Brand New’s Jesse Lacey addresses stepson’s death and performs emotional new song about grief

Brand New’s Jesse Lacey performed a new emotional song at a recent gig and addressed the passing of his stepson.

This past weekend (March 2), Lacey took over the Eastside Bowl in Nashville, TN for an intimate performance. The setlist was filled with a handful of Brand New tracks as well as a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘Two-Headed Boy’ and the live debut of songs such as ‘Adios’, ‘When I Died’ and ‘Helium’ with the Human Surfers.

During the encore of the set, Lacey took the time to perform a track titled ‘Death’ (per Setlist.FM). Prior to beginning the track, the musician spoke about the death of his stepson Miles King Lacey who had tragically passed back in February 2022.

“It was as hard as you can imagine. I didn’t want to go on stage… I would say his name, because you have him to thank also for me being up here. He was a very, very, very easy boy to love. Grief is a very hard thing to navigate, and I have found that for me, music lessens the poison of it. And I have found that being with people… Grief’s like this thing, this super, super heavy weight you carry on your back all the time,” he told the crowd.

He continued: “When I’m with people, when they can listen to the story of what my family has gone through, it’s kind of like they take some of the weight for you for a little while and they carry it with you. I feel like music has done that for me as well. I just wanted to extend my gratitude to you because I feel that tonight. I hope that me being up here helps you carry some of it, and thank you for helping me carry some of it. I think I’ve written so much about death in Brand New, and since I’m still trying to write about it in a new perspective, as unwanted as it is. I can’t get it right, but this is as close as I got.”

Jesse just gave the most emotional speech about the death of his son which he has never publicly spoken about and released this song about death and grief.
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The song sees Lacy pluck a smooth guitar riff while singing the vulnerable lyrics: “I will buy you cover and you go mend your wing / And I will ride out with you till the end of everything / We will burn all of our possessions cause there’s nothing you can bring / But when we cross the river that’s the only song I’ll sing”.

One Reddit user noted that Lacey’s mention of the death of his stepson at the show marked the first time he had publicly addressed the situation. Elsewhere, Brand New performed a private reunion show back in December which marked the group’s first gig in seven years. I was in support of the charity organization Make Life Skate Life.

In other news, Brand New recently announced their return with details of their first string of live shows since 2017.

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