Following their 2013 EP ‘Departures’, Portland based melody driven rockers DIVIDES released their debut full-length in August 2015. ‘Brokentooth’ acts as a personal celebration of life, adding more than a few nods towards the inevitable struggles. “‘Brokentooth’ is DIVIDES in a bare-knuckle boxing match against the demons we left behind on ‘Departures’,” the five piece, fronted by CJ Marie, said ahead of the record’s release. “We wanted to be ferocious and unflinching so we could create an album that will leave the listener bruised and bloody, but more alive than ever.”
With their cathartic aspirations, DIVIDES exclusively talk us through each track on ‘Brokentooth’.
‘Holes In The Floor’
Joe: So on our EP, Departures, we had a song titled All My Friends Are Trying to Eat Me. “Holes” is sort of a sequel to that song. The first song was written back up in Alaska and it was about feeling this need to do something more, the need to get out of this stagnant state of mind and pursue something more meaningful. “Holes” picks up right after we moved to Portland and wanted to hit the ground running with our music. Lyrically I wanted to get across that if you are truly genuine and mean what you do with everything you have, you can make a legitimate difference. Without that passion, it’s meaningless. I really love that it’s the first track on the album, and that we’ve started playing it first in our live sets. For me it’s an excellent reminder of why we do this. It’s our goals and game plan all in one.
Paul: I also like that it establishes this weird little thing that we tend to do, where a lot of our songs have a different second verse than the first one. It’s an interesting structural thing that we lean towards. We’re sort of like, “Well do we have to play the same thing again?”
Bryan: Basically we have a consistent chorus and then a bunch of things that happen around it.
Joe: Naming it was actually a pretty funny story as well. We had the hardest time coming up with a name that fit for a while, but we were all hanging out at our apartment one night, and for some reason Corey was playing with knives. He tossed one up in the air and bounced the handle off against his chest. It landed standing straight up, blade down into the floor and he, CJ and I just about died laughing.
CJ: I was literally on the ground rolling with laughter, it was just one of those uncontrollable laughs we were all caught up in. Like tears running down our faces and everything.
Joe: So Bryan walks into the kitchen with this look like “What the hell guys?” Assumingly about the property damage, so I explained to him that this kind of laughter was worth the holes in the floor. After that, the phrase just kinda stuck with us.
Paul: Another fun thing about the name, on our set lists for live shows we change the naming of it for each show. Basically we change the name to whatever running joke we have going on that day. Whatever weird random phrase has come out of someone’s mouth recently. So if you ever see one of our set lists and there’s a song called something like “Poop Thief” or “A Killer Whale Bereft of Her Pup”, that’s actually Holes in the Floor. The name will undoubtedly be weirder and weirder the longer we’ve been on the road.
‘Supersymmetry’
Paul: Supersymmetry was one of the first active collaborations musically between Bryan and I during the writing process.
Bryan: Yeah, it started out with this really weird riff, that’s actually not even in the song anymore. I asked Paul to write a heavy rhythm part behind that, which is where we got that driving riff from the verses.
Paul: I’d been listening to a lot of 8-string players. A lot of Djent, just really hyper-syncopated stuff and wanted to add that to Bryan’s typical U2’s “The Edge” style guitar work and that’s what ended up sticking. Then Bryan added one of his huge choruses and that’s how that was born.
CJ: I really like this one because the music is really heavy, but there’s no screaming in this one. It’s a love song, about being in a long distance relationship and starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. With the topic there was nothing that needed to be screamed in the lyrics, but I sort of had that thought, “Can we write a pop song with really heavy guitars?” It was almost an experiment to see what we could do with it.
Paul: I think musically we took that as far as we could as well, especially with the ending of the song. We wanted that to just hit as hard as possible. I think the first time we played the ending like that it was actually just a joke, but afterwards everyone agreed that’s exactly how the song needed to sound.
‘The Space Between Branches/Echoes Fade’
CJ: So these two tracks are actually one song, we ended up splitting them to make Echoes Fade a single release without the extended intro. Joe actually also wrote the lyrics for this track.
Joe: Yeah, lyrically this one was really personal for me. I think transitioning anywhere is really hard, and we all definitely went through that moving down here, it’s just strange to be away from “home”. I think this song has a slightly different take on that, it sort of deals with being homesick, but for a specific person, not a place. I think that sort of emptiness is something that’s really relatable. Dealing with some sense of loss, whether that’s the loss of a loved one, a family member, an ex-lover or just a friend you wish was still in your life. These thoughts just worked really well over something I heard Bryan playing one day.
Bryan: I had this little 4 note riff that I’ve had for longer than this band has existed, and one day I was just strumming a chorus and Joe said, “wait, play that again, I have some lyrics for that!” After that I found a way to incorporate that little riff and there you go, we had a song. Once we started writing the actual song, it was pretty early on that we had Chris [James] in mind for this track. I remember seeing his band, Defeat the Low live and thinking, “Man, that vocalist just has an intensity and passion about him.”
CJ: I think we were all pretty big fans since the first show we went to and saw Chris, and sort of talked to him then. We stayed in touch over that time and then I remember thinking during the writing of Echoes Fade, that he would be perfect. Joe and I had planned on already having a dueling vocal part through the song and when I heard Joe singing it for the first time I said, “Don’t be mad, but you are totally not singing on this song. What if we got Chris to do the counter vocals?”
Joe: Instantly we just starting picturing this as a much bigger dynamic between the two and having him come in and adding that intensity to the song, it was a no-brainer. And it ended up working out so much better than we initially expected. He was super down to record vocals on the track so we got him a train ticket up to the studio where we were recording and as soon as he got there, the writing process just took a huge step. He was already really into the lyrics of the song, but I was just amazed at some of the aspects he brought to the vocal melodies for it. He really wanted to highlight some of the dynamics and as we worked it out I realized this is exactly how this song was supposed to sound from the beginning.
CJ: It was funny, the first day that Bryan, Joe and I were up in Seattle together, traffic was really bad and we ended up taking a detour. After some time we actually ended up on Aurora Avenue, which is the name of our favorite Defeat the Low song. So naturally we started listening to that song and Chris’s lyrics, it was just such a fitting moment. I don’t think we ever told him about that, I think all three of us would have been a little embarrassed if he found out how hard we were fangirling at that moment.
‘Sails & Anchor’
CJ: So this track is a little bit of a departure, (pun intended) from the rest of the album. It starts off pretty pop oriented, almost singer-songwriter like. It gets really intense as it goes along and I think more than most of our songs, this one really goes somewhere. There’s almost a journey within the song.
Paul: It really does just go to a completely different place at the end. I mean, the first time I heard that song completely mixed, the end of it practically pushed me back into my seat. For being the quietest song on the album it’s also just about the heaviest.
CJ: Lyrically it’s about relationships within the band. The first 6 months after moving were hard, you’re so far away from friends and family and suddenly sharing a bedroom with these guys. We were trying to do everything we wanted to do with our lives, but of course it didn’t just fall into our laps, because that’s not how life works. It’s fucking hard. So this song is about the relationship with someone you’re trying to change the world with, as pretentious as that may sound. It’s a complicated relationship, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The song itself actually just started out with Bryan and me at our apartment. He had this guitar rhythm and I was just trying out this keyboard part that actually ended up making it into the song. Just talking about this whole process, “We set sail on a sunny day in August” He and I were the first two to move down here from Alaska, we had so many people show up to the airport and leaving together was just like, “damn, let’s really try and make something of this.”
‘Sirens’
Bryan: This was really the first song I started playing around with in Drop B tuning. I get this tendency when I start getting into a band, I think, “Well, they invoke this kind of feeling in me, what would be my interpretation of trying to make someone else feel that?” I was listening to a lot of Parkway Drive when we moved, and it’s not like when you listen to this song you’ll think it sounds a lot like them, but I wanted to write something with that feel. This is probably our heaviest song; musically, vocally, but at the same time it still has that pretty, sing-along chorus.
CJ: We always save that one last in the set. Firstly because otherwise I would just tear my vocal chords apart too early, but also because it just has such a powerful ending to it.
Joe: It does really have a build throughout it, then towards the end it finds this eye of the storm. Almost this break in the tempest before it picks back up for such a raw ending. It definitely pulls a really cool finale which I think is great in a live set.
CJ: It’s a really emotionally intense song. It means a lot to me to be able to go there at every show. For me there’s some sort of redemption in performing that live, if you listen to the lyrics it’s about making really fucked up choices. It’s almost like I can’t live with that unless I give that song everything that I’ve got.
Paul: I’ve definitely walked away from that song with my guitar pretty fucked up a couple of times. I’ll just throw the thing down at the end of it, it’s just really cathartic. There’s just nothing left at the end of that, it goes back to what we’ve said: “this is the last chance in the set, just let it all go.” Playing every show like it could be your last.
‘Alpenglow’
Paul: I remember hearing Bryan strumming through the chords for this one for the first time and just thinking, “Oooh ooh ooh! Hold on, I have this melody in my head.” I started picking that out on guitar, leading to that intro riff. It was really kind of swapping roles for us, Bryan is usually the pretty, lead-line guy, and I’m more a harmony kind of writer. Personally I’ve moved around a lot in my life, I’ve never really had a home town. Still these lyrics really struck a chord with me, even though I’ve never been homesick because I’ve never really had a home to be sick from. I don’t know, it’s just this lament, but it’s a beautiful lament. I know for the rest of this band it really means a lot, since they all moved so far away from home and then found me here in Portland. I think for me contributing to this song was really saying, “Hey, I think I’m one of you now, cause I really get this.”
CJ: I remember Paul talking with me at one point after a show when I was drunkenly crying in the van because I was just so happy that we were actually doing this. I want to say it was after the first show in Spokane and people actually showed up, Paul came out and I remember him telling me that specifically was why he was still with Divides. The song Alpenglow.
Paul: That was when I realized why these guys had such a depth about what they were doing. I’ve played in a lot of bands and I just haven’t seen this kind of emotional commitment to the material, and that means a lot to me as performer, as a player and as a writer. That’s pretty much what cemented it for me.
CJ: Most people who live in Anchorage or who have visited there, know about this giant 5-point star that someone made out of lights on the side of this mountain there. I grew up in Eagle River, which is just outside of Anchorage, and my dad worked in the city and we visited there all the time. I’ve always had this really distinct memory of driving back home from Anchorage and asking my parents how long until we got back home. My mom would always point out the star on the mountain and say, “That’s where we live. That’s how you know how close we are to being home.” The first time I heard Paul play that little riff at the beginning of the song, it combined itself with that memory for me. It fit so perfectly for me. I guess it’s just about feeling homesick, and I didn’t mean for it to be universal, I just wrote about missing something so specific from my hometown. It’s so cool for me to see the things that people relate to, the details that really mean something to them.
‘Splay
Bryan: This is easily the oldest song on the album; the initial chorus riff even outdates Divides. I tried it out for the first time in a previous band and they were just not into it at all, so I just kind of saved it for a later day. Once I joined this band that part made a lot more sense, it just fit. Like I said, it’s the oldest song that we still play. It was one of the first songs we wrote as Divides, and at this point we’ve sort of phased all of the songs from Departures out of our live set, but this one we kept working on and finally put out the way it is on the record.
CJ: I’m glad that we finally put out Splay the way that we put it out. Every single vocal part of that song has changed since it was initially written. I definitely grew up a lot since the initial lyrics were written down. The lyrical inspiration originally came from a quarrel I was having with a female roommate at the time. I came home one day and she had written down on the refrigerator every single thing I had done wrong since the day I moved in. Admittedly a lot of the stuff she was right about; I was not the best roommate at the time, hell, I’m probably still not now. It was just really striking to see all of my flaws laid out in front of me and have to say, “Well, alright cool. I guess that’s a thing, that hurts.” The song now I take from more of a perspective within the industry. About the people saying “Oh, her voice is just too girly”, or “The music isn’t heavy enough”, whatever I’ve been told I don’t fit into. But fuck that. “Splay me out.” Tell me everything that’s wrong with me and then you can “dance in the dusk of this downfall.”
‘Drag The River’
CJ: Drag the River is a really fun song; I think it’s the shortest song on the album. This song was almost an experiment for us. To be able to play around with what we can do musically and still be Divides.
Paul: Yeah, this was definitely sort of a “kitchen sink” song. Thinking things like, “you know what, why not do the second verse in 7/4, but let’s still keep it major, because why not?”
Joe: I think all in all this song we just wrote very unapologetically. Just wanting to have fun doing all the things we want to do, and fuck it, it’ll just end up as a B-side. But then it turns out it’s the first big release we did with this album because none of us could stop listening to it.
CJ: It’s funny too because when we sent Casey the demos for the album this was the only one he had real hesitation about. Then by the end of recording even he was really into the way it all came together. It’s been really cool to see the song grow, and I think we put it out first because we really wanted to surprise people. It’s not a single as far as structure or content, but it’s incredibly Divides.
Paul: It’s like if you get that song, you get what we’re trying to do as a whole. We wrote it not worrying about what people thought, we didn’t worry about it being catchy or approachable, even though it sort of ended up being that. It was one of those songs where we actually got to include all of the aspects we wanted to without having to cut anything because it was too weird. We went into it thinking nothing but, “Let’s just write a good song”.
‘Vines & Thorns’
CJ: Paul and I actually wrote that song really quickly, I think in one rehearsal actually.
Paul: It just sort of happened. I think the only edit we made was me telling you to repeat one part more than once. That was it, the song was just sort of there. We also tried to be really conscious to not go into really heavy distorted guitars because the song itself has such a linear progression. I mean I think it’s one of the most gut-wrenching performances I’ve heard in a long time.
CJ: I’m really proud of that one. That is another song about playing music and putting your entire self into something and then just putting it out there into the world for people to talk shit about. It’s not easy but there’s a certain amount of “fuck you” in being able to say, no, “I will give everything to find my feet on the ground.” To make this dream something in reality.
‘We Are Fragments’
CJ: The last song on the record is actually the first song we finished writing together after our move down here from Alaska. We had actually talked about it being our first single, but decided against that in a few different ways to keep this song with its weird structure and to avoid cutting out certain aspects of the song. I’m glad it made it onto the record because it’s a really important song to me. I think it’s pretty much a given for anyone within the scene that music saves lives, and provides a place for people to feel safe for once in their life. “Fragments” for me is feeling like this is my responsibility to give something back to this thing that has given me so much sanctuary over the years. This song is actually really specific, there’s this girl in the UK who I met online who I met when she was suicidal. We were talking for weeks and I just wanted to do what I could to help her while she was in this place. One night she was feeling really bad, so I asked her to record the phrase “It’s worth fighting for”. I took that audio waveform and got it tattooed on my arm. “Fragments” for me is about her, and that tattoo, and how music can have that power to say things that conversation could never cover.
Bryan: I like this song because it is very synth driven and also because it rivals “Sirens” for the most individual parts for a song on this album. It’s the only song on the album that I went in and recorded in one take. I thought it would be the most difficult, but every time Casey would say “That was it, that was perfect.” It wasn’t initially going to be the last track on the album, but I think after we all heard the final mix we all kinda knew it just felt right.
CJ: It’s a great song and I really like performing it live, because again it’s about playing music but also a reminder of how powerful music can be. It can make a huge difference in someone’s life and I think all of us really want to make a positive impact. If we can do that, if we can affect just one person in that way, all this is worth it. Moving away from friends and family, losing jobs; if one person feels less alone because of something we had to say or some notes that we played, this is all worth it.
‘Brokentooth’ is available now. Purchase it digitally via iTunes. Grab physical copies and find out more information via the band’s official website.