Between Broken Ends

It's the 21st century—a turn not only of the years, but also of technology that has thus changed the music industry and the world. Downloading and streaming music is nothing new on planet Earth, which explains why many times music is previewed online before actually listened to live. And often, the music heard in both situations has few differences. Enter "Between Broken Ends."

"Queen" once wrote a song dubbed, "We Will Rock You." Though Queen may have written this song for reasons of their own, "Between Broken Ends" has made it a goal to accomplish: rocking their audience. But this wasn’t always easy, claims guitarist Zak Stawski, who can easily recall the time two years ago when the band drove an hour and a half to play in Dundee. “We were so hopped up to play this gig because the guy running it made it sound like we’d drive there and get on the new stage they just finished and tons of people would be jumping up and down for us. When we arrived, however, we found ourselves in the middle of a town whose biggest tourist attraction was the hunting and fishing store and our ‘brand new stage’ was built by hand on the side of a barn. And when we got up on this stage, the crowd just didn’t get into it. They even paid us in hot dogs and hot chocolate that night. It was fun, looking back, but it was a real eye-opener and showed us that success in a band isn’t always as easy as it looks.” But the band used this, and other instances, as constructive criticism. Months later, they received offers from a booking agent who helped them make their way into Clutch Cargo’s and St. Andrew’s Hall.

Singer Ryan Barto comments on what he thinks turned some of the music industry on to the band: “We just try to have fun and show the crowd that we’re having fun and are playing music because we like it, not to pay our bills. We try to connect with the crowd and get them to have fun, too.”

For the band members, fun also means searching for ways to make their recorded music (Demo released in August 2005) come alive at their performances, giving the audience a visual interpretation of the feelings involved with their music. From practically base jumping off of their amps to synchronized headbanging, it’s blatant that “Between Broken Ends” is able to embroider their music. Stawski annotates the band’s live show, saying “To us, it isn’t just a concert—it’s a performance. There’s more behind our music than notes and more behind our lyrics than words.”