s The Bravery are fighting back to protect their reputation...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

Gothamist: Based on their 4-song EP and the incredible showmanship of a live show full of cock and bravado, The Bravery have been called the next big thing by the Village Voice and Rolling Stone. With only days remaining until the release of their self-titled debut, we will soon know whether this local band can live up to all the hype...

Read More HERE

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Gig Review

RockStarDiary: So the Bravery lived up to their hype on Monday night at The Bowery Ballroom. I loved them! The lead singer was kind of a poser, but whatever they rocked. Jay-Z was there--we couldn't figure out why, unless they are on the same label...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

ArjanWrites: After the Bravery and the Killers feuded about who influenced who, there's seems to be another controversy brewing that involves the Bravery. Read this and then read this Duran Duran announced last week that the Bravery will be opening for them in Birmingham on May 28...

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Album Review

ManchesterOnline: We're consistently assured by people in the know that The Bravery are the next big thing, despite the New Yorkers' penchant for quiffs, face-paint and sloppy live shows...

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Online Article

Boston: It's called the hype, the buzz, the noise. It is what almost every band is dying for and what most don't live up to. For every Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs there's a Ned's Atomic Dustbin. This time around, the hype is about the Bravery...

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Online Article

StereoGum: I'm loathe to dedicate any more blog to Bravery trash talk, but this is getting super ridiculous.

Read More HERE

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Online Article/Live Pictures

Jenyk: A band hasn't caused this kinda hot and bothered stir and commotion on both sides of the fence of lavish praise and harsh critique since and in NYC since stellastar* was still cutting their soon to be superstar teeth at tiny clubs in the LES...

Read More HERE

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MP3 Interview

Yahoo! Music: You Can watch two interviews HERE.

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Online Article

PopMatters: Island Records is hoping that the Bravery are the new Strokes, or at least that you'll believe that they are new Strokes enough to buy their debut album, The Bravery. Island beat out several other record companies who were itching to sign the latest alternative-rock darlings from New York City...

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Online Article

DetNews: It's inevitable that New York's the Bravery, the latest entrants into the highly fashionable dance-pop sweepstakes of 2005, would be compared to Franz Ferdinand, the Killers and other bands who have successfully ripped off Duran Duran in the recent past...

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Newspaper Article

BostonHerald: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Even playing a co-headline tour with New York City newcomers the Bravery, British rock veterans Ash played second fiddle at a sold-out Axis on Friday night...

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Album Review

Cleveland: On "The Ring Song," a highlight of the Bravery's self- titled debut, frontman Sam Endicott sings: "Me and the ocean, me and the sea / I don't think so, I don't think it was meant to be."..

Read More HERE

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Online Article

TheVillageVoice: Nobody likes No Fun Guy. No dancing—the jerk's too busy explaining how this next batch of prefab day-school elite the Bravery ripped the last batch of prefab day-school elite, and that's not very brave of them, cough, if you know what I mean, cough...

Read more HERE

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Pictures

LiveDaily: There are some awesome pictures of the band at the DKNY jeans party HERE

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Online Article

Gawker: Local band The Bravery — whose recent rise in label-sponsored popularity has the New York indie purists (if such people still exist) crying foul — demonstrated the fine art of hipster belligerence during a weekend stint in Boston...

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Online Interview

Hour: When talking to Michael Zakarin, guitarist for buzz band The Bravery (he's enjoying his first trip to Vancouver), it was clear that all the fussing and discussing is new to him...

Read More HERE

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MP3 Interview

BBC: An Interview with the band on Radio 1. (Nothing will happen for a few seconds...just wait and the mp3 file will load).

Hear The Interview HERE

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Album Review

ByronCrawford: The Bravery, who, apparently, formed about 2 years ago and had one previous EP that came out earlier this year, are the current Next Big Thing in the NYC disco rock scene (which is truly one of the finest scenes in all of music, I might add)...

Read More HERE

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Interview

ManchesterOnline: We're backstage with The Bravery frontman Sam Endicott. He is, frankly, done up like a prize hussy; smeared with face powder and sporting a haircut cunningly pick-pocketed from Morrissey...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

Blender: Clad in goth black and liberally mascara’d, this New York five-piece couldn’t be more of-the-moment if they tried. However, it’s one thing to imagine a meld of the Strokes and the Killers, and quite another to pull off this seamless alliance of pretty synth melody and fierce guitar lines, and lace your debut album with at least seven simple, unignorable pop songs...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

XFM: Channelling the very best of New York's finest denziens from the past few years, next big things The Bravery arrived in the Xfm studios to deliver a storming set of electro-tinged, disco friendly rock. Check it out here...

Read More HERE

There's also an interview... Dial-Up | Broadband

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Online Article

VirginRadio: The Bravery are going to be playing this years V Festival and have to be seen to be believed. Their electro-tinged rock is laced with raw guitars yet remains disco friendly...

Read More HERE

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Album Review

WHSmith: 'The Bravery' is the debut album by the New York-based band of the same name. Containing both elements of electroclash and post-punk, the album mixes the two elements together to create the band's hallmark synth-rock sound. Contains the singles 'Honest Mistake' and 'Unconditional'...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

PeopleSound: The Bravery mania continues apace as 2005 approaches, with the release of their first single proper, 'An Honest Mistake', on 28 February. The track is from The Bravery’s debut album (due in March), and has already attracted fans at Radio One (with Zane Lowe and Jo Whiley leading the charge), XFM, Channel 4 and MTV...

Read More HERE

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Online Article

CampusCircle: Sam Endicott, lead singer of The Bravery, will answer just about any question you ask him. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll tell you the truth...

Read More HERE

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MP3 Interview

Toazted: An interview with The Bravery recorded in Amsterdam, November 2004. During the London Calling festival we talked about American rock, coffee shops, the album, the 80's and more...

Read More And Listen To The Interview HERE

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Magazine Article

Designer Magazine: The Bravery Are so effortlessly cool they make every band that's gone before them look like a bunch of chancers...

Read More HERE

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Magazine Article

Rip & Burn: Sam Endicott has momentarily misplaced the plot. Three songs into a rapturously recieved, impressively rock 'n' roll appearance at HMV's Oxford street store, the distinctively coiffured Bravery frontman has just spotted his own doppelganger amid the 500-strong crowd...

Read More HERE

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Magazine Article

The Fly: Formerly known as Camden Place, tonight's venue was once a mecca for rudeboy disco bashes, its muscle-vested, mini-skirted weekend queues - yes, even in winter - so replete with limbs it looked like an explosion in a mannequin factory...

Read More HERE

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Newspaper Article

The Mirror:

Eyeliner At Dawn

The Bravery’s Sam Endicott says there’s a good reason for their rivalry with The Killers.

This year, The Bravery’s self-titled debut album – an elctro-rock update of ‘80s Brit influences – put them in the UK Top Five. With their upfront live shows and outspoken frontman, Sam Endicott, the New Yorkers became the East Coast challengers to West Coast retro kings The Killers.

Singer/guitarist/producer Endicott claimed The Bravery had slept with representatives of sevral record companies before deciding who to sign for. Then, when a war of words flared between him and The Killers’ lead man Brandon Flowers, it was padded shoulders and eyeliner at dawn.

"People don’t ask about our music. They’re more interested in sensationalism and we can provide that because we do like to have fun," sneers Sam, relaxing in his Denver hotel room before a show on The Bravery’s seemingly non-stop current tour. "but everyone seems to have a problem understanding sarcasm."

In previous interviews, Endicott has sounded confident, bordering on arrogant, but the reality is much different. "I used to read all our interviews, but I got so stressed out by them that I got hospitalised from it," he admits. "So I don’t do that anymore."

Before The Bravery, Sam had white dreadlocks and fronted a ska band called Skabba The Hutt. Prior to that he was disaffected outsider. "I wasn’t a particulary happy kid," he says. "I was an aggressive loner. I didn’t relate to people and I didn’t understand the conservative culture or the elitist alternative culture, so I was left with nothing. That still has a big impact on how I feel. I have trouble relating to people, but I’ve got much better at faking it."

Talking of faking it, it has been rumoured that the Bravery vs Killers rivalry was cooked up by the bands’ respective managements in order to fuel publicity.

"Oh no, defininitely not," insists Sam. "I know that we have no interest in perpetuating it – and I presume they don’t either – but it wasn’t invented. Brandon said a lot of fucked up shit about us.

He laughs when I ask him about the claim The Bravery – who also feature guitarist Michael Zakarin, bassist Mike H, keyboardist John Conway and drummer Anthony Burulcich – were put together to capitalise on The Killers’ success.

"That’s ridiculous," he chortles. "We were signed before they were successful so it would have been physically impossible to create us in their image. Yes, their album came out a year before ours, but we were signed for a long time before our album appeared."

The Bravery still have a distance to go before selling as many albums as The Killers, but Sam is more than happy with their progress.

"I always dreamed of seeing the world with a rock ‘n’ roll band and it’s been pretty amazing," he says. "A tour of Scandinavia, then South East Asia…you get to circle the globe. When you get mail from a kid in Malaysia telling you your music changed the way he thinks about music in general, that is pretty incredible."

But there is a downside of course – Sam misses his home life in The Big Apple.

"It can be very lonely, on the road," he admits. "You miss people you are close to and that was something I hadn’t thought about. Now I fantasise about having a week off in New York. To me, it is without doubt the greatest city in the world."

Still opportunities for companionship on the road must present themselves?

"There is a stereotype that girls dig guys in rock bands and it turns out that it’s totally true," he smiles. "It wasn’t the case when we were playing to 15 people, so it’s not just to do with being onstage playing a guitar. Maybe it’s MTV. You have to keep a perspective on how ridiculous it is.

"When I was in high school there was a girl I liked who wouldn’t give me the time of day. Now, years later, she’s emailing me! I haven’t talked to her since then. It’s hard to miss the superficiality of that."

"It’s crazy – you meet more people than you ever have in your life, but you are more distanced than you have ever been as well. If you want to take advantage of that you run the risk of being desperately lonely. But sometimes you fudge it a bit so you don’t go comepletely out of your mind."

So, putting aside all the rumours, confrontations and myths, what can audiences expect at the V Festival?

"We’re always trying to find ways to make the gigs better," says Sam. "Basically, what we try to do is to get our audiences laid. My advice to anyone coming to see us is – bring a date. We’ll whip them into a sexual frenzy and hopefully you can take advantage of that."

‘The Ticket’, The Mirror Newspaper ( August 19^{th 2005)}