Wichita duo Brave Boy celebrates the release of its debut album, “A Faint Voice at Loudest,” this Friday, May 16. The LP will be issued in physical form, on vinyl, June 5 when the band will perform at Kirby’s Beer Store. (They also have a May 16 show at Minibar in Kansas City, Missouri and another Kirby’s show on June 26.)
It’s been roughly three years since Eric and Mary Harrison began recording material under the Brave Boy moniker, amassing an impressive collection of singles that demonstrated a wide range of musical influences and explored various musical idioms, though listeners will most likely detect a penchant for synth-driven music from the 1980s.
“A Faint Voice at Loudest” has moments which recall The Cure and The Human League’s 1986 single, “Human,” with deft production and instrumentation touches that may recall the past but keep the duo firmly rooted in the sonics of the present moment. Above all, Brave Boy’s emotionally charged lyrics and dreamlike musical settings allow listeners room to explore and discover as they embark into varied musical terrains.
The Harrisons recently spoke about the album from their Wichita home.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
There’s this epic closing song on the album, “Be A Brave Boy.” One of the things I loved about it was that I wasn’t always sure about how I was supposed to feel about the lyrics. There’s a certain ambiguity and yet it’s undeniably dark.
Mary Harrison: That song is based on “Company” by Samuel Beckett. That’s where we pulled our band name from originally. It’s a strange and ambiguous text, as Beckett tends to be. But there’s a couple scenes in it that really captured my imagination that that song wound up being about. Underneath it all, it’s the story of being told by your parental figures to buck up and be braver than you feel and [them] not necessarily being a comfort to you through that and the damage that that can cause in people.
In some senses it’s about gender roles in particular. There’s a lot of darkness in it and about the voices that that can create in our own minds and carry around forever even when we’re not interacting with our caregivers or toxic people that were foundational to how we turned out.
Eric Harrison: That’s one I’ve played for some friends and that one tends to hit some men really hard. I had a friend tell me that he had to pull over because he was playing it in his car and he started crying. But that’s a good sign for a song getting that kind of emotional response. I think it’s a thesis for what the band is fundamentally about too. I also wanted to have a song that had our name in the title.
There’s a scene in “Company” where a little boy is at the top of a high dive and his dad is calling out to him to just jump. He’s afraid. His dad is yelling, “Be a brave boy.” That’s also why there’s a high diving board on the back cover of the album. I don’t know if it’s best to jump. Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s not. Is his dad doing him a service or disservice?
I think we all have those instances from childhood when parents, siblings, or other people didn’t listen to us. We tried to create a boundary and say, “I don’t feel safe doing this” and yet we were egged on.
EH: As a parent, you can either expand your child’s view of the world or you can limit it. I think there’s a balance to be struck but this song’s about those who choose to limit.
The song “Drifting,” which has been out as a single, is also powerful on the lyrical front.
MH: It’s definitely about addiction and struggling with being the person that wants to quit something and can’t and also the tragedy of the other side of that, of helplessly trying to stop somebody from drifting away over and over again. I cried when we recorded it and we wound up keeping it. It doesn’t affect the performance too badly but the first many times I practiced it I couldn’t get through it. We all know people that we’ve tried to save from that mindset and many of us have also struggled to get out of addiction of one form or another. It’s a very tragic song but I’m glad that I’ve kept practicing it and we were able to perform it recently and people definitely came to me and told me, “Wow, that song was the one out of the set [that got to me]. Thank you for writing that song,” which felt really nice to hear.
How did you arrive at the album title, “A Faint Voice at Loudest”?
EH: It’s also Beckett-inspired. I think of it as being a little autobiographical. Oftentimes, I’m a pretty stoic person, so I don’t always emote [in ways that are expected]. I feel like I’m misunderstood because of that too. I’m really trying to put out a lot about my personal tastes and feelings in this record. I came up with the title and that’s what it is for me.
MH: I’m not a male who was told to be a brave boy growing up but I was raised with a lot of Catholic guilt. And a lot of shame and guilt, I guess. I didn’t really find my voice until I was older. It took me a long time to find my voice. I’m finally saying all the things that I’ve been thinking about, quietly, for a long time. There are moments like “Walk Away,” where this character that I’ve been writing about has had enough and is speaking their mind, putting their foot down about certain things. But it’s also just about quiet feelings and emotions finally being spoken.
